Telegraph and Travel: A Narrative of the Formation and Development of Telegraphic Communication between England and India Under the Orders of Her Majesty’s Government with Incidental Notices of the Countries Traversed by the Lines

About The Book : It is exactly ten years ago that the Persian Gulf cable, manufactured and laid at the cost of her Majesty’s Government, was under process of final submersion between Karachi, the most North-Westerly of Indian ports, and the Turkish Arabian station of Fao, or Fava. The link connecting Gwadar, then an obscure fishing village of Makran, and Fao, a very molecule amid hamlets, was completed on the 8th April, 1864; and notwithstanding the successful establishment of a land line between Karachi awd Gwadar, it was thought prudent to connect these stations also by submarine cable, and so strengthen communications. This alternative section was wholly laid on the 15th May, 1864. Experiences in such matters may be useful in the record. In any case, a full report of progress, when sufficiently mature, is due to the State, and should he satisfactory to the reporters themselves. Nor is the necessity less obvious, in a public sense, that there should be a reference showing the circumstances under which a creat work like the Telegraph to India was undertaken at all; and what have been and what now are its value and cost to the country from whose coffers it has been carried out and carried on. Hence arose the suggestion that a narrative of the institution and development of Telegraphic Communication between England and India under the orders of her Majesty’s Government should be prepared and submitted: and hence was it ruled by the Secretary of State for India in Council, so far back as September 1868, that such reaction, when completed, should be published in a quasi-popular form.