Page:Notes of a journey across the Isthmus of Krà.pdf/53

 dips to nullahs, ordinarily twenty or thirty feet wide. A careful survey would be necessary.

7th.—We would, however, recommend very little masonry, though time and fuel for bricks are in abundance; but the vast and inexhaustible forests, through which the line passes, are full of timber suitable for sleepers, for bridges, for stations and wharfs, and for fuel for the locomotives. All that would be required from England would be plant, permanent way, and rolling stock, the labour for the work being procurable from China, to any amount.

8th.—We will double what, in our own somewhat experienced minds, would be the cost of such a railroad across the Isthmus, and put down the amount at £5,000 per mile, including stations, wharfs, hotels, coal sheds, &c., &c., and rolling stock, for fifty miles of rail, £250,000. For the river service, three tug steamers, with all the advantages of disconnecting engines, towing with a single hawser, &c., which the Thames tugs possess, at £15,000 each, equal to ...

or say half of a million sterling. But there is the interest on a capital of one million of money, saved every year in fuel, and establishment of running steamers only: surely it must be worth while the expending such a capital in establishing this communication.

20.—We therefore think that, without reference to the dangerous navigation, the Straits line should be abandoned as a communication between India and Europe, and China; as the old Cape of Good Hope line was abandoned for the Sues line. Considering, however, the difficulties of the Straits navigation, and peculiarity of the China Sea, the steamers would probably do all the work, and beat sailing vessels off the field, which they