AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

THE following pages were not written with a view to publication, neither probably are they worthy of it, especially as the Overland Route to India is now so well known to the public through the multitudes of people who have travelled it, and by public lectures, &c.; however, if this narrative be preserved, it may be useful in after times to show the best route and mode of travelling in 1845; for other ways may be adopted,* as doubtless will be the case in such an enterprising age as the present.

In fact, my object in writing it was to supply the want of agreeable occupation during the winter of 1861, when living almost alone in an isolated residence in Devonshire. My diary, written day by day during the journey, was necessarily very brief, these pages, therefore, are an expansion of the said diary, by the aid of that inestimable blessing, an excellent memory.

January, 1863.

F. W. SIMMS.

A leading journal thus writes in its summary of the year 1859, " And at this moment the French Government is pushing on with extraordinary zeal the suspicious project of the impracticable Suez Canal."

JOURNEY

FROM

ENGLAND TO CALCUTTA

IN 1845.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

ON Saturday morning, the 17th of May, 1845, I received a letter, dated the previous day, from my old friend, Major-General, afterwards Sir Charles, Pasley, desiring to see me at the Board of Trade, Whitehall. I called upon him the same morning, when he asked me if I should like to go to India, and if so, he would recommend me for the appointment* about to be created by the Honourable the Court of Directors of the East India Company.

He informed me that the Court had been much pressed by projectors of railway companies, for concessions and privileges to enable them to carry into effect their several schemes for that country. These they were willing to grant under proper restrictions, and under the control of the Government of

* That of Consulting Engineer to the Government of India.