|51.
The Lansdowne Bridge.| |52.
The Same.| |53.
Khwaja Khizir Island.| Running southward through the fertile strip, not very far from the left or western bank of the river, the railway leaves the Punjab and enters Sind. At Rohri, one of the hottest places in all India in the summer time, a line branches northwestward to Quetta and Chaman, on the frontier of Afghanistan. Sukkur stands opposite to Rohri on the right bank of the river, and the Lansdowne Railway Bridge between these two towns is perhaps the most remarkable bridge in India. It was built between 1887 and 1889, and about three thousand tons of steel and iron were employed in its construction. It is eight hundred and forty feet in length, with two magnificent spans. We see in this slide a view of the Rohri end of it, taken from Suttian, an old nunnery founded for women who preferred seclusion rather than the funeral pyre. The Hindu custom was to burn the wife or wives with the husband’s body, until the British Government intervened to prevent the practice. One end of the town of Rohri, with its tall grey wattle and daub buildings, can be seen under the bridge. A train is upon the bridge, and in front are some Pala fishers, sailing on metal chatties into which they put the fish as they catch them. This is another view of the bridge seen from Rohri itself. We are here in the very heart of the rainless region. During twelve years there have only been six showers at Rohri! A great engineering scheme is now under consideration for damming the Indus near this point so as to raise the level of the water in the upper reaches of the river. In this manner the irrigation canals would be fed not only in time of flood, as at present, but in the dry season as well. Near Rohri, in the middle of the Indus channel, is Khwaja Khizir Island, on which stands an ancient Hindu temple. In the foreground of the picture near the water’s edge are Sindi boatmen mending their sails.
From Sukkur, passing through Shikarpur and Jacobabad, the railway traverses the desert to the foot of the hills, and then ascends to Quetta either by the Mashkaf—the actual line of the Bolan having been abandoned—or by a longer loop line, the Harnai, which runs to the Peshin valley. The latter is the usual way. By the Mashkaf route the line is carried over a boulder-strewn plain about half a mile broad in the bottom of a gorge with steeply rising heights on either side. Here and there the strip of lower ground is trenched and split by deep canyons. At first the line follows the Mashkaf river, and the gradients are not very severe, but once Hirok, at the source of the Bolan river is passed, a gradient of one in twenty-five begins, and two powerful engines are required to drag the train up. The steep bounding ridges now close in on either side with cliffs rising almost perpendicularly to several hundred feet. Occasional block-houses high up amid the crags defend the Pass.
|54.
The Chappar Rift.| |55.
The Same.| The gradients of the Harnai route are not quite so steep as those of the Mashkaf. Should either way be blocked or carried away by landslips or floods the other would be available. The Harnai line passes through the Chappar Rift, a precipitous gorge in a great mass of limestone. In this view we are approaching the Rift from Mangi, and then we have a view looking back from the middle of the Rift. As will be seen, the railway runs across high bridges and through tunnels in the mountain masses.
|56.
Native Bazaar, Quetta.| Quetta occupies a very important strategical position, about a mile above sea level, in the midst of a small plain surrounded by great mountain ridges rising to a height of two miles and more. Irrigation works have been constructed in the Quetta plain, which is now an oasis among desert mountains, and has a population of some thirty thousand, including many Afghans. The Agent General for British Baluchistan resides there. The town, with its outposts, is of course very strongly fortified, commanding as it does the railways leading southeastward to the Indus, and the Khojak Pass leading northwestward to Chaman and Kandahar. Here we have a scene in the native bazaar, with Hindus performing a festival dance.
|57.
Street in Chaman.| From Quetta the railway is carried northwestward, through the Khojak tunnel, for another hundred and twenty miles to Chaman on the frontier, where is a British outpost. Here is a street in Chaman, with two old Pathans. Chaman is at present the terminus of the railway. The material is, however, kept ready for its continuation, in case of need, to Kandahar, in Afghanistan, seventy miles further. From Kandahar through Herat to the rail-head of the Russian Trans-Caspian Railway is some four hundred miles. By this route, did circumstances allow, a connection might be made, giving through railway communication between Europe and India.
|58.
The Proclamation of the Queen-Empress at the Delhi Durbar, 1st Jan., 1877.| At this last outpost of British Power we complete our journey through the great Indian Empire. It was with no intention of Empire that a few London merchants formed themselves into an East India Company in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It was with no great force of white soldiers that the conquest was in after centuries effected, but by the organisation of Indian strength in a time of disorder, due to the downfall of the Mogul Empire at Delhi. Province was added to province under the British Raj of no set design and ambition, but for defensive reasons under the threat of French or Maratha or Sikh rivalry. In the great Mutiny the system of power and administration, thus upbuilt almost casually, was tested, and it survived the test, but with a fundamental change. The East India Company was dissolved, and the British Government made itself directly responsible for peace and order in the Indian Continent. The proclamation by which Queen Victoria assumed the rule of India solemnly promised that in the administration of the country due regard should be paid to the ancient rights, usages, and customs of India. The change which was made in 1858, after the Mutiny, was completed in 1877, when at a great durbar of the princes of India, held at Delhi, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.
|59.
The Same.| The British Raj in India is an organisation unparalleled in history, for the Roman Empire consisted of provinces grouped round the Imperial City, but Britain is a quarter of the globe removed from India. Our power ultimately rests on our command of the seas and on the justice of our administration. When either of these fail, the British position in India will crumble. Within our duty of justice is included the generous but firmly-directed readjustment of the methods of Indian government, so as to adapt them to the now changing conditions of oriental society.
|60.
The Same.| The responsibility for India is, indeed, a great one. It is idle to ask whether our forefathers should have assumed it. We could not withdraw now without throwing India into disorder, and causing untold suffering among three hundred million of our fellow human beings. Yet the administration of such an Empire calls for virtues in our race certainly not less than those needed for our own self-government. Above all, we require knowledge of India, and sympathy with the points of view begotten of oriental history.
LIST OF VICEROYS OF INDIA SINCE THE TRANSFER