In Southern India there were neither caravan routes nor waterways of any moment. Hindu Rajas never opened out the country like the Mohammedans of Northern India. Hindu infantry and light Mahratta horsemen required no roads; and Rajas and other Hindu grandees were carried in palanquins. Europeans travelled in palanquins down to the present generation, and were in no fear of robbers. Ladies and children were borne along through jungles and over rivers; leopards and tigers were kept off at night by lighted torches; and the sure feet of the half-naked coolies carried travellers safely over rocky heights and troubled waters.
Macadamised roads.
Mr. Thomason, who was Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces from 1843 to 1853, was the first Bengal administrator who constructed macadamised roads. His object was to connect the large cities under his jurisdiction, but the work once begun soon advanced apace. A trunk road was commenced between Calcutta and Delhi, and in 1850 mail carts ran for the first time between the two capitals of Northern India. The annexation of the Punjab gave a further impetus to road-making, and Calcutta and Delhi were soon brought into communication with Lahore and Peshawar.
Proposed railways.
Meanwhile railways had created a furor. Promoters in the British Isles were anxious to construct railways in India at the expense of the East India Company, but the idea did not recommend itself to the men who had the largest experience of India. There was a natural reluctance to accept schemes by which speculators might profit at the Company's expense, whilst the gain to the people of India would be doubtful. It was currently believed, by men who had spent the best part of their lives in the country, that Hindus would never travel by railway; that they would trudge on foot, and carry their families and goods in carts and cars, as they had done in the days of Porus and Megasthenes.
Lord Dalhousie, a new type of Indian statesman.
§11. Lord Dalhousie was the type of British administrators of the modern school. He had served two years' apprenticeship in Great Britain as President of the Board of Trade under Sir Robert Peel, and he was especially familiar with the construction of British roads and railways. In India he opened the great trunk road from Calcutta to Delhi, and post carriages, known as "dak gharies," soon superseded the old river "budgerows." Other metalled roads were begun in Madras and Bombay. Still one thing was wanting. Calcutta was united to all the great capitals of Northern India—Allahabad, Agra, and Delhi—but Bombay and Madras were as far off as ever from both Northern India and each other.
Trunk railway lines.
Railways would remedy the evil, and Lord Dalhousie was bent on introducing them. He planned a trunk system which in the present day unites the three Presidencies, and connects them with the north-west frontier. He induced railway companies to undertake the construction, by giving a government guarantee of five per cent. interest per annum on the outlay; and before he left India three experimental lines were already in progress, namely, one from Calcutta, a second from Bombay, and a third from Madras. Such was the origin of the three great railways of India, namely, the "East Indian," which runs through Northern India; the "Great Indian Peninsula," which runs through the Deccan; and the "Madras railway," which runs through Southern India.
Telegraph system, 1853-55.