Six weeks will serve for seeing India, or, rather, that part of it in the Bengal and Bombay presidencies, and very few who have done the country will care to return.
The distance from Bombay to Calcutta, by the direct route, is 1,409 miles, and the fare (first-class) about $60. Benares and Allahabad are the only cities of importance that lie on the direct line; the others are reached by branches, and it will require another thousand miles of travel to take them in.
We will suppose we have finished with India, and are ready to leave Bombay for Egypt and Europe. The P. & O. Company sends a weekly steamer, and its departure is fixed for Saturday during the prevalence of the southwest monsoon, and for Monday when the monsoon is not blowing. There is another weekly service, formed by the Hall Line and the Anchor Line, making fortnightly departures alternately. There is an Italian line and an Austrian line, each monthly, and there are numerous irregular steamers, so that four departures a week may be fairly counted upon. The fares vary considerably; the P. & O. charges $250 to carry you to Suez, 3,000 miles: the Italian line will take you there for $160; the Anchor and Hall lines for $155, and the Austrian for $150. Patronage appears to be fairly divided among the lines; those who have plenty of money, together with a great many who have not, go by the P. & O. ships, while others who are more matter-of-fact, and do not care to keep up appearances, select the cheaper lines.
To irascible bachelors, the voyage from Bombay westward has a lively terror. From February to May the steamers are crowded with children and their nurses on their way to England, and, no matter what ship you take, you cannot avoid them. Like the poor, they are always with you, and cannot be shaken off; very often the number of juvenile passengers equals that of the adults, and on occasions painfully frequent it is greater. From rosy morn till dewy eve, and from eve till morn again, they make things the reverse of monotonous, and a passionate lover of infantile ways has all the entertainment he desires. Selfish and irreverent travelers are apt to think affectionately of King Herod, and wonder if his like will ever be seen again.
This migration of children is for the reason that they lose health, and generally their lives, if kept in India beyond the age of four or five years. The spring and early summer are considered the best time for them to arrive in Europe, and consequently the traveler at this season finds the steamers filled with them. They are mostly of the spoiled class, accustomed to have their own way, to receive the attentions of a multitude of servants, and to resent with anger the least attempt to thwart them. The companies would doubtless find it to their profit to send an occasional steamer at higher rates, from which children should be excluded, just as our transatlantic lines advertise ships carrying no steerage passengers, and charge more for places thereon.
In Egypt, one can go directly through the canal, and thence to Europe, or he may land at Suez, go by rail to Cairo (eight hours), and when he has done with Cairo he may go in four hours to Alexandria, where he will find three or four steamers a week for Brindisi, Naples, Marseilles, and England, and steamers at least once a week for Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Constantinople, the Black Sea, and also for Greece and the Adriatic. He may take his time in Europe, and get home the best way he can.
Following is a table of distances of a journey around the world, without taking into account the numerous detours, which will vary according to the tastes and means of each traveler, and the time he has allotted to himself for his personal gratification, either in the pursuit of pleasure, science and art, or commerce:—
New York to San Francisco, 3,450 miles; San Francisco to Yokohama, 4,764; Yokohama to Hong Kong, 1,620; Hong Kong to Singapore, 1,150; Singapore to Calcutta, 1,200; Calcutta to Bombay, 1,409; Bombay to Aden, 1,664; Aden to Suez, 1,308; Suez to Alexandria, 250; Alexandria to Marseilles, 1,300; Marseilles to Paris, 536; Paris to London, 316; London to Liverpool, 205; Liverpool to New York, 3,000. Total, 22,172 miles.
(Distances by rail are in italics; by sea in roman.)
Separating the above distance into land and sea travel, we have 6,166 miles of railway, and a trifle over 16,000 miles of water. Allowing continuous progress at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour on land and twelve miles on the water we could swing around the great circle inside of sixty-seven days. And if we take the quickest journeys that have been made over the different portions of the route—the special trains that have passed across the Continent on two or three occasions, and the extraordinary runs of steamers on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and in the China and Mediterranean Seas—add them together, and make no deductions for delays in port, we can have a theoretical journey around the world in less than sixty days. Phileas Fogg is left far in the rear, and Jules Verne must resume his pen and make another trial, if he would really astonish us. Give us the highest recorded speed upon railways and ocean steamers, and apply it to the route in question, and we will put a girdle around the earth in the half of eighty days, with several hours to spare.