As the Committee of the House of Commons had recommended immediate action for the establishment of a regular overland mail service, the Court of Directors were compelled to take the matter into their serious consideration; but they had determined to leave for future consideration the important question whether the communication should be, in the first instance, from Bombay or from Calcutta, or according to the combined plan suggested by the Bengal Steam Committee, in which case the net charge should be divided equally between the Government and the East India Company, so as to include the expense of the land conveyance from the Euphrates and the Red Sea respectively to the Mediterranean. After reviewing the relative advantages on the one hand and the physical difficulties on the other of the two routes, with the view of securing a regular communication throughout the year, the Committee suggested an extension of the line of Malta packets to such ports in Egypt and in Syria as would enable the communication between England and India to be tested experimentally by both routes. [Sidenote: Admiralty packets extended from Malta to Alexandria.] In accordance with these recommendations the Admiralty extended, in February 1835, the service of their mail-packets from Malta to Alexandria; while the Court of Directors sent out instructions to the Governor-General of India to forward the _Hugh Lindsay_ at appointed periods to Suez. The character of the Euphrates route was also still further explored by Colonel Chesney,[317] under the direction of the East India Board, to whom this work had been entrusted, and, not long afterwards, the home authorities established a dromedary post from Baghdad to Damascus and Beyrout for the transmission of such mails as might be sent by that route. The beneficial effects of these arrangements were soon felt in India, as would appear by a despatch from the Bombay Government to the Court of Directors (September 1836), wherein it is stated “that the three last overland mails have brought despatches from London to Bombay in thirty-eight, forty-five, and sixty-four days, and those intended for Calcutta have been forwarded in ten days more.” But as the despatch of the 16th of September, which conveyed this information by way of Egypt, did not reach England till the beginning of the following year, owing to various delays between Bombay and Suez, it was resolved to place larger and more powerful steamers on the Red Sea route—chiefly, as it would seem, because neither the _Hugh Lindsay_ nor the _Enterprize_ could perform the passage against the south-west monsoon. [Sidenote: Steamers of the Indian Navy.]