_Phant._ Thou dost well to meditate on these things all at once, for they'll be found out altogether, _ad græcas calendas_." Dr. Robertson's _Disquisition on the Knowledge the Ancients had of India_, shows that communications overland existed from a remote period; and we know that the East India Company had always a route open for their dispatches on emergent occasions; but let the reader consult the _Reminiscences_ of Dr. Dibdin, and he will find an example of its utter uselessness when resorted to in 1776 to apprize the Home Government of hostile movements on the part of an enemy. To show, however, in a more striking light, the difference between the "overland route" a century back, and that of 1853, I turn up the _Journal of Bartholomew Plaisted_: London, 1757. This gentleman, who was a servant of the East India Company, tells us that he embarked at Calcutta in 1749 for England; and, after encountering many difficulties, reached Dover _viâ_ Bussorah, Aleppo, and Marseilles in twelve months! Bearing this in mind, let the reader refer to the London daily papers of this eighth day of November, 1853, and he will find that intelligence reached the city on that afternoon of the arrival at Trieste of the _Calcutta_ steamer, furnishing us with telegraph advices from-- Bengal, Oct. 3. 36 days! Bombay, Oct. 14. 25 days!! Hong Kong, Sept. 27. 46 days!!! Rapid as this is, and strikingly as it exemplifies the gigantic appliances of our day, the cry of Heursis in the play is still for the _next_, or a nearer _way to India_; and, besides the _Ocean Mail_, the magnificent sailing vessels, and the steamers of _fabulous_ dimensions said to be building for the Cape route to perform the passage from London to Calcutta in thirty days, we are promised the _electric telegraph_ to furnish us with news from the above-named ports in a less number of _hours_ than _days_ now occupied! {560} We have thus seen that the impetus once given, it is impossible to limit or foresee where this tendency to knit us to the farthermost parts of the world will end!