was little more than a seventh of the importations from all sources. It is, therefore, not to be wondered that Manchester has altered its cotton machinery, and has rendered it suited for working the cotton, the importation of which will, thanks to Indian railways, soon make England, as regards supplies, independent of all other countries in the world.[109] Let us say, finally, that if we have dwelt at such length upon the yet _infant_ railway system of the Indian Empire, it is because India is a land that has a well-recorded history dating back nearly 4,000 years, with national monuments and buildings still existing, and in comparatively sound preservation, that were erected 400 years before Rome was created; and, last of all, BECAUSE of the now standing army of India, numbering 190,195 men, 71,880 first saw the light from Heaven in the United Kingdom. It is at that number our reinforcements will have to be never-failingly kept up, if we wish to avoid the dangers and horrors of a second Indian mutiny. * * * * * _Postscript._—Immediately after page 271 was printed, we met a gentleman who, in consequence of his professional connection with Persia, has, for several years, made the subject of a communication from the north-western side of Asia Minor, through Persia and Affghanistan to India, his constant study. He takes a different view from us as to the starting point of the LONG RAILWAY, but in many other respects our opinions are identical. It is probable that they may be brought jointly before the public in a more detailed and substantive form, in the course of a few months. We may here mention that, as early as 1847, Mr. Austin H. Layard, M.P., was alive to the importance of this communication, for in his work on the “Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon” (London, Murray, 1853), he says, that the route of the Euphrates, the adoption of which he urgently recommends “must be the second Indian route until civilisation and Christianity afford a reasonable basis for those gigantic schemes which would carry a line of iron through countries almost unknown, and scarcely yet visited by a solitary European traveller.” CHAPTER X. CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN RAILWAYS—THE RAILWAYS OF OTHER BRITISH COLONIES.