The progress of the heavy mails by ordinary trains _viâ_ Ostend, &c., would be as follows:—Despatched from London on the morning of the 9th of a month, they would reach Basle on the evening of the 10th. At present there is no night mail trains on the Swiss railways, but they will be established before the opening of the Simplon Railway. They would thus reach Lausanne very early on the morning of the 11th. The distance from Lausanne to Milan, is 351 kilometres, of which, 77 would constitute the passage across the mountain; allowing five hours for it, and nine for the remaining 234, the train would arrive at Milan two hours before departure of the 9·10 p.m. train southwards; leaving Bologna at 3·40 on the morning of the 12th, the mails would, _at the latest_, arrive at Brindisi at noon on the 13th. Thus, the whole journey from London to Brindisi would be performed in 101 hours, or four days five hours, and the heavy mails would be there 29 hours in advance of the light mails despatched on the evening of the 11th. The following table will show at one view the distances (given in kilometres) and the times occupied, or to be occupied in the several routes between London and Alexandria. ┌———————————————————————————┬————————┬————————┬————————┬————————┐ │ Viâ. │ Land. │ Water. │ Total. │ Time. │ ├———————————————————————————┼————————┼————————┼————————┼————————┤ │ │ Kilos. │ Kilos. │ Kilos. │ D. H. │ │ Southampton │ 130 │ 5,588 │ 5,718 │ 15 0 │ │ Marseilles │ 1,416 │ 2,835 │ 4,251 │ 8 1 │ │ Brindisi[160] │ │ │ │ │ │ Fast mails │ 2,470 │ 1,629 │ 4,099 │ 6 7 │ │ Heavy mails _viâ_ France │ .. │ .. │ .. │ 7 19 │ │ Heavy mails _viâ_ Belgium │ 2,833 │ .. │ 4,462 │ 8 19 │ └———————————————————————————┴————————┴————————┴————————┴————————┘ It is a well established maxim with all Post Office authorities to prefer land to water service for conveyance of mails; but especially so, when the land service can be effected by railway. There are two reasons for this preference; the first is, the greater certainty of land over water conveyance; and the second is that mails carried by railways, are conveyed at a rate of speed never less than double, and frequently it is three times greater than that of even the quickest water conveyance.