On Sunday, the 20th of October, about mid-day, they sighted the coast of Hindostan. Two hours later the pilot came on board. A long range of hills cut the sky-line, and soon palm-trees began to show themselves. The mail steamer ran into the roadstead formed between the islands of Salsette, Colaba, Elephanta, and Butcher, and at half-past four o'clock the vessel came alongside the quay. Phileas Fogg was just finishing his thirty-third rubber for that day. His partner and he had succeeded in scoring a "treble," and thus terminated the voyage with a stroke of luck. The _Mongolia_ was not due at Bombay until the 22nd of October; she had actually arrived on the 20th; so Mr. Fogg had really gained two days upon the estimated period, and he entered the "profit" accordingly in the column of his diary set apart for that purpose. CHAPTER X. In which Passe-partout thinks himself lucky in escaping with only the Loss of his Shoes. Everybody is aware that the peninsula of Hindostan has a superficial area of one million four hundred thousand square miles, in which the unequally-distributed population numbers one hundred and eighty millions. The British Government rules absolutely over the greater portion of this immense tract of country. The Governor-General resides at Calcutta, and there are also governors of presidencies at Madras and Bombay, and a deputy-governor at Agra, as well as a governor for Bengal. British India proper only includes an area of seven hundred thousand square miles, and a population of one hundred to one hundred and ten millions; so there is still a large portion of India independent, and, in fact, there are rajahs in the interior who wield absolute authority. From the year 1756 to the great Sepoy Mutiny, the East India Company was the supreme authority in British India; but now the country is under the rule of the English Crown. The manners and customs of India are in a continual state of change. Till lately, travelling was only by antiquated modes of conveyance, but now steamers cover the Ganges, and the railways have opened up the country, and one can go from Bombay to Calcutta in three days. But the railroad does not cut the peninsula in a direct line. As the crow flies, the distance from Calcutta to Bombay is only about eleven hundred miles, and the trains would not occupy three days in accomplishing that distance; but the journey is lengthened at least one-third of that distance by the loop the line describes up to Allahabad. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway line is as follows: leaving Bombay Island, it crosses Salsette, reaches the mainland at Tannah, crosses the Western Ghauts, thence runs north-east to Burhampoor, skirts the independent territory of Bundelcund, ascends to Allahabad, and then, turning eastward, meets the Ganges at Benares; then, quitting it again, the line descends in a south-easterly direction, by Burdivan and Chandernagore, to the terminal station at Calcutta.