The inadequate service maintained between Calcutta and Suez had given rise to many complaints, and at last, after considerable pressure had been brought to bear on the East India Company by the Government in London, the former consented to enter into a contract with the P. & O. Company for the conveyance of the mails between these two points. The company despatched its first steamer to India in September 1842, this being the _Hindostan_, a fine vessel of 2017 tons, and 520 horse-power. She was a three-masted vessel, and carried square sails on the foremast, and of her two funnels one was set before and the other abaft the paddles. Her departure was regarded as of national importance, and the warships she passed as she left port were manned in her honour. She was placed on the route between Calcutta and Suez, with calls at Madras and Ceylon; and as other steamers followed, the company was soon able to contract for the conveyance of the mails monthly from Ceylon to Hong-Kong, with calls at Penang and Singapore, for a subvention of £45,000. The company received £115,000 for its service between Calcutta and Suez. The Eastern services were attended with no little difficulty. At Suez and Aden fresh-water supplies had to be organised, and coaling stations, docks, and store establishments had to be established wherever necessary. The scramble over the isthmus of Suez, whence came the name of the “overland route,” was one of the great drawbacks of this way to the East, and many persons preferred to travel to India by way of the Cape. In spite of its name the overland route was mostly a waterway, for the Mahmoudieh Canal enabled the P. & O. Company to transport its passengers and goods from Alexandria to the Nile, where they travelled by steamer to Cairo, and the land portion of the journey was rather less than 100 miles across the desert from Cairo to Suez. Caravans, sometimes numbering more than three thousand camels, were employed to convey a single steamer’s loading between Suez and Cairo. In passing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean port every package had to undergo three separate transfers. “For nearly twenty years this system of working the company’s traffic continued in operation, but it sufficed for carrying on a trade which, for the value of the merchandise in proportion to its bulk, has, it may safely be said, never been equalled. It attained sometimes the annual value of forty millions sterling.”[73] [73] P. & O. Handbook, 1905 edition.