and t’gallant, while her main and mizen were fore-and-aft rigged. She is interesting as having not one but two funnels, the first being placed very far forward, just abaft the fore-mast, whilst the other was immediately in front of the main-mast. The distance between the two funnels was great, for the purpose already indicated. The _Hindostan_ was followed by other steamers, and in 1844 the P. and O. Company undertook a mail service between England and Alexandria, and so from Suez to Ceylon, Calcutta, and China. Of course, as yet, there was no Suez Canal, so that, in a manner similar to that across the Isthmus of Panama, an overland route had to be instituted for passengers, cargo, and mails across the Isthmus of Suez. The P. and O. Company had, then, to land their passengers at Alexandria, and just as canoes and mules had to be employed in America, so boats and camels were requisitioned in Africa. But it was a complicated journey, for this “overland” route was mostly an over-water route. By means of the Mahmoudieh Canal the passengers and goods were sent from Alexandria to the Nile, whence they proceeded by steamer to Cairo. From there they travelled through the desert to Suez. Three thousand camels had to be employed for transporting a single steamer’s loading; every package had to be subjected to three separate transfers, and the inconvenience was indeed considerable. But for nearly twenty years this system continued. Steam communication was inaugurated by the company with Australia in 1852, by means of a branch line from Singapore, and two years later the service between Suez and Bombay was absorbed by the P. and O. Company. This had been retained hitherto by the East India Company in order to keep alive their navy. In 1869, came the opening of the Suez Canal, and it was essentially the steamship and not the sailing ship which brought this about, although the Suez Railway preceded the canal by ten years. It is not generally known, perhaps, that a continuous waterway had already existed long years before. In the times of the early Egyptians there had been a canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea, so that ships could circumnavigate Africa and, returning by the Mediterranean, could come out through the Nile into the Red Sea again. But the Suez Canal had not been demanded so long as the steamship remained undeveloped, and even for some time after the traffic to Australia and New Zealand was principally carried on in those handsome clipper-ships which were representative of the finest examples of the sailing ship. It is only by means of the steamship that it is possible to bring across so many thousands of miles the great quantities of frozen meat and other perishable foods which now reach this country, and the Suez Canal certainly assisted to make this possible. Not merely did the steamship indirectly bring about the Canal, but the latter increased the steamship’s sphere of usefulness.