"Let me give you a general idea of the entire system as it now is, and for convenience we will start from Calcutta, the capital. The general direction of the line from Calcutta is north-westerly. Benares is 476 miles away, Allahabad nearly a hundred miles farther, and Cawnpore another hundred. Delhi is 955 miles from Calcutta, and when we step from the train at Sher-shah, on the banks of the Indus, eleven miles from Mooltan, we are 1510 miles from the capital city. From Sher-shah we can proceed by steamboat on the Indus to Kotree in Scinde, whence another railway will carry us to Kurrachee (Kur-_rach_-ee), near the entrance of the Persian Gulf. There are several branches intended as feeders to the main line, and also as military conveniences--notably, one from Benares to Lucknow, and another from Cawnpore to Lucknow. From Allahabad to Bombay there is a well-built line, and there is a line from Delhi and Agra through Central India which enables the traveller to reach Bombay by a different route from the one just mentioned. "From Bombay there is a line northward to Baroda, and southward to Madras and Tuticorin, and each of these lines has several feeders that you can see on the maps. The whole net-work is well devised, and has cost a vast amount of money, but it is worth all it cost. A writer, who recently travelled through this country, has summed the matter up as follows: "'From the foot of the Himalayas and the Hindoo-Koosh, the iron horse has a pathway to Cape Comorin and the tepid waters of the tropic seas. In the north he drinks the waters from the melted snows of the loftiest mountains on the globe; in the south he sniffs the spice-laden breezes from palm-clad Ceylon, and sees the pole-star hugging the horizon and anticipating the advent of the Southern Cross.' "We will not go by way of Tuticorin," Doctor Bronson continued, "as we shall have quite enough of travelling by rail without making the long journey; and, besides, it would carry us to Bombay if we stuck to the railway, and we want to keep that city for our point of departure from India. We can, if we like, go by rail from Tuticorin to Madras, and thence to Calcutta by steamer; the objection to this course is that there are not many things of importance to see on the way, and the journey will be fatiguing. "For the same reason that we do not wish to go all the way by rail, we will not take the weekly steamer from Colombo to Bombay, as it brings us to that city before we have seen anything of Northern India. "After considering all the routes, I think we had best take the weekly steamer from Colombo to Calcutta; it stops at nearly a dozen points on the coast, and gives us an opportunity to see a great deal that we might otherwise miss. It travels generally at night, and stops during the day at a port, and thus we can economize our time to decided advantage. The steamer leaves this afternoon, and we can go leisurely on board after lunch."