In 1852, the P. & O. Company extended its operations to Australia, by means of a branch line of steamers from Singapore. The following year saw an addition of no less than eleven steamships to the company’s fleet. Amongst these was the celebrated troopship HIMALAYA, which continued in active service until near the end of the century. At the time of her launch she was the largest steamship afloat, and of extraordinary speed. She cost £132,000 when fully equipped and ready for sea. Her length was 340 feet, beam 44 feet 6 inches; her gross tonnage was 3,438 tons, and her engines indicated 2,050 horse power. Another famous steamer built for the P. & O. in 1853 was the COLOMBO (steamship), which was engaged as a Government transport during the Crimean War. Even Santa Claus himself could not have been more eagerly welcomed than was the COLOMBO when she arrived off Sebastopol on Christmas Eve, 1854, with provisions for the wounded soldiers and sailors. She was originally a vessel of 1,864 tons gross, but in 1859 she was lengthened amidships, and her tonnage increased to 2,127 tons. The HIMALAYA and the COLOMBO were two, out of eleven, P. & O. steamships chartered to the Government as transports during the Crimean War, and these vessels conveyed during the continuation of hostilities 1,800 officers, 60,000 men and 15,000 horses. The first steamer of the P. & O. Company fitted with compound engines was the MOOLTAN (steamship), of 2,257 tons, built in 1860-1. Several succeeding steamers were fitted with the same type of engines, but although the consumption of fuel was decidedly less, the engines themselves proved so unreliable that they were taken out of all the ships and replaced by the old style of engines. “It was not until 1869” (says Sir Thomas Sutherland, in the “P. & O. Pocket Book,” 1900) “that the company succeeded in building a steamer with high and low pressure machinery which could be considered thoroughly successful.” On the 17th November, 1869, the Suez Canal, the greatest engineering work of the 19th century, was formally opened by the Empress Eugenie, in the presence of numerous distinguished men from all countries. While the benefits conferred upon the world of commerce by the opening of this canal can hardly be over-estimated, its influence upon the fortunes of the P. & O. Company was at first almost fatal. The whole of the company’s business had to be re-organised, and as speedily as possible a new fleet obtained adapted to the changed requirements of the company’s services. This transitory state continued for a period of five years, from 1870 to 1875, by which date the company’s re-organization was sufficiently accomplished to enable them to transfer their services from the Overland to the Suez Canal route. The accelerated mails sent _via_ Brindisi were still carried by the Egyptian Railway between Alexandria and Suez, and continued to be so carried until 1888, when they also were transferred to the Canal route.