But there is still one more important event which belongs to the year 1840, for this was the date when there was incorporated by royal charter the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company. The foundation of the Peninsular Company dates back to 1837, and a regular service of mail packets was instituted from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar, though even a little prior to this date its ships had begun running to the Peninsula. The first steamship owned by the Peninsular Company was the 209-ton paddler _William Fawcett_, built in the year 1829, and she ran from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar. In 1840 the line was extended to Malta and Alexandria, and its title changed from Peninsular to Peninsular and Oriental. There was as yet no Suez Canal, so from Alexandria passengers and goods were sent by the Mahmoudieh Canal to the Nile, whence they proceeded by steamer to Cairo, and from there travelled through the desert on camels as far as Suez. It was thus a laborious business, 3000 camels being employed for transporting a single steamer’s loading, every package requiring three separate transfers; and for nearly thirty years this continued until the Suez Canal was opened in 1869. [Illustration: [_By courtesy Messrs. T. H. Parker._ TWO EARLY MAIL STEAMSHIPS. This picture of 1842 shows two of the General Steam Navigation Company’s vessels at Rotterdam. The 600-ton “Ocean” leaving, and the 500-ton “Giraffe” arriving.] But this company first sent a steamer to India via the Cape in 1842. This was the 1800-ton _Hindostan_, with 500-horse-power engines. In 1844 the P. & O. undertook the mail service from England to Alexandria, and thus from Suez to Ceylon, Calcutta and China. The service between Suez and Bombay was carried on by the East India Company, in order to keep alive their navy, but in 1854 this service was absorbed by the P. & O., who in 1852 had also started a branch line from Singapore to Australia. Then in 1869 came the opening of the Suez Canal, and thus was broken down the last barrier which separated India from the trader. A tremendous impulse was given now to shipping; for the first time vessels need not go round the Cape of Good Hope, and so once again the Mediterranean ceased to be a backwater and the route to the East was now more like what it was before the Portuguese, Dutch and Elizabethan English had begun to undertake their Oriental voyages. It is interesting to remark that in the same year which saw the opening of the Suez Canal the two fastest clipper ships which ever sailed were both afloat—_Thermopylae_ and _Cutty Sark_. The latter made her maiden voyage in the following February. Thus, at a time when sailing ships were passing the Cape at a record speed, the canal was being opened and putting an end to the sail-driven vessel’s usefulness after so many centuries, linking it up with Vasco da Gama and earlier. FOOTNOTES: