The scheme which he thus resolutely and enthusiastically declared his adoption of, he lived to carry out, but at the cost of years of weary advocacy, agitation for help, desperate attempts on his own account, or in conjunction with a few enterprising associates, in the teeth of constant discouragement, official indifference, jealousy, and disguised hostility. The East India Company told him there was no need of steam navigation to the East at all, ordered him to mind his own business and return to field service, circulated reports of his insanity through their agents in Egypt when Waghorn went there to enlist the Pasha in his cause. The overland route, however, was no theory, but an undoubted fact. Waghorn never for a moment relaxed his grasp of it, or doubted its value; and in the end, after unheard of difficulties, disappointments, and opposition, into the long, painful story of which we need not enter, succeeded in establishing the overland route. When he left Egypt in 1841, he had provided English carriages, vans, and horses, for the conveyance of passengers across the desert, placed small steamers on the Nile and Alexandrian Canal, and built the eight halting-places on the desert between Cairo and Suez. He also set up the three hotels in the same quarter "in which every comfort, and even some luxuries, were provided and stored for the passing traveller,--among which should be mentioned iron tanks with good water, ranged in cellars beneath;--and all this in a region which was previously a waste of arid sands and scorching gravel, beset with wandering robbers and their camels. These wandering robbers he converted into faithful guides, as they are now found to be by every traveller; and even ladies with their infants are enabled to cross and re-cross the desert with as much security as if they were in Europe." In acknowledgment of his services, Mr. Waghorn received the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a grant of L1500, and an annuity of L200 a-year from Government, and another annuity of L200 from the East India Company; but he did not live long to enjoy his well-earned rewards. The care, and anxiety, and fatigue he had undergone had shattered his constitution. Through some misunderstanding or mismanagement on the part of the East India Company, rivals were allowed to step in and carry off the chief profits of the overland system, and his last years were embittered by various disputes with the authorities. He died in the end of 1849, by years only in the prime of life; but old, and worn by his labours before his time. Such was the career of the "pioneer of the Overland Route."