Note 90 — Chapter IX

Bombay will have to go a-head in various ways, if she wish to manage with credit the immense traffic of which she is destined to be the centre almost immediately. First, as regards her docks and docking accommodation. At present there are two belonging to the Government. They were built by the old East India Company. One, though useful at the time it was built, and for many years afterwards, is no longer available for the steam vessels that now navigate the Indian seas. The second, the “Duncan” Dock, has only sixteen feet of water at the Lock Gates. This unfits it for many vessels, and will render it useless for most of the steamers that will shortly navigate to and from Bombay. The Peninsular and Oriental Company have two docks, one of which, although only 390 feet long, has 20 feet 6 inches at the lock, and will admit any vessel afloat except the “Great Eastern.” But the company requires both docks for its own purposes, and it will find it difficult to lend them, even occasionally, for docking the new transport steamers shortly to be put on between Suez and Bombay, until further docks are provided. It may be stated, en passant, that these steamers will, with the exception of the “Great Eastern,” be the largest vessels afloat—length of each, 381 feet; breadth, 49 feet; tonnage, 500 tons. When placed on the line between Suez and Bombay, all British troops destined for or from the East will be conveyed by them, instead of by vessels taking the passage by the Cape of Good Hope.