stone, or even of ordinary parish roads. The
best roads, with the exception of a few miles
near one or two military stations, are
something like what the Herefordshire lanes
would be (where the deep ruts if too deep,
are filled with faggots in winter and ploughed
up level in the spring), if Herefordshire were
under a tropical sun, rank with tropical
weeds and intersected by deep, unbridged
watercourses—dry in summer—roaring
torrents after a few hours' rain.

For instance, in the Bombay district of
the Koukan, just twenty-seven per cent of
one year's revenue has been spent in twenty
years on seven hundred miles of roads. Of
these roads, five hundred and sixty miles
are impracticable for half the year; seventy
more are second class roads—that is to say,
full of ruts from one foot to two in depth;
and out of one hundred and thirty miles of the
best roads, half are only useful for military
purposes, as they go across instead of along
the line between the produce district and the
market ports. It took the late Mr. Mackay,
the Manchester cotton-commissioner, seven
hours to travel twelve miles in a bullock-cart,
at the cost of bruises from head to foot,
from a cotton district to the port of
Tunkeria, where the produce of that district was
regularly shipped. On the road the driver
amused him with a story of a man who, in
a sudden jolt, bit off half his tongue. In
Malabar the proprietors of some sugar-works
told Mr. Mackay that they required
sixty- thousand pounds' worth of sugar-cane
(an amount equal to half the revenue of the
province) to keep their manufactory at work.
For want of roads it was frequently impossible
for the carts laden with canes to come
in from the sugar-plantations. When the
sugar was made, it required twelve days to
travel seventy miles to the port. For five
months of the rainy season, no sugar could
be sent down, as it would be melted in passing
the Nullah's watercourses. During that
time forty thousand pounds were locked up
totally unprofitable. Common roads would
largely increase the growth and fabrication
of sugar—complete roads, with bridges, would
keep the factory at work the whole year
round.

It is true, that within the last century here
and there a revenue-collector or an
enterprising governor, embued with European
notions, has made detached spasmodic efforts
to execute main roads in divers districts; but,
unfortunately, these efforts were generally
entrusted to gentlemen who knew no more of
the art of road-making than what they had
learned while walking to school as boys in
England. For instance,—one officer,
commanding a road-party of pioneers, devised the
following plan of roads through a cotton
country of black alluvial mud, then of sand
or gravel:—" First, a complete layer of large
stones about a foot thick over the intended
surface of the road; then three feet of the
black cotton soil, to raise the way above the
floods." As the stones had all to be brought
from a distance, the cost was magnificent;
but, the upper crust of mud was some
degrees worse than a path over the natural
country it had been dug from. This plan
received the high approval of the head of the
road department, the quarter-master-general,
and was circulated by him for the guidance
of the officers under his command. Under
this system of irresponsible ignorance, a few
miles of road in different detached directions
cost from one thousand to five thousand
pounds a mile; and the Court of Directors,
not unnaturally alarmed at such useless
extravagance, took a decided and effectual step
for preventing further expense—ordering that
no new road should be made. In one case,
eighty thousand pounds were spent on a
line of two hundred and twenty miles,
between Masulepatam, on the coast of Hyderabad;
and, for this sum, no stones had been
laid down, so that it was not practicable at
all in wet weather, and scarcely better than
before, in dry.

After a pause of a few years, another effort
was made. In the Madras Presidency a road
department of one engineer officer, with two
assistants, was constituted, to attend the
main roads of a province of one hundred and
sixty thousand square miles, with a population
of fourteen millions. Of course, the
officer was lost in his duties. He had not the
assistance of the county newspapers, which
in England weekly daguerreotype the local
wants of every county. However, he was
soon saved one source of anxiety, for the
local government refused to take the
responsibility of spending the money the
directors had authorised—and so road-making
efforts ceased.

The native population is essentially agricultural.
A ton of cotton is worth fifteen pounds;
a ton of sugar, twelve pounds; a ton of rice
or grain, three pounds. Where it takes twelve
days to travel seventy miles, with only seven
months of possible travelling in the year, it
is easy to imagine that there are millions of
acres, hundreds of miles from the coast, where
the cost of conveyance eats up the whole
value of the article, while the saving of ten
shillings alone on the one, and one pound on
the other, would leave a profit. What would
farms be worth in our fattest counties, if
everything was carried on the backs of Welsh
ponies—if the best agricultural roads were
like the winter tracks on Dartmoor and
Exmoor? What would half our coal mints
be worth, worked on Indian principles, with
stream-pumps, and with only cart roads to
market?

To give India common roads, in proportion
to those of England, would require half a
million miles. Ceylon, where European
coffee-growers are sufficiently numerous to
create a public opinion, and where rebellions
are formidable, has, in addition to its coast