Telegraph and Travel: A Narrative of the Formation and Development of Telegraphic Communication between England and India Under the Orders of Her Majesty's Government with Incidental Notices of the Countries Traversed by the Lines

Language: English. About The Book : It is exactly ten years ago that the Persian Gulf cable, manufactured and laid at the cost of her Majesty’s Government, was under process of final submersion between Karachi, the most North-Westerly of Indian ports, and the Turkish Arabian station of Fao, or Fava. The link connecting Gwadar, then an obscure fishing village of Makran, and Fao, a very molecule amid hamlets, was completed on the 8th April, 1864; and notwithstanding the successful establishment of a land line between Karachi awd Gwadar, it was thought prudent to connect these stations also by submarine cable, and so strengthen communications. This alternative section was wholly laid on the 15th May, 1864. Experiences in such matters may be useful in the record. In any case, a full report of progress, when sufficiently mature, is due to the State, and should he satisfactory to the reporters themselves. Nor is the necessity less obvious, in a public sense, that there should be a reference showing the circumstances under which a creat work like the Telegraph to India was undertaken at all; and what have been and what now are its value and cost to the country from whose coffers it has been carried out and carried on. Hence arose the suggestion that a narrative of the institution and development of Telegraphic Communication between England and India under the orders of her Majesty’s Government should be prepared and submitted: and hence was it ruled by the Secretary of State for India in Council, so far back as September 1868, that such reaction, when completed, should be published in a quasi-popular form. About The Author : Major-General Sir Frederic John Goldsmid KCSI, CB (1818–1908) was an officer in British Army and East India Company, who also served the British government in various roles through the Middle East. From 1865 to 1870 he held the post of Government director of the Indo-European Telegraph Company, and during those six years he personally superintended the erection of the poles and the carrying of the wires across the whole extent of the Shah's kingdom. Of that arduous work he gave an interesting and modest account in his volume entitled "Telegraph and Travel," rendering full justice to the efforts of his assistants and saying little or nothing of his own. In 1866, on the completion of the first stage of his work, he received a Companionship of the Bath and the thanks of the Government of India, and in 1871, when the work was all done, a Knight Commandership of the Star of India. In 1871 he acted as British Commissioner for the delimitation of the Baluch frontier with Persia, and in the following year he was entrusted with the more difficult task of arranging the Selstan frontier between Afghanistan and Persia. It was difficult to satisfy both sides, and Sir Frederic Goldsmid's award did not satisfy the Shah, while he gave undoubted umbrage to the Ammer Shere Ali. The Selstan business was afterwards alleged to be the first cause of that Afghan ruler's taking umbrage at our policy; but its effect was probably exaggerated, although Yakub Khan, in his summary of his father's policy, makes it the starting-point of his alienation from the side of England. Sir Frederic returned to England after his Persian mission and devoted himself to the preparation of his voluminous report on Eastern Persia and to other literary work. From his knowledge of Persia and of the events that led up to the Mutiny, which has been first predicted by his old chief, John Jacob, Sir Frederic Goldsmid was entrusted with the execution of the Life of Sir James Outram, the Bayard of India, a work that met with considerable success. The Title 'Telegraph and Travel: A Narrative of the Formation and Development of Telegraphic Communication between England and India Under the Orders of Her Majesty's Government with Incidental Notices of the Countries Traversed by the Lines written/authored/edited by Colonel Sir Frederic John Goldsmid', published in the ye.…