RAILWAYS

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group of magnificent churches in a state of perfect
preservation. But old Goa has long since subsided as an
inhabited city, and the Goanese “boys,” with names of
Portuguese nobility, so well known as the best of all cooks
and waiters throughout India, come from the new town
of Panjim. They are mostly the descendants of Hindus
converted by Jesuits. It is indeed impossible to imagine
that they can claim descent from those heroes of old
who navigated unknown seas and fought Arabs, Turks,
and Indian Muhammadans wherever they met them.
The network of Indian railways is gradually extending
all over the continent, and it is already so complete in
those parts that are commercially important that it would
be impossible to enumerate the many different lines that
have sprung into existence within the last quarter of a
century. Vast as has been their commercial success, and
important as is their influence in those civilising processes
which are to weld the masses of the people of India into
a homogeneous nationality by the application of an
universal pressure born of self-interest, it should never
be forgotten that Indian railways serve two purposes.
The one purpose is civil and the other military, and the
interests of the two are less easily separated than most
Englishmen imagine. The same line of metal which
serves to carry tons of wheat and cotton to our coast
towns for export, serves also to move thousands of
soldiers into a field of action which may be all-important
to the interests of those who grow the wheat and the
cotton ; and it is in this connection chiefly that the great
discussion arose, which was not inaptly called the ¢ battle
of the gauges.”
If we look at the map we shall see at a glance that
of the two great ports of India on the western coast,
Bombay and Karachi, Bombay serves the commercial
turn of India, and Karachi the military. It is inconceivable
 that so long as England dominates the sea, her
power in India can ever be seriously threatened from any
other quarter than the North-West. It is on the North-West
 frontier that in time of danger troops would cer-