RAILWAYS AND STEAMERS 815

and Albany. Farther progress was comparatively slow, as it “i
was not till 1820 that steamers were employed between ’
Dublin and Holyhead ; and it was only in 1838 that the first
Transatlantic yoyages were attempted. The Enterprise toocean
had made the voyage to Calcutta in 1827, but this proved To
unremunerative, and the difficulties of obtaining fuel and gradual,
working engines in the tropics, rendered the success of such
long and distant trips problematical. Still the new invention
opened up a prospect of rendering communication with India
much more rapid, and the Government, along with the East
India Company, organised a system for reopening the old
route to the East through Egypt. This was a scheme which
we inherited from Napoleon, and it was well-adapted for the
early days of steaming, as the long voyage was interrupted
by a brief journey overland. In 1835 steamers were regularly
passing between Bombay and Suez, while the English Government
 despatched vessels to convey letters to Alexandrial.
The detailed facilities for this overland route were carried
out by Lieutenant Waghorn; and the dromedary post which
bad been organised by Bagdad, Damascus. and Beyrout was
superseded.
The superiority of the steamer in regularity and punctuality
 was obvious from the first, so far as passenger traffic
was concerned ; and the increase of steam-shipping went on
side by side with that of sailing-vessels for thirty years.
Steam had no such superiority over sailing as to supersede
the older system on the water, in the rapid manner in which
the locomotive asserted its superiority on land. Gradually,
however, the regularity and punctuality of steam-ship voyages and it has
. . greatly
began to tell for freight, as well as for travellers, and since tensfited
1860 the increase of steam-shipping appears to have occurred he pom
to some extent at the expense of the sailing-vessels. The
new motor power has played a part in the recent development
 of British commerce. This has been advantageous to
the manufacturer, as giving facilities both for the purchase of
materials and the sale of goods, but the landed interests Jtat the
have derived little advantage and have been exposed to interest.
keener competition. On the whole it would seem that the

t Lindsay, Merchant Shipping, Iv. 858.