thence to Angora, 111 miles; thence to Guzgat, 113 miles; thence to
Sivas, 140 miles; Kharpoot, 178 miles; Diarbekir, 77 miles; Mardeen, 61
miles; Djezireh, 104 miles; Mosul, (Nineveh,) 91 miles; Kerkook, 114
miles; Bagdad, 189 miles. From Bagdad to Fao, at the mouth of the
Shat-el-Arab, on the Persian Gulf, is 400 miles. From Fao to Kurrachee
the submarine cable stretches along the bottom of the Persian Gulf for
1,450 miles; and thence are 500 miles of aerial line across a portion of
British India to Bombay.

The accounts of the successful opening of this line tell of the
astonishment of the savage Beloochees and Arabs along the Mekran coast
at the marvel of a blue spark flashing for the Sahib to the Indus and
back again in less time than it takes to smoke a hookah. At Gwadur, no
sooner was the cable landed than the people of the surrounding country
flocked down to hear and talk of the Feringhee witchcraft. Chiefs of the
Beloochees, Muscatees, and Heratees, with their retainers, trod upon
each other's toes in their eagerness to see it work. Gwadur has given up
the idea that Mahomet taught everything that could be known, and now
sits upon the carpet of astonishment and chews the betel-nut of
meditation.

The establishment of the electric telegraph in India presented some
curious as well as difficult problems. In the first place, it was
discovered that the air of India is in a state of constant electrical
perturbation of the strongest kind, so that the instruments there
mounted went into a high fever and refused to work. Along the north and
south lines a current of electricity was constantly passing, which threw
the needles out of gear and baffled the signallers. Moreover, the
tremendous thunder-storms ran up and down the wires and melted the
conductors; the monsoon winds tore the teak-posts out of the sodden
ground; the elephants and buffaloes trampled the fallen lines into kinks
and tangles; the Delta aborigines carried off the timber supports for
fuel, and the wires or iron rods upon them to make bracelets and to
supply the Hindoo smitheries; the cotton- and rice-boats, kedging up and
down the river, dragged the subaqueous wires to the surface. In addition
to these graver difficulties were many of an amusing character. Wild
pigs and tigers scratched their skins against the posts in the jungle,
and porcupines and bandicoots burrowed them out of the ground. Kites,
fishing-eagles, and hooded-crows came in hundreds and