ABSTRACT
A great rival water route, possessing advantages as peculiar in the realm of telegraphic as in that of steam communication, was opened in 1870, and within a few years had gone far toward displacing the land route. The development of telegraphic lines to the East gave emphasis to the fact already made apparent by many factors that political conditions along the shores of the Mediterranean and, to a greater extent, in the countries of western Asia and Egypt were of fundamental importance to British interests. By the time telegraphic communication with Europe had been completed, India was well supplied with land lines. Indian telegraphs had been extended eastward to Rangoon and lines projected to Singapore and China. The formation of the British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company was followed by the organization of the British India Extension Telegraph Company, for the purpose of carrying a cable from some point in India to Penang, Malacca, and Singapore.
