The roast beef and chickens were very good, and the fruit was highly appreciated.  The dinner finished, the party returned to the sitting-room, and found themselves very nearly alone.  At the suggestion of Captain Ringgold, Lord Tremlyn consented to give the travellers some information in regard to the city of Bombay.

“When I consider what a vast extent of territory you are to explore in India,” the speaker began, “I realize that not much of your time must be taken up in long discourses, and especially not in lengthy introductions.  Bombay, the western province of the peninsula, includes twenty-four British districts and nineteen native states, the latter governed wholly or in part by Hindu rulers.  This word Hindu, I repeat, properly applies to only a portion of this country, but has come into use as a name for the entire region.

“This is the Bombay Presidency, with a governor appointed by the crown, a Legislative Council, a mixed garrison of English and native soldiers, under a local commander-in-chief.  That is all I shall say of the presidency, which is one of three in India.

“The city of Bombay occupies the south end of the island of the same name, and is one of a group of several, of which Salsette is the largest, with which Bombay Island, eleven miles in length, is connected by causeways, over which the railway passes.  The business part is at the Fort, where we landed, and the bazaars extend from that in the direction of Mazagon, which lies to the north and east of it.

“You will find here many public buildings and commercial structures which compare favorably with similar edifices in any city of the world; and we shall see them to-morrow forenoon.  The Princess Dock, where the great steamship lines land their merchandise, cost a million sterling.  Three or four miles off this dock, to the eastward, you saw a couple of islands, the farther one of which is Elephanta, with its wonderful cave, which you will visit.

“The western terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway is here, and with its connections it extends all over India.  This is the first port usually reached by vessels from Europe, though Kurrachee is nearer.  It is the great mail port; and I have seen landed at Dover thirty tons of post-bags, sent from here by Suez and through Europe by the Orient Express.

“Bombay now exceeds Calcutta in the extent of its commerce.  The principal exports are cotton, wheat, shawls, opium, coffee, pepper, ivory, and gums; and the chief imports are the manufactured goods of England, metals, wine, beer, tea, and silks.  The prominent industries of the city and its vicinity are dyeing, tanning, and metal working.  It has sixty large steam-mills.  Of the vast population, now approaching a million, not more than 13,000 are British-born.  The water here is excellent, for it is brought from a lake fifteen miles north of us.

“Goa is still a Portuguese possession, nearly three hundred miles down the coast; and a year before they captured it they took possession of this island, in 1509.  They held it till 1661, when it was ceded to England as a part of the dowry of the Infanta Catharine, who became queen of Charles II.  That is all I need say at present.”