2-798-911 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mounted Arab courier, 1845. British naval officer Thomas Fletcher Waghorn pioneered a new route from Great Britain to India overland through Egypt before the construction of the Suez Canal in the 1860s. Waghorn claimed his route reduced the journey from over 11,000 miles (18,000 km) to 6,000 miles (9,700 km), taking between 35 and 45 days. At the time, steamships carrying mail took about three months to sail via the Cape of Good Hope. Waghorn's route consisted of a combination of steamship and horses. From Suez, '...the Express passed on to Cairo, carried by Couriers on horseback, 84 miles across the Desert'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.