3-008-811 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cotton bales lying at the Bombay terminus of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway ready for shipment to England, 1862. Engraving from a photograph by Messrs. M'Combie and Wright. 'The question was anxiously put, when the American War surprised us, "Can our colonies - can India - make up the deficiency of cotton held back by this untoward event?"...it would seem that the provinces served by the railways have made some effort to make America's extremity their opportunity of increasing the supply of cotton...The spectator from some height of vantage ground would see at first nought but piles upon piles of bales of cotton, apparently without order; but by threading the intricacies of their winding alleys, and scanning carefully the marks upon the goods, some glimmering of a plan might be discovered...The open yard is subdivided into sections, denoted by numbers conspicuously painted on huts; and by these, assisted by the marks of the consignment, the owners get their own eventually. These huts, and the native clerks and merchants scattered about, may be noticed in our Engraving'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.