3-017-073 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Indo-European Telegraph: Mussendom Station, Elphinstone Inlet, Persian Gulf, 1865. From a sketch by Lieut. Hewett, of the gun-boat Clyde. 'The chief importance of the work was centred in the manufacture and laying of the enormous mass of cable, nearly 1500 miles in length, and weighing upwards of 5000 tons, which was constructed under the careful supervision of the engineers, at the works of the Gutta-Percha Company...the laying of the cable...commenced at Gwadur...under the superintendence of Sir Charles Bright...The first section from Gwadur to Mussendom, a barren promontory at the entrance to the Persian Gulf...was completed in the course of the month - a station being established upon an island in Elphinstone Inlet, long the resort of the piratical Arab craft which used to infest the Persian Gulf until it was placed in the charge of the Indian Navy, now the busy transmitting station of the telegraph to India...On the 25th of March, the section between Mussendom and Bushire was completed, and on the 5th of April the communication between Kurrachee [Karachi] and the head of the gulf at Fao...was finally established...messages are being daily flashed between all parts of the civilized world and the chief cities of our Indian empire'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.