Reverting to Foggia, the main line, proceeding southerly and easterly for 145 miles, reaches Brindisi, 470 miles from Bologna, 711 from Susa, 1,180 from Paris, and 1,477 from London.
Captain Tyler, in his interesting Report of 1866, reviews the relative capabilities of the several harbours of Italy for the receipt and despatch of our Eastern mails, and without hesitation, names Brindisi as the one that should be selected. The harbour is composed of an outer port of about 1¼ mile long by about half that distance at its greatest width. It is connected by a channel 290 yards, or the sixth of a mile, with two inner harbours or arms, the western of which is to be the Packet Harbour. The Italian Government have important works going on at Brindisi, and their objects are the security of the outer port, the deepening of the channel, and the facing of the channel that connects the outer and inner ports, as well as the sides of the latter, with solid masonry. During 1865 and 1866, 1,800,000 cubic feet of excavation were accomplished and very considerable progress has been made with the masonry, but at the present moment the works rather flag. It is stated, however, by the Government authorities, that as soon as it is decided that the British Contract Steamers carrying the Eastern mails to and from Alexandria, shall make Brindisi their port, the works will be resumed with great vigour. The present depth of the channel is 19½ feet, but this depth is to be increased to 26 feet at low water, not only at the channel, but at the passenger jetty (to which the railway will be extended), and alongside the coal depôt. This depth would be sufficient for the largest steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental, or of any other company, and with the view to affording suitable accommodation for large ships in case of need, it has been decided to construct immediately a dry dock, 380 feet long, at an estimated cost of £100,000. At the entrance of the outer port, and for a quarter of a mile within it, the depth of water will be from 28 to 37 feet. The rise and fall of tide at Brindisi is not more than 1½ foot. A plan of the harbour is appended.
Whilst at Brindisi, it is impossible to omit reference to its future with respect to the conveyance of our Eastern mails to and from Alexandria. This subject is divisible into two portions—conveyance of the fast and conveyance of the heavy mails. These mails go at present respectively _viâ_ Marseilles and _viâ_ Southampton. A contract now in course of completion between the Post Office and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company is about to bind the nation to the Southampton route for _twelve years_. It admits, however, of the transfer of the fast mails _viâ_ Marseilles being likely to take place at a period more or less proximate. If the reader will be so good as to refer to Appendix No. 3 in this volume, he will see a memorandum in which the course of the Eastern mails, both fast and heavy, is indicated, and the vast difference between the time that letters take in their conveyance by the two routes—that is, _viâ_ Southampton and _viâ_ Marseilles. This difference will continue until all mails, both fast and heavy, are carried (as eventually they will be) by Brindisi.