"تاريخ البحرية الهندية. (١٦١٣- ١٨٦٣)." [‎٢‎١‎١] (٦٢٢/٢٣٠)

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVT.
211
refused. One vessel had no doctor, till, half of the crew and
officers being sick, she was compelled to seek medical treatment
at the headquarters of the nearest Collectorate, the expenses of
the vessel going on whilst no work was being done."
Again, Markham says:—" Even after 1844, when a few sur
veys were sanctioned, they were confined to the narrowest
limits, the officers were miserably found both as regards vessels
and instruments, their allowances were cut down, and the
acquisition of all knowledge beyond bearings and soundings was
coldly discountenanced. In Sir Robert Oliver's time, the chart
office of the Indian Navy was one little corner of the sail-loft in
the dockyard of Bombay, where numbers of valuable documents
were eaten by white ants and cockroaches. The office of the
draughtsman* of the Indian Navy was, afterwards, removed to
the Observatory at Colaba by Sir Robert Oliver, and here the
charts were compiled, drawn, and occasionally lithographed.
Captain Montriou held this office from 1847 to 1852, and drew
up the information called for in the Parliamentary paper
printed in 1852. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Fergusson,
who held the appointment until the end came in 1862. The
establishment consisted of the draughtsman and two natives
for copying, and its whole cost was under .£500 a-year. In
1844 a few surveys were again permitted, but in such a niggard
spirit, that an officer making geological or other scientific in
vestigations, apart from sounding with the lead, was obliged to
pay his own boat-hire I"
It was not without many protests that those interested in
marine hydrography viewed the cessation of all surveying
operations, which was one of the first fruits of Sir Robert
Olivers assumption of authority. The Secretary of the Royal
Geographical Society, in a letter which was read at the Quarterly
Meeting of the Bombay Branch in November, 1839, adverting
to the notice of this measure received through an officer of the
Indian Navy, expressed great astonishment and regret that,
atter all the expenditure of life and treasure in the beautiful
surveys of the Persian Gulf, of the Red Sea, and half of the
southern coasts of Arabia, the other half should remain unsur-
veyed. This referred to the discontinuance of the survey so
aMy conducted by Commander Haines. In the Annual Report
ot the Royal Asiatic Society for 1836-37, the Right Hon. Sir
Alexander Johnston, as Chairman of the Committee of Corre
spondence, in the course of a detailed statement of the Society's
operations, said that the Committee have " derived so much
mtormation from the surveys of the Indian Navy, as to render
is u y, considering the debt of gratitude which the friends
* In the latter part of 1855 the designation of the Indian Navy Dranehtsman
P 2