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Charles Huffnagle, Esq., American Consul at Calcutta, India, has written a letter to the ' National Intelligencer," calling his country men to establish a line of steamers between California and Calcutta. He says :— " The Peninsular and Oriental Company of London now carry mails and passengers from Bengal and China via the Red Sea, leaving Calcutta on the 8 th of every month for Suez. Their large and commodious steamers are al ways crowded with passengers, and the fare to Suez, at the head of the Red Sea, a voyage of twenty days, amounts to nearly five hun dred dollars. There is no opposition what ever on this section of the route. The same company have a line between Calcutta and Hong Kong, in China. From Hong Kong, across the Pacific towards our own shores, over a placid and resistless ocean, there is as yet no means of travelling, save by sailing vessels forced to leave the calm latitudes in search of favorable winds. When the ship canal shall have been con structed through the isthmus, uniting the two great ocean?, the wealth of the East must pass along our shores; but long before this de sirable undertaking can be accomplished much of vast importance might be done, if, in the absence of piivate enterprise, unemployed Government steamers were commissioned to carry mails and passengers from Hong Kong, in China, to Panama, or some port within the territory oi the United States, from which passengers could securely and comfortably be conveyed through the United States to Eu rope. This would be the opening of that great road for the world's commerce and traffic, and I venture to declare that hundreds irom India would avail themselves of the opportunity, when once the route had been successfully explored."
