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Falling Behind in Ceylon

December 29, 2014 by Marshall Goldberg Leave a Comment

late-19th-century-ceylon2

On Dec. 13 Nellie stopped over in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for what was supposed to be two days, but her scheduled steamship, the Oriental, could not leave for Singapore and Hong Kong until a mail and passenger ship arrived from India, and by all accounts the ship from India was tortuously slow. Nellie would be delayed at least three days in Colombo, Ceylon, and possibly more. Her ship from Hong Kong, the Oceanic, was supposed to depart on December 28, in 15 days, and she was 3,500 miles away. The three-day delay took away all margin for error; if she missed the Oceanic in Hong Kong, the earliest she would get to New York would be 81 days after setting out. Finally, after five maddeningly long days, the Indian ship arrived and the Oriental departed, into the Bay of Bengal amidst word of a monsoon. And Nellie was officially behind schedule.

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