BOMBAY. This great and important city is more distinguished for commerce than for manufactures : for exchanging the produce of India for that of England, than for pro ducing on its own account. Yet there must necessarily be much manufacturing carried on. The property is principally in the Parsee inhabitants, who are also the principal mer chants ; and it is usual for every European house of commerce to contain one or more Parsee partners, who supply a great part of the capital. The shops and warehouses be longing both to European and to native mer chants and traders are upon a large scale.
The docks within the fort, although the property of the East India Company, are en tirely under the management of Parsees, by whom merchant-vessels of 1000 to 1200 tons burden, frigates, and even line-of-battle ships are built. These docks were about forty years ago enlarged and improved under the super intendence of Major Cooper of the Engineers. The buildings are greatly admired for their architectural beauty ; and the slips and basins are calculated for vessels of any size. Bom bay being situated between the forests of Malabar and Gujerat, receives supplies of timber with every wind that blows. Ships built of teak-wood are much more durable than those built with European timber ; they have been known to last more than 50 years. From the cheapness of labour, ships were formerly built at Bombay for three-fourths of the cost in England ; but recent experience has shown that ships can be built cheaper in England. The Minden, a 74 gun ship, launched at Bombay, iu 1810, was constructed entirely by Parsees, without any assistance from Europeans ; and since that time several frigates and line-of-battle ships have been built at these docks.
In addition to its trade with Europe and with China, a very great traffic is carried on by coasting-vessels with all the ports on the western side of India, from Cape Comorin to the Gulf of Cutch. The vessels thus em ployed vary in size from 10 to near 200 tons burden, and nearly 800 of them are registered as belonging to the port. The articles which form the principal part of this trade from Bombay are European manufactures, and the produce of Bengal and China, the returns being made in cotton-wool and cloths, timber, oil, and grain from the northern ports, and from the south, cotton, hemp, coir, tim ber, pepper, rice, and cocoa-nuts.
The merchandise thus brought to Bombay is in great part re-exported in larger ships to different parts of Europe, to North and South America, to Canton, to the Arabian and Per sian Gulfs, and to the Bay of Bengal. The goods sent from India to China comprise principally cotton wool, opium, metals, spices, dye-woods, and woollen goods. From the Arabian and Persian Gulfs, Bombay receives raw silk, copper, pearls, galls, coffee, gum arable, copal, myrrh, olibanum, bdellium, assafintida, dried fruits, horses, and bullion. The returns are grain, Bengal and China sugar, British manufactured goods, cotton and woollen, and spices. The merchandise sent to Calcutta from Bombay, in return for sugar, indigo, and rice, are timber, coir, cocoa nuts, sandal-Ivood, and cotton.
Cotton forms the most important article of export from Bombay. It is received from the provinces of Gujerat and the Concan, from Malabar, Cinch, and Sinde. Bombay hais exported more than 100 millions of pounds of cotton in one year, besides exports to other places.
The following were the imports into and exports from Bombay during the years stated:— Years. Imports. Exports.
1834 .. £3,653,319 .. £3,303,515 1836 .. 4,429,127 .. 5,451,554 1838 .. 4,444,693 .. 4,230,027 1840 .. 4,831,558 .. 5,018,335 1842 .. 5,542,578 .. 5,273,986 Bombay has been the chief Indian port connected with the establishment of steam communication with England. The route between Suez and Bombay is still in the hands of the East India Company; but the other portions of the great overland route are managed by the peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company ; and if the pre sent discussions concerning the Australian mails should result in the Singapore route being chosen, Bombay will have an enlarged field for its commercial enterprise.