Lansdowne Bridge across the Indus River at Sukkur in Sind Province.

The Lansdowne Bridge across the River Indus in the Sind district at Sukkur in modern day Pakistan is the longest cantilever bridge in the World and was constructed between 1887 & 1889 to carry the North Western Railway which provided an important strategic and trade link between Lahore and the port city of Karachi on the Arabian Sea. These two 10 x 8½ ins photographs date from the early 1890s . Each is on an old card album leaf, one with a group of Europeans dressed for a fancy dress ball in Karachi 1890 and the other showing the bridge across a dramatic rift valley, identified on the card as Bridge over Chupper Rift -Itumai Ry.  The participants in the fancy dress ball are identified as Southey, Macnamara, Miss Satorius, Miss Edith Satorius, Miss Lambert, Miss Barrow, Mrs Vincent , Mrs Satorius.         nov26/1

Provenance: Leaves from a broken album which belonged to Surgeon John Blackburn Smith, Bombay Medical Service and date from 1890-93 when he was serving in Baluchistan.