The Soudan Railway.

Manawatu Herald, 23 November 1897, Page 2

The Soudan Railway.

» The Times special correspondent gives some ibteresting particulars of this military railway. He says, the railway between Wady Haifa and Abu Hamed, now in coarse of construction, is from several points of view one of the most interesting military lines in the world. The advantage of carrying a railway across the Eorosko desert, a distance of about 230 miles, and so avoiding the great loop (about 700 miles in length) formed by the Nile in this portion of its coarse, has long been recognised. This will ultimbecome the great trade route be« tween the Soudan and Egypt. The strategical value of the line is obvious and its completion is awaited before a further advance is made in the direction of Khartoum. The construction of this most successful desert railway, unique of its kind, is being pushed on at the rate of a mile and a half a day. It is expected that two miles a day will shortly be the rate of progress, and this is very good work when it is borne in mind that water has to be brought up from the Nile, not only to feed the engines, but to supply the 2,000 men employed on the con* struction, and that progress is entirely dependent on the resources of the transport behind and of the work* shops at Wady Haifa. The line gradually ascends from Wady Haifa to a point about 108 miles out, where it attains an altitude of 2,loofr.— that is, 500 ft. above the Nile at Wady Haifa ; from this point there is a gradual dip towards the Nile at Abu Hamed. The railway throughout traverses one of the most utterly desert regions on the face of the earth flat wastes of yellow sand, here and there ribbed by ranges of bare black crags. In a few spots are clumps of withered camel thorn but as a rule not a sign of life, animal or vegetable, is visible ; in every direction spread out under the cloudless blue sky the glaring sands and the darks rocks,, with only the lake^ and seas of the never-failing mirage to relieve the monotony of the dreary scenery.