ROADS IN EGYPT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1939, Page 7

ROADS IN EGYPT

CONSTRUCTION DURING RECENT YEARS BEAST OF BURDEN FORMERLY SUPREME. HALF-CENTURY’S NEGLECT REMEDIED. Until 1914 there were no roads in Egypt but the three short stretches of macadam that linked Alexandria with its suburbs, and Cairo with the Pyramids and Helouan. writes Major C. S. Jarvis in "The Times." This was because Egypt, from the dawn of history, has been the land of the beast of burden. where all merchandise has been carried on the backs of donkeys and camels. In most parts of the world the general use of wheeled traffic, which began in Europe in the sixteenth century, caused the packhorse paths to become cart tracks in course of time, and eventually metalled highways, but this evolution did not occur in the Nile Valley, where carts were never popular. and where even now the laden camel holds its own against the lorry. For this reason the tracks between the towns and villages were until the last war, merely narrow paths along the rough, heaped-up soil on the canal banks.

During the war. with campaigns in progress on both the east and the west —against the Turks in Sinai and the Senussie in Libya—this lack of communications hampered military movements considerably, and various roads we're roughly constructed by the British army. A metalled highway was made between Ismailia and Port Said, a wire-netting road for car traffic and marching infantry was made across the north of the Sinai Peninsula to Palestine, and from Alexandria to Mersa Matruh and Solium a rough track was cleared for motors across the desert. After the war a series of very conservative Governments in Egypt proved themselves to be more concerned about the revenue from the State railways than about the needs of the motorist. and road construction lagged in consequence. After many vicissitudes Cairo was linked to Suez by a metalled highway, the Canal Company constructed a road from Suez to Ismailia. and a passable track was made across the Sinai Peninsula from Suez to the Palestine frontier at Auja. thus linking Cairo with Jerusalem.

The tension with Italy over sanctions in 1935 awoke Egypt to the consideration that she still lacked proper communications, and one of the clauses of the 1936 Treaty dealt with the immediate provision of strategical roads. The first of these, a desert highway from Cairo to Alexandria, by way of Amria, was hurriedly made in 1936 and at the same time the road from Cairo to Ismailia was widened and metalled over its whole length. From Amria the existing track to Mersa Matruh —the advanced base of the AngloEgyptian forces —was improved to enable cars to travel at an average speed of 40 miles an hour. Thus the Suez Canal was brought within 21 hours’ running time of the front-line fortifications in the Libyan Desert., But the general situation is still unsatisfactory, and the Egyptian Government, fully alive fo the threat to their country, have for the time being shelved the programme for transferring the British troops to the canal zone, as was arranged in the Treaty. The money which was set aside for building the new barracks is to be spent instead on a network of strategical roads, some of which are now actually building. The first of these is a main highway up the Nile from Cairo to Kus, a small town north of Luxor, whence a road is to lead across the desert to Kossier, a port on the Gulf of Suez, Kossier is normally a sleepy little harbour that is visited only by Arab dhows, but it is conveniently situated for landing, troops from India, and was so used in 1801 during Abercrombie's campaign, and again during the Mahdi’s revolt in the Sudan.

The second road, farther north, is to link the Nile Valley at Kena with Hurgada, on the Gulf of Suez. Hurgada is the site of the Anglo-Egyptian oil fields, and the oil might have to be transferred by road if the sea route were imperilled. The third road runs straight across the Sinai Peninsula, from Ismailia to Auja, and thence to Beer-Sheba and Jerusalem. It is being made by the Shell Company by the novel, inexpensive and very rapid method of impregnating sand on the spot with a bitumen waste product of oil and laying the hto mixture on the levelled surface of the desert. Experiments were first made with this "Mix-in-Place” system some twelve years ago and it has been found that the even resistance of desert sand is such that a road of this mateiial without foundations will stand up to the heaviest traffic. The Sinai road, which was begun in the middle of May, is being made at the rate of a mile and' a-quarter a day. This almost incredible speed is maintained by means of eight enormous bitumen-laying machines, invented by Mr Llewellyn, the desert road expert, which move slowly across the desert under theii 1 ' own power on a surface which has been previously levelled off by gangs of workmen. At the present rate the road will be completed by the middle of November, and so in six months modern inventions will have constructed a highway through the wilderness which the Israelites took 40 years to cross. By early September, always a critical month in world affairs, the road will have joined an existing hard track that runs to Auja and Beer-Sheba, and the rapid transfer of troops from Palestine to the Libyan Desert, or the other way round, will be possible. Thanks to the Frontiers Administration, there are also hard tracks on the shores of the Red Sea, and motor traffic is possible between Kosseir and Hurgada and the valley of the Nile. During the last three years., therefore. Egypt has accomplished much to make up for the neglect of the last half-century, and her lateral communications at any rate are entirely satis-, factory.