FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN TO THE SUDAN
I am in the Sudan on the northern section of the Cape-to-Cairo railroad.
I am in the upper end of Nubia at the railroad station of Halfaya, just
opposite Khartum, and as far south of Alexandria as the distance from New
York to Denver.
In imagination come with me on the trip from the Mediterranean to
Khartum. We shall need four days to go from the sea to the junction of
the White and Blue Niles, where I now am, but the journey will for the
most part be comfortable and there are interesting sights for at least
part of the way. We start at Alexandria, the chief sea-port of the whole
valley, and in three hours our train carries us across through the delta
to Cairo, for there is frequent and rapid train service between these two
chief cities of Egypt.
As we go first class, we must pay three cents a mile. The second-class
fare is only half as much as the first, and the third is still cheaper.
Every train has first-, second-, and third-class cars. Those of the
first, which are divided into compartments, are patronized by tourists
and officials. The second-class car is much like the coach of our
American train, having an aisle through the centre. These cars are
used by merchants, commercial travellers, and well-to-do natives. The
third-class cars are cheaply made and their seats are wooden benches.
They are always filled with the common Egyptians, and foreigners seldom
travel in them. Our tickets are little blue cards with the price printed
upon them in English and Arabic. We have to show them to the guard as we
enter the train, and they are not examined again until they are taken up
at the gates of the station as we go out.
We have some trouble with our baggage, for as usual with Americans, we
are loaded with trunks. Only fifty-five pounds can be checked without
extra charge, and my trunks often cost me more than my fare. We notice
that the English and Egyptian passengers put most of their belongings
into bundles and bags, which they can bring into the cars with them. Many
a single passenger is carrying four or five valises, each holding as much
as a small steamer trunk, and the compartments are half filled with such
luggage. Every first-class car has a guard, or porter, who helps us off
and on, and there are always _fellaheen_ at the depot ready to carry our
effects for five cents apiece.
Most of the Egyptian trains have a small car next to the engine, an
express car back of that, and also cars for animals. Our train carries
one in which are two blanketed horses, with Egyptian grooms to take care
of them. They probably belong to some rich nabob of Cairo, and are going
south by express.
The postal cars are carefully watched. The bags of mail are carried to
them on red trucks made for the purpose. The trucks are pushed by the
Arabs and mail is handled by them; but a dark-faced soldier with rifle
and sword marches along to see the bags taken in and out. When a truck
is loaded, the soldier goes with it to the post-office wagons. There is
always a guard on such Nile steamers as carry mail, and the letters are
never left without some armed official to watch over them.
[Illustration: The Bisharin are desert folk, whose chief possessions are
their wells and flocks. They pity city dwellers and scorn those who till
the soil. This aged warrior has his short spear and rawhide shield.]
[Illustration: Villages of mud huts spot the banks of the Upper Nile for
hundreds of miles. The dates grown along here are sweeter and larger than
those from farther down the river.]
[Illustration: The Bisharin inhabit the desert beyond the narrow green
strip along the Nile. Their matting tents are easily moved from place to
place in their search for pasturage.]
The railroads of Egypt and the Sudan are under the government, and I
find both systems pay. Those of Egypt earn about six per cent. on their
capital stock and their working expenses are only about seventy-three per
cent. of the gross receipts. The business is rapidly increasing. They
carry some twenty-six million passengers a year and some five million
tons of freight. Egypt now has something like fifteen hundred miles of
railroads which belong to the government, and in addition more than seven
hundred miles of agricultural roads managed by private parties. The
earnings of the latter are increasing, for they carry more freight and
passengers from year to year.
The main lines are managed by Egyptian and European officials. The
superintendents of departments, who receive three thousand dollars and
upward a year each, are mainly Europeans, while the inspectors and
sub-inspectors, who get from eighty dollars to two hundred and forty
dollars a month, are in the main foreigners. Under these men are the
native guards, track workers, and mechanics of various kinds, who
receive smaller wages. They are almost all Egyptians, there being some
twenty-four hundred of them to about one hundred and fifty Europeans.
The Sudan roads go through a thinly populated country, but the receipts
are already considerably more than their working expenses and are rapidly
increasing.
The Alexandria-Cairo division of the Cape-to-Cairo road taps one of the
richest countries on earth. I mean the delta of Egypt, which is more
thickly populated than most other parts of the globe. The distance from
Alexandria to Cairo is one hundred and thirty-three miles, and all the
way is through rich farm lands. There is no desert in sight until you
reach Cairo. Cotton is piled up at every depot, there are vast loads of
it on the canals which the track crosses, and at the stations cars of
cotton bales fill the side tracks.
The next division above Cairo goes to Asyut, which is two or three
hundred miles farther south. Then comes the road from Asyut to Luxor,
ending with the narrow-gauge line from Luxor to Aswan. These divisions
are through the narrow part of the Nile valley, with the desert in sight
all the time. The river winds this way and that, but the railroad is
comparatively straight, and is often far off from the river amid the
sand and rocks. Such parts of the line are uncomfortable going. At times
the sands are blinding, the dust fills the cars, and our eyes smart.
These discomforts are somewhat less in the first-class cars. All of them
have shutters and double windows to keep out the dust, and the inner
window panes are of smoked glass to lessen the glare. With the shutters
up it is almost dark and when both windows are down the interior has
the appearance of twilight. When clear glass alone is used the rays are
blinding and the sun comes through with such strength that it is not
safe to have it strike the back of one’s neck. In addition to the double
windows and shutters there are wooden hoods over the car windows, so that
the direct rays of the sun may not shine in. The cars have also double
roofs, and the doors have windows of smoked glass. There is so much dust
that it comes in when everything is shut tight, and the porter has to
sweep up every hour.
I found the conditions even worse in the Nubian Desert, which I crossed
on the railroad from Wady Haifa, where I left the steamer _Ibis_, to
Berber. That region is about the dreariest and most desolate on earth.
It is all sand and rocks, with here and there a low barren mountain. The
Nubians themselves call it “the stone belly,” and the name is well chosen.
The road through Nubia is a part of the Sudan military railway that
extends from Wady Halfa to Khartum. It is one of the iron gateways to
the Sudan, the other being the railway which the British have built from
Atbara to Port Sudan and Suakim on the Red Sea. The military line is
almost as long as from New York to Detroit and the Port Sudan line from
the Red Sea to Atbara, where it connects with the military line, is less
than half that length.
The Port Sudan road vies with the military railways in being one of the
dirtiest railroads ever constructed. Its whole route is across the Nubian
Desert. There is no vegetation at all between Atbara and the Red Sea
until within about nine miles of the coast, and then only a scanty growth
of thorn bush and scrub that feeds small flocks of camels and sheep.
This Red Sea road was opened about 1905. Since then it has been carrying
a large part of the trade of the Sudan. Mohammedan pilgrims from Central
Africa and the Lower Nile valley use it on their way to and from Mecca,
and occasionally tourists come to Khartum via the Suez Canal, the Red
Sea, and this railroad.
The military line from Wady Halfa is the one built by General Kitchener
during the war with the Mahdi. Constructed in less than eighteen months
by the British engineers and soldiers, it is one of the most remarkable
examples of railroad building on record. A large part of it was laid in
the hottest time of the year and at the rate of one and a quarter miles
per day, and once, more than three miles were laid in one day. Yet the
work was so well done that heavy trains could travel safely over it even
when making twenty-five miles an hour. It was built through a waterless
desert which had never been mapped until the railroad surveyors went over
it. During its construction the survey camp was kept about six miles in
advance of the rail head. The road was built through a hostile country
where there was constant danger of attack by the Dervishes.
To-day the cars move as smoothly over those tracks as they do over those
of Egypt, and give that country regular connection with the Sudan. There
is now a train de luxe connecting Khartum with Wady Halfa equipped with
sleeping and dining cars.
The sleepers are divided into compartments about seven feet square
with two berths to each. There is an aisle along the side of the car
from which the compartments are entered, and each of the latter is
large enough to enable one to have a wicker chair in it in addition to
the berths. Every little room has an electric fan and is lighted by
electricity.
The dining-car service is good and comparatively cheap. The meals consist
of a cup of tea and some crackers brought in by a Nubian porter at
daybreak; a breakfast in the dining car at eight o’clock; a table d’hôte
luncheon at one, and a dinner in the evening.
In riding over the Sudan military road we stopped for a time at Atbara,
where the Black Nile from Abyssinia flows into the main stream. Here
is the famous bridge built by Americans upon orders given by General
Kitchener. The contract was first offered to the English, but they were
not able to build the bridge in the time required, so the Americans took
the job and finished it. Atbara is now an important division point where
the road across the desert to the Red Sea branches off. As we stopped at
the station our engine struck me as looking familiar. I walked to the
front of the train and examined it. Sure enough, it was a Baldwin, with
the name “Philadelphia” standing out in the full blaze of the Nubian
sun. Later on, when I crossed the Black Nile over the steel bridge put
up by our builders, I felt that I was not out of touch with home, after
all. I was being hauled by an American engine over an American bridge,
though I was in the heart of the Nubian Desert more than a thousand miles
up the Nile. The thought makes one proud of our American enterprise and
mechanical genius.
At Atbara I learned a great deal about the road, which starts here on its
three hundred and thirty mile journey through the Nubian Desert to the
Red Sea. This little town might be called one of the railway centres of
the Sudan. Lying at the junction of the two chief railways, it has the
principal railroad offices and shops and is the home of the director,
with whom I had a long talk about his line to the Red Sea. He had a part
in building the road and is now its manager. We first visited the shops,
which cover two or three acres of sandy waste. They are great sheds with
walls of galvanized iron and roofs of iron and plate glass. I saw many
locomotives, cars and steel ties, and telegraph poles outside. Going in,
I found all sorts of railway repair and construction work under way. The
machinists were a mixture of whites, blacks, and yellows, representing
a half-dozen different nations and tribes. There were British overseers,
Greek and Italian mechanics, some Nubian blacksmiths, and many Nubian
boys taking a sort of manual-training course in order that they may serve
as locomotive engineers, under machinists and trackmen. The machinery is
of modern make and the shops are well equipped.
As we walked among the lathes and planing machines the director pointed
out to me some of the peculiarities of the wear and tear of the desert
upon railway materials.
“Here,” said he, as he pointed to the wheel of an American locomotive,
in which was cut a groove so deep and wide that I could lay my three
fingers in it, “is an example of how the sands ruin our car wheels.
The flint-like grains from the desert blow over the rails, and as the
cars move they grind out the steel as though they were emery powder.
Consequently, the life of a wheel is short, and we have to cut down its
tire every few months. Moreover, the sand gets into the bearings, and
there is a continual wearing which necessitates almost constant repair.”
“How about your sandstorms? Are they serious obstacles to traffic?”
“At times, yes. They come with such violence that they cover the tracks;
they cloud the sun so that when you are in one you cannot see your hand
before your face. They often spring up afar off, so that you can watch
them coming. At such times the sand gets into everything and cuts its way
through all parts of the machinery.
“Another thing we have to contend with,” continued the railway manager,
“is the extraordinary dryness of the air, which shrinks our rolling stock
so that it has to be tightened up again and again. One of our passenger
cars will shrink as much as eighteen inches in one wall alone, and we
have to put in extra boards to fill up the gaps. The same is true of all
sorts of woodwork.
“Another trouble is the white ant. That little termite eats anything
wooden. It chews up the insides of our cars and even attacks the
furniture. Where there is the least moisture the ants will go for the
railroad ties, and they will chew out the insides of the wooden telegraph
poles. They always work under cover, leaving a thin shell of wood
outside. The result is that a tie or pole may look sound then all at once
it will crumble to pieces. We have to inspect the road very carefully at
regular intervals and watch out for weak points. We now use hollow steel
tubes as ties. They do not make so smooth a road as the wooden ties, but
the ants cannot eat them. We also have steel telegraph poles.”
“I noticed my train was pulled by an American locomotive. How do they
compare with those from Great Britain?” I inquired.
“Not well,” replied the railroad director. “We have some of your engines
which we bought seven years ago. We are still using them, but most of
them have been repaired and made over. You people make locomotives,
expecting to run them to their full capacity for four or five years and
then throw them on the scrap heap. This is not advisable out here in
the desert, where freight costs so much and the trouble of getting our
rolling stock is so great. We want machinery that will stand all sorts
of trials, including the climate. We want it rustproof and rotproof and
heavily made all around. We have here not only the dry air and the sand
to contend with, but also in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea the salt
air and the alkali water.”
“I suppose the lack of water is one of your chief difficulties, is it
not?” I asked.
“Yes. This railroad is over three hundred miles long and the track is
laid through the sand. For about one third of the distance inland from
the Red Sea the country is mountainous, but the rest of it is flat.
There are no streams, so we have to rely on artesian wells for our water
supply. We have bored a number, but we find that the water in many places
is salt. We struck one well which had three per cent. of salt in it, and
another in which the water was one per cent. salt. Of course such water
is useless for our locomotives.
“We are having trouble also in getting a good water supply at Port Sudan.
We sunk one well to a depth of eight hundred feet and struck a good flow
of fresh water. We had hardly completed, it, however, before the salt
water began to seep in, and we are now drilling again. There are some
stretches along the route where there is no water whatever. In such
places we have to carry our supply with us. For this we have tanks of
galvanized iron, each of which will hold about fifteen hundred gallons.”
From Atbara I took a later train to continue my journey on toward
Khartum. About one hundred miles south of Atbara we stopped at Shendi,
where the Queen of Sheba is said to have lived. This is a station on
the east bank of the Nile five hours or more from Khartum. It is a
considerable town with railroad shops. I saw great piles of steel ties
such as Captain Midwinter mentioned.
[Illustration: The mud towers outside some Egyptian huts are used by
whole families as cool sleeping places out of reach of scorpions.
Sometimes mothers leave their babies in them while they are working in
the fields.]
[Illustration: The child so contentedly sucking sugar cane is, like four
out of every hundred children in Egypt, blind in one eye. This is due
chiefly to the superstition and ignorance of their parents.]
Shendi consists of an old and a new town. The latter has been laid out by
the British and has a park in the centre watered by the Nile. In ancient
times there was a great city here, for it was the capital of the country
and the supposed residence of the Queen of Sheba, who went from here down
the Nile and crossed to Palestine. There she had her famous flirtation
with King Solomon. The Abyssinians say that she went back by the Red Sea
and stopped in their country; and that while there she bore a son whose
father was Solomon and who became the head of the line of kings which
rule Abyssinia to-day. The Mohammedans, on the other hand, say that the
Queen of Sheba did not live here at all. They claim that her residence
was in Yemen, Arabia, and that Solomon went there to visit her. The
queen’s name was Balkis. As witty as she was beautiful, she gave the wise
Solomon many a riddle which he was puzzled to answer.