At The Beginning Of July A Well Was Sunk In
What Was Thought To Be A Likely Place At 'No.
4 Station,' seventy-seven
miles from Halfa.
After five weeks' work water was found in abundance at a
depth of 90 feet. A steam-pump was erected, and the well yielded a
continual supply. In October a second well was sunk at 'No. 6 Station,'
fifty-five miles further on, whence water was obtained in still greater
quantity. These discoveries modified, though they did not solve, the water
question. They substantially increased the carrying capacity of the line,
and reduced the danger to which the construction gangs were exposed.
The sinking of the wells, an enterprise at which the friendly Arabs
scoffed, was begun on the Sirdar's personal initiative; but the chronicler
must impartially observe that the success was won by luck as much as by
calculation, for, since the first two wells were made, eight others of
greater depth have been bored and in no case has water been obtained.
As the railway had been made, the telegraph-wire had, of course,
followed it. Every consignment of rails and sleepers had been accompanied
by its proportion of telegraph-poles, insulators, and wire. Another
subaltern of Engineers, Lieutenant Manifold, who managed this part of the
military operations against the Arabs, had also laid a line from Merawi
to Abu Hamed, so that immediate correspondence was effected round the
entire circle of rail and river.
The labours of the Railway Battalion and its officers did not end with
the completion of the line to Abu Hamed. The Desert Railway was made.
It had now to be maintained, worked, and rapidly extended. The terminus at
Halfa had become a busy town. A mud village was transformed into a
miniature Crewe. The great workshops that had grown with the line were
equipped with diverse and elaborate machines. Plant of all kinds purchased
in Cairo or requisitioned from England, with odds and ends collected from
Ishmail's scrap heaps, filled the depots with an extraordinary variety of
stores. Foundries, lathes, dynamos, steam-hammers, hydraulic presses,
cupola furnaces, screw-cutting machines, and drills had been set up and
were in continual work. They needed constant attention. Every appliance
for repairing each must be provided. To haul the tonnage necessary to
supply the army and extend the line nearly forty engines were eventually
required. Purchased at different times and from different countries,
they included ten distinct patterns; each pattern needed a special reserve
of spare parts. The permutations and combinations of the stores were
multiplied. Some of the engines were old and already worn out. These broke
down periodically. The frictional parts of all were affected by the desert
sand, and needed ceaseless attention and repair. The workshops were busy
night and day for seven days a week.
To the complication of machinery was added the confusion of tongues.
Natives of various races were employed as operatives. Foremen had been
obtained from Europe. No fewer than seven separate languages were spoken
in the shops.
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