The Earliest Freight Which The Railway Carried To Kosheh Was The First Of
The New Stern-Wheel Gunboats.
Train after train arrived with its load of
steel and iron, or with the cumbrous sections of the hull, and a warship
in pieces - engines, armaments, fittings and stores - soon lay stacked by
the side of the river.
An improvised dockyard, equipped with powerful
twenty-ton shears and other appliances, was established, and the work -
complicated as a Chinese puzzle - of fitting and riveting together the
hundreds of various parts proceeded swiftly. Gradually the strange heaps
of parts began to evolve a mighty engine of war. The new gunboats were in
every way remarkable. The old vessels had been 90 feet long. These were
140 feet. Their breadth was 24 feet. They steamed twelve miles an hour.
They had a command of 30 feet. Their decks were all protected by steel
plates, and prepared by loopholed shields for musketry. Their armament was
formidable. Each carried one twelve-pounder quick-firing gun forward,
two six-pounder quick-firing guns in the central battery, and four Maxim
guns. Every modern improvement - such as ammunition hoists, telegraphs,
search-lights, and steam-winches - was added. Yet with all this they drew
only thirty-nine inches of water.
The contract specified that these vessels should be delivered at Alexandria
by the 5th of September, but, by exertions, the first boat, the Zafir,
reached Egypt on the 23rd of July, having been made in eight weeks, and in
time to have assisted in the advance on Dongola.
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