MEDITERRANEAN TO SUDAN steamers as carry mail, and the letters are never left without some armed official to watch over them.

The railroads of Egypt and the Sudan are under the government, and 1 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 in¬ creasing. 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 re¬ ceive 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 hun¬ dred of them to about one hundred and fifty Europeans.

The Sudan roads go through a thinly populated coun¬ try, 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 151