MEDITERRANEAN TO SUDAN ened 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 out¬ side. 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 tele¬ graph poles/’ “I noticed my train was pulled by an American loco¬ motive. 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 re¬ paired 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 157