THE UGANDA RAILWAY this chapter is written, I am more than a mile above the sea, and, about fifteen miles farther on at the station of Kikuyu, the road reaches an altitude seven hundred feet above the top of Mt. Washington. From there the ascent is steady to a point a mile and a half above the sea. Then there is a great drop into a wide, ditch-like valley two thousand feet deep. Crossing this valley, the railway again rises until it is far higher than any mountain in the United States east of the Rockies. It attains an elevation of eighty-three hundred feet, and then falls down to Lake Victoria, which is just about as high as the highest of the Alleghanies. The line was built by the British Govern¬ ment in less than five years and has cost altogether some thirty-five million dollars. It has a gauge of forty inches, rails which weigh fifty pounds to the yard, and tracks which are well laid and well ballasted. In an average year almost two hundred and fifty thousand tons of goods and five hundred thousand passengers are carried over it, and its earnings are more than its operating expenses.

It does not yet pay any interest on the capital invested, but it is of enormous value in the way of opening up, developing, and protecting the country. It was not con¬ structed as a commercial project but to combat the slave trade which flourished beyond the reach of the British warships. To-day the Uganda line is the dominant influ¬ ence of Kenya Colony.

Among the most interesting features are the American bridges, which cross all the great ravines between Nairobi and Lake Victoria. Every bit of steel and every bolt and rivet in them was made by American workmen in Ameri¬ can factories, and taken out here and put up under the superintendence of Americans. This was because of John 247