236 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

engines of various sorts, with and without wheels, with and without boilers, and in every stage of decay; steam-pumps, steam-cranes, pyramids of rails and sleepers, mountains of iron bolts and rivets, a huge cairn built entirely of wheelbarrows, a mound of camel saddles, and another mound of camel nets; great coils of cable, numerous red iron tanks, capable of holding each a couple of tons of water; a few miles of telegraph wire, with a number of poles, a heap of iron chairs — not chairs to sit on, but for the use of the sleepers — barrels of blasting fuse and of paint, stacks of dry waterskins, a lane of oil jars, both full and empty, a bristling breastwork of picks and shovels, and innumerable other articles, complete and incomplete, in good and bad repair, the names of which I know not, are strewn about the ground in such strange confusion as to recall to the mind of the beholder the story of the sleeping beauty, and its quaint illustrations of the effect of the spell on all within its influence."

The actual line, which runs in the direction of Dongola for 34 miles, starts from about a mile above the station, skirts the village, and, touching the river at the commencement of the cataracts, takes a loop across the rocky desert through one or two cuttings which must have cost a large amount of labour, and strikes the river at Sarras. Beyond that point no rails had been laid, but the permanent way had been prepared for a further distance of 22 miles to within seven miles of the head of the Ambukol cataracts — some very difficult rapids. A cutting of about 300 yards in length, which would here have carried the line to the edge of the river, had been carried on for some distance. It had been decided that though there was not sufficient time to complete this work, the railway should be carried to the entrance of the cutting, and this, with the repairs, reinstatement of engines, &c, and the reconstruction of the trucks, which were to answer the purpose of carriages as well as for the transport of baggage, munition, &c, would, it was calculated, occupy some weeks.

But not only was the sleepy and forgotten village startled into activity by the invasion of an army of engineers and labourers who seemed capable of resuscitating the mechanical vitality of