My work at Tsavo was finished in March,
1899, when I received instructions to proceed to
railhead and take charge of a section of the
work there. For many reasons I was sorry to
say good-bye to Tsavo, where I had spent an
eventful year; but all the same I was very glad
to be given this new post, as I knew that there
would be a great deal of interesting work to be
done and a constant change of camp and scene,
as the line progressed onward to the interior.
In good spirits, therefore, I set out for my new
headquarters on March 28. By this time
railhead had reached a place called Machakos Road,
some two hundred and seventy-six miles from
Mombasa and within a few miles of the great
Athi Plains, the latter being treeless and waterless
expanses, bare of everything except grass, which
the great herds of game keep closely cropped.
After leaving Tsavo, the character of the country
remains unaltered for some considerable distance,
the line continuing to run through the thorny
nyika, and it is not until Makindu is reached -
about two hundred miles from the coast - that
a change is apparent. From this place, however,
the journey lies through a fairly open and
interesting tract of country, where game of all kinds
abounds and can be seen grazing peacefully
within a few hundred yards of the railway. On
the way I was lucky enough to get some fine
views of Kilima N'jaro, the whole mountain from
base to summit standing out clearly and grandly,
with the lofty peak of Kibo topping the fleecy
clouds with its snowy head.
At Machakos Road I found the country and
the climate very different from that to which
I had grown accustomed at Tsavo. Here I could
see for miles across stretches of beautiful, open
downs, timbered here and there like an English
park; and it was a great relief to be able to
overlook a wide tract of country and to feel that
I was no longer hemmed in on all sides by the
interminable and depressing thorny wilderness.
As Machakos Road is some four thousand feet
higher above the sea level than Tsavo, the
difference in temperature was also very marked, and
the air felt fresh and cool compared with that
of the sun-baked valley in which I had spent the
previous year.
My instructions were to hurry on the
construction of the line as fast as possible to Nairobi,
the proposed headquarters of the Railway
Administration, which lay about fifty miles
further on across the Athi Plains; and I soon
began to find platelaying most interesting work.
Everything has to move as if by clockwork.
First the earth surface has to be prepared and
rendered perfectly smooth and level; cuttings
have to be made and hollows banked up; tunnels
have to be bored through hills and bridges thrown
across rivers. Then a line of coolies moves along,
placing sleepers at regular intervals; another
gang drops the rails in their places; yet another
brings along the keys, fishplates, bolts and nuts
while following these are the men who actually
fix the rails on the sleepers and link up from
one to another.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 70 of 130
Words from 36683 to 37227
of 68125
