erefore of vital
importance. The survey was at once undertaken, and a suitable route
was chosen through the newly acquired and unmapped territory. Of the
ninety-five miles of extended track, fifty-six were through the desert,
and the constructors here gained the experience which was afterwards
of value on the great Desert Railway from Wady Halfa to the Atbara.
Battalions of troops were distributed along the line and ordered to
begin to make the embankments. Track-laying commenced south of Kosheh on
the 9th of October, and the whole work was carried forward with feverish
energy. As it progressed, and before it was completed, the reach of the
river from the Third Cataract to Kenna ceased to be navigable. The army
were now dependent for their existence on the partly finished railway,
from the head of which supplies were conveyed by an elaborate system of
camel transport. Every week the line grew, Railhead moved forward, and
the strain upon the pack animals diminished. But the problem of feeding
the field army without interfering with the railway construction was one
of extraordinary intricacy and difficulty. The carrying capacity of the
line was strictly limited. The worn-out engines frequently broke down.
On many occasions only three were in working order, and the other five
undergoing 'heavy repairs' which might secure them another short span
of usefulness. Three times the construction had to be suspended to allow
the army to be revictualled. Every difficulty was, however, overcome.
By the beginning of May the line to Kenna was finished, and the whole
of the Railway Battalion, its subalterns and its director, turned their
attention to a greater enterprise.

In the first week in December the Sirdar returned from England with
instructions or permission to continue the advance towards Khartoum,
and the momentous question of the route to be followed arose. It may at
first seem that the plain course was to continue to work along the Nile,
connecting its navigable reaches by sections of railway. But from Merawi
to Abu Hamed the river is broken by continual cataracts, and the
broken ground of both banks made a railway nearly an impossibility. The
movements of the French expeditions towards the Upper Nile counselled
speed. The poverty of Egypt compelled economy. The Nile route, though
sure, would be slow and very expensive. A short cut must be found. Three
daring and ambitious schemes presented themselves: (1) the line followed