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 American factories, and taken out here and put up under the superintendence of Americans. This was because of John Bull’s desire to have the work done quickly and cheaply and at the same time substantially. While he had been laying the tracks from here to the sea our bridge companies had surprised the English by putting up the steel viaduct across the Atbara River in the Sudan within a much shorter time and far more cheaply than the best British builders could possibly do. Therefore, when the British Government asked for bids for these Uganda bridges, they sent the plans and specifications to the English and to some of our American firms as well. The best British bids provided that the shops should have two or three years to make the steel work, and longer still to erect it in Africa. The American Bridge Company offered to complete the whole job within seven months after the foundations were laid, and that at a charge of ninety dollars per ton, to be paid when all was in place and in working order. This price was about half that of the British estimates and the time was less than one third that in which the eight bridges already constructed had been built, so the American company got the contract. It carried it out to the letter, and had the government done its part, the work would have been completed in the time specified. Owing to delays of one kind and another, it really consumed five months longer, but it was all done within the space of one year, which was just about half the time that the British contractors asked to get their goods ready for shipment. The English were surprised at how easily and quickly the Americans carried out their contract and how little they seemed to make of it. A. B. Lueder, the civil engineer who was sent out to take charge of the construction, was little more than a boy and had graduated at Cornell University only a year or so before. There were about twenty bridge builders and foremen from different parts of the United States, and a Pennsylvania man named Jarrett who acted as superintendent of construction. Arriving at Mombasa in December, 1900, these men had completed their work before the following Christmas. They acted merely as superintendents and fancy workmen. All the rough labour was done by East Indians and native Africans, furnished by the British. When the road was started, the government planned to use only Africans, but finding this impossible, they imported twenty thousand coolies from India. The coolies came on contracts of from two to five years, at wages of from four to fifteen dollars a month and rations. The native labourers were paid about ten cents a day.