Not until its sprawling bulk has been fettered by some regular means of communication can the Sahara be considered as effectually subdued. There has been much talk from time to time of a trans-Saharan railway from the rail-head at Colomb-Béchar in Southern Algeria to Timbuktu, whence one branch would continue southward to link up with the Ivory Coast system, while another would swing sharply westward to Dakar, on the coast of Senegal, and a third branch might be pushed eastward to the Lake Tchad country. The chief advocates of such a scheme are the French imperialists and military authorities, who see in such a railway a means of rushing vast numbers of black troops from the trans-Saharan territories to the aid of the mother-country in the event of another war. Personally, however, I do not look for this ambitious project to be realized until some time in the distant future. True, there are no insurmountable obstacles from the engineering point of view, as preliminary surveys have shown, but there are numerous objections. First of all, of course, comes the question of cost, which would necessarily be enormous—an expense which France, in her present impoverished condition, is quite unable to bear. Serious difficulties would be encountered in finding sufficient labor and in providing adequate supplies of water and fuel. It is generally admitted that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, effectively to protect a desert railway of such length from attacks by Touareg tribes. Such a system could not hope to be self-supporting, for the length of haul would be enormous; most of the country through which it would run is uninhabited and unproductive; and there would be almost nothing in the way of freight or passengers to be picked up along the route. Moreover it is becoming a grave question among authorities on transportation whether, even under the most favorable circumstances, railways can successfully compete with motor routes, the initial cost of which is far less, and which can be operated far more economically. The truth of the matter is that the recent conquest of the desert by the motor-car has been a serious blow to the project for a trans-Saharan railway, and I am inclined to believe that passengers and goods will be borne across the Great Sands on rubber instead of rails for many years to come. I doubt not that the desert motor service projected by M. Citroen will shortly be revived, either by himself or others, and that, in a much nearer future than most people suppose, it will be as simple a matter to cross the Sahara to Timbuktu by automobile as it has become to cross the Syrian Desert to Baghdad.