Once the new line is completed, the distance from Khartoum to the sea will be reduced by about two-thirds, to some 450 miles, with a proportionate reduction in expense of carriage, and it will then be possible to think of building other feeder lines in various parts of the Soudan. A branch line to Kassala and on to Gedaref and Gallabat along the Abyssinian frontier will tap a very rich district and open up the Abyssinian trade. Possibly in the distant future such a line may be continued southwards so as to connect with Uganda. In the recent agreement with Abyssinia, powers have been taken to build in Abyssinian territory for this purpose. But this is still a long way outside practical politics. Of far more importance for the immediate development of the country would be a light railway from Omdurman or Duem to El Obeid, or across the rich Ghezireh from Duem to Wad Medani on the Blue Nile, or, again, from near Wad Medani to Gedaref. Easy communication with the sea will render it possible to bring the necessary plant into the country at a reasonable cost, and the experience gained as to material and labour in building the Suakin line will also be invaluable. Meanwhile the provincial Governors are doing all they can to improve the caravan routes and roads. In great part of the Soudan this is simply a question of increasing the number of wells; metalled roads are scarcely necessary as yet, outside a few towns. Wheel traffic is almost non-existent; the camel and the ass are the great public carriers. It is rather strange that the camel has not been more used for pulling wheel transport than he has. One camel can pull three or four times as much as he can carry. All the heavy machinery of the Nile Valley Gold Mining Company, working in Nubia, has been transported in this way from the river, a distance of sixty miles. Rarely a camel may be seen hauling a plough in Egypt. But there are limits to the use of camels. They cannot breed successfully south of parallel 13°, and in all the country south of this the serut fly makes it almost impossible for either them or horses to live at certain seasons of the year.