A STRIKING PIECE OF RAILWAY BUILDING IN THE YARMUK GORGE The railway track is hewn out of the cliff, swings round the head of the gorge and reappears on the opposite side.] For months the constructional engineers were buried in the midst of the biting, scorching and driving sand, quite isolated from the outside world, the clang of the tools being the only sound breaking a silence so intense that it could be felt. Occasionally the news filtered through that the implacable nomads roaming the sweltering plains had swooped down upon the camps and that a desperate hand-to-hand struggle had been waged. Minute details were not vouchsafed, for such incidents became so frequent as to become monotonous. [Illustration: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF A CHASM IN PALESTINE, THROUGH WHICH THE LINE FOLLOWS A WINDING PATH ON THE LEFT] [Illustration: _Photos, Helladjian_] A MASONRY BRIDGE ON THE HOLY RAILWAY, SHOWING SOLIDITY OF CONSTRUCTION AND MOUNTAINOUS CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY] Yet the authorities scarcely anticipated that these marauders would wage such a relentless war against the advance of the railway as did eventually come to pass. Yet it was not surprising. The Bedouins realised that the completion of the railway would bring their life of pillage and murder to an end, and accordingly they challenged every foot of its advance. Sometimes they won, massacred the encampment, and destroyed the line for some distance; at others they lost and were routed right and left. The story of the Mahdi’s opposition to the British penetration of Egypt was repeated in Palestine and Arabia, only, if anything, with more determined fury. The soldiers worked with their arms beside them, and protected by a line of guards thrown out some distance around the railhead.