On the advance to El Obeid the bridging of the White Nile had to be carried out, and here again British engineering triumphed, for the contract was awarded to the builders of the Khartoum bridge. This firm, with these two Nile bridges and the Victoria Bridge across the Zambesi, may be said to have imprinted their name indelibly in Africa in connection with bridge-engineering. The point of crossing is Goz Abu Guma, and owing to the erratic character of the White Nile its design occupied considerable deliberation. This river is sluggish both in time of flood and in the dry season. Indeed, it might be described as a huge ditch. When low the water occupies a channel about 1,500 feet in width, but in the wet season it sprawls across the country for a matter of three miles or so. It was decided, however, that the bridging of the normal channel would suffice, the line being carried over the part subject to periodical inundation upon well-built embankments. The over-water structure comprises 9 steel spans each 146 feet in length, and one swing-bridge span 245½ feet in length to permit navigation up- and down-river, because the Sudan Development & Exploration Company maintain a steamship service between Khartoum and Gondoroko, the head of navigation on the Nile, 1,081 miles from Gordon’s city. The spans are 6 feet above the level of High Nile, and are supported on masonry piers sunk in steel caissons, or cylinders, under the agency of compressed air, to a depth ranging between 30 to 50 feet below low water. Although the iron link has stretched beyond Khartoum to the south, Alexandria and Cairo are not in through railway communication with the capital of Sudan, 1,480 miles away. The Egyptian railways have their most southerly outpost at Shellal, just below Assuan, which is about 24 hours’ journey from the Mediterranean seaboard by the White _de luxe_ express. The terminal of the Sudan system is at Haifa, just south of the border between the two countries. The river Nile constitutes the artery of communication between these two railway points, the steamer occupying about 40 hours. This break in the iron chain possesses distinct drawbacks, the most serious of which is transhipment between steamer and railway. The expense and inconvenience of this route, with its breaking bulk, reacted severely upon the Upper Sudan, and accordingly the latter Government decided to secure an independent outlet to the coast. There was only one means of accomplishing this end, and that was to strike eastwards across country to gain the Red Sea.