This appears to be a mere crawl in comparison with the speeds with which we are familiar on the standard railways. But when one recalls the manner in which this little “toy” line has changed conditions of travel in a lonely corner of the African continent, and the former rate of progress possible by bullock-cart, even 9½ miles an hour appears to be an amazing speed. Before the iron horse appeared in German South-West Africa, to travel from Swakopmund to Omaruru, a mere 145 miles, was a heroic achievement, entailing a laborious slow tramp through lonely sterile wastes of boulders and scrub. A pace of 7 or 10 miles a day was considered fast travelling, and one who covered the journey in a fortnight was considered to have driven hard. To-day the same distance can be reeled off in about 12 hours. CHAPTER VII THE WONDERS OF THE TYROL Probably there is no country in Europe wherein are compressed so many and such varied marvels of engineering executed in connection with the building of the iron road as in Austria. As is well known, the country is a sea of towering rugged mountains, with steep slopes, knotted by crags and scarred by deep gullies, intersected by broad sylvan valleys. Such topographical conditions impose a severe tax upon the skill and resources of the engineer. Consequently this territory has been the scene of many grim grapples with Nature--some in which the odds have been overwhelmingly against the engineers, and in which success has been achieved only by dogged perseverance. Conspicuous in this direction are the wonderful tunnels. It was the successful piercing of the Mont Cenis and St. Gotthard tunnels that first spurred the Austrian engineers to work of this character. Their first attempt, the boring of the Arlberg, was such a conspicuous success that they did not hesitate afterwards to have recourse to such methods when all other means appeared impracticable. To-day the country can point to four huge Alpine tunnels which stand among the foremost achievements of their class in the world. Such ways and means for forcing the iron road from one point to another are highly expensive, but in each instance the ends have justified the means. By their provision, points only a few miles apart as the crow flies, and which with surface railways could have been connected only by wearying, devious routes, have been brought into close communication. When the Arlberg chain was taken in hand, the preliminary surveys showed that it would approximate seven miles in length, and that about the centre of the tunnel a solid mass of rock, 1,600 feet in thickness, would extend from the roof and track to the storm-swept mountain pass overhead.