By the most direct route of this system the journey from the Austrian capital to Trieste occupies nine hours. In that journey, comparatively no longer than that entailed in speeding over the greater distance separating London from Edinburgh, one passes through four distinct expanses of scenery. Vienna nestles in a broad valley flanked on all sides by the towering snow-topped Alps. The line, upon leaving the capital, first traverses the undulating foot-hills, then wends its way through the mountains to gain the richly wooded, verdant and beautiful country of Styria, and finally passes over a vast stretch of wilderness to descend abruptly to the coast. In forging this link in the railway chain the engineers had to overcome the Semmering range, which is amongst the most tumbled in the whole of the Austrian Alps. How did they do it? By following the natural facilities open to them: a ledge here, a gallery there; passing from this slope to that by a viaduct or bridge; zigzagging up the mountain slopes; tunnelling through rocky eminences; following winding paths for miles merely to gain points only a mile or two apart in a straight line. No doubt if that line were built to-day it would have its length cut in half, for railway engineering has advanced by leaps and bounds since 1848, when this pioneer project was taken in hand. In carrying their scheme to fulfilment these early engineers unconsciously achieved one notable distinction: they built the first mountain railway. What matter if banks did assume a rise of 132 feet or so per mile, and the line did wander in apparent aimlessness among the peaks? Speed then was not the vital consideration it is to-day, while traffic was comparatively light, so that the haulage facilities were not taxed severely. This mountain climb on the main line occurs between Gloggnitz and Murzzuschlag, the famous winter sporting centre in the Tyrol. The mountain crest is 4,577 feet above the sea-level, but the railway does not rise to that height; its summit is at 2,940 feet in the middle of a tunnel three-quarters of a mile in length beneath the Semmering Pass. But to gain that altitude from either side of the mountain entailed prodigious work. Pick, shovel, and gunpowder made heavy cuttings through projecting spurs, raised lofty embankments, filled gaping fissures, and cleaved galleries out of the solid rock. The two points on either side of the mountain are only fourteen miles apart in a straight line; by the railway it is more than twice the distance, the outstanding features which were necessary to render the undertaking _un fait accompli_ being fifteen tunnels, and a score of viaducts and bridges. To construct the thirty miles over the Semmering cost a round £2,000,000, or $10,000,000, in money, and occupied between three and four years to complete. [Illustration: THE WORKMEN CUTTING AND BLASTING A NARROW PATH ON THE STEEP MOUNTAIN SLOPES FOR THE KARAWANKEN RAILWAY]