That
marvellous bird-life was worth travelling seven thousand miles to see;
wheatfields can be seen anywhere.
CHAPTER IX
Difficulties of an Argentine railway engineer--Why Argentina has the
Irish gauge--A sudden contrast--A more violent contrast--Names and
their obligations--Capetown--The thoroughness of the Dutch pioneers--A
dry and thirsty land--The beautiful Dutch Colonial houses--The
Huguenot refugees--The Rhodes Fruit Farms--Surf-riding--Groote
Schuur--General Botha--The Rhodes Memorial--The episode of the Sick
Boy--A visit from Father Neptune--What pluck will do.
A railway engineer in the Argentine Republic is confronted with
peculiar difficulties. In the first place, in a treeless country there
is obviously no wood for sleepers. A thousand miles up the giant
Parana there are vast tracts of forest, but either the wood is
unsuited for railway-sleepers, or the means of transport are lacking,
so the engineer is forced to use iron pot-sleepers for supporting his
rails. These again require abundant ballast, and there is no ballast
in a country devoid of stone and with a soil innocent of the smallest
pebble. The engineer can only use burnt clay to ballast his road, and
as a result the dust on an Argentine railway defies description.
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