New-York tribune., 1902-01-12
FROM FAR OFF MONGOLIA.
RAPID RAILWAY BUILDING.
Correspondence Of rhe london News.

Correspondence Of The London News.
You will not find on map the cluster S Of wooden
RaiIwaT on Saturday, October 10, came to a sud
den stop But You may easily find the aggna
and Manchqra END # you draw E liz Line Il from ON aar Mar
gois. to sitskar spelt sometimes Tsitsihar in the
land of the Manchus, you may suppose Mindenken
to lie Within the eastern shadow of the HAgan
have said that that Saturday lay the the EsiIway
1t would stop further west on the Monday further M
Se h & Sa Saf line al se f@s s1G
time this letter appears in print the two Will have
journey from Paris to Peking by rail will be com
For never since man was able to WELD spade
has any work been pushed on with such rapidity
severa ss saS niles up the line to Where the building
in progress. Toward a great cleft in the mountains
thousand Chinese coolies were doing nothing else
but the m e END Of p0 poe efos he
sou6ers sES carry it between stakes and build
s0wg anG on their way back for another load Yet
%hst LOT OF Of blue ants they were surgng and
fro and Gradually re at the o6 RGFt 6e of 0a5 the Russian
0VepSte op the new bank marched men ievelling the
earth where it humpSd Stacked thnsa nsar by n
them across the track. not always straight. and at
distances sometimes foot sometimes three feet
Not many yards behind where the rails were be
a dozen men on one side dozen men on the other,
fSSht fSs on 5"9 he epe Ia and them with Russian
foreman holding a stick TO measure the exact dis
tance they should be kept apart, there came the
cIane OF hammers and the driving OF clamps. That
nnished there possibly a levering up of
sIeeper and the shoveing under Of earth to get
something approximate to evenness Then the
trolley rIrnbled forward few yards and another
two rails were seized and laid. Behind all was a
long goods train, filed with railway building ma
terial, crawling in the wake OF the Worknen ana
feeding them with sleepers and rails and bolts T.
/ walked over the section built on the Friday. II
was humpy: the two rails We're like the hrst ei-
fort child draw parallel lines in some places
the rail holding the sleeper end from the
ground, instead OF resting on it.
But here the great fact-the railway was
being built, trains could IL and troops
be carried. And the laying of that line at the
extraordinary rate Of three English miles day!
That day. distance of forty miles (sixty versts)
separated the sections of the line working tow
ard one another. This I in n
tarantass. For the convenience of engineers and
officers and British journalists there was post
station. rather like cowhouse. exceedingly dirty
and when ] looked at the roof. than six
inches above my head. shuddered at finding it
simply heavng with bugs. The peasant Russians
have superstition about these creatures. They
won't kill them. Indeed, when they build a new
house they I'LL hat full Of bugs from the old resi-
dence and turn them loose in the one, for
house without bugs is an uniucky house The
things kept falling the floor, and the table, and
on my person; had bowl of cabbage soup, but
while eating it IL was necessary to hold my hat
the dish like a lid. to avoid accidents.