Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

ENGINEERING WONDERS ' OF THE WORLD. 200 STRAINING THE WIRE. only to drink from a pool near by. When it was eventually shot, it proved to be an exceedingly fine specimen. Herds of elephants were met with occasionally, but they caused no serious trouble. While waiting for material, how- ever, or when there Damage were delays from other causes, the Animals_____ constructors were wont to organize shooting parties, and some very fine “ bags ” were obtained. These elephants are, however, now proving a nuisance over the portions of the line where the wire has been erected. The poles in particular seem to have a peculiar fascination for them. They regard them as eminently suitable rubbing-posts—with dis- astrous results, since the pole has yet to be built that can withstand the caress of a full-grown African “ tusker.” Another expensive item in the maintenance of the line is the rapidity with which vegetation all the spectators flying headlong into the bush, squealing at the top of their voices, to the great amusement of the black “ boys ” attending the construction parties. Actual encounters with wild animals were not so plentiful as might have been expected, but, of course, they occurred from time to time. Once a huge man-eating lion mounted guard outside the door of a testing-hut where one solitary operator was at work, and kept him a close prisoner for nearly a week. He had run out of ammunition, and had to tele- graph to the next station, some considerable distance away, for a party to be sent to his rescue. Never once did the animal go more than twenty yards from the hut, and then springs up in this part of “ Clearings,” through the middle of which, the line passes, were made in the jungles and forests. In the wet seasons of the world. And by Vege- tation. the year, however, climbing plants spring up with, amazing rapidity, and entwine themselves around the posts and run along the wire, ulti- mately breaking it down with their weight ; and during the heavy storms that take place in Central Africa at certain seasons of the year, huge trees are often blown against the poles or the wire, snapping both like so much matchwood and packthread. Another curious cause of trouble is the partiality that hornets show for building their nests between the