Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

VG4G of TH£ MONUMENT AT HAIFA STATION, THE SEA TERMINUS OF THE RAILWAY. ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE THE CONSTRUCTION. HE vast majority of railways are intended for transporting passengers and merchandise from point to point to serve the ends of ordinary social and commercial life. A very small number have been built with the object of troops upon a frontier—strategic railways, and one only, owes its existence to religi- ous motives, and that one is the Hedjaz line, which, as will be seen from our map, starts at Damascus—the Gate of concentrating One railway, Its Religious Origin. Allah—and runs almost due south for more than 820 miles to Medina, the burial-place of Mohammed. Except for a comparatively short distance at its northern end, this remarkable line traverses country so wild and sterile as to render any prospects of dividends extremely doubtful. This fact does not affect its im- portance, however, as the metals were laid with the express—we might almost say sole—purpose of carrying Moslem pilgrims to the holy cities of Hedjaz—Medina and Mecca—to which every Mohammedan is in duty bound to make the Hadj, or sacred journey, at least once in his lifetime, no matter how remote his country may be. The Turks of Turkey in Europe and of Asia Minor form a very important section of the followers of the prophet, for is not the temporal head of the Ottoman Empire also the spiritual head of Islam ? To reach the holy cities from the Levant a pilgrim might either make for Damascus, and thence trace, in fifty-two stages, the painful overland The Old Methods of reaching Mecca. route through the land of Moab and Arabia Petræa, exposed to the greatest privations, scorched and parched and blistered by the sun, plundered and maimed by fierce brigands ; or he might take ship to Jeddah, the Red Sea gate to the shrines of his religion. The sea voyage on a crowded, often plague-stricken ship was hardly less tedious and dangerous than the land journey ; and common to both alternatives was the march through the country lying between Mecca and Medina, a rough, cruel country haunted by robber bands.