“I have a map of the world here,” Haw answered, rising, and taking one down from the paper-rack. “You see the blue pencil marks. Those are the points where I propose to establish communication. Of course, I should begin by the obvious duty of finishing the Panama business.”
“Naturally.” The man's lunacy was becoming more and more obvious, and yet there was such precision and coolness in his manner, that Robert found himself against his own reason endorsing and speculating over his plans.
“The Isthmus of Corinth also occurs to one. That, however, is a small matter, from either a financial or an engineering point of view. I propose, however, to make a junction here, through Kiel between the German Ocean and the Baltic. It saves, you will observe, the whole journey round the coast of Denmark, and would facilitate our trade with Germany and Russia. Another very obvious improvement is to join the Forth and the Clyde, so as to connect Leith with the Irish and American routes. You see the blue line?”
“Quite so.”
“And we will have a little cutting here. It will run from Uleaborg to Kem, and will connect the White Sea with the Gulf of Bothnia. We must not allow our sympathies to be insular, must we? Our little charities should be cosmopolitan. We will try and give the good people of Archangel a better outlet for their furs and their tallow.”
“But it will freeze.”
“For six months in the year. Still, it will be something. Then we must do something for the East. It would never do to overlook the East.”
“It would certainly be an oversight,” said Robert, who was keenly alive to the comical side of the question. Raffles Haw, however, in deadly earnest, sat scratching away at his map with his blue pencil.
“Here is a point where we might be of some little use. If we cut through from Batoum to the Kura River we might tap the trade of the Caspian, and open up communication with all the rivers which run into it. You notice that they include a considerable tract of country. Then, again, I think that we might venture upon a little cutting between Beirut, on the Mediterranean, and the upper waters of the Euphrates, which would lead us into the Persian Gulf. Those are one or two of the more obvious canals which might knit the human race into a closer whole.”
“Your plans are certainly stupendous,” said Robert, uncertain whether to laugh or to be awe-struck. “You will cease to be a man, and become one of the great forces of Nature, altering, moulding, and improving.”