In the Gundakin Defile, eight miles long, two tunnels had to be made through some most treacherous material, and four bridges had to be provided.
The Chuppur Rift is a chasm three miles long in the spurs of a rocky mountain forming an apparently insuperable barrier. In time of floods the river attains a height of from 30 to 40 ft. The running of the railway on a ledge along the side of the mountain being impracticable, owing to the nature of the rock, the engineers cut a line of continuous tunnels partly on one side of the rift and partly on the other, connecting the two series by an iron girder bridge; but, instead of constructing the tunnels in the usual way, from each end—a procedure which would have taken much time—they adopted the expedient of driving openings (adits) into the side of the cliff at various points, and then cutting the tunnel right and left of each of these openings until the various sections met. The only way in which the openings could be made was by lowering men down by ropes several hundred feet from the top of the cliff until they reached the point where the work for an opening was to be started. They then drove crowbars into the perpendicular sides of the cliff in order to gain the necessary support for a platform from which the blasting operations could be carried on. Six of these openings were made on one side of the cliff and six on the other. As a separate gang of men could operate at each it was possible to complete the whole work in the course of a few months. Altogether there is a collective length of 6,400 ft. of tunnels in the rift, in addition to a viaduct 75 ft. high, with seven spans of 40 ft. each, and a bridge having an elevation over the river of 250 ft., and consisting of a central span of 150 ft. and eight spans of 40 ft.
On the summit level, twenty-five miles in length, came the five-mile long Mud Gorge,—a narrow valley, between precipitous mountains, filled with a soil little better than dried mud, and of such a character that several bad slips of road-bed, carrying away the whole of the line, occurred.
One would think that with all these difficulties—physical, climatic and engineering—to face, the constructors of the railway might have been excused any more; but there were others besides.
In August and September, 1884, the troops and native labourers employed on the work on the lower part of the line were visited by an outbreak of fever and scurvy of a virulence almost unprecedented in Indian experience. Large numbers of the men died. In one gang of 200 the average number of deaths was ten a day. Of those who survived the majority were so prostrated as to be scarcely capable of doing anything. Sixty per cent. of the Sappers were in hospital.
Fresh troops, to the extent of three Battalions of Pioneers, were brought on to the work; but they had scarcely arrived before—in November—there was a severe outbreak of cholera. The Afghans thereupon "bolted to a man"; and they were followed by many skilled artisans who had been collected from various parts of India. Additional labour had to be obtained from the Eastern Punjab, but much time was lost.
Whilst the engineers were struggling to overcome these manifold difficulties, the political situation was steadily becoming still more acute. The climax seemed to be reached by the Penj-deh incident of March 30, 1885, when a Russian force under General Komaroff seized this important strategical position, situate near the junction of the Khushk and Murghab rivers. On April 27, 1885, Mr. Gladstone proposed in the House of Commons a vote of £11,000,000 for the purposes of what then seemed to be an inevitable war with Russia. The money was voted the same night.
So the urgency for completing the line which would now, probably, have been available for use had it not been stopped in 1880, was greater than ever. Orders were sent to India that the work must be continued along all parts of the line regardless of seasons. Within a week or two, however, of the war vote at Westminster, cholera broke out afresh among the construction party in India. By the end of May it was spreading among them "like a raging fire"; while to the cholera itself there was added a heat so intense that even the most willing of workers found it almost unendurable.
Under this combination of cholera and excessive heat, work on the lower sections of the line was stopped altogether for a time—Government orders and Russians notwithstanding. All possible measures were taken to mitigate the severity of the epidemic; but the death-rate increased with frightful rapidity. Some of the best workers, European and Asiatic—men who could least be spared, on account of the responsible positions they held—were carried off. During the month of June no fewer than 2,000 died out of 10,000. Of the remainder large numbers sought safety in flight. Many of the minor Government officials, such as telegraph and Post Office clerks, went off in a body.
Whilst sickness and disease had thus been afflicting the camps, fresh troubles had arisen in another direction. Early in 1885 the district was visited by a succession of floods exceeding in severity anything known there for sixty years. In the course of three months the rainfall amounted to 19.27 inches,—a total six times in excess of the average. Several bridges and many miles of temporary roads were washed away; numerous accidents were caused; camping grounds were destroyed; communications were interrupted; food supplies became scarcely obtainable, and great delay resulted in the prosecution of a work for which urgency was being so persistently demanded. The floods did not finally subside until the end of May.