The engineer carried his line south of Ma’an steadily upwards along the longitudinal ridge of a plateau, until at last he gained an altitude of 3,700 feet. Then the bank dropped sheer into a picturesque wild chasm known as Batn-el-Ghoul, or “the Devil’s Belly.”
The line reached the brink of the precipice. From there it had to be carried to the bed of the ravine which inclines to Tabuk, the next important point on the railway. But how was that gorge to be entered? how could the lower level be gained? A detour so as to avoid the escarpment was impossible, as the ridge stretched for miles on either hand.
Meissner Pasha hurried to the railhead. He surveyed every foot of ground in the vicinity, at one time clinging tenaciously to a crag; at another being swung over a cliff by a rope; then perched on a jagged pinnacle eagerly searching for some solution of his difficulty. He traversed the pilgrim road, which is but a mere trail dropping into the valley in a series of steep steps, time after time. The railway could not be carried parallel with the caravan road—that was perfectly obvious. The line of the overland route, which had for so long been a reliable guide, now deserted him. But the engineer refused to be daunted, and after prolonged reconnoitring he finally evolved a remarkable project, which proved a highly successful solution.
Photo, Helladjian]
THE RAILWAY IN THE DOMAIN OF THE GENII
The line is to the right. The fantastic shapes of the Arabian mountains are revealed in a striking manner. A railway camp in the foreground.
As he could not carry the line straight down into the valley, he devised a kind of spiral, in which the railway effects what may be best described as a “corkscrew” down the cliff face. From the brink of the ravine it makes a gentle fall, the line clinging to the precipices on a gallery cut for the purpose. After descending for some distance, it suddenly describes a sharp curve and winds back again. Then comes another loop and another redouble, this meandering being continued until the bed of the ravine is gained. It is an ingenious piece of work, and will rank always as one of the most prominent wonders of the railway, as well as a monument to the engineer’s ingenuity.
Photo, Helladjian]