Queer Methods of Travel 



713 



A Market Camel being I'nloaded on a Sidewalk in Cairo, while Pedestrians AValk 

 in the Street. Photo bv O. P. Austin 



I know that the qner}' which will arise 

 in your minds will be, "How can you 

 successfull}- and profitably operate horse- 

 less freight vehicles in countries where 

 there are no roads, as is the case gener- 

 ally in the tropics and the orient?" To 

 this I reply, that if the freight-carrying 

 vehicle is supplied, the roads will be con- 

 structed. A hundred years ago the roads 

 of England were so bad that it took two 

 days and three nights of incessant travel 

 to go from Jilanchester to Glasgow ; and 

 at the beginning of the last century the 

 time required for a trip over the bad 

 roads from Philadelphia to Baltimore was 

 often 5 days, or as long as it now takes 

 to cross the continent. The fine roads 

 of Europe and whatever we have of 

 good roads in the United States have 

 come chiefly in the last centurv in an- 

 swer to popular requirements. The feasi- 

 bility of making and maintaining good 

 roads in the tropics is shown b}' the fact 

 that India, which had no wagon roads 



when England assumed control in that 

 country, is now noted for its fine and 

 well-kept roads, aggregating nearly 200^- 

 coo miles in length. Give to the tropics 

 and the orient a vehicle which will do 

 what the horse does in the temperate- 

 zone Occident, and the plentiful supply 

 of cheap labor in those countries will! 

 n:ake road-building a mere incident of 

 the development which will certainly 

 follow. 



The tropics and the orient are the great 

 undeveloped sections of the world. Within 

 the tropics are millions of square miles 

 of productive land and billions of dollars' 

 worth of products, for which the tem- 

 perate zones are calling. In the orient 

 are hundreds of millions of patient work- 

 ers, and for their products the Occident 

 is increasing its demands. The inability 

 of each of these sections to respond to our 

 demands has been because of the absence 

 of some available method of transporta- 

 tion. Given this facilitv, in the form of 



