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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



„ : 



MOSLEM WOMEN IN A VILLAGE OF 1 ASIA MINOR 



with the gauge of the Beirut-Damascus credit is due in bringing the line success- 

 line, over which the rolling stock had to fully into Medina, and to Hajji Mukhtar 

 be brought. The branch to the Mediter- Bey, a brilliant Turkish engineer, who 

 ranean, at Haifa, was constructed sub- has absorbed all modern methods of con- 

 sequently. The rolling stock has been struction, and completed the last section 

 obtained principally from Belgium, with into Medina without European assist- 

 the exception of the engines, which are ance. 



made by a German firm. The rails were In conclusion, it is difficult which to 

 supplied by the American Steel Trust, admire the most, this far-reaching con- 

 by a French firm domiciled in Russia, ception of His Majesty the Sultan — to 

 and by the firm of Cockerill, in Belgium, build the line and thus to further the in- 

 The engineers in charge of sections terests of his religion and bind together 

 were also of various nationalities — the outlying portions of his empire — or 

 Erench, Poles, Hungarians, etc. — while the silent, unswerving devotion of the 

 the guiding spirit in the construction has Turkish soldier who has carried the mat- 

 been Meissner Pasha, a very able Ger- ter to a conclusion, and who watches 

 man engineer. But besides these the without complaint over miles of line 

 general direction has been under Marshal through a country almost without water 

 Kiazim Pasha, to whom the greatest or inhabitants. 



