Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/194

 of this territory, and also form an important section of the grand trunk line destined one day to connect the Niger and Timbuktu with the best port on the West African seaboard.

An excess of zeal somewhat difficult to explain has inspired the construction of a railway starting from the village of Kayes, on the left bank of the Upper Senegal,

7 miles below Medina, and intended to run for 310 miles eastward to the Niger. The works began in 1881 and were continued for three seasons ; but the small results compared with the heavy outlay, the great mortality of the Italian and Maroccan navvies, and the conviction that the project had been badly conceived, brought the enterprise to a close after a first section, 38 miles long, had been completed to a point beyond Diamu. The line has been surveyed and partly cleared