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National Geographic : 1907 Nov
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QUEER METHODS OF TRAVEL A Market Camel being Unloaded on a Sidewalk in Cairo, while Pedestrians Walk in the Street. Photo by O. P. Austin I know that the query which will arise in your minds will be, "How can you successfully 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 Manchester 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 century in an swer to popular requirements. The feasi bility of making and maintaining good roads in the tropics is shown by 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, ooo miles in length. Give to the tropics. and the orient a vehicle which will dog what the horse does in the temperate zone occident, and the plentiful supply of cheap labor in those countries will make 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 facility, in the form of 713
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