were coy, and would not
be wooed. In 1851, the government appointed a commission to
investigate the whole subject. The commission consisted of five
persons; and their Report, dated October 20, 1851, contains a large
mass of valuable information. It appeared in an English translation in
some of the London journals towards the close of the year. The
commissioners take for granted that Spain will construct railways from
Madrid to the Portuguese frontier at Badajoz on the one side, and to
the French frontier, near Bayonne, on the other; and they then inquire
how best to reach Badajoz from Lisbon. Three routes present
themselves--one to Santarem, and across the Tagus to Badajoz; another
to Santarem and Coimbra, and so on into Spain by way of Almeida; and a
third to Oporto, and thence by Braganca into Spain. The first of
these, being more directly in the route to Madrid, is preferred by the
commissioners, who estimate the outlay at a million and a quarter
sterling. They discuss the terms on which capitalists might possibly
be induced to come to their aid; and they indulge in a hope that, ten
years hence, Lisbon may be united to Central Europe by a railway, of
which 260 kilometres will cross Portugal to Badajoz, 370 from Badajoz
to Madrid, and about 400 from Madrid to the French frontier, where the
Paris and Bayonne Railway will continue the route. (Five kilometres
are equal to rather more than three English miles.) The Continental
_Bradshaw_ will, we apprehend, have to wait long before these
peninsular trunk-lines find a place in its pages.

Leaving altogether the countries of Europe, and crossing the
Mediterranean, we find that even Africa is becoming a member of the
great railway system. After a world of trouble, financial and
diplomatic, the present ruler of Egypt has succeeded in giving reality
to a scheme for a railway from Alexandria to the Nile. A glance at a
map of Egypt will shew us that a canal extends from Alexandria to the
Nile, to escape the sanded-up mouths of that famous river. It is
mainly to expedite the overland route, so far as concerns the transit
along this canal, that the railway now in process of construction has
been planned; anything beyond this, it will be for future ages to
develop. The subject of the Isthmus of Suez and its transit has been
frequently treated in this _Journal_, and we will therefore say
nothing more here, than that our friend _Bradshaw_ will, in all
probability, have something to