It was a great work; for there were no roads, no paths; 1,300 miles of the route had been traversed but once before by white men; provisions, wire, and poles had to be carried over immense stretches of desert; wells had to be dug along the route to supply the men and cattle with water.
A cable had been previously laid from Port Darwin to Java and thence to India, and there was telegraphic communication with England from India.
And so, if Adelaide could make connection with Port Darwin it meant connection with the whole world.

The enterprise succeeded.

One could watch the London markets daily, now; the profit to the wool-growers of Australia was instant and enormous.
A telegram from Melbourne to San Francisco covers approximately 20,000 miles--the equivalent of five-sixths of the way around the globe.

It has to halt along the way a good many times and be repeated; still, but little time is lost.

These halts, and the distances between them, are here tabulated .-- [From "Round the Empire." (George R.