CHRONICLES OF A CONTRACTOR (Presentation copy)

First edition: xii, 240 pages, frontispiece portrait, uncut fore-edge and bottom edge, light foxing mainly on the fore-edge, blue cloth titled gilt on the spine - which is starting to fray at the top and the bottom, a good copy.

The inscription on the front free end paper reads: With Pauling & Co compts. 18 May 1926

An autobiography by a colourful and dynamic late-Victorian engineer who won international repute for his accomplishments, not least of which was the building of many of southern Africa's major railway links.

George Pauling came to South Africa from Britain at the age of 20, founded Pauling & Co. in 1877 with his brother, and completed his first construction job in 1881 the 65 mile Port Alfred Railway. Thereafter, contracts came thick and fast: Sterkstroom to Aliwal North, Orange River to Kimberley, Springs to Krugersdorp, Johannesburg to Pretoria and, the most herculean project of all, the first stage of the line between Beira, on the Mocambique coast, to Umtali in the highlands of eastern Rhodesia. On this undertaking he lost 60 per cent of his labour force in each of the first three years through malaria, blackwater fever and the depredations of marauding animals.

Meanwhile the company had broadened its scope of activity to include railway construction in the Middle East, public works, dam, harbour and bridge building in Greece, Angola, China, the Argentine and India. Cecil Rhodes commissioned Pauling to complete the first stage of his ambitious Cape-to-Cairo line. http://www.booksofzimbabwe.com/rag6.html