To string it was probably the most adventurous piece of work in the history of telephone linemen.

There was one seven hundred and fifty mile stretch of the central jungle.

There were white ants that ate the wooden poles, and wild elephants that pulled up the iron poles.

There were monkeys that played tag on the lines, and savages that stole the wire for arrow-heads.

But the line was carried through, and to-day is alive with conversations concerning rubber and ivory.
So, we may almost say of the telephone that "there is no speech nor language where its voice is not heard." There are even a thousand miles of its wire in Abyssinia and one hundred and fifty miles in the Fiji Islands.