Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1904 — The Cape to Cairo Railway. [ARTICLE]

The Cape to Cairo Railway.

When Cecil Rhodes gave voice to Ills scheme of a Oape-to-Cairo railroad the world smiled and wondered at the vagueness of big men’s dreams. This was only a few years ago. Today about two-thirds of the six thousand miles between Cape Town and Cairo can be traveled with steam as the .propelling power. Most of this is by rail, while the rest —an insignificant and rapidly diminishing break —is by steamer on the Nile. The southern portion of the Cape-to-Cairo railroad, as already completer, extends from Cape Town to the southern bank of the Zambesi river at Victoria Falls — a distance, roughly speaking, of I.GOO miles. At this point a bridge which will carry the rails across the gorge of the Zambesi at a height of more than four hundred feet above the surface of the river, is already under course of construction. When this bridge is finished the railroad will be pushed toward Lake Tanganyika, 350 miles further north. Between- Lake Tanganyika and the southern end of the completed railway that reaches south from Cairo is a distance of about sixteen hundred miles. In two years it is probable that this sixteen hundred miles will constitute the only break In the line of rails between Cape Town and Cairo. Of course Rhodes’ Cape-to-Cairo railroad Is as yet far from accomplishment. In view of the progress which has been made on the road during the past four years, however, it seems very probable that before the second decade of the twentieth century has passed—if not much earlier —the dream of the great English imperialist will have become a reality. It is interesting to realize that the completion of this railroad, typical as it is of the highest stage of England’s successful colonial expansion, will be very nearly, if not quite, contemporaneous with the coming to Englishmen of the opportunity to judge from sufficiently ample experience the results of that experiment which many well-informed men at the present time think is the greatest mistake —even the greatest crime—of England’s colonial history—the opening of her great possessions in South Africa to Chinese labor.—Cincinnati Times-Star.