in bulawayo, which is in matabeleland, stands one of the most significant and impressive statues in the world. from the middle of that dusty, sun-baked thoroughfare known as main street rises the bronze image of a bulky, thick-set, shabbily clad man, his hands clasped behind him, his feet planted firmly apart, as he stares in profound meditation northward over africa. cecil john rhodes was the dreamer's name, and in his vision he saw twin lines of steel stretching from the cape of good hope straight away to the shores of the mediterranean; a railway, to use his own words, “cutting africa through the centre and picking up trade all the way.”
if ever a man was a strange blending of dreamer and materialist, of utopian and buccaneer, of clive and hastings with hawkins and drake, it was cecil rhodes. in other words, he dreamed great dreams and let no scruples stand in the way of their fulfilment. having trekked over nearly the whole of that vast territory that stretches northward from the orange and the vaal to the shores of lake tanganyika, his imagination saw in this fertile, sparsely settled country virgin soil for the building up of a new and greater britain. the predominance of the british in egypt and in south africa, [pg 191] and the fact that the territory under british control stretched with but a single break from the mouths of the nile to table bay, gave rise in the great empire-builder's mind to the project of a trunk-line railway “from the cape to cairo,” and under the british flag all the way. though rhodes's dream of an “all red” railway was rudely shattered by the convention of 1889, which allowed germany to stretch a barrier across the continent from the indian ocean to the congo state, he never abandoned the hope that a british zone would eventually be acquired through german east africa, either by treaty or purchase, even going so far as to open negotiations with the kaiser to this end on his own initiative.
it was a picturesque vision, said the men to whom he confided his dream, but impractical and impossible, for in those days the line from alexandria to assuan and another from cape town to kimberley practically comprised the railway system of the continent, and five thousand miles of unmapped forest, desert, and jungle, filled with hostile natives, savage beasts, and deadly fevers, lay between. but the man who had added to the british empire a territory greater than france, germany, austria-hungary, and italy combined; who had organised the corporation controlling the south african diamond fields; who had put down a formidable native uprising by going unarmed and unaccompanied into the rebel camp; and who was responsible, more than any other person, for the boer war, was not of the stamp which is daunted by either pessimistic predictions or obvious obstacles.
it was a slow and disheartening business at first, this building of a railway with a soul-inspiring name. the discovery of the diamond fields had already brought the line up to kimberley; the finding of gold carried it northward again to the rand; the opening up of rhodesia led the iron highway on to bulawayo, and there it stopped, apparently for good. but rhodes was undiscouraged. he felt that to push the railway northward from bulawayo to the southern shores of lake tanganyika was an obvious and necessary enterprise—the actual proof, as it were, of the british occupation. but the boer war was scarcely over, the national purse was drained almost dry, and even the most optimistic financiers shrank from the enormous expense and problematical success of building a railway into the heart of a savage and unknown country.
finally rhodes turned to the imperial government for assistance in this imperial enterprise, for the man who had added zululand, bechuanaland, matabeleland, mashonaland, barotseland, and nyasaland to the empire felt that the empire owed him something in return. he first laid his scheme before lord salisbury, then prime minister, who said that nothing could be done until he had a closer estimate of the expense. returning to central africa, rhodes had a flying survey of the route made in double-quick time, and with the figures in his pocket hastened back to london. this time the premier sent him to see sir michael hicks-beach, the chancellor of the exchequer. hicks-beach, who was notorious for his parsimony in the expenditure [pg 193] of national funds, was frigid and discouraging, but finally relaxed enough to say: “get a proper survey made of your proposed railway, with estimates drawn up by responsible engineers, and if the figure is not too unreasonable we will see what can be done.” fortified with this shred of hope, rhodes again betook himself to the country north of the zambezi, and, after months of work, hardship, and privation, facing death from native spears, poisonous snakes, and the sleeping-sickness, his men weakened by malaria and his animals killed by the dreaded tsetse-fly, he returned to england and presented his revised surveys and estimates to the chancellor of the exchequer. that immaculately clad statesman negligently twirled his eye-glass on its string as he regarded with obvious disfavour the fever-sunken cheeks and unkempt appearance of the pioneer. “really, mr. rhodes,” he remarked coldly, “i fear it is quite out of the question for her majesty's government to lend your scheme its countenance or assistance.” it is a pleasingly human touch that as the indignant empire-builder went out of the minister's room he slammed the door so that the pictures rattled on the wall.
after dinner that night rhodes strolled over to see a friend of kimberley days, a hebrew financier named alfred beit, in whom he found a sympathetic listener. as rhodes took his hat to go, beit casually remarked, “look here, rhodes, you'll want a start. four and a half million pounds is a big sum to raise. we'll do half a million of it, wernher [his partner] and i.” that [pg 194] meant success. though ministers of the crown turned a cold shoulder to the great imperialist who came to them with a great imperial enterprise, help came from two german jews who had become naturalised englishmen. the next day the city brought the total up to a million and a half, and within little more than a fortnight the entire four and a half millions were subscribed, the three names, rhodes, beit, and wernher, being accepted by the man in the street as sufficient guarantee of success. it was in this fashion that cecil rhodes raised the money for another great stride in his railway march northward.
by 1904 the road had progressed as far as the victoria falls of the zambezi, where it crosses the river on a wonderful steel-arch bridge—the highest in the world—its span, looking for all the world like a frosted cobweb, rising four hundred and twenty feet above the angry waters. “i want the bridge to cross the river so close to the falls,” directed rhodes, “that the travellers will have the spray in their faces.” “that is impossible,” objected the engineers. “what you ask cannot be done.” “then i will find some one who can do it,” said rhodes—and he did. the bridge was built where he wanted it, and as the zambezi express rolls out above the torrent the passengers have to close the windows to keep from being drenched with spray. by 1906 the rail-head had been pushed forward to broken hill, a mining centre in northern rhodesia; three years later found it at bwana m'kubwa, on the congo border. here the task of construction was taken up by the [pg 195] katanga railway company, and in february, 1911, freight and passenger trains were in operation straight through to elisabethville, in the heart of the belgian congo, two thousand three hundred and sixteen miles north of cape town and only two hundred and eighty miles from the southern end of lake tanganyika.
as you sit on the observation platform of your electric-lighted sleeping-car, anywhere along that section of the “cape-to-cairo” between cape town and the zambezi, you rub your eyes incredulously as you watch the rolling, verdure-clad plains stretching away to the foot-hills of distant ranges, and note the entire absence of those dense forests and steaming jungles which have always been associated, in the minds of most of us, with central africa. the more you see of this open, homely, rather monotonous country the harder it becomes for you to convince yourself that you are really in the heart of that mysterious, storied dark continent and not back in america again.
and the illusion is completed by the people, for the only natives you see are careless, happy, decently clad darkies who might have come straight from the levees of vicksburg or new orleans, while on every station platform are groups of fine, bronze-faced, up-standing fellows in corded riding-breeches and brown boots, their flannel shirts open at the neck, their broad-brimmed hats cocked rakishly—just such types, indeed, as were common beyond the mississippi twenty years ago, before store clothes and the motor-car had spoiled the picturesqueness of our own frontier.
north of the zambezi it is a different story, however, for there it is frontier still, with many of a frontier's drawbacks, for the prices of necessities are exorbitant and of luxuries fantastic; skilled workmen can command almost any wages they may ask, and common labour is both scarce and poor. the miner, the scientifically trained farmer, and the skilled workman have rich opportunities in this quarter of africa, however, for the mineral wealth is amazing, much of the soil is excellent, and civilisation is advancing over a great area with three-league boots.
for excitement, variety, and picturesqueness i doubt if the journey through barotseland and the katanga district of the congo can be equalled on any railway in the world. it is true that the uganda railway—which, by the way, does not touch uganda at all—has been better advertised, but in quantity of game and facilities for hunting it the territory through which it runs is no whit superior to that traversed by the “cape-to-cairo.” stroll a mile up or down the zambezi from the railway bridge and you can see hippos as easily as you can at the zoo in central park; in northwest rhodesia herds of bush-buck, zebras, and ostriches scamper away at sight of the train; and as you lie in your sleeping-berth at night, while the train halts on lonely sidings, you can hear the roar of lions and see the gleam of the camp-fires by means of which the railway employees keep them away. on one occasion, when our train was lying on a siding south of the zambezi, the conductor of the dining-car suddenly [pg 197] exclaimed, “look there, gentlemen—look over there!” his excitement was justified, for from over a screen of bushes, scarcely a biscuit's throw away, a herd of five giraffes craned their preposterous necks and peered at us curiously. once, when i was travelling through northwest rhodesia, our engine struck a bull elephant which had decided to contest the right of way. as the train was running at full speed, both engine and elephant went off the track. returning that way some days later, we noted that the local station-master had scraped the gargantuan skull to the bone, filled it with earth, and set it on the station platform as a jardinière to grow geraniums in. he was an ingenious fellow.
from the cairo end, meanwhile, the northern section of the great transcontinental system was being pushed steadily, if slowly, southward. the difficulties of river transportation experienced by the two sudanese expeditions had proved conclusively that if the sudan was ever to be opened up to european exploitation it must be by rail rather than by river. it was the khalifa who was unconsciously responsible for the rapid completion of much of the sudanese section of the “cape-to-cairo,” for, in order to come to hand-grips with him, kitchener and his soldiers pushed the railway down the desert to khartoum at record speed, laying close on two miles of track between each sunrise and sunset. there it halted for a number of years; but after the british had done their work, and khartoum had been transformed from a town of blood, lust, and fanaticism into a city with broad, shaded streets, along [pg 198] which stalks law and order in the khaki tunic of a sudanese policeman, the railway-building fever, which affects some men as irresistibly as the wanderlust does others, took hold of those who have the say, and the line was again pushed southward, along the banks of the blue nile, to sennar, one hundred and fifty-eight miles south of khartoum. with the completion, in 1910, of several iron bridges, it was advanced to kosti, a post on the white nile, with the northern end of lake tanganyika some twelve hundred miles away.
that a few more years will see the northern section extending southward, via gondokoro, to lake victoria nyanza, and the southern section northward to lake tanganyika, there is little doubt. indeed, the plans are drawn, the routes mapped, the levels run, and on the katanga-tanganyika section the railway-builders are even now at work. but when the victoria nyanza has been reached by the one section, and tanganyika by the other, there will come a halt, for between the two rail-heads there will still be six hundred miles of intervening territory—and that territory is german.
unless, therefore, england can obtain, by treaty or purchase, a railway zone across german east africa, such as we have obtained for the canal across the isthmus of panama, it looks very much as though there would never be an all-british railway from the mediterranean to the cape, and as though the life dream of cecil john rhodes would vanish into thin air. there are several reasons why germany is not inclined to give england the much-desired right of way. first, because [pg 199] between the two nations a bitter rivalry, political and commercial, exists, and the germans feel that already far too much of the continent is under the shadow of the union jack; secondly, because the germans are, as i have already mentioned in the preceding chapter, themselves building a railway from dar-es-salam, the capital of their east-coast colony, to lake tanganyika, and by means of this line they expect to divert to their own ports the trade of all that portion of inner africa lying between rhodesia and the sudan; thirdly, because it is unlikely in the extreme that england would give germany such a quid pro quo as she would demand—as, for example, the cession of walfish bay, the british port in german southwest africa, or of the british protectorate of zanzibar, or of both; fourthly, because the germans now have the british in just such a predicament regarding the completion of the “cape-to-cairo” railway as the british have the germans regarding the completion of the bagdad railway. in other words, the only condition on which either country will permit its rival's railway to be built through its territory is internationalisation.
that there will ever be an all-british railway from the mediterranean to the cape seems to me exceedingly doubtful, for the political, territorial, and financial obstacles are many, and not easily to be disposed of; but that the not-far-distant future will see the completion, under international auspices, of this great transcontinental trunk line seems to me to be as certain as that the locomotive sparks fly upward or that the hoar-frost [pg 200] on the rails disappears before the sun. rhodes always said that the success of such a system must largely depend on the junctions to the east and west coasts, which would affect such a line very much as tributary streams affect a river. a number of such feeders are already in operation and others are rapidly building. beginning at the north, the main line of the “cape-to-cairo” is tapped at cairo by the railways from port said and suez; and at atbara junction, in the sudan, a constantly increasing stream of traffic flows in over the line from port sudan, a harbour recently built to order on the red sea. the misnamed uganda railway is in regular operation between mombasa on the indian ocean and port florence on the victoria nyanza, whence there is a steamer service to entebbe in uganda. from dar-es-salam, the capital of german east africa, the germans are rushing a railway through to ujiji, on the shores of lake tanganyika, the engineer-in-chief assuring me that it would be completed and in operation by the summer of 1914. from beira, in portuguese east africa, the beira, mashonaland, and rhodesia railway carries an enormous stream of traffic inland to its junction with the main line at bulawayo. still farther south a line from the portuguese possession of delagoa bay connects with the main system at mafeking, on the borders of bechuanaland, while kimberley is the junction for a line from durban, in natal, and de aar for feeders from east london and port elizabeth, in cape of good hope.
from swakopmund, on the other side of the continent, [pg 201] a railway has already been pushed nearly five hundred miles into the interior of german southwest africa which will eventually link up with the “cape-to-cairo” in the vicinity of the victoria falls, running through german territory practically all the way. still another line is being built inland from lobito bay in angola (portuguese west africa) to join the transcontinental system near the congo border, nearly half of its total length of twelve hundred miles being completed. it is estimated that by means of this line the journey between england and the cities of the rand will be shortened by at least six days. it will be seen, therefore, that the “cape-to-cairo” system will have eleven great feeders, eight of which are already completed and in operation, while all of the remaining four will be carrying freight and passengers before the close of 1914.
when the last rail of the “cape-to-cairo” is laid, and the last spike driven, its builders may say, without fear of contradiction, “in all the world no road like this.” and in the nature of things it is impossible that there can ever be its like again, for there will be no more continents to open up, no more frontiers to conquer. it will start on the sandy shores of the mediterranean and end under the shadow of table mountain. in between, it will pass through jungle, swamp, and desert; it will zigzag across plains where elephants play by day and lions roar by night; it will corkscrew up the slopes of snow-capped mountains, meander through the cultivated patches of strange inland tribes, [pg 202] stride long-legged athwart treacherous, pestilential swamps, plough through the darkness of primeval forests, and stretch its length across the rolling, wind-swept veldt, until it finally ends in the great antipodean metropolis on the edge of the southern ocean. on its way it traverses nearly seventy degrees of latitude, samples every climate, touches every degree of temperature, experiences every extreme. at gondokoro, in the swamp-lands of the sudd, the red-fezzed engine-driver will lean gasping from his blistered cab; at kimberley, in the highlands of the rand, he will stamp with numbed feet and blow with chattering teeth on his half-frozen fingers.
the traveller who climbs into the cape-to-cairo limited at the quay station in alexandria, in response to the conductor's cry of “all aboard! all aboard for cape town!” can lean from the window of his compartment as the train approaches cairo and see the misty outlines of the pyramids, those mysterious monuments of antiquity which were hoary with age when london was a cluster of mud huts and paris was yet to be founded in the swamps beside the seine; at luxor he will pass beneath the shadow of ruined thebes, a city beside which athens and rome are ludicrously modern; at assuan he will catch a glimpse of the greatest dam ever built by man—a mile and a quarter long and built of masonry weighing a million tons—holding in check the waters of the longest river in the world; at khartoum, peering through the blue-glass windows which protect the passengers' eyes from the blinding sun [pg 203] glare, he can see the statue of gordon, seated on his bronze camel, peering northward across the desert in search of the white helmets that came too late; at entebbe his eyes will be dazzled by the shimmering waters of the victoria nyanza, barring lake superior the greatest of all fresh-water seas; at ujiji he will see natives in german uniforms drilling on the spot where stanley discovered livingstone. he will hold his breath in awe as the train rolls out over the victoria falls of the zambezi, for there will lie below him the mightiest cataract in the world—an unbroken sheet of falling, roaring, smoking water, two and a half times the height and ten times the width of the american fall at niagara; at kimberley he will see the great pits in the earth which supply the women of the world with diamonds; in the outskirts of johannesburg he will see the mountains of ore from which comes one-third of the gold supply of the world. and finally, when his train has at last come to a halt under the glass roof of the victoria terminal in cape town, with close on six thousand miles of track behind it, the traveller, if he has any imagination and any appreciation in his soul, will make a little pilgrimage to that spot on the slopes of table mountain known as “world's view,” where another statue of that same bulky, thick-set, shabbily clad man, this time guarded by many british lions, stares northward over africa. he will take his stand in front of that mighty memorial and, lifting his hat, will say: “you, sir, were a great man, the greatest this benighted continent has ever known, and if one day it is [pg 204] transformed into a land of civilisation, of peace, and of prosperity, it will be due, more than anything else, to the great iron highway, from the nile's mouth to the continent's end, which is the fulfilment of your dream.”
