The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-05-12
PROGRESS.
THE TRANS sAHARIAN RAILWAY.

TRANS SAMARITAN RAILWAY.
There has been much talk about a
railway across the Sahara. Strong
arguments have been adduced in it's
favor, and some fun has been made of
it, out neither arguments nor fun have
as yet set the project a-going. Since,
however, we have seen a Russian gen
eral construct in two or three years
a railway along the borders of the
Caspian across hedesert to the heart of
| Central Asia without speaking of the
Union Pacific, which crosses the United
States from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
we ought to be ashamed to say that we
are incapable of doing as much in
Africa. Let us admit that the line
would not be profitable at first; but if
the State willimitate the United States,
and grant to the company which may
undertake to construct the railway, be-
sides the concession of the land for the
road, two strips of territory each side
of the railway, Renty leagues broad,
the ulteriOr sale of the land, as the
country is peopled, will largely indem-
Nifty the shareholders. For it is a
proved fact that a railway peoples and
civilizes a country, and causes it's cul-
tivation mor quickly than if you wait
for these things to occur before you
build the railway. 1t is certain that
the rapid peopling of the American
Far West is principally, if not exclu-
sively, due to the construction of rail
ways.
Whatever may be the difficulties in
the way of building a Reconsideration
road, it is undeniable that the posi-
bility of connecting Algeria with the
Niger and Senegal touches nearly our
commercial and political interests.
France, the mistress of those regions,
has the strongest possible interest in
advancing further than she has. Yet
conquest in eachof these regions seems
to have reached it's rational limits, and
to connect these possessi ms together,
| there is need Of other measures. The
thing to do is to bind these scattered
territories together by a route across
the immense distance of the Sahara.
So far this scheme has not shown
signs of life. Must we then renOunce
the advantages of every kind offered
by such a project? Are there no means
of gathering at least a portion of the
fruit2 We think there are. In the
absence of the mechanical engine, and
all the power it brings with it, we can
at least utilize the existing resources
those which. through all antiquity,
have served as a means of union be-
tween widely separated countries. We
| speak of caravans.
We have been masters of Algeria for
a long time without becoming &C
quainted with the races which inhabit
it. Many of the faults we have COM
mitted are due to this error. Let us
wake up to the fact that there is but a
| single species of Arabs whose mode of
| life is the same over the whole extent
| of Algerian territory from the sea to
Sahara They all move in a circle
more or less restricted, in order to find
nourishment for their focks. The
fortune:of an Arab is almost exclusively
in his focks, which he does not rear,
in the true n of that word, but con-
ducts across space. Both beasts and
people live by the grace of God.
In Algeria, however, there is another
race altogether distinct from the Arabs.
This race is the KabH les, indigenous
to the country since the time of the
Romans, crowded back by the Arabs
into inaccessible mountains and speak
ing an entirely different language.
The Kabyle is not a nomad He
| dwells in a house and has a Municipal
regime which the Romans gave him.
He works with care his little piece of
land, fences it and protects it. He has
a sovereign hatred and contempt for
the Arab, whose rule he has never
accepted. The two races are com
pletely separated from each other by
profound antipathy.
It is evident that we cannot hope to
people Algeria with French cultivators