Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-11-26
CONGO STATE OPEN.
The Railroad Completed to Stanley
Pool.

| ] UUls
Ten thousand Miles Of Navigable Waterways
In the interior Of Africa Now Open.
! The Congo railroad has been COM
pleted at last. 1t has cost hundreds
OF lives and a vast sum of money.
Eight years ago last March the first
sod was turned for the building of this
railroad, and on March 16. this year,
the locomotive stood at last on the
shore of Stanley Pool, at Dolo, the in
land terminus of the road. From this
point the fifty steamboats, that are
plying on the upper Congo may load
with freight brought by the cars and
carry it many hundreds of miles on
the main river or on it's northern and
southern tributaries to the heart Of in
ner Africa. The great fact is that TO-
| 600 miles of navigabie waterways in
the interior Of Africa have. been placed
| in steam communication with America
and Europe by the completion of this
| railroad. s
| Matadi is the starting point of the
railroad, ninety miles from the ocean.
Steamships from Europe of 5000 tons
burden easily ascend the lower Congo
to Matadi, where they tie up at the
wharf and transfer their cargoes to the
freight cars near at hand. Next comes
the railroad, 24O miles long, built
around the long series of impossible
rapids and cataracts in the lower Con-
go.
The Congo is a wonderful system of
waterways, and a fleet of fat-bot-
toned, stern-wheel steamers are now
plying on this great network of rivers.
Stanley Pool has been aptly called the
window through which the world may
look out upon the whole of inner trop-
ical Africa. Starting from Stanley
Pool the steamers may travel for days
and weeks on these highways, thread
ing all the streams as far as they are
indicated on our map and penetrating
deep into the savannas and forests of
inner Africa, one of the greatest rub
Der regions in the world and abound
ing with ivory and other, rich re-
sources.
| All the news that has yet been re-
ceived of the fortunate completion OF
the railroad is contained in this brief
despatch which was telegraphed from
Stanley Pool on March Is, to the coast
by Civil Engineer Gorrin, the director
in Africa of the work:
The locomotive arrived today at
Dolo."
This despatch was forwarded by the
mail steamer to Major Thys, the direc-
tor general of the Congo state at Brus-
sels and he at once telegraphed the
glad tidings to King Leopold, Mr..
Stanley and other men in Europe who
have been the promoters of the enter
prise Their replies are printed in the
last number of LIE Movement geo
graphiuue. the official organ of the
Congo state. The King simply says:
Il am rejoiced at the great news and
send you my warmest congratula-
TONS" Mr.. Stanley replied: Your
glorious news rejoiced me beyond all
expression. Belgium may we'll be
proud of having completed the first
railroad in equatorial Africa. l send
my warmest Fluctuations to the King,
to the directors of the railroad and to
the persevering Belgian people. May
God shower benedictions upon your
noble work."
1t was Stanley who wrote thirteen
years ago that the upper Congo would
hardly be worth sixpence to the world
of commerce till this railroad was
built. for he did not believe that any
thing but ivory would stand the ex-
cessive cost of transportation on the
heads of men around the 235 miles OF
lcataracts which the railroad would
lcircumvent. He was not quite correct
in this prognostication. for a vast
Inuantity of rubber has been carried
around the cataracts and sold in Eu-
rome at a good profit. But now that
the railroad is built. the world Will De
able to utilize for the first time large
variety of other products, such as cot
ton and palm oil. the forests OF gum
producing trees, the ebony and dye
woods. and, best of all, the ineXhauSt-
Iible rubber resources that make the
lCongo basin one of the richest of tropl-
cal regions. The railroad brings the
commercial world into easy communi-
cation with 10000, 900 of moderately in
dustrious people, many thousands OF
whom have been doing good service 1or
some years IN the cOlleClioi VI iu"N~A
for export, and whose field of usetul-
ness both for the trading nations ana
for themselves, will now be vastly WI
dened :,
It took a great deal of courage, pluck
and faith. as well as money, to achieve
the present great result. Nearly all the
engineering difficulties on the whoie
route were grouped along the nrst
twenty miles of the road. Less than
five miles of the road were
completed in the first year, ana
nearly every inch of it was
blasted out of the toughest OF
uuartzite forming the Matadi hill, that
towers precipitously above the Congo
Every day scores of men were suspen-
ded by ropes on the face of this un-
yielding rock. drilling the holes that
were to be filled with blasting powder.
Tt is seldom that a stretch of railroad
has been built in any part of the world
under more difficult conditions, and
when at last the 200 white men and
1000 natives who We're engaged on the
work turned away from the Congo and
up the Mpozi Valley to gain the pld-
teau above, bridge after bridge OF steel