The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1899-08-26
Che Official Paper Of San Juan County
THURSDAY, AUGUST "a, 1899.
aTHE CAPE TO CAIRO RAILWAY"

The August number of McC1ure's
Magazine contains an interesting and
instructive article by w. L. Stead, the
great London editor of the English
Review of Reviews, on 1.-THE Cape to
Cairo Railway" the gigantic enter
prise inaugurated by Cecil Rhodes, the
master spirit in all great South Africa
affairs, who proposes to connect the
English extremes of the Dark Conti-
nent, Cape Town, the capitol of Cape
Colony; Cairo, the capital of Egypt and
metropolis of Africa, and Alexandria,
on the Mediterranean, by rail within
ten years. The total length of the
great railway will be approximately
$500 miles, and "with the exception OF
700 miles of German territory lin Ger
man East Africa which Germany has
neither colonized, civilized, nor occu-
pied, the whole distance from Cape to
Cairo is already colOred British red on
the African map" What vast terri
tory to be redeemed from Barbarism
and opened to Christian civilization!
The cost of the whole great line, of
which over 5000 miles are already con-
structed, is estimated at $125, 000,O 900.
Mr.. Stead saws: at is the first great
trunk railway ever designed to span a
continent from north to south. 1t is
the first railway projected to cross the
equator at right angles, and the only
railway in the world which has ever
been designed to cross territory across
which no road, trade route Or human
trackway has yet existed. No govern
ment is at the back of it. No financial
syndicate hopes to make money out OF
it. That it should exist even in the
realm of imagination is due to the crea-
tive genius of one man, and that the
man who only three years ago was
stripped of all his official positions and
solemnly censured by Parliamentary
committee"
Now for an incident of its construc-
ton which Mr. Stead relates and which
well illustrates the supremacy of the
United States, even in the Dark CONT
nent, whose shadows are being rapidly
dispelled by the light of civilization
which everywhere follows the advance
of the British flag. Referring to the
construction of the Egyptian line up
the valley of the Nile, along which
were carried the forces which over
threw the Dervishes at Kharturn and
reconquered the Soudan, Mr.. Stead
says:
Further progress was stopped by the
difficulty of bridging the Atbara. 1t was
decided to throw bridge across the river
before the July floods. The time was
short. Tenders were invited from Brit
ish bridge builders on a specification
which was SO elaborate that, when the
builders arrived, il was discovered that
the building would take two years to
erect, as it was not capable of being
launched. Fresh tenders had to be in
yted in hot haste, and to the infinite dis
may of the British public it was discov-
cred that the Americans beat their rivals
hollow both as to time and as to price.
The order was not a very large one. The
total cost of the bridge was only $32, 800.
But no incident in recent years has
brought home to the British public the
extent to which the British manufacturer
has been beaten by his American rival
more forcibly than this matter Of the At
bara bridge. No English firm could I'M
dertake to deliver the bridge either at the
cost or in the time which it was supplied
by the Americans. Within thirty-Seven
days of the receipt of the order, the seven
spans of the Atbara bridge left New York
harbor for their destination in Egypt"