The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-30
FROM cAIRo 70 TIE CAPE.

William t. Stead likens Cecil Rhodes
Capeto-Cairo railroad to the trans-Si-
berian railroad, for which a distin-
guished Russian has said there is no
warrant on financial, political or mill
tary grounds. In either case, there
can be no adequate return to the pres
ent generation for the expense and sac
rffice incurred. Herr Rothstein says
the Siberian road is being built under
the compulsion of an impulse, an in
stinct." However that may be, or
whatever it may mean, both projects
are fascinating in their immensely, their
daring and their romantic suggestive
ness. In its way, each is as prodigious
an enterprise as ever Napoleon con-
ceived in his dreams of empire.
The world has been lately surprised
to discover how near the Siberian rail-
road is to completion, and it now learns
what great progress has been made to-
wards uniting the northern and south
ern extremities of Africa with $500 miles
of iron bands. The line already con-
structed extends from Cape Town
north to Buluwayo, a distance of 1900
miles, and the telegraph reaches con-
siderably further. The route has been
surveyed for $50 miles beyond Bulu
wayo, over which the rails will be laid
as rapidly as the difficulties of an alb
solutely wild country will permit. AM
other $50 miles will bring the surveyors
to the banks of the Zambesi river,
which Mr. Rhodes hopes to cross by
bridge five years hence.
Several hundred miles northward lies
the southern end of Lake Tanganyika
and still further north is Victoria Ny
ANA. Over these waters the British
have right of way, and steamboats,
can be used to connect the southern
section OF the railway with the north
ern. Thanks to Gen. Kitchener's en-
ergetic campaign for the subjugation
oe the Soudan, which was accomplished
quite as much by the railroad as by the
army, the northern section of the rail-
road has been brought almost to Khar-
toum. In order to complete the land
route and get around Tanganyika and
Victoria Nyanza, Mr.. Rhodes must
have the kaiser's permission to pass
through some 700 miles of German East
Africa, and with that purpose in view
negotiations were opened at Berlin last
winter, but the results were more pro-
life in words than in deeds. Emperor
William is not giving away valuable
concessions without a quid pro quo.
This part of the route, however, need
not be settled upon for some years to
come, and one of Mr.. Rhodes charac-
teristics is not to borrow trouble, but
solve the difficulties one by one as they
present themselves.
1t is pertinent to inquire of what util-
ity the railroad will be, even if it is
completed at the end of ten years, as
Mr. Rhodes hopes. One may now go
from England to Cape Town in seven
teen days, and the journey via the Afri-
can railroad to Africa would take six
teen-five by boat and eleven by rail-
Considering the greater comfort on
board an ocean steamer, little can be
said in favor of a long ride in sleeping
cars, much of the way in the heat of
the tropics. The motives for build
ing the road must be found in the op-
portunities which it would offer for OBJ
ening and settling the British possess
sions in Africa, the transportation of
merchandise from the interior to the
coast, and the facilities for throwing
troops into any district which might
be threatened by native or foreign
attack Sentiment, too, no doubt has
something to do with the project, for
as financial investment, there is prom
Use of but meagre return for the capital
invested.