The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-28
MAY HUNT BIG CAME IN PULLMAN LUXURY A Train De Luxe Will Carry
 You to Mid Africa MAY LIVE IN PRIVATE CAR May Shoot Rhinoceroses and Antelope From the Windows-one Result
 of Cecil Rhodes Rail-
 road Dream.
MAY LIVE IN PRIVATE CAR

| show why great game has been thinned out so alarmingly that elephant and g.- raffe are now rarely seen south of the Zambesi. It is mainly due to dozen mar vels of railroad enterprise that are being pushed in order that Cecil Rhodes dream of 5000 miles of track between Cape Town and Cairo should be realized.
 One may now enter train of palace i cars at Cape Town and travel 2OOO miles straight to the great zambesi river that divides the Dark Continent in two Not even the mighty falls stay the transcon- tinental road. It is carried across the gorge 400 feet deep by a steel bridge, and little beyond the traveller is amazed | to find the magnificent five-storied Grand hotel, with hundred bed rooms, electric | lights and elevators and fans dumped down amid savage scenery. From the windows of this strangest of hotels one may shoot rhlnoceros and giraffe, lion and leopard and hippo. not to mention twenty | different kinds of antelope, from the .m- mense kudu down to the little hartebeest | and impala.
 It is the famous and costly Big Game Limited" that whirls one into the savage heart of Africa. Little more than fifteen years ago the 750,0OO square miles of Rho- desia had not a mile of railroad Then came the fatal cattle plague known as the rinderpest, which denuded the country of even the most primitive means of trans port, and on top of this the Matabele re- bellion of 1896, which resulted in terrible slaughter of the whites.
 Railroad Building.
 rrbaea +yo caucae lad to 1raat activitV of railroads building in the vast territory to which Cecil Rhodes gave his name, and the last 28 miles, from Palapye b Buluwayo, were laid in the incredibly short space of four and a half months. Then it was that the old coaching days in this part of Africa passed away forever. It is not until Buluwayo Is reached that even the larger antelopes are seen from the car windows. Within few miles of this boom town of the veldt are the wild, rocky Mattoppo hills, where eleven years ago Cecil Rhodes went unarmed and al- most alone to talk over the Matabele savages to peace. Here, too, imbedded in the solid granite lies Cecil Rhodes's body. the tomb facing a grand panorama of central African scenery which the em- pire builder himself called ''rhe View of the World
 It was in 1898 that Rhodes formulated a scheme for the extension of the main trunk line rom BuluWayO ny way ol Gwelo to the Zambesi and thence onward to Lake Tanganyika His restless amb- tion hoped that meanwhile the British government would be pushing Sonta through the swamps and forest of the upper Nile and thus gradually a Cape to Cairo railway, all British. would be completed.
 Big Game Limited.
 It is worth nothing that the 1S0 miles from Salisbury to Gwelo traversed by the Big Game limited were laid while the Boer war was actually raging on Rho- desia' borders, so that the contractors had another formids ble enemy added to those already existing, which ranged from man eating lions, who terrorized their laborers, to the destructive white ants, which bored through and destroyed all the timber.
 Without fuss. however, the pioneers persevered, and today the Cape Gov ernment railroads issue circular tourist tickets into the hauntS of the wills ele- plants and into lion ridden jungles.
 One novel feature of the Rhodesian sec tion is that magnificent saloon cars are provided for private hire. The term must be at least one month, and the charge includes all catering Surely here is A noyelty-a magnificent palace on wheels. lit with electric light. sumptu- ously carpeted with perfect table service and card rooms drawing rooms' luxurlous beds fitted with electric fans at the side, miniature kitchens with Portugene chefs, a library. shower baths, and even a stenographer to take down notes If the bie game hunter contemplates book!
 There Is no roughing it in hunting lions and elephants in this style. The train or private car is used as a base camp. It Is shunted Into jungle sidings as may be required, and tents taken Local provide trackers and beaters, and the necessary money-chiehy cotton cloth, brass wire and cowrie shells-is carried in the wonderful train.
 If required the Rhodesian Railroads, Limited will send an expert taXidermist with the party, so that lion and ante lope heads may be set up literally while you wait and exceptionally fine tusks mounted on fancy stands. Just such a trip was undertaken recently by Sir Ed mund and Lady Lechmere and also by MT and Mrs. Alan Gardner Both couples are well known as big game hunters.
 How one of the old tine shots like F. C. Selous must marvel at such changed conditions! In his day, only twenty years ago. there were railroads In this part of Africa at all and he had to trek up country for five or six months by OK wagon before the shooting grounds were reached. On the other hand game
 
 days. Selous was a professional ivory hunter, and his record is 900 elephants in a single month.
 Many of the wayside stations just south of the Zambesi recall fierce and bloody memories. Thus at little Norton eight CT ten years ago the weak kneed Mashona tribes. nstigated by the warlike Matabele rose i'll rebellion and slaughtered Admin istrator Norton and Mrs. Norton, their children and the English nurse.
 Just beyond Norton the Big Game Linn ited runs through oddly contorted for est of mahogany, teak and mopani wood. The trunks were twisted into strange fantastic shapes years ago through hay ing been torn and trampled upon as sapIinge by vast herds of elephant that roamed over all this district.
 After a stay at the strangest of Grand hotels in the very heart of Central Afri north to Broken Hill another 400 or 800 miles. In places he will see the lords of the jungle gazing innocently at the ex press as it thunders by. Vast herds of zebra are seen grazing like cattle in q field at home; and here and there one notices the telegraph wires torn down, terrified giraffes flying from their natural enemy the lion.
 There is really very little of gap left to complete the Cape to Cairo stretch of 5000 miles. and at railhead today the wealthy traveller will find himself in wilderness more wild and dense than any that even Stanley or Livingstone faced a quarter of a century ago.