THE ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF AFRICA BY THE RAILROADS. 733 



An entirely different idea obtains in the minds of the promoters of 

 the Angola-Bengueh\ railroad which was conceded to an English 

 company in 1902 by the Cjovermnent at Lisbon. The proposed route 

 starts at the Hay of Lobito, follows the boundaries of the two prov- 

 inces, runs as far as Caconda and stops for the moment, after a run 

 of 850 miles, on the eastern boundary of the Portuguese possessions. 

 The work is to be completed within eight years; the company has 

 reserved for itself, among other privileges, the right of working the 

 forests of the State and that — a very valuable one — of working all 

 the mines found within a zone of seventy-five miles on either side of 

 the track. 



Without waiting to see the outcome of this tremendous project, 

 the characteristic enterprise of the British has inaugurated a second 

 scheme to be developed simultaneously. Being the owner of the 

 great copper and lead mines at Tsumel, the South West African Com- 

 pany decided to build a railroad to Port Alexandria in Middle 

 Angola to put them in communication wath the Atlantic. In making 

 plans for this, they suddenly hit upon the scheme of running from 

 the same terminal a transcontinental line eastward to the capital of 

 Transvaal. This road will intersect the Capetown-Bulawayo line 

 about (iraberon, making the junction at a point 030 miles from Port 

 Alexandria and 458 miles Capetown. Since these two towns are 

 about 1,'2G0 miles apart on the shore line, and since Capetown is only 

 204 miles nearer Pretoria than is Port Alexandria, it seems but rea- 

 sonable to presume that in the future the commerce of Western 

 Europe with the old Boer republic and Ehodesia will go by w^ay of 

 Port Alexandria, which w^ill in that case become a formidable rival 

 to the capital of the Cape of Good Hope. 



Having reviewed the three great systems and the various trans- 

 verse lines, it now only remains to glance at the series of independent 

 roads, the larger number of which are in the west coast colonies. In 

 this field of action, more restricted but very interesting nevertheless, 

 the first place belongs undoubtedly to France. For some years that 

 country has displayed real energy and impartiality in an effort to 

 hasten the introduction of the locomotive. 



The Senegal road from Dakar to St. Louis for a long time was the 

 one favored enterprise. Construction on the railway directed inland 

 towards the Niger dragged desperately; it seemed as though every 

 possible obstacle was thrown in the way of its achievement. Things 

 are at last beginning to look brighter. Two hundred miles of the 

 road is now in actual operation, the embankments have reached a 

 ])oint 100 miles beyond Kiba, and will go as far as Koulikoro in 1004. 

 AVithin eighteen or twenty months the entire 350 miles between 

 Kayes and the Niger will be put into use. 



