THE ECONOMIC CONQUEST OF AFRICA BY THE RAILROADS. 735 



In Lagos the work Avas carried on a little more economically; 

 there it cost only $30,000 to lay a kilometer of track. This line is 

 now running between the coast and Ibadan; it is to be extended 

 northward some 120 miles. On reaching the Niger it will be con- 

 tinued up the left bank of the river in the direction of Zoungerou, 

 the new capital of Nigeria. This bit of railroading is undertaken 

 at the suggestion of Sir Francis Lugard, with a view to opening up 

 the vast stretches of land suitable for cotton raising. 



The German Agricultural Company in Kanierun is busily occupied 

 in covering the whole of its concessions with a web of industrial 

 lines. But this purely local work is insignificant when placed along- 

 side of that proposed by a Berlin syndicate organized in 1902, which 

 exjDects to have completed by 1905 a line runing northeast I'^O miles 

 into the interior. The importance of this road will be realized when 

 it is understood that it will probably form the first section of a great 

 German trunk line, 340 miles long, which will have its terminus on the 

 shore of Lake Chad. In return for the services which this line will 

 render to the cocoa, tobacco, and cotton plantations it has been granted 

 50 hectares of land. Besides this the railroad expects as soon as its 

 locomotives have worked into Borneo, to draw into its hands the entire 

 commerce of central Soudan. 



The German possessions in the southwest have not fallen behind; 

 they also have there 120 miles of railroad between Tsoakhaubmund 

 and Windhoek. The whole distances is in working order, and the 

 road is especially valuable in carrying Government supplies. In 

 the olden clays it used to cost $90 to haul a ton of merchandise on an 

 ox cart from the coast to Windhoek; it now costs but $11.20 on the 

 railway. 



Thanks to the services of this road and to the great granite jetty 

 recently constructed in connection with it, Tsoakliaubmund is des- 

 tined to become the shipping place of the copper taken from the mines 

 at Otavi. 



From this brief discussion of railroad activity in the Dark Conti- 

 nent several general conclusions are apparent. 



England, through her various roads and her much talked of trans- 

 continental from Cairo to the Cape is already assured the com- 

 mercial supremacy of eastern north and south Africa : in fact of a 

 good half of the Dark Continent. The Kongo Free State will derive 

 in the near future the riches, agricultural and counnercial, of her vast 

 territories bj'^ the opening of a giant system, in which river and rail- 

 road will aid in forming a great transverse artery in the zone of the 

 equator. In western Africa the preponderant part devolves unques- 

 tionably upon France. 



