CHAPTER IX 



THE CENTRAL ANGOLAN RAILWAY 



IN the last chapter I have told the story of 

 the great hunter Bihe, who came north hunt- 

 ing elephants in the central highlands of 

 Angola, to meet there a wife and found a colony. 



A hundred and iifty years after, came a reso- 

 lute, far-seeing Scot, Robert Williams, to plan and 

 build a railway, which, passing over the highlands 

 of Angola on its way to Katanga, the richest 

 comer of the earth, is opening up another colony, 

 that of the white man. 



The story of Williams the engineer and the 

 Central Angolan (Benguella-Katanga) Railway is 

 as great a romance as that of Bilie the hunter 

 and his wooing. 



One of that group of great - hearted Britons 

 who have done so much, and against great opposi- 

 tion, in Africa, for their country, Williams went 

 to South Africa in 1881, to become the friend 

 and helper, lirst of Rhodes, and then of Jameson, 

 in their great schemes for the extension of British 

 territory to the north, and the Cape to Cairo 

 Railway. Thanks to Rhodes and his friends, 

 Rhodesia became British, but the Cape to Cairo 

 scheme by Luke Tanganyika and the "All-Red 



