| OCR Text |
Show CECIL RHODES' MONUMENT. 1; H The opening, the other day, of the Southern H division of tjhe Cape to Cairo .railroad in South H Africa was a- significant event. H And strangely enough the chiefest honor of M the achievement was due to one who has passed M from this earth. It vas Cecil Rhodos' conception, and when he proclaimed it England and the world M stood aghast, holding it as altogether Impracti- I , M cal and Impossible of accomp.ishment. But mln- M gled with his sagacity was the imagination of the M dreamer, only he had a prescience to circumscribe M his vision Within the bounds of mathematics, and jH he would not nurse a scheme that he could not R demonstrate to his own' satisfaction had practical jH terminals. He realized that a thousand opportu- jH nitles are lost dally because of want of courage, H that the first requisite of success was an invin- , H clble determination to investigate any obstacles H before him and see if they could not -be over- H come. When satisfied that they could be, his next H thought was if, when overcome, they would jus- H tify the cost, and when satisfied on this point, H then, with him, there was nothing to do but go H on with the work. When he announced the pro- H ject of building the road he had calculated all the H physical and financial difficulties in the way. and 'H was satisfied with his estimates, then seeing the jH transformation which had been wrought by our jH own first trans-continental railway, though much jH of it had been laid across what seemed to be a jH resourcelees desert, it is not strange if then he H permitted his imagination to have full play and H to call up the splendors that would be when a M path of steel traversed all the depths, and the M electric light illuminated all the gloomy recesses jH of the dark continent. He saw civilization come ' M and Commerce; he saw new states rounding into ijH form; he ag,w an outlet where all the millions of i H over-crowded Europe could find homes and their J immemorial hardships all be done away with. To H him. it was a repetition in a finite way of that j H first command that rang out over the darkness: J H "Let there be light, and there was light, and the H light ws good." More, he knew that his fame H would be secure, that when his countrymen at fl last should see the completed work, they would B B B (i recognize how far in advance of them he had m J lived. B a Prior to the Boer war he Cape railway wai B ) 1 , completed for 1,000 miles north pf dapo iTownjp B 'ij Buluwayo in Rhodesia and' in 1802 therl wall a B 'ii railway connection made, between Beiraipil the B j east coast by way of Salisbury with Cape Town. B J Now the further link from Buluwayo to the Zam- B I beei river at Victoria Falls, 300 miles, is com- B f! pleted, and was opened to traffic two weeks ago. B i J The further line from tho Zambesi, 500 miles B If north to Lake Tanganyika, has been surveyed B II and will be rushed to completion. From the Lake B '; i it will be pushed through German Territory to B ! ' Uganda on Lake Victoria Nyanza. There it will B Hi be met by tho railway befog built up the Nile Val- B ley south of Khartoum and then there will be B an unobstructed line of steel from Cairo to the B Cape. There is already constructed a railway B 1 ! from Uganda, 584 miles, to Mombrasa, on the B ' J coast of British East Africa, and surveys have BR , , ," ' ' been made for the road along the east shore of B ' ,,! j' Lake Tanganyika from Ujlji to Uganda. In a B i'j little while more all eastern and southern Africa B "l; will be ready for settlement and in the present B .1 century Africa will be redeemed. When all id B ' t finished then the halo around the memory of B Cecil Rhodes will magnify that memory before S men's eyes as the man who gave practical effect B to the discoveries of Livingston and Stanley, and B caused the redemption of a continent. |
