Show OUTLET F FOR OR WEALTH OF CENTRAL AFRICA it Is 75 years yeara since david livingstone completed the first journey made by a white man across africa and that tha lt journey had taken two years now following broadly living stones track from angola to mozambique zam bique a very different transcontinental tinen tin tal journey Is being made the first train to cross africa from froin ocean to 0 o ocean leaves lobeto lobito now for beira a distance of 2919 2019 miles by the route of the railway the journey has been rendered possible by the completion of the western section of the route that from lobeto lobito bay by tile the banguela Ben guela railway and its continuation through the belgian congo to the hatanpa copper field a field which extends into the adjacent regions of northern rhodesia Rho desla the change that has come over this land in a single generation la Is remarkable inar kable As diamonds drew the railway from the cape to kimberley and as gold drew the railway on to the rand so copper has drawn the railway to the heart of south central africa katanga but yesterday a thousand miles from anywhere almost unknown to te the white man Is now the most highly developed province of the belgian congo it has a considerable white population its mines have already exported copper to the value of and in it has an attractive capital which at the moment is indulging in its first international exhibition hibi tion across the border in northern rhodesia Rho desla there Is promise of an almost equal development and whether in portuguese beegi belgian a n or british territory the great change has been brought about mainly by british enterprise and with british capital this Is as it should be for the opening up of the whole region originated with the british K U to the courage and persistence of one man mail in particular sir robert williams this change Is due then livingstone was the true pioneer it was livingstone who first kept open the road to the north and it was the reading of entries in Living stones journal that guided williams as he has himself said to his discovery of the immense mineral wealth along the congo zambezi divide williams was an e arly associate of cecil rhodes and an ardent believer in the cape to calro railway scheme but neither lie he nor rhodes was foolish enough to suppose that a railway from the cape to cairo was an economic proposition in itself the cape to calro line was meant as a backbone from which would extend on either side two years before his death rhodes wrote the junctions to the east and west coasts which will occur in the future will be outlets for the traffic obtained along the route of the line as it passes through the center of africa that was written in 1900 1000 the year in which williams got his first mineral concession in katanga today two great junction lines are complete ant and as rhodes rhode foresaw they are taking to the markets of the world the obtained along the route of the main cape to calro line they are also opening up lands rich lit in agricultural and mineral possibilities london times |