|
206 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
|
||
|
|
||
|
from
any further extension seemed so essentially speculative that it is very
doubtful if any further advance would have been made, had it not been
for the daring enterprise of the Bechuana-land Railway Company, an
organization promoted and financed by Mr. Rhodes and his far-sighted
associates. Following hard
upon
the heels of the pioneers in Mashonaland and the conquest of
Matabeleland the line from Vryburg was opened to Bulawayo in November,
1897.
When
the grand importance of this railway advance became clear, even to the
doubters, the British Government subsequently guaranteed a loan of
.£2,000,000 to carry the line 800 miles farther on to Lake Tanganyika.
With
the rate of progress attained it was expected that Aber-corn at the
foot of Lake Tanganyika would be reached in four years, but the
outbreak of the war with the South African States was an unlooked-for
clog to this advance. As soon as the line has reached Lake Tanganyika a
further extension of 600 miles to Uganda through the Congo Free State
has been guaranteed by an appropriation of the needed funds by vote of
the shareholders of the African Transcontinental Railway Company.
Besides this main line of advance, the Beira Railway, which was
constructed with a gauge of two feet, had been completed and engines
were running as far as Salisbury over a stretch of line 375 miles in
length before the close of 1900. The narrow gauge of two feet was soon
found to be unworkable, and the line has already been relaid from Beira
to Umtali with heavier rails
|
||
|
|
||