nterprise. History was only
repeating itself. If Disraeli had consulted his colleagues England would
never have acquired the Suez Canal. So it goes.

Most of the Rhodesian links of the Cape-to-Cairo Route were built by
Rhodes and the British South Africa Company, while the line from Broken
Hill to the Congo border was due entirely to the courage and tenacity of
Robert Williams, who is now constructing the so-called Benguella Railway
from Lobito Bay in Portuguese Angola to Bukama. It will be a feeder to
the Cape-to-Cairo road and constitute a sort of back door to Egypt. It
will also provide a shorter outlet to Europe for the copper in the
Katanga district of the Congo.

When you see equatorial Africa and more especially that part which lies
between the rail-head at Bukama and Mahagi, you understand why the
all-rail route is not profitable at the moment. It is for the most part
an uncultivated area principally jungle, with scattered white
settlements and hordes of untrained natives. The war set back the
development of the Congo many years. Now that the world is beginning to
understand the possibilities of Central Africa for palm oil, cotton,
rubber, and coffee, the traffic to justify the connecting railways will
eventually come.

II

Shortly after my return from Africa I was talking with a well-known
American business man who, after making the usual inquiries about lions,
cannibals and hair-breadth escapes, asked: "Is it dangerous to go about
in South Africa?" When I assured him that both my pocket-book and I were
safer there than on Broadway in New York or State Street in Chicago, he
was surprised. Yet his question is typical of a widespread ignorance
about all Africa and even its most developed area.

What people generally do not understand is that the lower part of that
one-time Dark Continent is one of the most prosperous regions in the
world, where the home currency is at a premium instead of a discount;
where the high cost of living remains a stranger and where you get
little suggestion of the commercial rack and ruin that are disturbing
the rest of the universe. While the war-ravaged nations and their
neighbors are feeling their dubious way towards economic reconstruction,
the Union of South Africa is on the wave of a striking expansion. It
affords an impressive contrast to the demoralized productivity of Europe
and for that matter the United States.

South Africa presents many economic features of distinc