d look at the
town of Bulawayo, and glance at the country, you begin to share the
local knowledge of the inhabitants, see with their eyes, understand on
what they base their hopes, and grasp the real meaning of pushing a
railway 500 miles to reach a town of 3000 people. So that, while at
home men were arguing that the Rudd-Rhodes Concession was valueless, and
Rhodesia a fraud, the land was being avidly bought, prospectors had
discovered gold reefs, shafts had been sunk, tunnels had been made to
get a fair idea of the value of the reefs, a nominal capital of many
millions--some say twenty millions, some say double that sum--had been
assured for operations, towns had been created with all the comforts
suited to new colonists, and the embryo State was fairly started into
existence.

"ENORMOUS POSSIBILITIES IN VIEW."

While being instructed in the hopes and ambitions of several of the
local people, my knowledge of how other young countries, such as the
States, Canada, Australia, had been affected by the extension of the
railway into parts as thinly inhabited as Rhodesia, induced me to cast
my glance far beyond Rhodesia, that I might see what was likely to be
its destiny, whether it was to be a Free State like Orange,
self-sufficient and complacent within its own limits, or broadly
ambitious like Illinois State, of which Chicago is the heart. Assuming
that the energy which has already astonished us be continued, there are
enormous possibilities in view. Bulawayo is 1360 miles from Cape Town,
but it is only 1300 miles of land travel from Cairo, for the rest of the
distance may be made over deep lakes and navigable rivers; it is but
1300 miles to Mossamedes, in Angola, which would bring the town within
fifteen days from London; it is only 450 miles from Beira, on the East
Coast, which would give it another port of entry open to commerce from
the Suez Canal, India, Australia, and New Zealand; it is but 350 miles
from N'gami; it must tap British Central Africa and the southern parts
of the Congo State.

That is the position acquired by Bulawayo by the railway from Cape Town.
Chicago, less than 60 years ago, had far less pretensions than this
town, and yet it has now a million and a half of people.

Something of what Chicago has become Bulawayo may aspire to. The vast
coal fields to which the new railway is to run, the stone, granite,
sandstone, trachyte, the woods, minerals, gold, copper, lead, and iron,
the enormous ag