Native infantry. German East Africa. A few years ago these men were just such savages as those shown above.
THE HAND OF THE WAR LORD IN GERMAN AFRICA.
However much the administration of the German colonies may be open to criticism, and however slow they may have been in commercial development, I have nothing but praise and admiration for the accomplishments of their railway-builders. From Dar-es-Salam I travelled inland by railway motor-car nearly to Kilamatinde, a distance of three hundred and seventy miles, through one of the most savage regions in Africa, over one of the best graded and ballasted roadbeds I have ever seen. The line is now being pushed forward from Kilamatinde toward Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, which it will reach, so the chief engineer assured me, by the summer of 1914. From Ujiji, which, by the way, is the place where Stanley discovered Livingstone, a steamer service will be inaugurated to Albertville, on the Belgian shore of the lake, whence a line is under construction to the navigable waters of the Lualaba, which is one of the chief tributaries of the Congo; while another line of steamers will ply between Ujiji and Kituta, in northeastern Rhodesia, which point the British Cape-to-Cairo system is approaching. By the close of 1914, in all probability therefore, the traveller who lands at Dar-es-Salam will be able to travel by train, with the passage across Lake Tanganyika as the only interruption, to the Cape of Good Hope, or by train and river steamer to the mouth of the Congo, and in perfect comfort and safety all the way. As Walfish Bay, the only harbour in Southwest Africa worthy of the name, belongs to England, the Germans, finding themselves unable to buy it and appreciating that a harbourless colony is all but worthless, promptly set to work and built themselves artificial harbours at Swakopmund and at Lüderitz Bay, though at appalling cost. That Germany is exceedingly anxious to acquire Walfish Bay, and that she stands ready to make almost any reasonable concession to obtain it, there is little doubt. The mere fact that Walfish Bay is owned by England is a source of constant aggravation to the Germans, for it lies squarely in the middle of their Southwest African coast-line, its roomy roadstead and deep anchorage being in sharp contrast to the German port of Lüderitz Bay, which is being rapidly sanded up, and that of Swakopmund, a harbour on which the Berlin Government has already thrown away several millions of marks. Lüderitz Bay is already connected with the inland town of Keetmanshoop by three hundred and fifty miles of narrow-gauge line, and plans are now under consideration for pushing this southeastward so as to link up with the South African system near Kimberley, while from Swakopmund another iron highway, four hundred miles long, gives access to the Otavi copper-mining country and will doubtless be extended, in the not far-distant future, to the Rhodesian border, tapping the main line of the Cape-to-Cairo system in the neighbourhood of the Victoria Falls.
Mr. and Mrs. Powell travelling by railway motor-car in German Africa.
A way-station on the line of the German East African Railway.