Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

Those who know best the conditions in Africa believe that the establishment of a regular air service along the Cape-to-Cairo route will be difficult. During the rainy season dense fogs are common, making flying uncertain and dangerous, while at times the smoke from forest fires causes great trouble. On account of the rapid evaporation, the storage of gasoline in the tropical belt is extremely difficult. Sudden changes in atmospheric conditions form another serious danger; but with the development of wireless stations along the route, and the use of the radio telephone, aviators can be warned while in flight of the weather conditions ahead and shape their courses accordingly.

Meantime, that all-British line that Cecil Rhodes planned comes nearer to completion each year.

In thinking of the famous Cape-to-Cairo route most people consider it as a continuous railway trip, or as an iron track spanning Africa from south to north. This it will perhaps never be. We shall go by steam from Cairo to the Cape of Good Hope, but almost one third of the way will be over navigable rivers and lakes. This was Rhodes’s idea, and it is also that of every practical engineer who has examined the country and its traffic possibilities.

The journey from Cairo to the Cape is now made by rail, boat, and ground transport. These overland gaps are the ones which will one day be filled with railways, but the water sections will remain as a part of the completed route.

The railroad from Cairo has been extended two hundred and forty miles south from Khartum to Sennar, on the Blue Nile, where a great new dam, which is to furnish more water for irrigating Egypt and the Sudan, is now under construction. The British have also built a railway from Sennar west to El Obeid, in Khordofan. This line crosses the Blue Nile at Kosti. From Sennar, the fourteen hundred miles to Lake Albert is covered by Nile steamers and by ground transport, which may be automobile, horseback, or bullock wagon. From the southern shore of Lake Albert is another gap which must be covered with ground transport to gain the shores of Lake Victoria, and after Victoria is crossed by steamer, Lake Tanganyika must be reached overland. From Lake Tanganyika to Broken Hill is a gap of four hundred and fifty miles which will soon be bridged by railroad construction. From Broken Hill we have the railway to Cape Town. A railroad extends northward from Broken Hill to Bukama in the Congo copper-mining district of Katanga, but it does not fit into the scheme of an all-British steam route to Cairo.

Another important railway development, also the work of the British, resulted from the World War. The Turks had organized an army to capture control of the Suez Canal, and to meet this attack the British pushed a great expeditionary force into Palestine. They did this by building a swinging railroad bridge across the canal at Kantara and laying a railroad two hundred and fifty-six miles through the Sinai and Palestine deserts to Haifa. During these operations, Kantara, normally a small garrisoned railroad town, mostly sand and cinders, became the greatest military base in all history. Besides the soldiers, brought from all corners of the British Empire, the British organized the Egyptian Labour Corps, for which more than twelve hundred thousand Egyptian natives were recruited. This vast army of workers built the railway, and kept the stream of men and supplies moving on to meet the attack of the Turks. The Egyptians did not like this service much better than the Children of Israel liked toiling without wages for the Pharaohs nearly four thousand years ago.

These operations resulted in the defeat of the Turks and saved the canal. Moreover, they linked Africa and Asia by rail and one may now go on comfortable cars all the way from Cairo to Constantinople, and on to Paris. In reality, three continents have been joined together by the Kantara bridge and the Palestine Military Railway. This new link in the chain of the world’s railway systems was part of the Kaiser’s dream of empire. But he had no part in making it come true, and it now adds to the glory and strength of the very nations he hoped to conquer.

The mails are carefully guarded on all trains, a soldier with rifle and sword always being present when the sacks are loaded or unloaded. Armed guards also travel with the mail on the Nile steamers.