Part 11 (1/2)

Upon one occasion it was announced that the Vice-Governor of the Katanga would visit Kaent made elaborate preparations for his reception Shortly before the ti like one of the ent approached hi the Vice-Governor of the Katanga” The supposed prospector refused to ent threatened to use force He was horrified a fewreceived by all the functionaries of the district wangere his clothes

When I rode in a hted avenues and saw s tennis on well-laid-out courts on one side, and Englisholf on the other, it was difficult to believe that ten years ago this was the bush I lunched in coht in a club where everyto lish spoken This was due to the large British interest in the Union Miniere and the presence of so a is, with the exception of certain palo

The American do the Americans at Elizabethville was Preston K Horner, who constructed the ser of the Union Miniere in 1913 He spans the whole period of Katanga development for he first arrived in 1909 associated with hi Frank Kehew, Superintendent of the smelter, Thomas Carnahan, General Superintendent of Mines, Daniel Butner, Superintendent of the Karoup, Thoe of the construction of the ier of the Western Mine For soineer, has been Consulting Engineer of the Union Miniere, with Frederick Snow as assistant Since er and Wheeler has beco Aa are graduates of the Anaconda or Utah Mines

With Horner I travelled by a copper belt

I visited, first of all, the faht miles from Elizabethville, and which was the cornerstone of the entire metal development Next came the immense excavation at Kae of A the copper ore out of the sides of the hills I saw the huge concentrating plant rising alain an Aht in a native house in the heart of one of the loveliest of valleys whose verdant walls will soon be gashed by shovels and discoloured with ore oxide Over all the area the Anglo-Saxon has laid his galvanizing hand One reason is that there are few Belgian engineers of largeexperience Another is that the Aets things done in the prio copper e to another Robert Willianificance Like other practicalbefore the outbreak of the Great War so of the extent and menace of the German ambition in Africa As I have previously related, the Kaiser blocked his scheanyika and Lake Kivu, after King Leopold had granted him the concession Williams wanted to help Rhodes and he wanted to help hia to Europe in the shortest possible tiiuoes out by way of Bulawayo and is shi+pped frouese East Africa This involves a journey of 9,514 miles from Kambove to London

Hoas this haul to be shortened through an agency that would be proof against the Gerenuity?

[Illustration: ON THE LUALABA]

[Illustration: A VIEW ON THE KASAI]

Williams cast his eye over Africa On the West Coast he spotted Lobito Bay, a land-locked harbour twenty ola, a Portuguese colony Froht from Kambove across the wilderness and found that it covered a distance of approximately 1,300 miles He said to hia and the short-cut to England and Belgiuuese Governan The Germans tried in every way to block the project for it interfered with their scheola

At the tio three hundred and twenty uella Railway, as it is called, had been constructed and a section of one hundred miles or h Ruhich is an ia, and connect up with the Katanga Railway just north of Kambove It is really a link in the Cape-to-Cairo systeht haul from the copper fields to London by three thousand miles, as compared with the present Biera itinerary

There is every indication that the Katanga will justify the early confidence that Willia centers of the world Experts hom I have talked in America believe that it can in time reach a maxih grade and since the Union Miniere owns more than one hundred mines, of which only six or seven are partially developed, the future seea mineral treasure Coal, iron, and tin have not only been discovered in quantity but are being o River near Ponthierville and good indications of oil are recorded in other places

The discovery of oil in Central Africa would have a great influence on the development of transportation since it would supply fuel for stea oil production in Angola and there is little doubt that an io

It is not generally realized that Africa today produces the three est quantities, or has the biggest potentialities The Rand yields old supply and ranks as the old fields

Ninety-five per cent of the diamond output comes from the Kimberley and associated a contains probably the greatest reserve of copper in existence Now you can see why the eye of the universe is being focused on this region

II

When I left Elizabethville I bade farewell to the cos as ice, bath-tubs, and running water

There is enough water in the Congo to satisfy the most ardent teetotaler but unfortunately it does not come out of faucets Most of it flows in rivers, but very little of it gets inside the population, white or otherwise

Speaking of water brings to mind one of the useful results of such a trip as ives you a new appreciation of what in civilization is regarded as the cos Take the simple matter of a hair-cut There are only two barbers in the whole Congo One is at Elizabethville and the other at Kinshassa, on the Lower Congo, nearly two thousand miles away My locks were not shorn for seven weeks I had to do what little tri there was done with a safety razor and it involved quite an acrobatic feat Take shaving The water in erms More than once I lathered o River proper is apurposes it anate of potassiu in blood

Since h the heart of Africa, perhaps it may be worth while to tell briefly of the equiph I travelled for the reatest comfort that the Colony afforded, it was necessary to prepare for any eo you must be self-sufficient and absolutely independent of the country This(usually a folding ca utensils

No detail was more essential than the ht for nearly four months Insects are the bane of Africa The er of thatfro bug infests the Congo One of the most tenacious and troublesoer, which has an unco a soft spot under the toe-nail Once lodged it is extreet hiive the Negroes alk about barefooted unending trouble

No less destructive is the dazzling sun Five minutes exposure to it without a helmet means a prostration and twenty minutes spells death

Stanley called the country so inseparably associated with his name ”Fatal Africa,” but he did not mean the death that lay in the ers that beset the stranger who does not observe the strictest rules of health and diet