Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

160 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. The country along this section of the line proved extremely favourable for railway con- struction. The great plateau of Central Africa here rises to an average height of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, and is very level. Few rivers of any importance are to be found here. The first bridging work of any magnitude was over the Kafué River, which runs along the boun- THE NORTHERNMOST RAILS, BROKEN HILL. {Photo, by permission of Mr. W. L. Lawley.) dary of the Congo Free State, and forms the chief tributary of the Upper Zambesi. It is a broad, placid, and comparatively shallow stream, so that to carry a bridge across it was a work of no very great difficulty. The spot chosen for the line to cross the Kafué is about as wide as the Thames at Westminster. There are thirteen spans of 100 feet, sup- ported by substantial stone piers sunk deep into the river bed. It proved a work of some magnitude to construct these piers, and the bridge is regarded as one of the handsomest and strongest to be found in Africa. Caissons were sunk in the usual manner, and the piers, of local granite, were gradually built up in- side them. It was very difficult to induce natives to work in these caissons until their fears had been allayed by the careless and indifferent manner in which the white men descended to the river bed. Even then the influx of quite a small quantity of water into one of the caissons was sufficient to make the natives clamber hastily to the top, almost yellow with fear. The manner in which the line will be carried forward is now plainly to be seen. In place of Mr. Rhodes’s scheme for one line running right across Africa, the next genera- tion is likely to see two of Future ■ , .. . ,, ,, . . Development. these lines m full working order. The original route of the line runs north-eastwards from Broken Hill through the comparatively unknown country of North- eastern Rhodesia to Abercorn, a settlement close to the southern edge of Lake Tangan- yika, and named after the present President of the British South Africa Company. A branch line is. to be constructed from this point eastwards through Fife—named after the THE LAST TELEGRAPH POST, BROKEN HILL. (Photo, by permission of Mr. W. L. Lawley.) Duke of Fife, one of the original directors of the Chartered Company—to the growing port of Karonga, on the north-western corner of Lake Nyasa. As soon as the line reaches Abercorn a service of steamboats is to be placed upon Lake Tanganyika, and the rail- way carried northward through German territory from the upper end of the lake towards the Uganda Railway and the Nile. The second of the trans-African railways now projectéd will likewise have its starting-