African Transcontinental Railway.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 217, 27 August 1887, Page 3

African Transcontinental Railway.

Africa lias awakened from the sleep of ages, and the " Dark Continent " is beginning to call upon the enterprise and capital of civilised lands for the construction of railways to open up her vast and almost unknown territory. With an area of 11,512/00 square miles, or nearly four times the s-ize of the entire United States, Africa at last accounts had only about 4,000 mibrf of railways, of which 1,300 miles were In Algeria, 1,000 in Egypt, 1,500 in Cape Colony, and 200 in Natal. But European enterprise has recently been directed to various portions of .the African continent, and several railway lines have been pro- \ jeeted. The most notable of the«c at present is the Royal Trans-African Railway, of which a correspondent at St. Paul de Loanda gave the readers of the " Railway Age " some interesting information in a recent issue. A glance at the map that was prepared to accompany the communication shows the jmnortance, ox tilts proposed line which the Portuguese Government has energetically undertaken. Starting at the chief port on the coast of Guinea about ten degrees south of the equator, the road is to cross the continent in a generally southeastern direction to Mozambique Channel. The length of this line will apparently be about 2,000 miles, or something more than the length of the Northern Pacific Railroad from St. Paul to Puget Sound. Ifc will probably follow for much of the distance the route by which Livingstone made his way through the trackless wilderness to the Western Coast. While as a passenger route the Royal Trans-African Railway, completed, will perhaps not afford special inducements to tourists in respect either of climate, scenery or the character of the population along the line, yet ib will open a vast and fertile region to the traffic of civilised countries, and wil be of incalculable benefit in bringing the arts 'and teachings of civilised life to the depths of heathendom which are found in the regions of Africa. It is evident, also, that ifc will shorten the distance between the east and west coasts of the continent very greatly — in some cases thousands of mile3— compared with the water route by way of the Cape of Good Hope. It is also gratifying to observe that the chief engineer and chief assistant engineer of this enterprise are citizens of the United States.

Things are again looking warlike in Europe. Bulgarian affairs are the exciting cause. Football is being tabooed in the United States. The following notice has been posted up at Harvard College :—" The Committee on Athletics, having become convinced that the game of football as at present played by college teams is bruta.l, demoralising to players and to spectators, and extremely dangerous, propose to request the faculty to prohibit the game after the close of the presentseason. Several prominent Melbourne citizens are moving with the view of forming a stud company to breed first-class stock of various kinds, and if tbey succoed in floating it they intend to devote L 7,000 to the purchase of two English sires — one at L 5.000 0rL6,000, and another at Ll,ooo or L 2,00 0; also 40 thoroughbred brood mares, at an average of L5OO each.