Considering that we have come all the way from London, 7300 miles away,
to celebrate the arrival of the locomotive at Bulawayo, such questions
may sound ungrateful, and considering that last night at the banquet
every speaker had something favourable to say of the Bechuanaland
Railway and its builders, such questions may be supposed to indicate
disagreement with the general opinion. There is really no necessity to
suppose anything of the kind. Both the builders and the railway deserve
praise. The fact that some eight trains have already arrived at
Bulawayo, and that every passenger expresses himself warmly as to the
condition of the line, and the pleasure derived from the journey, ought
to satisfy everyone that the railway is ready for traffic, and will
serve for many years, I hope, to connect Bulawayo with Cape Town.
But I want my readers to thoroughly understand what has been done,
without prejudice to Bulawayo, the railway, or its builders. I am not
so surprised at the railway, as at the length of time people in South
Africa were content to be without it. The whole country seems to have
been created for railway making. It offers as few difficulties as the
London Embankment Hyde Park is extremely uneven as compared with it.
For nearly a thousand miles the railway sleepers have been laid at
intervals of thirty inches on the natural face of the land; the rails
have been laid across these, and connected together; the native navvies
have scraped a little soil together, sufficient to cover the steel
sleepers; and the iron road was thus ready for traffic. In March, 1896,
the railway was but a few miles beyond Mafeking--say, about 880 miles
from Cape Town--on November 4, 1897, it is 1360 miles in length from
Cape Town, showing a construction of 480 miles in 19 months. There is
nothing remarkable in this. The Union Pacific Railway between Omaha and
Denver progressed at three, four, even five miles a day, over a much
more irregular surface; but then, of course, the navvies were Irishmen,
who handled the shovel like experts, and the rails with the precision
and skill of master workmen. Natives could not be expected to attain
the proficiency and organisation of the American Celts.