Mr. Rhodes told me that he intended to take it across from Ujiji to the south end of the Victoria Nyanza, where presumably it would connect with Uganda and the rail-head of the Mombasa railway at Ugowe Bay by steamers. Thence it would pass through the Lake Rudolph district and along the western base of the Abyssinian highlands to the Blue Nile. The arguments for this route are wood-supply, the supposed wealth and the supposed comparative salubrity of the countries traversed. Before offering my suggestion it win be advisable to inquire into the aims and objects of the Cape to Cairo railway. As far as I have seen, no individual of those who furiously denounce or optimistically uphold the project has ever grasped the real essential of such a connection; they have either sneered at it as a wild dream, or concluded that it is intended to run as an opposition means of transport to the ocean liners. This, of course, it will never do, nor yet is it a wild dream. The railway and the telegraph are to be the vertebra and spinal cord which will direct, consolidate, and give life to the numerous systems that will eventually connect the vast central highroad with the seas. Building railways is a speculation, but one that up to date has proved very satisfactory in Africa. There is a saying that "trade follows the flag," but I think it would be more correct to say that "the flag reluctantly follows trade," and I know that "trade hurries along in front of the railway." The amount of small industries and unexpected traffic that crop up on the advent of the railway is wonderful; I suppose because there is no trade in virgin Africa strictly speaking, and the line wakes it to life by opening up new possibilities and ideas to the native. Until the railway comes no one can judge of the capabilities of the country; it lies dormant. The appalling transport question, the inaccessibility, and the high cost of living weigh too heavily upon the land. The magic talisman, gold, alone will lead men far from touch with civilization. But apart from all commercial considerations, on moral grounds alone the railway or a through connection is an immediate necessity--in fine, a duty inseparable from the responsibilities that we have assumed. Lord Salisbury, in speaking of the Uganda railway, recognizes this when he says: "That" (_i.e._ the completion of the railway) "means the subjugation, and therefore the civilization, of the country. Nothing but that railway could give us a grip of the country which would enable us to take the responsibility of such a vast extent of territory." No other system than the through connection would have the same wide-reaching influence for the same expenditure; and the start that its completion will give to radiating enterprise is incredible. It is but the vertebral principle in Nature, and applies as surely to a continent as to a worm.