On the way I stopped for a day with Mr. Fox, who was managing the telegraph construction across the plateau. The line was just opened to Karonga from Salisbury, and Mr. Mohun had put up the first telephone seen on Lake Nyassa between Karonga and Mr. Fox’s camp. The work of construction up the west coast of Lake Nyassa had been attended with the greatest possible difficulties from the precipitous and densely-wooded nature of the country, and the pestilential climate. These had, however, by superhuman efforts, been overcome in the stipulated time by the handful of men engaged on the work. A wide track, straight as an arrow, up hill, down dale, across abysmal chasms, and through swamps, had been cleared, and iron posts set in iron shoes supported the wire. No one at home can realize the stupendous difficulties that have been overcome. But I from observation know, and take off my hat in awed admiration of that gallant band who, quietly, relentlessly, and without a murmur, have accomplished the seemingly impossible. It stands out in bold relief as a colossal monument of what the Anglo-Saxon can do, and will ever sigh to the African wind the greatness of that master mind which, in spite of the fossilized apathy of the British Government, has raised a British South Africa to be a dominant factor in the world’s history of the future. It was instructive to mark the characteristic distinction between Mr. Rhodes’ telegraph expedition and the expedition of the King of the Belgians. On the one hand was an unassuming handful of men (without a single armed man), whose very existence might easily have been overlooked by the casual passer-by. Yet behind them lay many hundreds of miles of perfected work which brought the far interior of Africa within a minute of Cape Town; before them stretched an arrow-like clearing to Tanganyika (two hundred miles long), waiting for the transport service to bring poles and wire. Quiet men, rotten with fever, were being carried to and fro--inspecting, measuring, and trenching. Above their base floated a diminutive Union Jack; no pomp, no fuss, not even a bugle; yet all worked like clock-work. On the other hand, a huge camp thundering with the tramp of armed men, uninhabitable from the perpetual blare of bugles, a very wilderness of flags. Gorgeous and fussy Belgians strutting about in uniforms, screaming and gesticulating, with a few sad-visaged Englishmen doing the work--piles and piles of loads--and ever those bugles. It resembled the triumphant march of an army through the land, and the cost must have been appalling. Yet months after they had eventually arrived at Mtowa, nothing had been accomplished. The petty jealousy of the local officials proved an impenetrable barrier, and now if anything has been accomplished, the wire has been merely slung on trees. According to the latest reports, there had been trouble with the natives, and the whole expedition had been broken up, with the loss of most of the plant.