This combined river and rail transport still left it necessary for traffic from the Congo basin to the west coast to follow the winding course of that river, with a number of transhipments; and if the route in question had been the only competitor of the Tanganyikabahn, Germany would have had less cause for uneasiness. Meanwhile, however, the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Bas-Congo had built a line--forming a continuation of the Rhodesian Railways--from the boundary of Northern Rhodesia, at Elizabethville, to Kambove (Katanga); and a continuation of this line to Bukama, on the Lualaba, a navigable tributary of the Congo, was (1) to give shorter and better access to the Congo for products from Katanga, and (2) to establish combined rail and water transport between the entire railway system of South Africa and the mouth of the Congo. Already the minerals from Katanga were finding their outlet to the sea on the east coast via the Rhodesian Railways and the Portuguese port of Beira, instead of via the Tanganyikabahn and the German port of Dar-es-Salaam. The former had, indeed, become the recognised route for this important traffic in preference to the latter. The line between Kambove and Bukama had not been completed when war broke out in 1914; but the provision of this through route, and the various facilities it would offer, rendered still more uncertain the prospect of Germany getting control of the trans-Tanganyika traffic for her own lines. There were other important railway schemes, besides. From Bukama rail communication is to be continued right across Central Africa to Matadi, to which point the Congo is navigable for large vessels from its mouth, less than a hundred miles distant. This line, in addition to avoiding the great bend of the Congo, will open up and develop the vast and promising territory in the northern districts of the Belgian Congo, south of that river. Another scheme which is to be carried out is a line from Kambove, in the Southern Katanga, to the south-western boundary of the Belgian Congo, and thence across Portuguese territory to the present eastern terminus of the Lobito Bay Railway. This will give to the mining interests of Katanga direct rail communication, by the shortest possible route, with a port on the west coast, while the connection at Kambove with the Rhodesian and South African systems will make the line a still more important addition to the railways of Africa for the purposes alike of development in the central districts and as a shorter route to and from Europe. German financiers were at one time desirous of undertaking the extension eastward of the Lobito Bay Railway--mainly, as it seemed, with a view to furthering German interests in Portuguese territory (see page 314); but the Kambove-Lobito Bay line is now to be constructed with British capital.