--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Cutler, Orville W. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 19 number: 6 published: 1916-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Orville W. Cutler, "The Cape to Cairo Railroad," *Improvement Era* 19, no. 6 (April 1916): 490–492.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1906unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1906unse start_page: 490 end_page: 492 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1916-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1906unse publication_year: 1916 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1916, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Cape to Cairo Railroad The Cape to Cairo Railroad BY ORVILLE W. CUTLER South Africa! Almost the first thought we have when thosewords are uttered is: "Oh that's the home of the niggers!" Iknow, for 1 had much the same idea, but having traveled through-out this wonderful little-known, rapidly-developing country fortwo years, I have come to a very different conclusion. SouthAfrica is, undoubtedly, one of the new and practically unde-veloped resources of the world, even though diamonds and gold "magdala cottage" South African Mission Headquarters, Capetown have been forthcoming for nearly five decades. *• * * I desire, in this short letter, to call attention to one of thegreat undertakings in Africa which is destined to link togetherthe cities of northern and southern Africa by rail. I speak of theCape-to-Cairo railway. When this road is completed it will be5.600 miles long and one of the marvelous achievements of theworld. It might well be called the road of a thousand wonders,for according to its constructing engineers, it will lead past lionsand giraffes ; it will extend from civilization to barbarism. At theEgyptian end, this railway will pass through the land of thePharoahs; it will pass—indeed it already passes—through scenes THE CAPE TO CAIRO RAILROAD 491 in which the earliest civilization developed; where men built greatcities and wrought sculptures which are still among the chiefwonders of the world; where the first great school of learning grew into being', while men in Europewere living in caves, fighting withbeasts and eating nuts, berries, andother things. This road may cross thevery footprints of our Savior, wherehe was taken into Egypt in his child-hood to escape the wrath of KingHerod; it will carry grain and richesand means of life across the landwhich Joseph saved from famine andit will touch at Alexandria. The sceneschange from civilization to the nativesof barbarism. Starting in the north,where Egypt with its buried treasurelies, the line reaches south across his-toric battlefields where teemingarmies fought; the shining steel leadson and on to the great lakes of equa-torial Africa; the road passes throughdim forest lands where pygmies dwell;it stretches on through the haunts oflions, which sometimes try to tear thedrivers from their engines; past thehomes of the rhinoceros and hippopot-amus and over places where jackalsand hyenas howl at night and grindthe bones of dead giraffes; it passes the graves of 30,000 poor,foolish people who, on the advice of their witch doctor, slewtbeir cattle and left themselves to perish, because the doctor hadtold them if they did so a god would arise from the earth to drivethe white man to the sea and give their riches to the natives. Ittouches a lake as large as Ireland—Lake Tanganyika—and an-other lake half a mile in the air; it reaches from savagery, and thesilent splendors of nature, to the land of gold and diamonds, andfinally ends at the foot of the continent at Cape Town. Sucha road is one holding forth to view a thousand wonders, and thetime is fast approaching when it will truly be a reality, as menare working from both ends. The greatest trouble at presentis from two sources—the wild animals which continually are car-rying men away, and the dangerous swamps which must be over-come. South Africa !—the land of "unlimited possibilities ;" the landof a thousand undeveloped resources ; the land where fortunesawait to be made, is fast becoming the home of the white man. REFUGEE MONUMENT "Erected at Bloemfontein,Africa, in commemorationof the 26,370 women andchildren who perished inthe concentration camps,as a consequence of theBoer War, 1899-1902.Elders, Sharp and Cutler. 492 IMPROVEMENT ERA There are good, bad and indifferent people here—its populationis made up of all colors and nationalities; but, through it all, therestill runs the pure blood of Israel, who must be "hunted andfished" and brought up to the land of Zion. JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN MONUMENT, IN THE LINCOLN CEMETERY, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. The missionaries sitting on the steps are,from left to right: A. S. Reber, Little-field, Arizona; Fern Harrison, Pinto; A.J. Jex, Spanish Fork; H. C. Sylvester,Elsinore; and Alta Craig, Layton, Utah.