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It is of metre gauge, was begun in 1887 and is some 300 m. long. The railway had created a record in being the most expensive built in tropical Africa £8942 per mile. A railway from Lobito Bay, 25 m.N. of Benguella, begun in 1904, runs towards the Congo-Rhodesia frontier. It is intended to serve the Katanga copper mines.
It is available for ships of large tonnage, and through it passes the Portuguese portion of the trade of the lower Congo. Ambriz the only seaport of consequence in the Congo district of the province is at the mouth of the Loje river, about 70 m. N. of Loanda. Novo Redondo and Egito are small ports between Loanda and Benguella.
How was this haul to be shortened through an agency that would be proof against the German intrigue and ingenuity? Williams cast his eye over Africa. On the West Coast he spotted Lobito Bay, a land-locked harbour twenty miles north of Benguella, one of the principal parts of Angola, a Portuguese colony.
The Germans tried in every way to block the project for it interfered with their scheme to "benevolently" assimilate Angola. At the time of my visit to the Congo three hundred and twenty miles of the Benguella Railway, as it is called, had been constructed and a section of one hundred miles or more was about to be started.
Recent eruptive rocks, mainly basalts, form a line of hills almost bare of vegetation between Benguella and Mossamedes. Nepheline basalts and liparites occur at Dombe Grande. The presence of gum copal in considerable quantities in the superficial rocks is characteristic of certain regions. Climate. With the exception of the district of Mossamedes, the coast plains are unsuited to Europeans.
Both flora and fauna are those characteristic of the greater part of tropical Africa. As far south as Benguella the coast region is rich in oil-palms and mangroves. In the northern part of the province are dense forests. In the south towards the Kunene are regions of dense thorn scrub.
Angola proper, and the whole coast-line of what now constitutes the province of that name, was discovered by Diogo Cam during 1482 and the three following years. The first governor sent to Angola was Paulo Diaz, a grandson of Bartholomew Diaz, who reduced to submission the region south of the Kwanza nearly as far as Benguella. The city of Loanda was founded in 1576, Benguella in 1617.
Also I have sailed to a far place called Madagascar, which is on the other side of the world, and I know the way of white folk. Even in Benguella there is a governor who is not so great as Sandi, and about his breast are all manner of shining stars that glitter most beautifully in the sun, and he wears ribbons about him and bright coloured sashes and swords." He wagged his finger impressively.
Most of the Rhodesian links of the Cape-to-Cairo Route were built by Rhodes and the British South Africa Company, while the line from Broken Hill to the Congo border was due entirely to the courage and tenacity of Robert Williams, who is now constructing the so-called Benguella Railway from Lobito Bay in Portuguese Angola to Bukama.
Bihe, the capital of the plateau district of the same name forming the hinterland of Benguella, is a large caravan centre. Kangomba, the residence of the king of Bihe, is a large town. Caconda is in the hill country S.E. of Benguella. Agriculture and Trade. Angola is rich in both agricultural and mineral resources.
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