These Waterways Are Utilised By The Natives, Being Virtually Roads;
In Many Districts Practically The Only Roads Existing For The
Transport Of Goods In Bulk, Or In The Present State Of The Trade
Required To Exist.
But there is room for more white enterprise in
the matter of river navigation; and my own opinion is that if
English capital were to be employed in the direction of small
suitably-built river steamers, it would be found more repaying than
lines of railway.
Waterways that might be developed in this manner
exist in the Cross River, the Volta, and the Ancobra. I do not say
that there will be any immediate dividend on these river steamboat
lines, but I do not think that there will be any dividend, immediate
or remote, on railways in West Africa. This question of transport
is at present regarded as a burning one throughout the Continent;
and for the well-being of certain parts of the West Coast railways
are essential, such as at Lagos, and on the Gold Coast. Of Lagos I
do not pretend to speak. I have never been ashore there. Of the
Gold Coast I have seen a little, and heard a great deal more, and I
think I may safely say that railway making would not be difficult on
it, for it is good hard land, not stretches of rotten swamp. The
great difficulty in making railroads here will consist in landing
the material through the surf. This difficulty cannot be got over,
except at enormous expense, by making piers, but it might be
surmounted by sending the plant ashore on small bar boats that could
get up the Volta or Ancobra.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 601 of 705
Words from 165457 to 165737
of 194943
