NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1926. CAPE TO CAIRO

Northern Advocate, 5 February 1926, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1926. CAPE TO CAIRO

Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper.

"The morning freshness has gone out cf the exploring business, and we are left with the plodding details of the afternoon. ” So observed a distinguished writer recently, when pointing out that though the explorer’s aim will still bo a noble one, it will bo the tilling up of _gaps in a framework of knowledge which we already possess. It is with the plodding details of the afternoon that Major and Mrs Court Treatt and their companions have been concerned in their wonderful journey by motor ear from the Cape to Cairo. According to cable messages published a few days ago they have arrived at Cairo after a journey of 11,000 miles, lasting sixteen months, during which they had to face every imaginable kind of danger and privation. The trip is, indeed, a triumph of British endurance. If the Cape to Cairo railway is to be the steel backbone of British Africa, Major Treatt considers that motor transport must bo the feeder of the railway. So he and his companions set out to find out all they could about the roads, and where they could best be used, and to gain as much practical experience as possible with regard to ! motor transport in Central Africa. Indeed, they arranged- that the route should lie as far as possible through , British Africa, so that their' experience might prove useful for commercial transportation later. Major Treatt and his intrepid companions have not been the only ones in this field of work. Simultaneously there have been several French expeditions. M. Edmond Tranin, a Parisian journalist, organised an expedition : which journeyed from Konakry, in : French 'Guinea, across the northern part ' cf Central Africa, to Jibuti, in the ‘ Gulf of Aden. Two cars made this trip of over 9000 miles, largely across desert and wild country, and the experiment was tried of running them en- ‘ tirely without petrol. Palm oil, nut 1 oil, and naptha were used instead, be- • cause supplies of those materials could be obtained along the route" at very : little cost. For this purpose the usual : carburetter was replaced by a catalysing apparatus which produces combustible gas' from heavy oils. Secondly, there was the Central African expedition organised by the Citroen Company. This expedition, which originally consisted of eight cars, started in October, 1024, from Colombo-Beehar, in Algeria, and made its way across the Sahara to Lake Chad. Thence it pushed eastwards into the Belgian Congo. Here the expedition split into four sections, three sections making for the port of Dar-en-Salaam, Mombasa, and Mozambique, and the fourth for Capetown. Each completed its journey successfully, and accumulated on the way -a large amount of interesting information concerning African fauna, flora, and geology, and valuable specimens of native art, besides showing that there is practically no part of Africa which cannot now be reached by motor car. How recent this shortening of distances and shrinking of the globe through motor transport seems! It is the cardinal fact of the geography of the twentieth century. An ex-officer of the French Colonial Army has journeyed from Algeria by way of the Sahara, Nigeria, French Equatorial Africa, the Belgian Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, and Rhodesia, to the Cape, without an overhaul of his ear, and without supply depots. Yet, not so very long ago, it took Livingstone years of trudging, facing fever and hunger, spears and arrows, wild | beasts, and the angered hunted men of | Africa, before he reached Lake Tan-1 ganyika. And as Stanley strode into i Ujiji, when he discovered Livingstone j on the shores of the lake, he handed | him a bag of letters. The dates on 1 the letters were twp years old! j