ACROSS AFRICA BY AI.R AND RAIL in '‘darkest Africa.” From Mwanza we continue south¬ west across Tanganyika Territory to Abercorn at the lower end of Lake Tanganyika, and then fly on to Broken Hill in northern Rhodesia, where once more we see a railroad.

Preparing landing places in this part of Africa was a big job in itself. Not only were thousands of trees cut down to make clear spaces, but they were dug up by the roots to prevent them from sprouting again. Many of the native chieftains take great interest in keeping clear these air¬ dromes, which would soon be gobbled up by the jungles if left to themselves. They have also broken up and carried away from these spaces the giant ant hills that cover the land of Central Africa like freckles on a boy’s face. These hills, which are often twenty-five or thirty feet high, and forty or fifty feet thick, are the home of the white ant. To make one airdrome in northern Rhodesia a force of seven hundred natives worked five months taking out twenty-five thousand tons of the heavy, rock-like clay with which the ants, grain by grain, had built their African apartment houses. Were our airplane to strike an ant hill in landing, it would surely be wrecked.

From northern Rhodesia down into Cape Colony our flight is not quite so difficult. The country is lower, and there are more open spaces. At Livingstone we begin the third stage of the journey, and there cross the Zambesi, looking down upon its wonderful falls, larger than Niagara. From Bulawayo, the next important stop, we bear to the east as we go south, passing over the Transvaal, with its diamonds and gold mines. We stop at Johannesburg and then fly to the westward on down to Bloemfontein. Our last flight takes us to Table Mountain, with Cape Town and the Atlantic Ocean at its foot. We are at the end of 163