88 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS [ No. 98 atmosphere of the dry season, in both West and East Africa, when the bush is fired by the natives .

The Anglo -Egyptian Sudan lies, of course, on the direct overland route between Egypt and South Africa; and the British Air Ministry has discussed the possi bility of inaugurating an air service to the Cape, provided with aerodromes at intervals of about 200 miles. By following alternately the Nile and the railway line, no difficulty need be experienced from Cairo to Khartum , a distance of 1,200 miles, or to Kosti, 175 miles farther south. Similarly, no diffi culty arises in South Africa, along the railway from Cape Town to. Broken Hill , or to Sakania, on the Rhodesia - Katanga frontier, or farther on to Elizabeth ville , in Katanga, 2,400 miles from the Cape . Aero dromes are already in course of construction along these two sections of the route . It is the intervening section , through Equatorial Africa, which constitutes at present the chief difficulty. The direct route would be Kosti -Malakal-Shambe-Rejaf-Koba ( at the north end of Lake Albert )-Kasindi or Katwe (Lake Edward ) , and thence to Usumbura (Lake Tangan yika ) , or on to Kigoma and Abercorn . From the south end of Tanganyika the route would be south-west, across Lake Mweru, to the Lufira river and the Katanga railway, which would be followed south to Elizabethville ; or the airman might make his way south-east to Lake Nyasa and thence via Blantyre, Beira , and Salisbury , to the Cape-to-Cairo railway at Bulawayo.

The alternatives to this direct route suggested by the Air Ministry' are as follows : ( 1) From Khartum , up the Blue Nile to Roseires, thence south , along the Abyssinian frontier , to Gambela and the western shore of Lake Rudolf; ( 2 ) from Roseires to the Sobat , thence to Gondokoro, near Rejaf ; ( 3 ) from the Nile to Port Sudan, thence to Aden , and , via Addis Abbaba and Lake Rudolf, to the Uganda Railway; and ( 4) from 1 Geographical Journal, Vol . LIII , No. 5 , May 5 , 1919.