Belgian ] 111 KATANGA : COMMUNICATIONS therefore also from sleeping -sickness. Before the war 18 doctors and 30 sanitary brigades were employed in the Congo, many of them in Katanga, mainly in con nexion with this disease, the cost being borne by the civil list of the King of the Belgians. The most seriously affected areas are on the Lufira and Luvua rivers.

(3) MEANS OF COMMUNICATION (a) Roads. - In Katanga a great deal of labour has been expended on the construction of roads. The new road branching towards the Kundelungu plateau from mile 60 on the road from Elisabethville to Kasenga is finished as far as the Lashipuka river, a distance of 40 miles, while the Elisabethville -Kasenga road has been continued to mile 73, and is being actively pushed forward . An alternative road has been built between Elisabethville and the ‘Star of theCongo ' copper mine. During the war a rough bush-track was cut from Elisabethville to the south end of Lake Tanganyika.

It was used in the dry season by motor lorries con veying stores and munitions for the troops in German East Africa, and may one day carry a section of the grand trunk Cape to Cairo Railway .

(6) Railways. — The natural outlets from Katanga to the sea are to be found not in the far north-west at the mouth of the Congo, but on the east or the west coast, and the official scheme of railway construction has these considerations in view . The Lobito Bay (or Benguela ) line seems to be the most obviously advantageous route. The sea-journey from England would be shortened by 2,000 miles, and the route affords the obvious outlet for the copper of Katanga (already over 22,000 tons a year) . The late war, however, has 1 For the Katanga Railway , see above, pp . 64–5 , 68 , 105–6 ; for the Lobito Bay ( Benguela) Railway, see p . 66.