APPENDIX I. 343 the various depots. The rolling stock should be small in quantity at first, so that if it should prove unsuited to the country, no great loss would be incurred by having to provide fresh waggons, etc. Negroes might be educated to act as firemen, pointsmen, etc., but the engine-drivers, as is the case on the Egyptian railways, must, for a time at least, be Europeans.

But whatever plan of railroad be adopted, it must be remembered that at the commencement all must be experimental, and that it by no means follows that systems which have succeeded in India or other tropical countries will succeed here, or vice versa, that systems which have failed in those countries will fail also here. The managers of the enterprise should start prepared to abandon many of their ideas and preconceived notions, and to adapt themselves to the circumstances.

Another very important factor in the success or failure of any such enterprise, is the manner in which the natives of the various tribes on the proposed line of traffic are treated. Everything should be done to conciliate them. The passing traveller can often afford to disregard the feelings of the natives towards himself: not so the trader. His desideratum is a safe road to the coast and a ready market for his goods, and these can only be obtained by winning the goodwill of the people. The Arab traders are sure to try to arouse vigorous opposition against such an enterprise, and they will stoop to any means, however vile, of poisoning the minds of the natives against the white trader.

It must always be borne in mind that the negroes are the owners of the soil, and that therefore they should be conciliated as far as possible. As a rule it would be best to purchase, for a nominal sum, the right to make the line of rail through the territory of different chiefs, and this should be done even where no opposition may be encountered, as it gives one a right to the land which even negroes, as a rule, recognise. The friendly relations thus established with the various tribes would be of more value to the trader than any amount of land won at the muzzle of the rifle. The natives in such a case would soon learn the value of the line to themselves, and would, I believe, readily aid in protecting and maintaining it.

Some 'such enterprise as here indicated, with a moderate