The Cape to Cairo Railway was an unfinished project to create a railway line crossing from southern to northern Africa. It would have been the largest, and most important, railway of the continent. It was planned as a link between Cape Town in South Africa and Port Said in Egypt.
Boarding Cape to Cairo Railway in the Belgian Congo, c. 1900-1915.
Crossing at Victoria Falls
Cecil John Rhodes was an English mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia, which the company named after him in 1895. He also devoted much effort to realising his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. Rhodes set up the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate.
Rhodes, c. 1900
Rhodes as a boy
Rhodes' birthplace, now part of Bishop's Stortford Museum; the bedroom in which he was born is marked by a plaque.
Rhodes at the age of sixteen