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In 1877 an important expedition was sent out by the Portuguese government under Serpa Pinto, Brito Capello and Roberto Ivens for the exploration of the interior of Angola. The first named made his way by the head-streams of the Kubango to the upper Zambezi, which he descended to the Victoria Falls, proceeding thence to Pretoria and Durban. Capello and Ivens confined their attention to the south-west Congo basin, where they disproved the existence of Lake Aquilunda, which had figured on the maps of that region since the 16thcentury. In a later journey (1884- 1885) Capello and Ivens crossed the continent from Mossamedes to the mouth of the Zambezi, adding considerably to the knowledge of the borderlands between the upper Congo and the upper Zambezi. More important results were obtained by the German travellers Paul Pogge and Hermann von Wissmann, who (1880-1882) passed through previously unknown regions beyond Muata Yanvo's kingdom, and reached the upper Congo at Nyangwe, whence Wissmann made his way to the east coast. In 1884-1885 a German expedition under Wissmann solved the most important geographical problem relating to the southern Congo basin by descending the Kasai, the largest southern tributary, which, contrary to expectation, proved to unite with the Kwango and other streams before joining the main river. Further additions to the knowledge of the Congo tributaries were made at the same time by the Rev. George Grenfell, a Baptist missionary, who (accompanied in 1885 by K. von Francois) made several voyages in the steamer ``Peace, '' especially up the great Ubangi, ultimately proved to be the lower course of the Welle, discovered in 1870 by Schweinfurth.

In East as in West Africa operations were started by agents of the Belgian committee, but with less success than on the Congo.

The first new journey of importance on this side was made (1878-1880) on behalf of the British African Exploration Committee by Joseph Thomson, who after the death of his leader, Keith Johnston, made his way from the coast to the north end of Nyasa, thence to Tanganyika, on both sides of which he broke new ground, sighting the north end of Lake Rukwa on the east. In 1882-1884 the French naval lieutenant Victor Giraud proceeded by the north of Nyasa to Lake Bangweulu, of which he made the first fairly correct map. North of the Zanzibar-Tanganyika route a large area of new ground was opened in 1883-1884 by Joseph Thomson, who traversed the whole length of the Masai country to Lake Baringo and Victoria Nyanza, shedding the first clear light on the great East African rift-valley and neighbouring highlands, including Mounts Kenya and Elgon. A great advance in the region between Victoria Nyanza and Abyssinia was made in 1887-1889 by the Austrians, Count Samuel Teleki and Lieut. Ludwig von Hohnel, who discovered the large Basso Norok, now known as Lake Rudolf, till then only vaguely indicated on the map as Samburu. At this time Somaliland was being opened up by English and Italian travellers. In 1883 the brothers F. L. and W. D. James penetrated from Berbera to the Webi Shebeli; in 1892 Vittorio Bottego (afterwards murdered in the Abyssinian highlands) started from Berbera and reached the upper Juba, which he explored to its source. The first person, however, to cross from the Gulf of Aden to the Indian Ocean was an American, A. Donaldson Smith, who in 1894-1895 explored the headstreams of the Webi Shebeli and also explored the Omo, the feeder of Lake Rudolf.

In the region north-west of Victoria Nyanza the greatest additions to geographical knowledge were made by H. M. Stanley in his last expedition, undertaken for the relief of Emin Pasha. The expedition set out in 1887 by way of the Congo to carry supplies to the governor of the old Egyptian Equatorial province. The route lay up the Aruwimi, the principal tributary of the Congo from the north-east, by which the expedition made its way, encountering immense difficulties, through the great equatorial forest, the character and extent of which were thus for the first time brought to light. The return was made to the east coast, and resulted in the discovery of the great snowy range of Ruwenzori or Runsoro, and the confirmation of the existence of a third Nile lake discharging its waters into the Albert Nyanza by the Semliki river. A further discovery was that of a large bay, hitherto unsuspected, forming the south-west corner of the Victoria Nyanza.

Great activity was also displayed in completing the work of earlier explorers in North and West Africa. Morocco was in 1883-1884 the scene of important explorations by de Foucauld, a Frenchman who, disguised as a Jew, crossed and re-crossed the Atlas and supplied the first trustworthy information as to the orography of many parts of the chain. In 1887-1889 Louis Gustave Binger, a French officer, made a great journey through the countries enclosed in the Niger bend, and in 1890-1892 Col. P. F. Monteil went from St Louis to Say, on the Niger, thence through Sokoto to Bornu and Lake Chad, whence he crossed the Sahara to Tripoli. Meantime explorers had been busy in the region between Lake Chad, the Gulf of Guinea and the Congo. The Sanga, one of the principal northern tributaries of the Congo, was reached from the north by Lieut. Louis Mizon, a French naval officer, who drew the first line of communication between the Benue and the Congo (1890-1892). In 1890 Paul Crampel, who in the previous year had explored north of the Ogowe, undertook a great expedition from the Ubangi to the Shari, but was attacked and killed, with several of his companions, on the borders of the Bagirmi. Several other expeditions followed, and in 1806 Emile Gentil reached the Shari, launched a steamer on its waters and pushed on to Lake Chad. Early in 1900 Lake Chad was also reached by F. Foureau, a French traveller, who had already devoted twelve years to the exploration of the Sahara and who on this occasion had crossed the desert from Algeria and had reached the lake via Air and Zinder.

The last ten years of the 19th century also witnessed many interesting expeditions in east Central Africa. In 1891 Emin Pasha, accompanied by Dr F. Stuhlmann, made his way south of Victoria Nyanza to the western Nile lakes, visiting for the first time the southern and western shores of Albert Edward. Stuhlmann also ascended the Ruwenzori range to a height of over 13, 000 ft. In the same year Dr O. Baumann, who had already done good work in Usambara, near the coast, started on a more extended journey through the region of steppes between Kilimanjaro and Victoria Nyanza, afterwards exploring the headstreams of the Kagera, the ultimate sources of the Nile. In the steppe region referred to he discovered two new lakes, Manyara and Eiassi, occupying parts of the East African valley system. This region was again traversed in 1893-1894 by Count von Gotzen, who continued his route westwards to Lake Kivu, north of Tanganyika, which, though heard of by Speke over thirty years before, had never yet been visited. He also reached for the first time the line of volcanic peaks north of Kivu, one of which he ascended, afterwards crossing the great equatorial forest by a new route to the Congo and the west coast. Valuable scientific work was done in 1893 by Dr J. W. Gregory, who ascended Mount Kenya to a height of 16, 000 ft. In 1893-1894 Scott Elliot reached Ruwenzori by way of Uganda, returning by Tanganyika and Nyasa, and in 1896 C. W. Hobley made the circuit of the great mountain Elgon, north-east of Victoria Nyanza. In 1899 Mount Kenya was ascended to its summit by a party under H. J. Mackinder. The exploration of Mount Kilimanjaro has been the special work of Dr Hans Meyer, who first directed his attention to it in 1887.

The region south of Abyssinia proper and north of Lake Rudolf, being largely the basin of the Sobat tributary of the Nile, was traversed by several explorers, among whom may be mentioned Capt. M. S. Wellby, who in 1898-1899 explored the chain of small lakes in south-east Abyssinia, pushed on to Lake Rudolf, and thence traversed hitherto unknown country to the lower Sobat. Donaldson Smith crossed from Berbera to the Nile by Lake Rudolf in 1899-1900, and Major H. H. Austin commanded two survey parties between the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Lake Rudolf during 1899-1901. Meantime in south Central Africa the Barotse country had been partly made known by the missionary F. Coillard, who settled there in 1884, while the middle and upper Zambezi basin were scientifically explored and mapped by Major A. St H. Gibbons and his assistants in 1895-1896 and 1898-1900. In the same period the Congo-Zambezi watershed was traced by a Belgian officer, Capt. C. Lemaire, who had ascended one of the upper tributaries of the Kasai.

In the early years of the 19th century the first recorded crossing of Africa took place. That crossing and all subsequent crossings had been made either from west to east or east to west. The first journey through the whole length of the continent was accomplished in the two last years of the century when a young Englishman, E. S. Grogan, starting from Cape Town reached the Mediterranean by way of the Zambezi, the central line of lakes and the Nile. Other travellers followed in Grogan's footsteps, among the first, Major Gibbons.

Additions to topographical knowledge were made from about 1890 onwards by the international commissions which traced the frontiers of the protectorates of the European powers. On several occasions the labours of the commissions disclosed errors of importance in the maps upon which international agreements had been based. Among those which yielded valuable results were the Anglo-French commission which in 1903 traced the Nigerian frontier from the Niger to Lake Chad, and the Anglo-German commission which in 1903-1904 fixed the Cameroon boundary between Yola, on the Benue, and Lake Chad. These expeditions and French surveys in the same region during 1902-1903 resulted in the discovery that Lake Chad had greatly decreased in area since the middle of the 19thcentury. In 1903 a French officer, Capt. E. Lenfant, succeeded in establishing the fact of a connexion between the Niger and Chad basins. Subsequently Lenfant explored the western basin of the Shari, determining (1907) the true upper branch of that river.

In East Africa a German-Congolese commission surveyed (1901-1902) Lake Kivu and the volcanic region north of the lake, R. Kandt making a special study of Kivu and the Kagera sources, while the Anglo-German boundary commission of 1902-1904 surveyed the valley of the lower Kagera, and fixed the exact position of Albert Edward Nyanza. Much new information concerning the border-lands of British East Africa and Abyssinia between Lake Rudolf and the lower Juba was obtained by the survey executed in 1902-1903 by a British officer, Captain P. Maud. While political requirements led to the exact determination of frontiers, administrative needs forced the governments concerned to take in hand the survey of the countries under their protection. Before the close of the first decade of the 20thcentury tolerably accurate maps had been made of the German colonies, of a considerable part of West Africa, the Algerian Sahara and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, mainly by military officers. A British naval officer, Commander B. Whitehouse, mapped the entire coastdine of Victoria Nyanza. Government and railway surveys apart, the chief points of interest for explorers during 1904-1906 were the Ruwenzori range and the connexion of the basin of Lake Chad with the Niger and Congo systems. Lieut. Boyd Alexander was the leader of a party which during the years named surveyed Lake Chad and a considerable part of eastern Nigeria, returning to England via the Shari, the Ubangi and the Nile. Two members of the party, Capt. Claud Alexander and Capt. G. B. Gosling, died during the expedition. The Ruwenzori Mountains proved a great source of attraction. Sir H. H. Johnston had in 1900 ascended beyond the snow-line to 14, 800 ft. ; in 1903 Dr J. J. David had reached from the west to a height he believed to exceed 16, 000 ft. ; and in the same year Capt. T. T. Behrens, of the Anglo-German Uganda boundary commission, fixed the highest summit at 16, 619 ft. During 1904-1906 some half-dozen expeditions were at work in the region. That of the duke of the Abruzzi was the most successful. In the summer of 1906 the duke or members of his party climbed all the highest peaks, none of which reaches 17, 000 ft. , and determined the main lines of the watershed. Major Powell-Cotton, a British officer who had previously done good work in Abyssinia and British East Africa, spent 1905-1906 in a detailed examination of the Lado enclave and the country west of Ruwenzori and Albert and Albert Edward lakes. This expedition was specially fruitful in additions to zoological knowledge. Archaeological research, stimulated by the reports of Thomas Shaw, British consular chaplain at Algiers in 1719- 1731, by James Bruce's exploration, 1765-1767, of the ruins in Barbary, and by the French conquest of Egypt in 1798, has been systematically carried out in North Africa since the middle of the 19th century (see EGYPT and AFRICA, ROMAN. ) In South Africa the first thorough examination of the ruins in Rhodesia was made in 1905, when Randall-MacIver demonstrated that the great Zimbabwe and similar buildings were of medieval or post-medieval origin. (F. R. C. )

    VII. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

The eagerness with which the nations of western Europe partitioned Africa between them was due, as has been seen, more to the necessities of commerce than to mere land hunger. Yet, except in the north and south temperate regions, the commercial intercourse of the continent with the rest of the world had been until the closing years of the 19th century of insignificant proportions. In addition to slaves, furnished by the continent from the earliest times, a certain amount of gold and ivory was exported from the tropical regions, but no other product supplied the material for a flourishing trade with those parts. To their Asiatic and European invaders the Africans indeed owed many creature comforts—the introduction of maize, rice, the sugar cane, the orange, the lemon and the lime, cloves, tobacco and many other vegetable products, the camel, the horse and other animals—but invaluable to Africa as were these gifts they led to little development of commerce. The continent continued in virtual isolation from the great trade movements of the world, an isolation due not so much to its poverty in natural resources, as to the special circumstances which likewise caused so large a part of the continent to remain so long a terra incognita. The principal drawbacks may be summarized as: (1) the absence of means of communication with the interior; (2) the unhealthiness of the coast-lands; (3) the small productive activity of the natives; (4) the effects of the slave trade in discouraging legitimate commerce. None of these causes is necessarily permanent, that most difficult to remove being the third; the negro races finding the means of existence easy have little incentive to toil. The first drawback has almost disappeared, and the building of railways and the placing of steamers on the rivers and lakes—a work continually progressing —renders it year by year easier for producer and consumer to come together. As to the second drawback, while the coast-lands in the tropics will always remain comparatively unhealthy, improved sanitation and the destruction of the malarial mosquito have rendered tolerable to Europeans regions formerly notorious for their deadly climate.

At various periods since the partition of the continent began, united action has been taken by the powers of Europe in the interests of African trade. The Berlin conference of 1884-1885 decreed freedom of navigation and trade on the Congo and the Niger, and the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 1891 secured like privileges for the Zambezi. The Berlin conference likewise enacted that over a wide area of Central Africa—the conventional basin of the Congo—there should be complete freedom of trade, a freedom which later on was held to be infringed in the Congo State and French Congo by the granting to various companies proprietary rights in the disposal of the product of the soil. More important in their effect on the economic condition of the continent than the steps taken to ensure freedom of trade were the measures concerted by the powers for the suppression of the slave trade. The British government had for long borne the greater part of the burden of combating the slave trade on the east coast of Africa and in the Indian Ocean, but the changed conditions which resulted from the appearance of other European powers in Africa induced Lord Salisbury, then foreign secretary, to address, in the autumn of 1888, an invitation to the king of the Belgians to take the initiative in inviting a conference of the powers at Brussels to concert measures for ``the gradual suppression of the slave trade on the continent of Africa, and the immediate closing of all the external markets which it still supplies. '' The conference assembled in November 1889, and on the 2nd of July 1890 a general act was signed subject to the ratification of the various governments represented, ratification taking place subsequently at different dates, and in the case of France with certain reservations.

The general act began with a declaration of the means which the powers were of opinion might be most effectually adopted for ``putting an end to the crimes and devastations engendered by the traffic in African slaves, protecting effectively the aboriginal populations of Africa, and ensuring for that vast continent the benefits of peace and civilization. '' It proceeded to lay down certain rules and regulations of a practical character on the lines suggested. The act covers a wide field, and includes no fewer than a hundred separate articles. It established a zone ``between the 20th parallel of north latitude, and the 22nd parallel of south latitude, and extending westward to the Atlantic and eastward to the Indian Ocean and its dependencies, comprising the islands adjacent to the coast as far as 100 nautical miles from the shore, '' within which the importation of firearms and ammunition was forbidden except in certain specified cases, and within which also the powers undertook either to prohibit altogether the importation and manufacture of spirituous liquors, or to impose duties not below an agreed-on minimum. 1 An elaborate series of rules was framed for the prevention of the transit of slaves by sea, the conditions on which European powers were to grant to natives the right to fly the flag of the protecting power, and regulating the procedure connected with the right of search on vessels flying a foreign flag. The Brussels Act was in effect a joint declaration by the signatory powers of their joint and several responsibility towards the African native, and notwithstanding the fact that many of its articles have proved difficult, if not impossible, of enforcement, the solemn engagement taken by Europe in the face of the world has undoubtedly exercised a material influence on the action of several of the powers. Moreover, with the increase of means of communication and the extension of effective European control, slave-raiding in the interior was largely checked and inter-tribal wars prevented, the natives being thus given security in the pursuit of trade and agriculture.

Other important factors in the economic as well as the social conditions of Africa are the advance in civilization made by the natives in several regions and the increase of the areas found suitable for white colonization. The advance in civilization among the natives, exemplified by the granting to them of political rights in such countries as Algeria and Cape Colony, leads directly to increased commercial activity; and commerce increases in a much greater degree when new countries— e. g. Rhodesia and British East Africa—become the homes of Europeans. Finally, in reviewing the chief factors which govern the commercial development of the continent, note must be taken of the sparsity of the population over the greater part of Africa, and the efforts made to supplement the insufficient and often ineffective native labour by the introduction of Asiatic labourers in various districts—of Indian coolies in Natal and elsewhere, and of Chinese for the gold mines of the Transvaal.

The resources of Africa may be considered under the head of: (1) jungle products; (2) cultivated products; (3) animal products; (4) minerals. Of the first named the most important are india-rubber and palm-oil. which in tropical Africa supply by far the largest items in the export list. The rubber-producing plants are found throughout the whole tropical belt, and the most important are creepers of the order Apocynaceae, especially various species of Landolphia (with which genus Vahea is now united). In East Africa Landolphia kirkii (Dyer) supplies the largest amount, though various other species are known Forms of apparently wider distribution are L. hendelotii, which is found in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and extends right across the continent to Senegambia; and L. (formerly Vahea) comorensis, which, including its variety L. florida, has the widest distribution of all the species, occurring in Upper and Lower Guinea, the whole of Central Africa, the east coast, the Comoro Islands and Madagascar. In parts of East Africa Clitandra orienitalis is a valuable rubber vine. In Lagos and elsewhere rubber is produced by the apocynaceous tree, Funtumia elastica, and in West Africa generally by various species of Ficus, some species of which are also found in East Africa. The rubber produced is somewhat inferior to that of South America, but this is largely due to careless methods of preparation. The great destruction of vines brought about by native methods of collection much reduced the supply in some districts, and rendered it necessary to take steps to preserve and cultivate the rubber-yielding plants. This has been done in many districts with usually encouraging results. Experiments have been made in the introduction of South American rubber plants, but opinions differ as to the prospects of success, as the plants in question seem to demand very definite conditions of soil and climate. The second product, palm-oil, is derived from a much more limited area than rubber, for although the oil palm is found throughout the greater part of West Africa, from 10 deg. N. to 10 deg. S. , the great bulk of the export comes from the coast districts at the head of the Gulf of Guinea. A larger supply, equal to any market demand, could easily be obtained. A third valuable product is the timber supplied by the forest regions, principally in West Africa. It includes African teak or oak (Oldfieldia africana), excellent for shipbuilding; the durable odum of the Gold Coast (Chlorophora excelsa); African mahogany (Khaya senegalensis); ebony (Diospyros ebenum); camwood (Baphia nitida); and many other ornamental and dye woods. The timber industry on the west coast was long neglected, but since 1898 there have been large exports to Europe. In parts of East Africa the Podocarpus milanjianus, a conifer, is economically important. Valuable timber grows too in South Africa, including the yellow wood (Podocarpus), stinkwood (Ocotea), sneezewood or Cape ebony (Euclea) and ironwood.

Other vegetable products of importance are: Gum arabic, obtained from various species of acacia (especially A. senegal), the chief supplies of which are obtained from Senegambia and the steppe regions of North Africa (Kordofan, &c. ); gum copal, a valuable resin produced by trees of the leguminous order, the best, known as Zanzibar or Mozambique copal, coming from the East African Trachylobium hornemannianum, and also found in a fossil state under the soil; kola nuts, produced chiefly in the coast-lands of Upper Guinea by a tree of the order Sterculiaceae (Kola acuminata); archil or orchilla, a dye-yielding lichen (Rocella tinctoria and triciformis) growing on trees and rocks in East Africa, the Congo basin, &c. ; cork, the bark of the cork oak, which flourishes in Algeria; and alfa, a grass used in paper manufacture (Machrochloa tenacissima), growing in great abundance on the dry steppes of Algeria, Tripoli, &c. A product to which attention has been paid in Angola is the Almeidina gum or resin, derived from the juice of Euphorbia tirucalli.

The cultivated products include those of the tropical and warm temperate zones. Of the former, coffee is perhaps the most valuable indigenous plant. It grows wild in many parts, the home of one species being in Kaffa and other Galla countries south of Abyssinia, and of another in Liberia. The Abyssinian coffee is equal to the best produced in any other part of the world. Cultivation is, however, necessary to ensure the best results, and attention has been given to this in various European colonies. Plantations have been established in Angola, Nyasaland, German East Africa, Cameroon, the Congo Free State, &c. Copra, the produce of the cocoa-nut palm, is supplied chiefly by Zanzibar and neighbouring parts of the east coast. Groundnuts, produced by the leguminous plant, Arachis hypogaea, are grown chiefly in West Africa, and the largest export is from Senegal and the Gambia; while Bambarra ground-nuts (Voandzeia subterranea) are very generally cultivated from Guinea to Natal. Cloves are extensively grown on Zanzibar and Pemba islands, Pemba being the chief source of the world's supply of cloves. The chief drawbacks to the industry are the fluctuations of the yield of the trees, and the risk of over-production in good seasons.

Cotton grows wild in many parts of tropical Africa, and is exported in small quantities in the raw state; but the main export is from Egypt, which comes third among the world's sources of supply of the article. It is also cultivated in West Africa—the industry in the Guinea coast colonies having been developed since the beginning of the 20th century—and in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, whence came the plants from which Egyptian cotton is grown. Sugar, which is the staple crop of Mauritius, and in a lesser degree of Reunion, is also produced in Natal, Egypt, and, to a certain extent, in Mozambique. Dates are grown in Tunisia and the Saharan oases, especially Tafilet; maize in Egypt, South Africa and parts of the tropical zone; wheat in Egypt, Algeria and the higher regions of Abyssinia; rice in Madagascar. Wine is largely exported from Algeria, and in a much smaller quantity from Cape Colony; fruit and vegetables from Algeria. Tobacco is widely grown on a small scale, but, except perhaps from Algeria, has not become an important article of export, though plantations have been established in various tropical colonies. The cultivation of cocoa has proved successful in the Gold Coast, Cameroon and other colonies, and in various districts the tea plant is cultivated. Indigo, though not originally an African product, has become naturalized and grows wild in many parts, while it is also cultivated on a small scale. The main difficulty in the way of tropical cultivation is the labour question, which has already been referred to.

Of animal products one of the most important is ivory, the largest export of which is from the Congo Free State. The diminution in the number of elephants with the opening up of the remoter districts must in time cause a falling-off in this export. Beeswax is obtained from various parts of the interior of West Africa, and from Madagascar. Raw hides are exported in large quantities from South Africa, as are also the wool and hair of the merino sheep and Angora goat. Both hides and wool are also exported from Algeria and Morocco, and hides from Abyssinia and Somaliland. Ostrich feathers are produced chiefly by the ostrich farms of Cape Colony, but some are also obtained from the steppes to the north of the Central Sudan. Live stock, principally sheep, is exported from Algeria and cattle from Morocco.

The exploited minerals of Africa are confined to a few districts, the resources of the continent in this respect being largely undeveloped. Since the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, particularly in the district known as the Rand (1885), the output has grown enormously, so that in 1898 the output of gold from South Africa was greater than from any other gold-field in the world. The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 lost the Rand the leading position, but by 1905 the output—in that year over L. 20, 800, 000—was greater than it had ever been. The supply of gold from South Africa is roughly 25% of the world's output. The gold-yielding formations extend northwards through Rhodesia. The Gold Coast is so named from the quantity of gold obtained there, and since the close of the 19thcentury the industry has developed largely in the hands of Europeans. In the Galla countries gold has long been an article of native commerce. It is also found in various parts of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and along the western shore of the Red Sea. Diamonds are found in large quantities in a series of beds known as the Kimberley shales, the principal mines being at Kimberley, Cape Colony. Diamonds are also found in Orange River Colony, while one of the richest diamond mines in the world—the Premier—is situated in the Transvaal near Pretoria. Some 80% of the world's production of diamonds comes from South Africa. Copper is found in the west of Cape Colony, in German South-West Africa, and in the Katanga country in the southern Congo basin, where vast beds of copper ore exist. There are also extensive deposits of copper in the Broken Hill district of Northern Rhodesia. It also occurs in Morocco, Algeria, the Bahr-el-Ghazal, &c. Rich tin deposits have been found in the southern Congo basin and in Northern Rhodesia. Iron is found in Morocco, Algeria (whence there is an export trade), and is widely diffused, and worked by the natives, in the tropical zone. But the deposits aregenerally not rich. Coal is worked, principally for home consumption, in Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal, Orange River Colony, and in Rhodesia in the neighbourhood of the Zambezi. Coal deposits also exist in the German territory north of Lake Nyasa. Phosphates are exported from Algeria and Tunisia. Of other minerals which occur, but are little worked, zinc, lead and antimony are found in Algeria, lead and manganese in Cape Colony, plumbago in Sierra Leone. The imports from foreign countries into Africa consist chiefly of manufactured goods, varying in character according to the development of the different countries in civilization. In Egypt, Algeria and South Africa they include most of the necessaries and luxuries of civilized life, manufactured cotton and woollen goods, especially the former, taking the first place, but various food stuffs, metal goods, coal and miscellaneous articles being also included. In tropical Africa, and generally where few Europeans have settled, the great bulk of the imports consists as a rule of cotton goods, articles for which there is a constant native demand.

No continent has in the past been so lacking in means of communication as Africa, and it was only in the last decade of the 19th century that decided steps were taken to remedy these defects. The African rivers, with the exception of the middle Congo and its affluents, and the middle course of the three other chief rivers, are generally unfavourable to navigation, and throughout the tropical region almost the sole routes have been native footpaths, admitting the passage of a single file of porters, on whose heads all goods have been carried from place to place. Certain of these native trade routes are, however, much frequented, and lead for hundreds of miles from the coast to the interior. In the desert regions of the north transport is by caravans of camels, and in the south ox-wagons, before the advent of railways, supplied the general means of locomotion. The native trade routes led generally from the centres of greatest population or production to the seaports by the nearest route, but to this rule there was a striking exception. The dense forests of Upper Guinea and the upper Congo proved a barrier which kept the peoples of the Sudan from direct access to the sea, and from Timbuktu to Darfur the great trade routes were either west to east or south to north across the Sahara. The principal caravan routes across the desert lead from different points in Morocco and Algeria to Timbuktu; from Tripoli to Timbuktu, Kano and other great marts of the western and central Sudan; from Bengazi to Wadai; and from Assiut on the Nile through the Great Oasis and the Libyan desert to Darfur. South of the equator the principal long-established routes are those from Loanda to the Lunda and Baluba countries; from Benguella via Bihe to Urua and the upper Zambezi; from Mossamedes across the Kunene to the upper Zambezi; and from Bagamoyo, opposite Zanzibar, to Tanganyika. Many of the native routes have been superseded by the improved communications introduced by Europeans in the utilization of waterways and the construction of roads and railways. Steamers have been conveyed overland in sections and launched on the interior waterways above the obstructions to navigation. On the upper Nile and Albert Nyanza their introduction was due to Sir S. Baker and General C. G. Gordon (1871-1876); on the middle Congo and its affluents to Sir H. M. Stanley and the officials of the Congo Free State, as well as to the Baptist missionaries on the river; and on Lake Nyasa to the supporters of the Scottish mission. A small vessel was launched on Victoria Nyanza 1896 by a British mercantile firm, and a British government steamer made its first trip in November 1900. On the other great lakes and on most of the navigable rivers steamers were plying regularly before the close of the 19th century. However, the shallowness of the water in the Niger and Zambezi renders their navigation possible only to light-draught steamers. Roads suitable for wheeled traffic are few. The first attempt at road-making in Central Africa on a large scale was that of Sir T. Fowell Buxton and Mr (afterwards Sir W. ) Mackinnon, who completed the first section of a track leading into the interior fromDar-es-Salaam (1879). A still more important undertaking was the ``Stevenson road, '' begun in 1881 from the head of Lake Nyasa to the south end of Tanganyika, and constructed mainly at the expense of Mr James Stevenson, a director of theAfrican Lakes Company—a company which helped materially in the opening up of Nyasaland. The Stevenson road forms a link in the ``Lakes route'' into the heart of the continent. In British East Africa a road connecting Mombasa with Victoria Nyanza was completed in 1897, but has since been in great measure superseded by the railway. Good roads have also been made in German East Africa and Cameroon and in Madagascar.

Railways, the chief means of affording easy access to the interior of the continent, were for many years after their first introduction to Africa almost entirely confined to the extreme north and south (Egypt, Algeria, Cape Colony and Natal). Apart from short lines in Senegal, Angola and at Lourenco Marques, the rest of the continent was in 1890 without a railway system. In Egypt the Alexandria and Cairo railway dates from 1855, while in 1877 the lines open reached about 1100 miles, and in 1890, in addition to the lines traversing the delta, the Nile had been ascended to Assiut. In Algeria the construction of an inter-provincial railway was decreed in 1857, but was still incomplete twenty years later, when the total length of the lines open hardly exceeded 300 miles. Before 1890 an extension to Tunis had been opened, while the plateau had been crossed by the lines to Ain Sefra in the west and Biskra in the east. In Senegal the railway from Dakar to St Louis had been commenced and completed during the 'eighties, while the first section of the Senegal-Niger railway, that from Kayes to Bafulabe, was also constructed during the same decade. In Cape Colony, where in about 1880 the railways were limited to the neighbourhood of Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, the next decade saw the completion of the trunk-line from Cape Town to Kimberley, with a junction at De Aar with that from Port Elizabeth. The northern frontier had, however, nowhere been crossed. In Natal, also, the main line had not advanced beyond Ladysmith. The settlement, c. 1890, of the main lines of the partition of the continent was followed by many projects for the opening up of the possessions and spheres of influence of the various powers by the building of railways; several of these schemes being carried through in a comparatively short time. The building of railways was undertaken by the governments concerned, nearly all the African lines being state-owned. In the Congo Free State a railway, which took some ten years to build, connecting the navigable waters of the lower and middle Congo, was completed in 1898, while in 1906 the middle and upper courses of the river were linked by the opening of a line past Stanley Falls. Thus the vast basin of the Congo was rendered easily accessible to commercial enterprise. In North Africa the Algerian and Tunisian railways were largely extended, and proposals were made for a great trunk-line from Tangier to Alexandria. The railway from Ain Sefra was continued southward towards Tuat, the project of a trans-Saharan line having occupied the attention of French engineers since 1880. In French West Africa railway communication between the upper Senegal and the upper Niger was completed in 1904; from the Guinea coast at Konakry another line runs north-east to the upper Niger, while from Dahomey a third line goes to the Niger at Garu. In the British colonies on the same coast the building of railways was begun in 1896. A line to Kumasi was completed in 1903, and the line from Lagos to the lower Niger had reached Illorin in 1908. Thence the railway was continued to the Niger at Jebba. From Baro, a port on the lower Niger which can be reached by steamers all the year round, another railway, begun in 1907, goes via Bida, Zungeru and Zaria to Kano, a total distance of 400 miles. A line from Jebba to Zungeru affords connexion with the Lagos railway.

But the greatest development of the railway systems was in the south and east of the continent. In British East Africa a survey for a railway from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza was made in 1892. The first rails were laid in 1896 and the line reached the lake in December 1901. Meanwhile, there had been a great extension of railways in South Africa. Lines from Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban and Delagoa Bay all converged on the newly risen city of Johannesburg, the centre of the Rand gold mines. A more ambitious project was that identified with the name of Cecil Rhodes, namely, the extension northward of the railway from Kimberley with the object of effecting a continuous railway connexion from Cape Town to Cairo. The line from Kimberley reached Bulawayo in 1897. (Bulawayo is also reached from Beira on the east coast by another line, completed in 1902, which goes through Portuguese territory and Mashonaland. ) The extension of the line northward from Bulawayo was begun in 1899, the Zambezi being bridged, immediately below the Victoria Falls, in 1905. From this point the railway goes north to the Katanga district of the Congo State. In the north of the continent a step towards the completion of the Cape to Cairo route was taken in the opening in 1899 of the railway from Wadi Haifa to Khartum. A line of greater economic importance than the lastnamed is the railway (completed in 1905) from Port Sudan on the Red Sea to the Nile a little south of Berber, thus placing the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan within easy reach of the markets of the world. A west to east connexion across the continent by rail and steamer, from the mouth of the Congo to Port Sudan, was arranged in 1906 when an agreement was entered into by the Congo and Sudan governments for the building of a railway from Lado, on the Nile, to the Congo frontier, there to meet a railway starting from the river Congo near Stanley Falls. A railway of considerable importance is that from Jibuti in the Gulf of Aden to Harrar, giving access to the markets of southern Abyssinia.

Besides the railways mentioned there are several others of less importance. Lines run from Loanda and other ports of Angola towards the Congo State frontier, and from Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam on the coast of German East Africa towards the great lakes. In British Central Africa a railway connects Lake Nyasa with the navigable waters of the Shire, and various lines have been built by the French in Madagascar.

All the main railways in South Africa, the lines in British West Africa, in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and in Egypt south of Luxor are of 3 ft. 6 in. gauge. The main lines in Lower Egypt and in Algeria and Tunisia are of 4 ft. 8 1/2 in. gauge. Elsewhere as in French West and British East Africa the lines are of metre (3. 28 ft. ) gauge.

The telegraphic system of Africa is on the whole older than that of the railways, the newer European possessions having in most cases been provided with telegraph lines before railway projects had been set on foot. In Algeria, Egypt and Cape Colony the systems date back to the middle of the 19th century, before the end of which the lines had in each country reached some thousands of miles. In tropical Africa the systems of French West Africa, where the line from Dakar to St Louis was begun in 1862, were the first to be fully developed, lines having been carried from different points on the coast of Senegal and Guinea towards the Niger, the main line being prolonged north-west to Timbuktu, and west and south to the coast of Dahomey. The route for a telegraph line to connect Timbuktu with Algeria was surveyed in 1905. The Congo region is furnished with several telegraphic systems, the longest going from the mouth of the river to Lake Tanganyika. From Ujiji on the east coast of that lake there is telegraphic communication via Tabora with Dar-es-Salaam and via Nyasa and Rhodesia with Cape Town. The last-named line is the longest link in the trans-continental line first suggested in 1876 by Sir (then Mr) Edwin Arnold and afterwards taken up by Cecil Rhodes. The northern link from Egypt to Khartum has been continued southward to Uganda, while another line connects Uganda with Mombasa. At the principal seaports the inland systems are connected with submarine cables which place Africa in telegraphic communication with the rest of the world.

Numerous steamship lines run from Great Britain, Germany, France and other countries to the African seaports, the journey from any place in western Europe to any port on the African coast occupying, by the shortest route, not more than three weeks. (E. HE. , F. R. C. )

1 Further conferences respecting the liquor traffic in Africa were held in Brussels in 1899 and 1906. In both instances conventions were signed by the powers, raising the minimum duty on imported spirituous liquors.

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