Africa

Africa

AFRICA

AFRICA, the name of a continent representing the largest of the three

great southward projections from the main mass of the earth's surface. It

includes within its remarkably regular outline an area, according to the

most recent computations, of 11,262,000 sq. m., excluding the islands.1

Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its

N.E. extremity by the Isthmus of Suez, 80 m. wide. From the most northerly

point, Ras ben Sakka, a little west of Cape Blanc, in 37 deg. 21' N., to

the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas, 34 deg. 51' 15'' S., is a distance

approximately of 5000 m.; from Cape Verde, 17 deg. 33' 22'' W., the

westernmost point, to Ras Hafun, 51 deg. 27' 52'' E., the most easterly

projection, is a distance (also approximately) of 4600 m. The length of

coast-line is 16,100 m. and the absence of deep indentations of the shore

is shown by the fact that Europe, which covers only 3,760,000 sq. m., has a

coast-line of 19,800 m.

I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

The main structural lines of the continent show both the east-to-west

direction characteristic, at least in the eastern hemisphere, of the more

northern parts of the world, and the north-to-south direction seen in the

southern peninsulas. Africa is thus composed of two segments at right

angles, the northern running from east to west, the southern from north to

south, the subordinate lines corresponding in the main to these two

directions.

Main Geographical Features.—The mean elevation of the continent

approximates closely to 2000 ft., which is roughly the elevation of both

North and South America, but is considerably less than that of Asia (3117

ft.). In contrast with the other continents it is marked by the

comparatively small area both of very high and of very low ground, lands

under 600 ft. occupying an unusually small part of the surface; while not

only are the highest elevations inferior to those of Asia and South

America, but the area of land over 10,000 ft. is also quite insignificant,

being represented almost entirely by individual peaks and mountain ranges.

Moderately elevated tablelands are thus the characteristic feature of the

continent, though the surface of these is broken by higher peaks and

ridges. (So prevalent are these isolated peaks and ridges that a special

term [Inselberg-landschaft] has been adopted in Germany to describe this

kind of country, which is thought to be in great part the result of wind

action.) As a general rule, the higher tablelands lie to the east and

south, while a progressive diminution in altitude towards the west and

north is observable. Apart from the lowlands and the Atlas range, the

continent may be divided into two regions of higher and lower plateaus, the

dividing line (somewhat concave to the north-west) running from the middle

of the Red Sea to about 6 deg. S. on the west coast. We thus obtain the

following four main divisions of the continent:—-(1) The coast plains—-

often fringed seawards by mangrove swamps—never stretching far from the

coast, except on the lower courses of streams. Recent alluvial flats are

found chiefly in the delta of the more important rivers. Elsewhere the

coast lowlands merely form the lowest steps of the system of terraces which

constitutes the ascent to the inner plateaus. (2) The Atlas range, which,

orographically, is distinct from the rest of the continent, being

unconnected with any other area of high ground, and separated from the rest

of the continent on the south by a depressed and desert area (the Sahara),

in places below sea-level. (3) The high southern and eastern plateaus,

rarely falling below 2000 ft., and having a mean elevation of about 3500

ft. (4) The north and west African plains, bordered and traversed by bands

of higher ground, but generally below 2000 ft. This division includes the

great desert of the Sahara.

The third and fourth divisions may be again subdivided. Thus the high

plateaus include:—(a) The South African plateau as far as about 12 deg. S.,

bounded east, west and south by bands of high ground which fall steeply to

the coasts. On this account South Africa has a general resemblance to an

inverted saucer. Due south the plateau rim is formed by three parallel

steps with level ground between them. The largest of these level areas, the

Great Karroo, is a dry, barren region, and a large tract of the plateau

proper is of a still more arid character and is known as the Kalahari

Desert. The South African plateau is connected towards the north-east with

(b) the East African plateau, with probably a slightly greater average

elevation, and marked by some distinct features. It is formed by a widening

out of the eastern axis of high ground, which becomes subdivided into a

number of zones running north and south and consisting in turn of ranges,

tablelands and depressions. The most striking feature is the existence of

two great lines of depression, due largely to the subsidence of whole

segments of the earth's crust, the lowest parts of which are occupied by

vast lakes. Towards the south the two lines converge and give place to one

great valley (occupied by Lake Nyasa), the southern part of which is less

distinctly due to rifting and subsidence than the rest of the system.

Farther north the western depression, sometimes known as the Central

African trough or Albertine rift-valley, is occupied for more than half its

length by water, forming the four lakes of Tanganyika, Kivu, Albert Edward

and Albert, the first-named over 400 m. long and the longest freshwater

lake in the world. Associated with these great valleys are a number of

volcanic peaks, the greatest of which occur on a meridional line east of

the eastern trough. The eastern depression, known as the East African

trough or rift-valley, contains much smaller lakes, many of them brackish

and without outlet, the only one comparable to those of the western trough

being Lake Rudolf or Basso Norok. At no great distance east of this rift-

valley are Kilimanjaro—with its two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi, the former

19,321 ft., and the culminating point of the whole continent—and Kenya

(17,007 ft.). Hardly less important is the Ruwenzori range (over 16,600

ft.), which lies east of the western trough. Other volcanic peaks rise from

the floor of the valleys, some of the Kirunga (Mfumbiro) group, north of

Lake Kivu, being still partially active. (c) The third division of the

higher region of Africa is formed by the Abyssinian highlands, a rugged

mass of mountains forming the largest continuous area of its altitude in

the whole continent, little of its surface falling below 5000 ft., while

the summits reach heights of 15,000 to 16,000 ft. This block of country

lies just west of the line of the great East African trough, the northern

continuation of which passes along its eastern escarpment as it runs up to

join the Red Sea. There is, however, in the centre a circular basin

occupied by Lake Tsana.

Both in the east and west of the continent the bordering highlands are

continued as strips of plateau parallel to the coast, the Abyssinian

mountains being continued northwards along the Red Sea coast by a series of

ridges reaching in places a height of 7000 ft. In the west the zone of high

land is broader but somewhat lower. The most mountainous districts lie

inland from the head of the Gulf of Guinea (Adamawa, &c.), where heights of

6000 to 8000 ft. are reached. Exactly at the head of the gulf the great

peak of the Cameroon, on a line of Volcanic action continued by the islands

to the south-west, has a height of 13,370 ft., while Clarence Peak, in

Fernando Po, the first of the line of islands, rises to over 9000. Towards

the extreme west the Futa Jallon highlands form an important diverging

point of rivers, but beyond this, as far as the Atlas chain, the elevated

rim of the continent is almost wanting.

The area between the east and west coast highlands, which north of 17

deg. N. is mainly desert, is divided into separate basins by other bands of

high ground, one of which runs nearly centrally through North Africa in a

line corresponding roughly with the curved axis of the continent as a

whole. The best marked of the basins so formed (the Congo basin) occupies a

circular area bisected by the equator, once probably the site of an inland

sea. The arid region, the Sahara—the largest desert in the world, covering

3,500,000 sq. m.—extends from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Though generally

of slight elevation it contains mountain ranges with peaks rising to 8000

ft. Bordered N.W. by the Atlas range, to the N.E. a rocky plateau separates

it from the Mediterranean; this plateau gives place at the extreme east to

the delta of the Nile. That river (see below) pierces the desert without

modifying its character. The Atlas range, the north-westerly part of the

continent, between its seaward and landward heights encloses elevated

steppes in places 100 m. broad. From the inner slopes of the plateau

numerous wadis take a direction towards the Sahara. The greater part of

that now desert region is, indeed, furrowed by old water-channels.

The following table gives the approximate altitudes of the chief

mountains and lakes of the continent:—

Mountains. Ft. Lakes. Ft.

Rungwe (Nyasa) . 10,400 Chad . . . . 8502

Drakensberg . . 10,7002 Leopold II . . 1100

Lereko or Sattima . 13,2143 Rudolf . . . 1250

(Aberdare Range) Nyasa . . . 16453

Cameroon . . 13,370 Albert Nyanza . 20282

Elgon . . . 14,1523 Tanganyika . . 26243

Karissimbi . . Ngami . . . . 2950

(Mfumbiro) . 14,6833 Mweru . . . . 3000

Meru . . . 14,9553 Albert Edward . 30043

Taggharat (Atlas) . 15,0002 Bangweulu. . . 3700

Simen Mountains, . 15,1602 Victoria Nyanza. 37203

Abyssinia Abai . . . . 4200

Ruwenzori . . 16,6193 Kivu . . . . 48293

Kenya . . . 17,0073 Tsana . . . . 5690

Kilimanjaro . . 19,3213 Naivasha . . . 61353

The Hydrographic Systems.—-From the outer margin of the African plateaus

a large number of streams run to the sea with comparatively short courses,

while the larger rivers flow for long distances on the interior highlands

before breaking through the outer ranges. The main drainage of the

continent is to the north and west, or towards the basin of the Atlantic

Ocean. The high lake plateau of East Africa contains the head-waters of the

Nile and Congo: the former the longest, the latter the largest river of the

continent. The upper Nile receives its chief supplies from the mountainous

region adjoining the Central African trough in the neighbourhood of the

equator. Thence streams pour east to the Victoria Nyanza, the largest

African lake (covering over 26,000 sq. m.), and west and north to the

Albert Edward and Albert Nyanzas, to the latter of which the effluents of

the other two lakes add their waters. Issuing from it the Nile flows north,

and between 7 deg. and 10 deg. N. traverses a vast marshy level during

which its course is liable to blocking by floating vegetation. After

receiving the Bahr-el-Ghazal from the west and the Sobat, Blue Nile and

Atbara from the Abyssinian highlands (the chief gathering ground of the

flood-water), it crosses the great desert and enters the Mediterranean by a

vast delta. The most remote head-stream of the Congo is the Chambezi, which

flows south-west into the marshy Lake Bangweulu. From this lake issues the

Congo, known in its upper course by various names. Flowing first south, it

afterwards turns north through Lake Mweru and descends to the forest-clad

basin of west equatorial Africa. Traversing this in a majestic northward

curve and receiving vast supplies of water from many great tributaries, it

finally turns south-west and cuts a way to the Atlantic Ocean through the

western highlands. North of the Congo basin and separated from it by a

broad undulation of the surface is the basin of Lake Chad—-a flat-shored,

shallow lake filled principally by the Shad coming from the south-east.

West of this is the basin of the Niger, the third river of Africa, which,

though flowing to the Atlantic, has its principal source in the far west,

and reverses the direction of flow exhibited by the Nile and Congo. An

important branch, however—the Benue—comes from the south-east. These four

river-basins occupy the greater part of the lower plateaus of North and

West Africa, the remainder consisting of arid regions watered only by

intermittent streams which do not reach the sea. Of the remaining rivers of

the Atlantic basin the Orange, in the extreme south, brings the drainage

from the Drakensberg on the opposite side of the continent, while the

Kunene, Kwanza, Ogowe and Sanaga drain the west corst highlands of the

southern limb; the Volta, Komoe, Bandama, Gambia and Senegal the highlands

of the western limb. North of the Senegal for over 1000 m. of coast the

arid region reaches to the Atlantic. Farther north are the streams, with

comparatively short courses, which reach the Atlantic and Mediterranean

from the Atlas mountains.

Of the rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean the only one draining any large

part of the interior plateaus is the Zambezi, whose western branches rise

in the west coast highlands. The main stream has its rise in 11 deg. 21'

3'' S. 24 deg. 22' E. at an elevation of 5000 ft. It flows west and south

for a considerable distance before turning to the east. All the largest

tributaries, including the Shire, the outflow of Lake Nyasa, flow down the

southern slopes of the band of high ground which stretches across the

conbnent in 10 deg. to 12 deg. S. In the south-west the Zambezi system

interlaces with that of the Taukhe (or Tioghe), from which it at times

receives surplus water. The rest of the water of the Taukhe, known in its

middle course as the Okavango, is lost in a system of swamps and saltpans

which formerly centred in Lake Ngami, now dried up. Farther south the

Limpopo drains a portion of the interior plateau but breaks through the

bounding highlands on the side of the continent nearest its source. The

Rovuma, Rufiji, Tana, Juba and Webi Shebeli principally drain the outer

slopes of the East African highlands, the last named losing itself in the

sands in close proximity to the sea. Another large stream, the Hawash,

rising in the Abyssinian mountains, is lost in a saline depression near the

Gulf of Aden. Lastly, between the basins of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans

there is an area of inland drainage along the centre of the East African

plateau, directed chiefly into the lakes in the great rift-valley. The

largest river is the Omo, which, fed by the rains of the Abyssinian

highlands, carries down a large body of water into Lake Rudolf. The rivers

of Africa are generally obstructed either by bars at their mouths or by

cataracts at no great distance up-stream. But when these obstacles have

been overcome the rivers and lakes afford a network of navigable waters of

vast extent.

The calculation of the areas of African drainage systems, made by Dr A.

Bludau (Petermanns Mitteilungen, 43, 1897, pp. 184-186) gives the following

general results:—

Basin of the Atlantic . . . . . 4,070,000 sq. m.

'' '' Mediterranean . . . 1,680,000 ''

'' '' Indian Ocean . . . . 2,086,000 ''

Inland drainage area . . . . . 3,452,000 ''

The areas of individual river-basins are:—

Congo (length over 3000 m.) . . 1,425,000 sq. m.

Nile ( '' fully 4000 m.) . . 1,082,0004 ''

Niger ( '' about 2600 m.) . . 808,0005 ''

Zambezi ( '' '' 2000 m.) . . 513,500 ''

Lake Chad . . . . . . . . . 394,000 ''

Orange (length about 1300 m.) . . 370,505 ''

'' (actual drainage area) . . 172,500 ''

The area of the Congo basin is greater than that of any other river

except the Amazon, while the African inland drainage area is greater than

that of any continent but Asia, in which the corresponding area is

4,000,000 sq. m.

The principal African lakes have been mentioned in the description of the

East African plateau, but some of the phenomena connected with them may be

spoken of more particularly here. As a rule the lakes which occupy portions

of the great rift-valleys have steep sides and are very deep. This is the

case with the two largest of the type, Tanganyika and Nyasa, the latter of

which has depths of 430 fathoms. Others, however, are shallow, and hardly,

reach the steep sides of the valleys in the dry season. Such are Lake

Rukwa, in a subsidiary depression north of Nyasa, and Eiassi and Manyara in

the system of the eastern rift-valley. Lakes of the broad type are of

moderate depth, the deepest sounding in Victoria Nyanza being under 50

fathoms. Apart from the seasonal variations of level, most of the lakes

show periodic fluctuations, while a progressive desiccation of the whole

region is said to be traceable, tending to the ultimate disappearance of

the lakes. Such a drying up has been in progress during long geologic ages,

but doubt exists as to its practical importance at the present time. The

periodic fluctuations in the level of Lake Tanganyika are such that its

outllow is intermittent. Besides the East African lakes the principal are:—-

Lake Chad, in the northern area of inland drainage; Bangweulu and Mweru,

traversed by the head-stream of the Congo; and Leopold II. and Ntomba

(Mantumba), within the great bend of that river. All, exceot possibly

Mweru, are more or less shallow, and Chad appears to by drying up. The

altitudes of the African lakes have already been stated.

Divergent opinions have been beld as to the mode of origin of the East

African lakes, especially Tanganyika, which some geologists have considered

to represent an old arm of the sea, dating from a time when the whole

central Congo basin was under water; others holding that the lake water has

accumulated in a depression caused by subsidence. The former view is based

on the existence in the lake of organisms of a decidedly marine type. They

include a jelly-fish, molluscs, prawns, crabs, &c., and were at first

considered to form an isolated group found in no other of the African

lakes; but this supposition has been proved to be erroneous.

Islands.—With one exception—-Madagascar—the African islands are small.

Madagascar, with an area of 229,820 sq. m., is, after New Guinea and

Borneo, the largest island of the world.

It lies off the S.E. coast of the continent, from which it is separated

by the deep Mozambique channel, 250 m. wide at its narrowest point.

Madagascar in its general structure, as in flora and fauna, forms a

connecting link between Africa and southern Asia. East of Madagascar are

the small islands of Mauritius and Reunion. Sokotra lies E.N.E. of Cape

Guardafui. Off the north-west coast are the Canary and Cape Verde

archipelagoes. which, like some small islands in the Gulf of Guinea, are of

volcanic origin.

Climate and Health.—-Lying almost entirely within the tropics, and

equally to north and south of the equator, Africa does not show excessive

variations of temperature. Great heat is experienced in the lower plains

and desert regions of North Africa, removed by the great width of the

continent from the influence of the ocean, and here, too, the contrast

between day and night, and between summer and winter, is greatest. (The

rarity of the air and the great radiation during the night cause the

temperature in the Sahara to fall occasionally to freezing point.) Farther

south, the heat is to some extent modified by the moisture brought from the

ocean, and by the greater elevation of a large part of the surface,

especially in East Africa, where the range of temperature is wider than in

the Congo basin or on the Guinea coast. In the extreme north and south the

climate is a warm temperate one, the northern countries being on the whole

hotter and drier than those in the southern zone; the south of the

continent being narrower than the north, the influence of the surrounding

ocean is more felt. The most important climatic differences are due to

variations in the amount of rainfall. The wide heated plains of the Sahara,

and in a lesser degree the corresponding zone of the Kalahari in the south,

have an exceedingly scanty rainfall, the winds which blow over them from

the ocean losing part of their moisture as they pass over the outer

highlands, and becoming constantly drier owing to the heating effects of

the burning soil of the interior; while the scarcity of mountain ranges in

the more central parts likewise tends to prevent condensation. In the inter-

tropical zone of summer precipitation, the rainfall is greatest when the

sun is vertical or soon after. It is therefore greatest of all near the

equator, where the sun is twice vertical, and less in the direction of both

tropics. The rainfall zones are, however, somewhat deflected from a due

west-to-east direction, the drier northern conditions extending southwards

along the east coast, and those of the south northwards along the west.

Within the equatorial zone certain areas, especially on the shores of the

Gulf of Guinea and in the upper Nile basin, have an intensified rainfall,

but this rarely approaches that of the rainiest regions of the world. The

rainiest district in all Africa is a strip of coastland west of Mount

Cameroon, where there is a mean annual rainfall of about 390 in. as

compared with a mean of 458 in. at Cherrapunji, in Assam. The two distinct

rainy seasons of the equatorial zone, where the sun is vertical at half-

yearly intervals, become gradually merged into one in the direction of the

tropics, where the sun is overhead but once. Snow falls on all the higher

mountain ranges, and on the highest the climate is thoroughly Alpine. The

countries bordering the Sahara are much exposed to a very dry wind, full of

fine particles of sand, blowing from the desert towards the sea. Known in

Egypt as the khamsin, on the Mediterranean as the sirocco, it is called on

the Guinea coast the harmattan. This wind is not invariably hot; its great

dryness causes so much evaporation that cold is not infrequently the

result. Similar dry winds blow from the Kalahari in the south. On the

eastern coast the monsoons of the Indian Ocean are regularly felt, and on

the south-east hurricanes are occasionally experienced.

While the climate of the north and south, especially the south, is

eminently healthy, and even the intensely heated Sahara is salubrious by

reason of its dryness, the tropical zone as a whole is, for European races,

the most unhealthy portion of the world. This is especially the case in the

lower and moister regions, such as the west coast, where malarial fever is

very prevalent and deadly; the most unfavourable factors being humidity

with absence of climatic variation (daily or seasonal). The higher

plateaus, where not only is the average temperature lower, but such

variations are more extensive, are more healthy; and in certain localities

(e.g. Abyssinia and parts of British East Africa) Europeans find the

climate suitable for permanent residence. On tablelands over 6500 ft. above

the sea, frost is not uncommon at night, even in places directly under the

equator. The acclimatization of white men in tropical Africa generally is

dependent largely on the successful treatment of tropical diseases.

Districts which had been notoriously deadly to Europeans were rendered

comparatively healthy after the discovery, in 1899, of the species of

mosquito which propagates malarial fever, and the measures thereafter taken

for its destruction and the filling up of swamps. The rate of mortality

among the natives from tropical diseases is also high, one of the most

fatal being that known as sleeping sickness. (The ravages of this disease,

which also attacks Europeans, reached alarming proportions between 1893 and

1907, and in the last-named year an international conference was held in

London to consider measures to combat it.) When removed to colder regions

natives of the equatorial districts suffer greatly from chest complaints.

Smallpox also makes great ravages among the negro population.

Flora.—The vegetation of Africa follows very closely the distribution of

heat and moisture. The northern and southern temperate zones have a flora

distinct from that of the continent generally, which is tropical. In the

countries bordering the Mediterranean are groves of oranges and olive

trees, evergreen oaks, cork trees and pines, intermixed with cypresses,

myrtles, arbutus and fragrant tree-heaths. South of the Atlas range the

conditions alter. The zones of minimum rainfall have a very scanty flora,

consisting of plants adapted to resist the great dryness. Characteristic of

the Sahara is the date-palm, which flourishes where other vegetation can

scarcely maintain existence, while in the semidesert regions the acacia

(whence is obtained gum-arabic) is abundant. The more humid regions have a

richer vegetation —dense forest where the rainfall is greatest and

variations of temperature least, conditions found chiefly on the tropical

coasts, and in the west African equatorial basin with its extension towards

the upper Nile; and savanna interspersed with trees on the greater part of

the plateaus, passing as the desert regions are approached into a scrub

vegetation consisting of thorny acacias, &c. Forests also occur on the

humid slopes of mountain ranges up to a certain elevation. In the coast

regions the typical tree is the mangrove, which flourishes wherever the

soil is of a swamp character. The dense forests of West Africa contain, in

addition to a great variety of dicotyledonous trees, two palms, the Elaeis

guincensis (oil-palm) and Raphia vinifera (bamboo-palm), not found,

generally speaking, in the savanna regions. The bombax or silk-cotton tree

attains gigantic proportions in the forests, which are the home of the

indiarubber-producing plants and of many valuable kinds of timber trees,

such as odum (Chlorophora excelsa), ebony, mahogany (Khaya senegalensis),

African teak or oak (Oldfieldia africana) and camwood (Baphia nitida.) The

climbing plants in the tropical forests are exceedingly luxuriant and the

undergrowth or ``bush'' is extremely dense. In the savannas the most

characteristic trees are the monkey bread tree or baobab (Adanisonia

digitata), doom palm (Hyphaene) and euphorbias. The coffee plant grows wild

in such widely separated places as Liberia and southern Abyssinia. The

higher mountains have a special flora showing close agreement over wide

intervals of space, as well as affinities with the mountain flora of the

eastern Mediterranean, the Himalayas and Indo-China (cf. A. Engler, Uber

die Hochgebirgsflora des tropischen Afrika, 1892).

In the swamp regions of north-east Africa the papyrus and associated

plants, including the soft-wooded ambach, flourish in immense quantities—-

and little else is found in the way of vegetation. South Africa is largely

destitute of forest save in the lower valleys and coast regions. Tropical

flora disappears, and in the semi-desert plains the fleshy, leafless,

contorted species of kapsias, mesembryanthemums, aloes and other succulent

plants make their appearance. There are, too, valuable timber trees, such

as the yellow pine (Podocarpus elongatus), stinkwood (Ocotea), sneezewood

or Cape ebony (Pteroxylon utile) and ironwood. Extensive miniature woods of

heaths are found in almost endless variety and covered throughout the

greater part of the year with innumerable blossoms in which red is very

prevalent. Of the grasses of Africa alfa is very abundant in the plateaus

of the Atlas range.

Fauna.—The fauna again shows the effect of the characteristics of the

vegetation. The open savannas are the home of large ungulates, especially

antelopes, the giraffe (peculiar to Africa), zebra, buffalo, wild ass and

four species of rhinoceros; and of carnivores, such as the lion, leopard,

hyaena, &c. The okapi (a genus restricted to Africa) is found only in the

dense forests of the Congo basin. Bears are confined to the Atlas region,

wolves and foxes to North Africa. The elephant (though its range has become

restricted through the attacks of hunters) is found both in the savannas

and forest regions, the latter being otherwise poor in large game, though

the special habitat of the chimpanzee and gorilla. Baboons and mandrills,

with few exceptions, are peculiar to Africa. The single-humped camel—as a

domestic animal—is especially characteristic of the northern deserts and

steppes.

The rivers in the tropical zone abound with hippopotami and crocodiles,

the former entirely confined to Africa. The vast herds of game, formerly so

characteristic of many parts of Africa, have much diminished with the

increase of intercourse with the interior. Game reserves have, however,

been established in South Africa, British Central Africa, British East

Africa, Somahland, &c., while measures for the protection of wild animals

were laid down in an international convention signed in May 1900.

The ornithology of northern Affica presents a close resemblance to that

of southern Europe, scarcely a species being found which does not also

occur in the other countries bordering the Mediterranean. Among the birds

most characteristic of Africa are the ostrich and the secretary-bird. The

ostrich is widely dispersed, but is found chiefly in the desert and steppe

regions. The secretary-bird is common in the south. The weaver birds and

their allies, including the long-tailed whydahs, are abundant, as are,

among game-birds, the francolin and guinea-fowl. Nany of the smaller birds,

such as the sun-birds, bee-eaters, the parrots and halcyons, as well as the

larger plantain-eaters, are noted for the brilliance of their plumage. Of

reptiles the lizard and chameleon are common, and there are a number of

venomous serpents, though these are not so numerous as in other tropical

countries. The scorpion is abundant. Of insects Africa has many thousand

different kinds; of these the locust is the proverbial scourge of the

continent, and the ravages of the termites or white ants are almost

incredible. The spread of malaria by means of mosquitoes has already been

mentioned. The tsetse fly, whose bite is fatal to all domestic animals, is

common in many districts of South and East Africa. Fortunately it is found

nowhere outside Africa. (E. HE.; F. R. C.)

1 With the islands, 11,498,000 sq. m.

2 Estimated.

3 See the calculations of Capt. T. T. Behrens, Geog. Journal, vol. xxix.

(1907).

4 The estimate of Capt. H. G. Lyons in 1905 was 1,107,227 sq. mi.

5 including waterless tracts naturally belonging to the river-basin.

II. GEOLOGY

In shape and general geological structure Africa bears a close

resemblance to India. Both possess a meridional extension with a broad east

and west folded region in the north. In both a successive series of

continental deposits, ranging from the Carboniferous to the Rhaetic, rests

on an older base of crystalline rocks. In the words of Professor Suess,

``India and Africa are true plateau countries.''

Of the primitive axes of Africa few traces remain. Both on the east and

west a broad zone of crystalline rochs extends parallel with the coast-line

to form the margin of the elevated plateau of the interior. Occasionally

the crystalline belt comes to the coast, but it is usually reached by two

steps known as the coastal belt and foot-plateau. On the flanks of the

primitive western axis certain ancient sedimentary strata are thrown into

folds which were completed before the commencement of the mesozoic period.

In the south, the later palaeozoic rocks are also thrown into acute folds

by a movement acting from the south, and which ceased towards the close of

the mesozoic period. In northern Africa the folded region of the Atlas

belongs to the comparatively recent date of the Alpine system. None of

these earth movements affected the interior, for here the continental

mesozoic deposits rest, undisturbed by folding, on the primary sedimentary

and crystalline rocks. The crystalline massif, therefore, presents a solid

block which has remained elevated since early palaeozoic times, and against

which earth waves of several geological periods have broken.

The formations older than the mesozoic are remarkably unfossiliferous, so

that the determination of their age is frequently a matter of speculation,

and in the following table the European equivalents of the pre-Karroo

formations in many regions must be regarded as subject to considerable

revision.

Rocks of Archean age cover wide areas in the interior, in West and East

Africa and across the Sahara. Along the coastal margins they underlie the

newer formations and appear in the deep valleys and kloofs wherever

denudation has laid them bare. The prevailing types are granites, gneisses

and schists. In the central regions the predominant strike of the fohae is

north and south. The rocks, for convenience classed as pre-Cambrian, occur

as several unconformable groups, chiefly developed in the south where alone

their stratigraphy has been determined. They are unfossiliferous, and in

the absence of undoubted Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian strata in Africa

they may be regarded as of older date than any of these formations. The

general occurrence of jasper-bearing rocks is of interest, as these are

always present in the ancient pressure-altered sedimentary formations of

America and Europe. Some unfossiliferous conglomerates, sandstones and

dolomites in South Africa and on the west coast are considered to belong to

the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian formations, but merely from their

occurrence beneath strata yielding Devonian fossils. In Cape Colony the

Silurian age of the Table Mountain Sandstone is based on such evidence.

The Devonian and Carboniferous formations are well represented in the

north and south and in northern Angola.

Up to the close of the palaeozoic period the relative positions of the

ancient land masses and oceans remain unsolved; but the absence of marine

strata of early palaeozoic age from Central Africa points to there being

land in this direction. In late Carboniferous times Africa and India were

undoubtedly united to form a large continent, called by Suess Gondwana

Land. In each country the same succession of the rocks is met with; over

both the same specialized orders of reptiles roamed and were entombed.

The interior of the African portion of Gondwana Land was occupied by

several large lakes in which an immense thickness—amounting to over 18,000

ft. in South Africa—-of sandstones and marls, forming the Karroo system,

was laid down. This is par excellence the African formation, and covers

immense areas in South Africa and the Congo basin, with detached portions

in East Africa. During the whole of the time—-Carboniferous to Rhaetic—that

this great accumulation of freshwater beds was taking place, the interior

of the continent must have been undergoing depression. The commencement of

the period was marked by one of the most wonderful episodes in the

geological history of Africa. Preserved in the formation known as the Dwyka

Conglomerate, are evidences that at this time the greater portion of South

Africa was undergoing extreme glaciation, while the same conditions appear

to have prevailed in India

TABLE OF FORMATIONS

Sedimentary. Igneous.

Recent Alluvium; travertine;

coral; sand dunes; continental } Some volcanic

islands;

dunes. Generally distributed } rift-valley

volcanoes.

Pleistocene. Ancient alluviums and }

gravels; travertine. }

Generally distributed. } A long-continued

Pliocene. N. Africa; Madagascar. } succession in the

} central and

northern

Miocene. N. Africa. } regions and among

} the island

groups.

Oligocene. N. Africa. } Doubtfully represented

} south of the

Zambezi.

Eocene. N. Africa, along east and }

west coasts; Madagascar. }

Cretaceous Extensively developed in } Diamond pipes of S.

N. Africa; along coast } Africa; Kaptian

and foot-plateaus in east } fissure

eruptions;

and west; Madagascar. } Ashangi traps of

} Abyssinia

{Jurassic N. Africa; E. Africa;

K{ Madagascar; Stormberg } Chief volcanic

period

a{ period (Rhaeric) in S. } in S. Africa

r{ Africa }

r{Trias. Beaufort Series in S. }

o{ Africa; Congo basin; }

o{ Central Africa; Algeria; }

{ Tunis. }

{Permian. Ecca Series in S. Africa. } Feebly, if anywhere

} developed.

Carboniferous. N. Africa; Sabaki Shales }

in E. Africa; Dwyka }

and Wittebery Series in }

South Africa }

Devonian. N. Africa; Angola; Bokkeveld } Not recorded.

Series in S. Africa }

Silurian. {Table Mountain Sandstone }

{ in S. Africa, Silurian(?). }

Ordovician. { Doubtfully represented } Klipriversberg and

{ in N. Africa, French } and Ventersdorp

Series

Cambrian { Congo, Angola. and by } of the Transvaal (?).

{ Vaal River and Waterberg }

{ Series in S. Africa }

Pre-Cambrian. Quartzites, conglomerates }

phyllites, jasper-bearing } S. Africa and

generally.

rocks and schists. }

Generally distributed. }

Archeaan. Gneisses and schists of the } Igneous complex of

continental platform. } sheared igneous

} rocks;granites.

and Australia. At the close of the Karroo period there was a remarkable

manifestation of volcanic activity which again has its parallel in the

Deccan traps of India.

How far the Karroo formation extended beyond its present confines has not

been determined. To the east it reached India. In the south all that can be

said is that it extended to the south of Worcester in Cape Colony. The

Crystal Mountains of Angola may represent its western boundary; while the

absence of mesozoic strata beneath the Cretaceous rocks of the mid-Sahara

indicates that the system of Karroo lakeland had here reached its most

northerly extension. Towards the close of the Karroo period, possibly about

the middle, the southern rim of the great central depression became ridged

up to form the folded regions of the Zwaarteberg, Cedarberg and Langeberg

mountains in Cape Colony. This folded belt gives Africa its abrupt southern

termination, and may be regarded as an embryonic indication of its present

outline. The exact date of the maximum development of this folding is

unknown, but it had done its work and some 10,000 ft. of strata had been

removed before the commencement of the Cretaceous period. It appears to

approximate in time to the similar earth movement and denudation at the

close of the palaeozoic period in Europe. It was doubtless connected with

the disruption of Gondwana Land, since it is known that this great

alteration of geographical outline commenced in Jurassic times.

The breaking up of Gondwana Land is usually considered to have been

caused by a series of blocks of country being let down by faulting with the

consequent formation of the Indian Ocean. Other blocks, termed horsts,

remained unmoved, the island of Madagascar affording a striking example. In

the African portion Ruwenzori is regarded by some geologists to be a block

mountain or horst.

In Jurassic times 1he sea gained access to East Africa north of

Mozambique, but does not appear to have reached far beyond the foot-plateau

except in Abyssinia.

The Cretaceous seas appear to have extended into the central Saharan

regions, for fossils of this age have been discovered in the interior. On

the west coast Cretaceous rocks extend continuously from Mogador to Cape

Blanco. From here they are absent up to the Gabun river, where they

commence to form a narrow fringe as far as the Kunene river, though often

overlain by recent deposits. They are again absent up to the Sunday river

in Cape Colony, where Lower Cretaceous rocks (for long considered to be of

Oolitic age) of an inshore character are met with. Strata of Upper

Cretaceous age occur in Pondoland and Natal, and are of exceptional

interest since the fossils show an intermingling of Pacific types with

other forms having European affinities. In Mozambique and in German East

Africa, Cretaceous rocks extend from the coast to a distance inland of over

100 m.

Except in northern Africa, the Tertiary formations only occur in a few

isolated patches on the east and west coasts. In northern Africa they are

well developed and of much interest. They contain the well-known nummulitic

limestone of Eocene age, which has been traced from Egypt across Asia to

China. The Upper Eocene rocks of Egypt have also yielded primeval types of

the Proboscidea and other mammalia. Evidences for the greater extension of

the Eocene seas than was formerly considered to be the case have been

discovered around Sokoto. During Miocene times Passarge considers that the

region of the Zambezi underwent extreme desiccation.

The effect of the Glacial epoch in Europe is shown in northern Africa by

the moraines of the higher Atlas, and the wider extension of the glaciers

on Kilimanjaro, Kenya and Ruwenzori, and by the extensive accumulations of

gravel over the Sahara.

The earliest signs of igneous activity in Africa are to be found in the

granites, intrusive into the older rocks of the Cape peninsula, into those

of the Transvaal, and into the gneisses and schists of Central Africa. The

Ventersdorp boulder beds of the Transvaal may be of early palaeozoic age;

but as a whole the palaeozoic period in Africa was remarkably free from

volcanic and igneous disturbances. The close of the Stormberg period

(Rhaetic) was one of great volcanic activity in South Africa. Whilst the

later Secondary and Tertiary formations were being laid down in North

Africa and around the margins of the rest of the continent, Africa received

its last great accumulation of strata and at the same time underwent a

consecutive series of earth-movements. The additional strata consist of the

immense quantities of volcanic material on the plateau of East Africa, the

basalt flows of West Africa and possibly those of the Zambezi basin. The

exact period of the commencement of volcanic activity is unknown. In

Abyssinia the Ashangi traps are certainly post-Oolitic. In East Africa the

fissure eruptions are considered to belong to the Cretaceous. These early

eruptions were followed by those of Kenya, Mawenzi, Elgon, Chibcharagnani,

and these by the eruptions of Kibo, Longonot, Suswa and the Kyulu

Mountains. The last phase of vulcanicity took place along the great

meridional rifts of East Africa, and though feebly manifested has not

entirely passed away. In northern Africa a continuous sequence of volcanic

events has taken place from Eocene times to latest Tertiary; but in South

Africa it is doubtful if there have been any intrusions later then

Cretaceous.

During this long continuance of vulcanicity, earth-movements were in

progress. In the north the chief movements gave rise to the system of

latitudinal folding and faulting of the Moroccan and Algerian Atlas, the

last stages being represented by the formation of the Algerian and Moroccan

coast-outline and the sundering of Europe from Africa at the Straits of

Gibraltar. Whilst northern Africa was being folded, the East African

plateau was broken up by a series of longitudinal rifts extending from

Nyasaland to Egypt. The depressed areas contain the long, narrow,

precipitously walled lakes of East Africa. The Red Sea also occupies a

meridional trough.

Lastly there are the recent elevations of the northern coastal regions,

the Barbary coast and along the east coast. (W. G.*)

III. ETHNOLOGY In attempting a review of the races and tribes which

inhabit Africa, their distribution, movements and culture, it is advisable

that three points be borne in mind. The first of these is the comparative

absence of natural barriers in the interior, owing to which

intercommunication between tribes, the dissemination of culture and tribal

migration have been considerably facilitated. Hence the student must be

prepared to find that, for the most part, there are no sharp divisions to

mark the extent of the various races composing the population, but that the

number of what may be termed ``transitional'' peoples is unusually large.

The second point is that Africa, with the exception of the lower Nile

valley and what is known as Roman Africa (see AFRICA, ROMAN), is, so far as

its native inhabitants are concerned, a continent practically without a

history, and possessing no records from which such a history might be

reconstructed. The early movements of tribes, the routes by which they

reached their present abodes, and the origin of such forms of culture as

may be distinguished in the general mass of customs, beliefs, &c., are

largely matters of conjecture. The negro is essentially the child of the

moment; and his memory, both tribal and individual, is very short. The

third point is that many theories which have been formulated with respect

to such matters are unsatisfactory owing to the small amount of information

concerning many of the tribes in the interior.

The chief African races.

Excluding the Europeans who have found a home in various parts of Africa,

and the Asiatics, Chinese and natives of India introduced by them (see

section History below), the population of Africa consists of the following

elements: —the Bushman, the Negro, the Eastern Hamite, the Libyan and the

Semite, from the intermingling of which in various proportions a vast

number of ``transitional'' tribes has arisen. The Bushmen (q.v.), a race of

short yellowish-brown nomad hunters, inhabited, in the earliest times of

which there is historic knowledge, the land adjoining the southern and

eastern borders of the Kalahari desert, into which they were gradually

being forced by the encroachment of the Hottentots and Bantu tribes. But

signs of their former presence are not wanting as far north as Lake

Tanganyika, and even, it is rumoured, still farther north. With them may be

classed provisionally the Hottentots, a pastoral people of medium stature

and yellowish-brown complexion. who in early times shared with the Bushmen

the whole of what is now Cape Colony. Though the racial affinities of the

Hottentots have been disputed, the most satisfactory view on the whole is

that they represent a blend of Bushman, Negroid and Hamitic elements.

Practically the rest of Africa, from the southern fringe of the Sahara and

the upper valley of the Nile to the Cape, with the exception of Abyssinia

and Galla and Somali-lands, is peopled by Negroes and the ``transitional''

tribes to which their admixture with Libyans on the north, and Semites

(Arabs) and Hamites on the north-east and east, has given rise. A slight

qualification of the last statement is necessary, in so far as, among the

Fula in the western Sudan, and the Ba-Hima, &c., of the Victoria Nyanza,

Libyan and Hamitic elements are respectively stronger than the Negroid. Of

the tracts excepted, Abyssinia is inhabited mainly by Semito-Hamites

(though a fairly strong negroid element can be found), and Somali and Galla-

lands by Hamites. North of the Sahara in Algeria and Morocco are the

Libyans (Berbers, q.v.), a distinctively white people, who have in certain

respects (e.g. religion) fallen under Arab influence. In the north-east the

brown-skinned Hamite and the Semite mingle in varied proportions. The

Negroid peoples, which inhabit the vast tracts of forest and savanna

between the areas held by Bushmen to the south and the Hamites, Semites and

Libyans to the north, fall into two groups divided by a line running from

the Cameroon (Rio del Rey) crossing the Ubangi river below the bend and

passing between the Ituri and the Semliki rivers, to Lake Albert and thence

with a slight southerly trend to the coast. North of this line are the

Negroes proper, south are the Bantu. The division is primarily

philological. Among the true Negroes the greatest linguistic confusion

prevails; for instance, in certain parts of Nigeria it is possible to find

half-a-dozen villages within a comparatively small area speaking, not

different dialects, but different languages, a fact which adds greatly to

the difficulty of political administration. To the south of the line the

condition of affairs is entirely different; here the entire population

speaks one or another dialect of the Bantu Languages (q.v..) As said

before, the division is primarily linguistic and, especially upon the

border line, does not always correspond with the variations of physical

type. At the same time it is extremely convenient and to a certain extent

justifiable on physical and psychological grounds; and it may be said

roughly that while the linguistic uniformity of the Bantu is accompanied by

great variation of physical type, the converse is in the main true of the

Negro proper, especially where least affected by Libyan and Hamitic

admixture, e.g. on the Guinea coast. The variation of type among the Bantu

is due probably to a varying admixture of alien blood, which is more

apparent as the east coast is approached. This foreign element cannot be

identified with certainty, but since the Bantu seem to approach the Hamites

in those points where they differ from the Negro proper, and since the

physical characteristics of Hamites and Semites are very similar, it seems

probable that the last two races have entered into the composition of the

Bantu, though it is highly improbable that Semitic influence should have

permeated any distance from the east coast. An extremely interesting

section of the population not hitherto mentioned is constituted by the

Pygmy tribes inhabiting the densely forested regions along the equator from

Uganda to the Gabun and living the life of nomadic hunters. The affinities

of this little people are undecided, owing to the small amount of knowledge

concerning them. The theories which connected them with the Bushmen do not

seem to be correct. It is more probable that they are to be classed among

the Negroids, with whom they appear to have intermingled to a certain

extent in the upper basin of the Ituri, and perhaps elsewhere. As far as is

known they speak no language peculiar to themselves but adopt that of the

nearest agricultural tribe. They are of a dark brown complexion, with very

broad noses, lips but slightly everted, and small but usually sturdy

physique, though often considerably emaciated owing to insufficiency of

food. Another peculiar tribe, also of short stature, are the Vaalpens of

the steppe region of the north Transvaal. Practically nothing is known of

them except that they are said to be very dark in colour and live in holes

in the ground, and under rock shelters.

Principal ethnological zones.

Having indicated the chief races of which in various degrees of purity

and intermixture the population of Africa is formed, it remains to consider

them in greater detail, particularly from the cultural standpoint. This is

hardly possible without drawing attention to the main physical characters

of the continent, as far as they affect the inhabitants. For ethnological

purposes three principal zones may be distinguished; the first two are

respectively a large region of steppes and desert in the north, and a

smaller region of steppes and desert in the south. These two zones are

connected by a vertical strip of grassy highland lying mainly to the east

of the chain of great lakes. The third zone is a vast region of forest and

rivers in the west centre, comprising the greater part of the basin of the

Congo and the Guinea coast. The rainfall, which also has an important

bearing upon the culture of peoples, will be found on the whole to be

greatest in the third zone and also in the eastern highlands, and of course

least in the desert, the steppes and savannas standing midway between the

two. As might be expected these variations are accompanied by certain

variations in culture. In the best-watered districts agriculture is

naturally of the greatest importance, except where the density of the

forest renders the work of clearing too arduous. The main portion therefore

of the inhabitants of the forest zone are agriculturists, save only the

nomad Pygmies, who live in the inmost recesses of the forest and support

themselves by hunting the game with which it abounds. Agriculture, too,

flourishes in the eastern highlands, and throughout the greater part of the

steppe and savanna region of the northern and southern zones, especially

the latter. In fact the only Bantu tribes who are not agriculturists are

the Ova-Herero of German South-West Africa, whose purely pastoral habits

are the natural outcome of the barren country they inhabit. But the wide

open plains and slopes surrounding the forest area are eminently suited to

cattle-breeding, and there are few tribes who do not take advantage of the

fact. At the same time a natural check is imposed upon the desire for

cattle, which is so characteristic of the Bantu peoples. This is

constituted by the tsetse fly, which renders a pastoral life absolutely

impossible throughout large tracts in central and southern Africa. In the

northern zone this check is absent, and the number of more essentially

pastoral peoples, such as the eastern Hamites, Masai, Dinka, Fula, &c.,

correspondingly greater. The desert regions yield support only to nomadic

peoples, such as the Tuareg, Tibbu, Bedouins and Bushmen, though the

presence of numerous oases in the north renders the condition of life

easier for the inhabitants. Upon geographical conditions likewise depend to

a large extent the political conditions prevailing among the various

tribes. Thus among the wandering tribes of the desert and of the heart of

the forests, where large communities are impossible, a patriarchal system

prevails with the family as the unit. Where the forest is less dense and

small agricultural communities begin to make their appearance, the unit

expands to the village with its headman. Where the forest thins to the

savanna and steppe, and communication is easier, are found the larger

kingdoms and ``empires'' such as, in the north those established by the

Songhai, Hausa, Fula, Bagirmi, Ba-Hima, &c., and in the south the states of

Lunda, Kazembe, the Ba-Rotse, &c.

But if ease of communication is favourable to the rise of large states

and the cultural progress that usually accompanies it, it is, nevertheless,

often fatal to the very culture which, at first, it fostered, in so far as

the absence of natural boundaries renders invasion easy. A good example of

this is furnished by the history of the western Sudan and particularly of

East and South-East Africa. From its geographical position Africa looks

naturally to the east, and it is on this side that it has been most

affected by external culture both by land (across the Sinaitic peninsula)

and by sea. Though a certain amount of Indonesian and even aboriginal

Indian influence has been traced in African ethnography, the people who

have produced the most serious ethnic disturbances (apart from modern

Europeans) are the Arabs. This is particularly the case in East Africa,

where the systematic slave raids organized by them and carried out with the

assistance of various warlike tribes reduced vast regions to a state of

desolation. In the north and west of Africa, however, the Arab has had a

less destructive but more extensive and permanent influence in spreading

the Mahommedan religion throughout the whole of the Sudan.

The characteristic African culture.

The fact that the physical geography of Africa affords fewer natural

obstacles to racial movements on the side most exposed to foreign

influence, renders it obvious that the culture most characteristically

African must be sought on the other side. It is therefore in the forests of

the Congo, and among the lagoons and estuaries of the Guinea coast, that

this earlier culture will most probably be found. That there is a culture

distinctive of this area, irrespective of the linguistic line dividing the

Bantu from the Negro proper, has now been recognized. Its main features may

be summed as follows:—-a purely agricultural life, with the plantain, yam

and manioc (the last two of American origin) as the staple food;

cannibalism common; rectangular houses with ridged roofs; scar-tattooing;

clothing of bark-cloth or palm-fibre; occasional chipping or extraction of

upper incisors; bows with strings of cane, as the, principal weapons,

shields of wood or wickerwork; religion, a primitive form of fetishism with

the belief that death is due to witchcraft; ordeals, secret societies, the

use of masks and anthropomorphic figures, and wooden gongs. With this may

be contrasted the culture of the Bantu peoples to the south and east, also

agriculturists, but in addition, where possible, great cattle-breeders,

whose staple food is millet and milk. These are distinguished by circular

huts with domed or conical roofs; clothing of skin or leather; occasional

chipping or extraction of lower incisors; spears as the principal weapons,

bows, where found, with a sinew cord, shields of hide or leather; religion,

ancestor-worship with belief in the power of the magicians as rain-makers.

Though this difference in culture may well be explained on the supposition

that the first is the older and more representative of Africa, this theory

must not be pushed too far. Many of the distinguishing characteristics of

the two regions are doubtless due simply to environment, even the

difference in religion. Ancestor-worship occurs most naturally among a

people where tribal organization has reached a fairly advanced stage, and

is the natural outcome of patriotic reverence for a successful chief and

his councillors. Rain-making, too, is of little importance in a well-

watered region, but a matter of vital interest to an agricultural people

where the rainfall is slight and irregular.

Within the eastern and southern Bantu area certain cultural variations

occur; beehive huts are found among the Zulu-Xosa and Herero, giving place

among the Bechuana to the cylindrical variety with conical roof, a type

which, with few exceptions, extends north to Abyssinia. The tanged

spearhead characteristic of the south is replaced by the socketed variety

towards the north. Circumcision, characteristic of the Zulu-Xosa and

Bechuana, is not practised by many tribes farther north; tooth-mutilation,

on the contrary, is absent among the more southern tribes. The lip-plug is

found in the eastern area, especially among the Nyasa tribes, but not in

the south. The head-rest common in the south-east and the southern fringe

of the forest area is not found far north of Tanganyika until the Horn of

Africa is reached.

In the regions outside the western area occupied by the Negro proper,

exclusive of the upper Nile, the similarities of culture outweigh the

differences. Here the cylindrical type of hut prevails; clothing is of skin

or leather but is very scanty; iron ornaments are worn in profusion; arrows

are not feathered; shields of hide, spears with leather sheaths are found

and also fighting bracelets. Certain small differences appear between the

eastern and western portions, the dividing line being formed by the

boundary between Bornu and Hausaland. Characteristic of the east are the

harp and the throwing-club and throwing-knife, the last of which has

penetrated into the forest area. Typical of the west are the bow and the

dagger with the ring hilt. The tribes of the upper Nile are somewhat

specialized, though here, too, are found the cylindrical hut, iron

ornaments, fighting bracelets, &c., characteristic of the Sudanese tribes.

Here the removal of the lower incisors is common, and circumcision entirely

absent. Throughout the rest of the Sudan is found Semitic culture

introduced by the Arabized Libyan. Circumcision, as is usual among

Mahommedan tribes, is universal, and tooth-mutilation absent; of other

characteristics, the use of the sword has penetrated to the northern

portion of the forest area. The culture prevailing in the Horn of Africa

is, naturally, mainly Hamito-Semitic; here are found both cyhnddcal and bee-

hive huts, the sword (which has been adopted by the Masai to the south),

the lyre (which has found its way to some of the Nilotic tribes) and the

head-rest. Circumcision is practically universal.

As has been said earlier, the history of Africa reaches back but a short

distance, except, of course, as far as the lower Nile valley and Roman

Africa is concerned; elsewhere no records exist, save tribal traditions,

and these only relate to very recent events. Even archaeology, which can

often sketch the main outlines of a people's history, is here practically

powerless, owing to the insufficiency of data. It is true that stone imple.

ments of palaeolithic and neolithic types are found sporadically in the

Nile valley, Somaliland, on the Zambezi, in Cape Colony and the northern

portions of the Congo Free State, as well as in Algeria and Tunisia; but

the localities are far too few and too widely separated to warrant the

inference that they are to be in any way connected. Moreover, where stone

implements are found they are, as a rule, very near, even actually on, the

surface of the earth; nothing occurs resembling the regular stratification

of Europe, and consequently no argument based on geological grounds is

possible.

The lower Nile valley, however, forms an exception; flint implements of a

palaeolithic type have been found near Thebes. not only on the surface of

the ground, which for several thousand years has been desert owing to the

contraction of the river-bed, but also in stratified gravel of an older

date. References to a number of papers bearing on the discussion to which

then discovery has given rise may be found in an article by Mr H. R. Hall

in Man, 1905, No. 19. The Egyptian and also the Somali land finds appear to

be true palaeoliths in type and remarkably similar to those found in

Europe. But evidence bearing on the Stone age in Africa, if the latter

existed apart from the localities mentioned, is so slight that little can

be said save that from the available evidence the palaeoliths of the Nile

valley alone can with any degree of certainty be assigned to a remote

period of antiquity, and that the chips scattered over Mashonaland and the

regions occupied within historic times by Bushmen are the most recent;

since it has been shown that the stone flakes were used by the medieval

Makalanga to engrave their hard pottery and the Bushmen were still using

stone implements in the 19th century. Other early remains, but of equally

uncertain date, are the stone circles of Algeria, the Cross river and the

Gambia. The large system of ruined forts and ``cities'' in Mashonaland, at

Zimbabwe and elsewhere, concerning which so many ingenious theories have

been woven, have been proved to date from medieval times.

Origin and spread of the racial stocks.

Thus while in Europe there is a Stone age. divided into periods according

to various types of implement disposed in geological strata, and followed

in orderly succession by the ages of Bronze and Iron, in Africa can be

found no true Stone age and practically no Bronze at all. The reason is not

far to seek; Africa is a country of iron, which is found distributed widely

throughout the continent in ores so rich that the metal can be extracted

with very little trouble and by the simplest methods. Iron has been worked

from time immemorial by the Negroid peoples, and whole tribes are found

whose chief industry is the smelting and forging of the metal. Under such

conditions, questions relating to the origin and spread of the racial

stocks which form the population of Africa cannot be answered with any

certainty; at best only a certain amount of probability can be attained.

Five of these racial stocks have been mentioned: Bushman, Negro, Hamite,

Semite, Libyan, the last three probably related through some common

ancestor. Of these the honour of being considered the most truly African

belongs to the two first. It is true that people of Negroid type are found

elsewhere, principally in Melanesia, but as yet their possible connexion

with the African Negro is little more than theoretical, and for the present

purposes it need not be considered.

The origin of the Bushman is lost in obscurity, but he may be conceived

as the original inhabitant of the southern portion of the continent. The

original home of the Negro, at first an agriculturist, is most probably to

be found in the neighbourhood of the great lakes, whence he penetrated

along the fringe of the Sahara to the west and across the eastern highlands

southward. Northerly expansion was prevented by the early occupation of the

Nile valley, the only easy route to the Mediterranean, but there seems no

doubt that the population of ancient Egypt contained a distinct Negroid

element. The question as to the ethnic affinities of the pre-dynastic

Egyptians is still unsolved; but they may be regarded as, in the main,

Hamitic, though it is a question how far it is just to apply a name which

implies a definite specialization in what may be comparatively modern times

to a people of such antiquity.

The Horn of Africa appears to have been the centre from which the Hamites

spread, and the pressure they seem to have applied to the Negro tribes,

themselves also in process of expansion, sent forth larger waves of

emigrants from the latter. These emigrants, already affected by the Hamitic

pastoral culture, and with a strain of Hamitic blood in their veins, passed

rapidly down the open tract in the east, doubtless exterminating their

predecessors, except such few as took refuge in the mountains and swamps.

The advance-guard of this wave of pastoral Negroids, in fact primitive

Bantu, mingled with the Bushmen and produced the Hottentots. The

penetration of the forest area must certainly have taken longer and was

probably accomplished as much from the south-east, up the Zambezi valley,

as from any other quarter. It was a more peaceful process, since natural

obstacles are unfavourable to rapid movements of large bodies of

immigrants, though not so serious as to prevent the spread of language and

culture. A modern parallel to the spread of Bantu speech is found in the

rise of the Hausa language, which is gradually enlarging its sphere of

influence in the western and central Sudan. Thus those qualities, physical

and otherwise, in which the Bantu approach the Hamites gradually fade as we

proceed westward through the Congo basin, while in the east, among the

tribes to the west of Tanganyika and on the upper Zambezi, ``transitional''

forms of culture are found. In later times this gradual pressure from the

south-east became greater, and resulted, at a comparatively recent date, in

the irruption of the Fang into the Gabun.

The earlier stages of the southern movement must have been accompanied by

a similar movement westward between the Sahara and the forest; and,

probably, at the same time, or even earlier, the Libyans crossing the

desert had begun to press upon the primitive Negroes from the north. In

this way were produced the Fula, who mingled further with the Negro to give

birth to the Mandingo, Wolof and Tukulor. It would appear that either

Libyan (Fula) or, less probably, Hamitic, blood enters into the composition

of the Zandeh peoples on the Nile-Congo watershed. These Libyans or

Berbers, included by G. Sergi in his ``Mediterranean Race,'' were active on

the north coast of Africa in very early times, and had relations with the

Egyptians from a prehistoric period. For long these movements continued,

always in the same direction, from north to south and from east to west;

though, of course, more rapid changes took place in the open country,

especially in the great eastern highway from north to south, than in the

forest area. Large states arose in the western Sudan; Ghana flourished in

the 7th century A.D., Melle in the 11th, Songhai in the 14th, and Bornu in

the 16th.

Meanwhile in the east began the southerly movement of the Bechuana, which

was probably,spread over a considerable period. Later than they, hut

proceeding faster, came the Zulu-Xosa (``Kaffir'') peoples, who followed a

line nearer the coast and outflanked them, surrounding them on the south.

Then followed a time of great ethnical confusion in South Africa, during

which tribes flourished, split up and disappeared; but ere this the culture

represented by the ruins in Rhodesia had waxed and waned. It is uncertain

who were the builders of the forts and ``cities,'' but it is not improbable

that they may be found to have been early Bechuana. The Zulu-Xosa, Bechuana

and Herero together form a group which may conveniently be termed

``Southern Bantu.',

Finally began a movement hitherto unparalleled in the history of African

migration; certain peoples of Zulu blood began to press north, spreading

destruction in their wake. Of these the principal were the Matabele and

Angoni. The movement continued as far as the Victoria Nyanza. Here, on the

border-line of Negro, Bantu and Hamite, important changes had taken place.

Certain of the Negro tribes had retired to the swamps of the Nile, and had

become somewhat specialized, both physically and culturally (Shilluk,

Dinka, Alur, Acholi, &c.). These had blended with the Hamites to produce

such races as the Masai and kindred tribes. The old Kitwara empire, which

comprised the plateau land between the Ruwenzori range and Kavirondo, had

broken up into small states, usually governed by a Hamitic (Ba-Hima)

aristocracy. The more extensive Zang (Zenj) empire, of which. the name

Zanzibar (Zanguebar) is a lasting memorial, extending along the sea-board

from Somaliland to the Zambezi, was also extinct. The Arabs had established

themselves firmly on the coast, and thence made continual slave-raids into

the interior, penetrating later to the Congo. The Swahili, inhabiting the

coast-line from the equator to about 16 deg. S., are a somewhat

heterogeneous mixture of Bantu with a tinge of Arab blood.

In the neighbourhood of Victoria Nyanza, where Hamite, Bantu, Nilotic

Negro and Pygmy are found in close contact, the ethnic relations of tribes

are often puzzling, but the Bantu not under a Hamitic domination have been

divided by F. Stuhlmann into the Older Bantu (Wanyamwezi, Wasukuma,

Wasambara, Waseguha, Wasagara, Wasaramo, &c.) and the Bantu of Later

Immigration (Wakikuyu, Wakamba, Wapokomo, Wataita, Wachaga, &c.), who are

more strongly Hamitized and in many cases have adopted Masai customs. These

peoples, from the Victoria Nyanza to the Zambezi, may conveniently be

termed the ``Eastern Bantu.''

Turning to the Congo basin in the south, the great Luba and Lunda peoples

are found stretching nearly across the continent, the latter, from at any

rate the end of the 16th century until the close of the 19th century, more

or less united under a single ruler, styled Muata Yanvo. These seem to have

been the most recent immigrants from the south-east, and to exhibit certain

affinities with the Barotse on the upper Zambezi. Among the western Baluba,

or Bashilange, a remarkable politico-religious revolution took place at a

comparatively recent date, initiated by a secret society termed Bena Riamba

or ``Sons of Hemp,'' and resulted in the subordination of the old fetishism

to a cult of hemp, in accordance with which all hemp-smokers consider

themselves brothers, and the duty of mutual hospitality, &c., is

acknowledged. North of these, in the great bend of the Congo, are the

Balolo, &c., the Balolo a nation of iron-workers; and westward, on the

Kasai, the Bakuba, and a large number of tribes as yet imperfectly known.

Farther west are the tribes of Angola, many of whom were included within

the old ``Congo empire,'' of which the kingdom of Loango was an offshoot.

North of the latter lies the Gabun, with a large number of small tribes

dominated by the Fang who are recent arrivals from the Congo. Farther to

the north are the Bali and other tribes of the Cameroon, among whom many

primitive Negroid elements begin to appear. Eastward are the Zandeh peoples

of the Welle district (primitive Negroids with a Hamitic or, more probably,

Libyan strain), with whom the Dor trine of Nilotes on their eastern border

show certain affinities; while to the west along the coast are the Guinea

Negroes of primitive type. Here, amidst great linguistic confusion, may be

distinguished the tribes of Yoruba speech in the Niger delta and the east

portion of the Slave Coast; those of Ewe speech, in the western portion of

the latter; and those of Ga and Tshi speech, on the Gold Coast. Among the

last two groups respectively may be mentioned the Dahomi and Ashanti.

Similar tribes are found along the coast to the Bissagos Islands, though

the introduction in Sierra Leone and Liberia of settlements of repatriated

slaves from the American plantations has in those places modified the

original ethnic distribution. Leaving the forest zone and entering the more

open country there are, on the north from the Niger to the Nile, a number

of Negroids strongly tinged with Libyan blood and professing the Mahommedan

religion. Such are the Mandingo, the Songhai, the Fula, Hausa, Kanuri,

Bagirmi, Kanembu, and the peoples of Wadai and Darfur; the few aborigines

who persist, on the southern fringe of the Chad basin, are imperfectly

known.

Peculiar conditions in Madagascar.

The island of Madagascar, belonging to the African continent, still

remains for discussion. Here the ethnological conditions are people were

the Hova, a Malayo-Indonesian people who must have come from the Malay

Peninsula or the adjacent islands. The date of their immigration has been

line subject of a good deal of dispute, but it may be argued that their

arrival must have taken place in early times, since Malagasy speech, which

is the language of the island, is principally Malayo-Polynesian in origin,

and contains no traces of Sanskrit. Such traces, introduced with Hinduism,

are present in all the cultivated languages of Malaysia at the present

day.The Hova occupy the table-land of Imerina and form the first of the

three main groups into which the population of Madagascar may be divided.

They are short, of an olive-yellow complexion and have straight or faintly

wavy hair. On the east coast are the Malagasy, who in physical

characteristics stand halfway between the Hova and the Sakalava, the last

occupying the remaining portion of the island and displaying almost pure

Negroid characteristics.

Though the Hova belong to a race naturally addicted to seafaring, the

contrary is the case respecting the Negroid population, and the presence of

the latter in the island has been explained by the supposition that they

were imported by the Hova. Other authorities assign less antiquity to the

Hova immigration and believe that they found the Negroid tribes already in

occupation of the island.

As might be expected, the culture found in Madagascar contains two

elements, Negroid and Malayo-Indonesian. The first of these two shows

certain affinities with the culture characteristic of the western area of

Africa, such as rectangular huts, clothing of bark and palm-fibre,

fetishism, &c., but cattle-breeding is found as well as agriculture.

However, the Negroid tribes are more and more adopting the customs and mode

of life of the Hova, among whom are found pile-houses, the sarong, yadi or

tabu applied to food, a non-African form of bellows, &c., all

characteristic of their original home. The Hova, during the 19th century,

embraced Christianity, but retain, nevertheless, many of their old

animistic beliefs; their original social organization in three classes,

andriana or nobles, hova or freemen, and andevo or slaves, has been

modified by the French, who have abolished kingship and slavery. An Arab

infusion is also to be noticed, especially on the north-east and south-east

coasts.

It is impossible to give a complete list of the tribes inhabiting Africa,

owing to the fact that the country is not fully explored. Even where the

names of the tribes are known their ethnic relations are still a matter of

uncertainty in many localities.

The following list, therefore, must be regarded as purely tentative, and

liable to correction in the light of fuller information:-

AFRICAN TRIBAL DISTRIBUTION

LIBYANS

(North Africa, excluding Egypt)

Berbers, including – Kabyles, Mzab, Shawia, Tuareg

LIBYO-NEGROID TRANSITIONAL

Fula (West Sudan)

Tibbu (Central Sudan)

HAMITES

(East Sudan and Horn of Africa)

Beja, including – Ababda, Hadendoa, Bisharin, Beni-Amer, Hamran, Galla,

Somali, Danakil (Afar)

Ba-Hima, including — Wa-Tussi, Wa-Hha, Wa-Rundi, Wa-Ruanda

HAMITO-SEMITES

Fellahin (Egypt)

Abyssinians (with Negroid admixture)

HAMITO-NEGROID TRANSITIONAL

Masai

Wa-Kuafi

NEGROID TRIBES

West Sudan Central Sudan Eastern

Tukulor Songhai Fur Kargo

Wolof Hausa Dago Kulfan

Serer Bagirmi Kunjara Kolaji

Leybu Kanembu Tegele Tumali

Mandingo, including— Kanuri Nuba

Kassonke Tama

Yallonke Maba Zandeh Tribes

Soninke Birkit (Akin to Nilotics,

but

Bambara Massalit probably with

Fula

Vei Korunga element)

Susu Kabbaga Azandeh (Niam

Niam)

Solima &c. Makaraka

Malinke Mundu

Mangbettu

Probably also— Ababwa

Mossi Mege

Borgu Abisanga

Tombo } Mabode{ probably

Gurma } Momfu { with Pygmy

Gurunga } { element

Dagomba } Probably with Mandingan element Allied are—

Mampursi } Banziri Languassi

Gonja } Ndris Wia-Wia

&c. } Togbo Awaka

&c.

NEGROES

West African Tribes

Tribes of Tshi and Ga Tribes of Yeruba

speech, including—- speech, including—

Khabunke

Balanta Ashanti Yoruba

Bagnori Safwi Ibadan

Bagnum Denkera Ketu

Felup, including— Bekwai Egba

Ayamat Nkoranza Jebu

Jola Adansi Remo

Jigush Assin Ode

Vaca Wassaw Illorin

Joat Ahanta Ijesa

Karon Fanti Ondo

Banyum Angona Mahin

Banjar Akwapim Bini

Fulum Akim Kakanda

Bayot Akwamu Wari

&c. Kwao Ibo

Bujagos Ga Efik

Biafare Andoni

Landuman Tribes of Ewe speech, Kwa

Nalu including— Ibibio

Baga Ekoi

Sape Dahomi Inokun

Bulam Eweawo Akunakuim

Mendi Agotine Munshi

Limba Krepi Ikwe

Gallina Avenor

Timni Awuna

Pessi Agbosomi

Gola Aflao

Kondo Ataklu

Bassa Krikor

Kru Geng

Grebo Attaldoami

Awekwom Aja

Agni Ewemi

Oshiu Appa

Central Negroes Eastern Negroes

Bolo Pure Nilotics

Yako Shilluk

Tangala Nuer

Kali Dinka

Mishi Jur (Diur)

Doma Mittu

Mosgu, including— Jibbeh

Mandara Madi

Margi Lendu

Logon Alur (Lur)

Gamergu Acholi

Keribina Abaka

Kuri Golo

&c.

Nilotics with affinity

Nilotics with Affinity with Masai

with Zandeh tribes Latuka

Dor (Bongo) Bari

NEGRO-BANTU NILOTIC-BANTU

TRANSITIONAL TRANSITIONAL

Bali Ba-Kwiri Ja-Luo

Ba-Kossi Abo

Ba-Ngwa Dualla

Ba-Nyang Bassa PYGMY TRIBES

Ngolo Ba-Noko Central Arica

Ba-Fo Ba-Puko Akka

Ba-Kundu Ba-Koko Ja-Mbute

Isubu Ba-Bongo

Ashango

&c.

BANTU NEGROIDS

Western Central Eastern

Ogowe Luba-Lunda Group Lacustrians

Ashira Ba-Luba, including— Ba-Nyoro

Ishogo Ba-Songe Ba-Toro

Ashango Wa-Rua Wa-Siba

Bakalai Wa-Guha Wa-Sinja

Nkomi Katanga Wa-Kerewe

Orungu Ba-Shilange (with Wa-Shashi

Mpongwe Ba-Kete element) Wa-Rundi

Oshekiani Ba-Iro

Benga Ba-Lunda Ba-Ganda

Ininga Probably connected Ba-Soga

Galao are— Ba-Kavirondo,

Apingi Manyema including—

Okanda Ba-Kumu Awaware

Osaka Wa-Regga Awarimi

Aduma Ba-Rotse, including— Awakisii

Mbamba Ma-Mbunda &c.

Umbete Ma-Supia

Bule Ma-Shukulumbwe

Bane Ba-Tonga Bantu of Recent

Yaunde and probably Immigration

Maka Va-Lovale

Bomone Wa-Kikuyu

Kunabembe Tribes of the Congo Wa-Kamba

Fang (recent immigrants bend Wa-Pokomo

from the Congo group) Ba-Kessu Wa-Duruma

Ba-Tetela Wa-Digo

Ba-Songo Mino Wa-Giriama

Ba-Kuba Wa-Taita

Ba-Kongo, Ba-Lolo Wa-Nyatura

including— Ba-Kuti Wa-Iramba

Mushi-Kongo Ba-Mbala Wa-Mbugwe

Mussorongo Ba-Huana Wa-Kaguru

Kabinda Ba-Yaka Wa-Gogo {

possible

Ka-Kongo Ba-Pindi Wa-Chaga { Masai

Ba-Vili Ba-Kwese { element

Ma-Yumbe &c.

Ba-Lumbo Older Bantu

Ba-Sundi Tribes of the Congo Wa-Nyamwezi,

Ba-Bwende bank including—

Ba-Lali Wa-Genia Wa-Sukuma

}Trans-

Ba-Kunya Ba-Soko Wa-Sumbwa

}itional

Ba-Poto Wa-Nyanyembe }to

Mobali Wa-Jui

}Bantu

Mogwandi Wa-Kimbu }of

Na-Ngala{ Connected Wa-Kanongo

}recent

Ba-Bangi{ with Zandeh Wa-Wende

}immi-

{ group

}gration

Wa-Buma

Ba-Nunu Wa-Gunda

Ba-Loi Wa-Guru

Ba-Teke Wa-Galla

Wa-Pfuru Wa-Sambara

Wa-Mbundu Wa-Seguha

Wa-Mfumu Wa-Nguru

Ba-Nsinik Wa-Sagara

Ma-Wumba Wa-Doe

Ma-Yakalia Wa-Khutu

&c Wa-Sarmo

Wa-Hehe

TRANSITIONAL Wa-Bena

FROM CENTRAL Wa-Sanga

TO SOUTHERN Wa-Swahili (with Arab

BANTU elements)

Amoela Connected are—

Ganguela Wa-Kisi

Kioko Wa-Mpoto }

Minungo Ba-Tonga }

Imbangala Ba-Tumbuka }

Ba-Achinji Wa-Nyika }

Golo Wa-Nyamwanga }

Akin to

Hollo A-Mambwe }

Luba-

&c. Wa-Fipa }

Lunda

Mbunda peoples, Wa-Rungu }

group

including— A-Wemba }

Bihe A-Chewa }

Dembo A-Maravi }

Mbaka Ba-Senga }

Ngola Ba-Bisa }

Bondo A-Jawa (Yaos)

Ba-Ngala Wa-Mwera

Songo Wa-Gindo

Haku Ma-Konde

Lubolo Ma-Wia

Kisama Ma-Nganja

&c. Ma-Kua

SOUTHERN BANTU

(South and South-East Africa)

Ba-Nyai } Ama-Zulu, including—

Ma-Kalanga, } Affinity Ama-Swazi

including } with Ama-Tonga

Mashona } Bechuana Matabele

Ba-Ronga } Angoni

Ba-Chuana, Ma-Gwangwara

including— Ma-Huhu

Ba-Tlapin Ma-Viti

Ba-Rolong Ma-Situ

Ba-Ratlou Ma-Henge

Ba-Taung &c.

Ba-Rapulana Ama-Xosa, including—

Ba-Seleka Ama-Gcaleka

Ba-Hurutsi Ama-Hahebe

Ba-Tlaru Ama-Ngqika

Ba-Mangwato Ama-Tembu

Ba-Tauana Ama-Pondo

Ba-Ngwaketse &c.

Ba-Kuena Ova-Herero

&c. Ova-Mpo

HAMITO-BANTU BUSHMEN

BUSHMEN

TRANSITIONAL

Hottentots, }

including— } S. W.

Namaqua } Africa

Koranna }

TRIBES IN MADAGASCAR

MALAYO-INDONESIANS BANTU-NEGROIDS

Hova Sakalava, including—

Betsileo (slight Bantu admixture) Menabe

Milaka

HOVA-BANTU Ronandra

TRANSITIONAL Mahafali

&c.

Malagasy, including—

Bestimisaraka Antanosi

Antambahoaka Antsihanaka

Antaimoro Antanala

Antaifasina Antaisara

Antaisaka &c.

IV. HISTORY

The origin and meaning of the name of the continent are discussed

elsewhere (see AFRICA, ROMAN.) The word Africa was applied originally to

the country in the immediate neighbourhood of Carthage, that part of the

continent first known to the Romans, and it was subsequently extended with

their increasing knowledge, till it came at last to include all that they

knew of the continent. The Arabs still confine the name Ifrikia to the

territory of Tunisia.

Phoenician and Greek colonization.

The valley of the lower Nile was the home in remotest antiquity of a

civilized race. Egyptian culture had, however, remarkably little direct

influence on the rest of the continent, a result due in large measure to

the fact that Egypt is shut off landwards by immense deserts. If ancient

Egypt and Ethiopia (q.v.) be excluded, the story of Africa is largely a

record of the doings of its Asiatic and European conquerors and colonizers,

Abyssinia being the only state which throughout historic times has

maintained its independence. The countries bordering the Mediterranean were

first exploited by the Phoenicians, whose earliest settlements were made

before 1000 B.C. Carthage, founded about 800 B.C., speedily grew into a

city without rival in the Mediterranean, and the Phoenicians, subduing the

Berber tribes, who then as now formed the bulk of the population, became

masters of all the habitable region of North Africa west of the Great

Syrtis, and found in commerce a source of immense prosperity. Both

Egyptians and Carthaginians made attempts to reach the unknown parts of the

continent by sea. Herodotus relates that an expedition under Phoenician

navigators, employed by Necho, king of Egypt, c. 600 B.C., circumnavigated

Africa from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, a voyage stated to have been

accomplished in three years. Apart from the reported circumnavigation of

the continent, the west coast was well known to the Phoenicians as far as

Cape Nun, and c. 520 B.C. Hanno, a Carthaginian, explored the coast as far,

perhaps, as the Bight of Benin, certainly as far as Sierra Leone. A vague

knowledge of the Niger regions was also possessed by the Phoenicians.

Meantime the first European colonists had planted themselves in Africa.

At the point where the continent approaches nearest the Greek islands,

Greeks founded the city of Cyrene (c. 631 B.C..) Cyrenaica became a

flourishing colony, though being hemmed in on all sides by absolute desert

it had little or no influence on inner Africa. The Greeks, however, exerted

a powerful influence in Egypt. To Alexander the Great the city of

Alexandria owes its foundation (332 B.C.), and under the Hellenistic

dynasty of the Ptolemies attempts were made to penetrate southward, and in

this way was obtained some knowledge of Abyssinia. Neither Cyrenaica nor

Egypt was a serious rival to the Carthaginians, but all three powers were

eventually supplanted by the Romans. After centuries of rivalry for

supremacy1 the struggle was ended by the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C.

Within little more than a century from that date Egypt and Cyrene had

become incorporated in the Roman empire. Under Rome the settled portions of

the country were very prosperous, and a Latin strain was introduced into

the land. Though Fezzan was occupied by them, the Romans elsewhere found

the Sahara an impassable barrier. Nubia and Abyssinia were reached, but an

expedition sent by the emperor Nero to discover the source of the Nile

ended in failure. The utmost extent of geographical knowledge of the

continent is shown in the writings of Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.), who knew

of or guessed the existence of the great lake reservoirs of the Nile and

had heard of the river Niger. Still Africa for the civilized world remained

simply the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The continual struggle

between Rome and the Berber tribes; the introduction of Christianity and

the glories and sufferings of the Egyptian and African Churches; the

invasion and conquest of the African provinces by the Vandals in the 5th

century; the passing of the supreme power in the following century to the

Byzantine empire—all these events are told fully elsewhere.

In the 7th century of the Christian era occurred an event destined to

have a permanent influence on the whole continent.

North Africa conquered by the Arabs.

Invading first Egypt, an Arab host, fanatical believers in the new faith

of Mahomet, conquered the whole country from the Red Sea to the Atlantic

and carried the Crescent into Spain. Throughout North Africa Christianity

well-nigh disappeared, save in Egypt (where the Coptic Church was suffered

to exist), and Upper Nubia and Abyssinia, which were not subdued by the

Moslems. In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries the Arabs in Africa were

numerically weak; they held the countries they had conquered by the sword

only, but in the 11th century there was a great Arab immigration, resulting

in a large absorption of Berber blood. Even before this the Berbers had

very generally adopted the speech and religion of their conquerors. Arab

influence and the Mahommedan religion thus became indelibly stamped on

northern Africa. Together they spread southward across the Sahara. They

also became firmly established along the eastern sea-board, where Arabs,

Persians and Indians planted flourishing colonies, such as Mombasa, Malindi

and Sofala, playing a role, maritime and commercial, analogous to that

filled in earlier centuries by the Carthaginians on the northern sea-board.

Of these eastern cities and states both Europe and the Arabs of North

Africa were long ignorant.

The first Arab invaders had recognized the authority of the caliphs of

Bagdad, and the Aghlabite dynasty—founded by Aghlab, one of Haroun al

Raschid's generals, at the close of the 8th century—ruled as vassals of the

caliphate. However, early in the 10th century the Fatimite dynasty

established itself in Egypt, where Cairo had been founded A.D. 968, and

from there ruled as far west as the Atlantic. Later still arose other

dynasties

Appearance of the Turks.

such as the Almoravides and Almohades. Eventually the Turks, who had

conquered Constantinople in 1453, and had seized Egypt in 1517, established

the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli (between 1519 and 1551),

Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan

dynasty, which had its beginnings at the end of the 13th century. Under the

earlier dynasties Arabian or Moorish culture had attained a high degree of

excellence, while the spirit of adventure and the proselytizing zeal of the

followers of Islam led to a considerable extension of the knowledge of the

continent. This was rendered more easy by their use of the camel (first

introduced into Africa by the Persian conquerors of Egypt), which enabled

the Arabs to traverse the desert. In this way Senegambia and the middle

Niger regions fell under the influence of the Arabs and Berbers, but it was

not until 1591 that Timbuktu—a city founded in the 11th century—became

Moslem. That city had been reached in 1352 by the great Arab traveller Ibn

Batuta, to whose journey to Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa) was due the first

accurate knowledge of those flourishing Moslem cities on the east African

sea-boards. Except along this sea-board, which was colonized directly from

Asia, Arab progress southward was stopped by the broad belt of dense forest

which, stretching almost across the continent somewhat south of 10 deg. N.,

barred their advance as effectually as had the Sahara that of their

predecessors, and cut them off from knowledge of the Guinea coast and of

all Africa beyond. One of the regions which came latest under Arab control

was that of Nubia, where a Christian civilization and state existed up to

the 14th century.

For a time the Moslem conquests in South Europe had virtually made of the

Mediterranean an Arab lake, but the expulsion in the 11th century of the

Saracens from Sicily and southern Italy by the Normans was followed by

descents of the conquerors on Tunisia and Tripoli. Somewhat later a busy

trade with the African coast-lands, and especially with Egypt, was

developed by Venice, Pisa, Genoa and other cities of North Italy. By the

end of the 15th century Spain had completely thrown off the Moslem yoke,

but even while the Moors were still in Granada, Portugal was strong enough

to carry the war into Africa. In 1415 a Portuguese force captured the

citadel of Ceuta on the Moorish coast. From that time onward Portugal

repeatedly

Spain and Portugal invade the Barbary States.

interfered in the affairs of Morocco, while Spain acquired many ports in

Algeria and Tunisia. Portugal, however, suffered a crushing defeat in 1578

at al Kasr al Kebir, the Moors being led by Abd el Malek I. of the then

recently established Sharifan dynasty. By that time the Spaniards had lost

almost all their African possessions. The Barbary states, primarily from

the example of the Moors expelled from Spain, degenerated into mere

communities of pirates, and under Turkish influence civilization and

commerce declined. The story of these states from the beginning of the 16th

century to the third decade of the 19th century is largely made up of

piratical exploits on the one hand and of ineffectual reprisals on the

other. In Algiers, Tunis and other cities were thousands of Christian

slaves.

But with the battle of Ceuta Africa had ceased to belong solely to the

Mediterranean world. Among those who fought there was

Discovery of the Guinea coast—Rise of the slave trade.

one. Prince Henry ``the Navigator,'' son of King John I., who was fired

with the ambition to acquire for Portugal the unknown parts of Africa.

Under his inspiration and direction was begun that series of voyages of

exploration which resulted in the circumnavigation of Africa and the

establishment of Portuguese sovereignty over large areas of the coast-

lands. Cape Bojador was doubled in 1434, Cape Verde in 1445, and by 1480

the whole Guinea coast was known. In 1482 Diogo Cam or Cao discovered the

mouth of the Congo, the Cape of Good Hope was doubled by Bartholomew Diaz

in 1488, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama, after having rounded the Cape, sailed

up the east coast, touched at Sofala and Malindi, and went thence to India.

Over all the countries discovered by their navigators Portugal claimed

sovereign rights, but these were not exercised in the extreme south of the

continent. The Guinea coast, as the first discovered and the nearest to

Europe, was first exploited. Numerous forts and trading stations were

established, the earliest being Sao Jorge da Mina (Elmina), begun in 1482.

The chief commodities dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The

discovery of America (1492) was followed by a great development of the

slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been an overland trade

almost exclusively confined to Mahommedan Africa. The lucrative nature of

this trade and the large quantities of alluvial gold obtained by the

Portuguese drew other nations to the Guinea coast. English mariners went

thither as early as 1553, and they were followed by Spaniards, Dutch,

French, Danish and other adventurers. Much of Senegambia was made known as

a result of quests during the 16th century for the ``hills of gold'' in

Bambuk and the fabled wealth of Timbuktu, but the middle Niger was not

reached. The supremacy along the coast passed in the 17th century from

Portugal to Holland and from Holland in the 18th and 19th centuries to

France and England. The whole coast from Senegal to Lagos was dotted with

forts and ``factories'' of rival powers, and this international patchwork

persists though all the hinterland has become either French or British

territory.

Southward from the mouth of the Congo2 to the inhospitable region of

Damaraland, the Portuguese, from 1491 onward, acquired influence over the

Bantu-Negro inhabitants, and in the early part of the 16th century through

their efforts Christianity was largely adopted in the native kingtom of

Congo. An irruption of cannibals from the interior later in the same

century broke the power of this semi-Christian state, and Portuguese

activity was transferred to a great extent farther south, Sao Paulo de

Loanda being founded in 1576. The sovereignty of Portugal over this coast

region, except for the mouth of the Congo, has been once only challenged by

a European power, and that was in 1640-1648, when the Dutch held the

seaports.

Neglecting the comparatively poor and thinly inhabited regions of South

Africa, the Portuguese no sooner discovered than they coveted the

flourishing cities held by Arabized peoples between Sofala and Cape

Guardafui. By 1520 all these Moslem

The Portuguese in East Africa and Abyssinia.

sultanates had been seized by Portugal, Mozambique being chosen as the

chief city of her East African possessions. Nor was Portuguese activity

confined to the coast-lands. The lower and middle Zambezi valley was

explored (16th and 17th centuries), and here the Portuguese found semi-

civilized Bantu-Negro tribes, who had been for many years in contact with

the coast Arabs. Strenuous efforts were made to obtain possession of the

country (modern Rhodesia) known to them as the kingdom or empire of

Monomotapa, where gold had been worked by the natives from about the 12th

century A.D., and whence the Arabs, whom the Portuguese dispossessed, were

still obtaining supplies in the 16th century. Several expeditions were

despatched inland from 1569 onward and considerable quantities of gold were

obtained. Portugal's hold on the interior, never very effective, weakened

during the 17th century, and in the middle of the 18th century ceased with

the abandonment of the forts in the Manica district.

At the period of her greatest power Portugal exercised a strong influence

in Abyssinia also. In the ruler of Abyssinia (to whose dominions a

Portuguese traveller had penetrated before Vasco da Gama's memorable

voyage) the Portuguese imagined they had found the legendary Christian

king, Prester John, and when the complete overthrow of the native dynasty

and the Christian religion was imminent by the victories of Mahommedan

invaders, the exploits of a band of 400 Portuguese under Christopher da

Gama during 1541-1543 turned the scale in favour of Abyssinia and had thus

an enduring result on the future of North-East Africa. After da Gama's time

Portuguese Jesuits resorted to Abyssinia. While they failed in their

efforts to convert the Abyssinians to Roman Catholicism they acquired an

extensive knowledge of the country. Pedro Paez in 1615, and, ten years

later, Jeronimo Lobo, both visited the sources of the Blue Nile. In 1663

the Portuguese, who had outstayed their welcome, were expelled from the

Abyssinian dominions. At this time Portuguese influence on the Zanzibar

coast was waning before the power of the Arabs of Muscat, and by 1730 no

point on the east coast north of Cape Delgado was held by Portugal.

It has been seen that Portugal took no steps to acquire the southern part

of the continent. To the Portuguese the Cape of

English and Dutch at Table Bay—Cape Colony founded.

Good Hope was simply a landmark on the road to India, and mariners of other

nations who followed in their wake used Table Bay only as a convenient spot

wherein to refit on their voyage to the East. By the beginning of the 17th

century the bay was much resorted to for this purpose, chiefly by English

and Dutch vessels. In 1620, with the object of forestalling the Dutch, two

officers of the East India Company, on their own initiative, took

possession of Table Bay in the name of King James, fearing otherwise that

English ships would be ``frustrated of watering but by license.'' Their

action was not approved in London and the proclamation they issued remained

without effect. The Netherlands profited by the apathy of the English. On

the advice of sailors who had been shipwrecked in Table Bay the Netherlands

East India Company, in 1651, sent out a fleet of three small vessels under

Jan van Riebeek which reached Table Bay on the 6th of April 1652, when,

164 years after its discovery, the first permanent white settlement was

made in South Africa. The Portuguese, whose power in Africa was already

waning, were not in a position to interfere with the Dutch plans, and

England was content to seize the island of St Helena as her half-way house

to the East3. In its inception the settlement at the Cape was not intended

to become an African colony, but was regarded as the most westerly outpost

of the Dutch East Indies. Nevertheless, despite the paucity of ports and

the absence of navigable rivers, the Dutch colonists, freed from any

apprehension of European trouble by the friendship between Great Britain

and Holland, and leavened by Huguenot blood, gradually spread northward,

stamping their language, law and religion indelibly upon South Africa. This

process, however, was exceedingly slow.

During the 18th century there is little to record in the history of

Africa. The nations of Europe, engaged in the later half of the

Waning and revival of interest in Africa.

century in almost constant warfare, and struggling for supremacy in America

and the East, to a large extent lost their interest in the continent. Only

on the west coast was there keen rivalry, and here the motive was securance

of trade rather than territorial acquisitions. In this century the slave

trade reached its highest development, the trade in gold, ivory, gum and

spices being small in comparison. In the interior of the

continent—Portugal's energy being expended—no interest was shown, the

nations with establishments on the coast ``taking no further notice of the

inhabitants or their land than to obtain at the easiest rate what they

procure with as little trouble as possible, or to carry them off for slaves

to their plantations in America'' (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 3rd ed.,

1797). Even the scanty knowledge acquired by the ancients and the Arabs was

in the main forgotten or disbelieved. It was the period when — Geographers,

in Afric maps, With savage pictures filled their gaps, And o'er unhabitable

downs Placed elephants for want of towns.

(Poetry, a Rhapsody. By Jonathan Swift.)

The prevailing ignorance may be gauged by the statement in the third

edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica that ``the Gambia and Senegal

rivers are only branches of the Niger.'' But the closing years of the 18th

century, which witnessed the partial awakening of the public conscience of

Europe to the iniquities of the slave trade, were also notable for the

revival of interest in inner Africa. A society, the African Association,4

was formed in London in 1788 for the exploration of the interior of the

continent. The era of great discoveries had begun a little earlier in the

famous journey (1770-1772) of James Bruce through Abyssinia and Sennar,

during which he determined the course of the Blue Nile. But it was through

the agents of the African Association that knowledge was gained of the

Niger regions. The Niger itself was first reached by Mungo Park, who

travelled by way of the Gambia, in 1795. Park, on a second journey in 1805,

passed Timbuktu and descended the Niger to Bussa, where he lost his life,

having just failed to solve the question as to where the river reached the

ocean. (This problem was ultimately solved by Richard Lander and his

brother in 1830.) The first scientific explorer of South-East Africa, Dr

Francisco de Lacerda, a Portuguese, also lost his life in that country.

Lacerda travelled up the Zambezi to Tete, going thence towards Lake Mweru,

near which he died in 1798. The first recorded crossing of Africa was

accomplished between the years 1802 and 1811 by two half-caste Portuguese

traders, Pedro Baptista and A. Jose, who passed from Angola eastward to the

Zambezi.

Although the Napoleonic wars distracted the attention of Europe from

exploratory work in Africa, those wars nevertheless

Effects of the Napoleonic wars—Britain seizes the Cape.

exercised great influence on the future of the continent, both in Egypt and

South Africa. The occupation of Egypt (1798-1803) first by France and then

by Great Britain resulted in an effort by Turkey to regain direct control

over that country,5 followed in 1811 by the establishment under Mehemet Ali

of an almost independent state, and the extension of Egyptian rule over the

eastern Sudan (from 1820 onward). In South Africa the struggle with

Napoleon caused Great Britain to take possession of the Dutch settlements

at the Cape, and in 1814 Cape Colony, which had been continuously occupied

by British troops since 1806, was formally ceded to the British crown.

The close of the European conflicts with the battle of Waterloo was

followed by vigorous efforts on the part of the British government to

become better acquainted with Africa, and to substitute colonization and

legitimate trade for the slave traffic, declared illegal for British

subjects in 1807 and abolished by all other European powers by 1836. To

West Africa Britain devoted much attention. The slave trade abolitionists

had already, in 1788, formed a settlement at Sierra Leone, on the Guinea

coast, for freed slaves, and from this establishment grew the colony of

Sierra Leone, long notorious, by reason of its deadly climate, as ``The

White Man's Grave.''6 Farther east the establishments on the Gold Coast

began to take a part in the politics of the interior, and the first British

mission to Kumasi, despatched in 1817, led to the assumption of a

protectorate over the maritime tribes heretofore governed by the Ashanti.

An expedition sent in 1816 to explore the Congo from its mouth did not

succeed in getting beyond the rapids which bar the way to the interior, but

in the central Sudan much better results were obtained. In 1823 three

English travellers, Walter Oudney, Dixon Denham and Hugh Clapperton,

reached Lake Chad from Tripoli—the first white men to reach that lake. The

partial exploration of Bornu and the Hausa states by Clapperton, which

followed, revealed the existence of large and flourishing cities and a semi-

civilized people in a region hitherto unknown. The discovery in 1830 of the

mouth of the Niger by Clapperton's servant Lander, already mentioned, had

been preceded by the journeys of Major A.G. Laing (1826) and Rene Caillie

(1827) to Timbuktu, and was followed (1832-1833) by the partial ascent of

the Benue affluent of the Niger by Macgregor Laird. In 1841 a disastrous

attempt was made to plant a white colony on the lower Niger, an expedition

(largely philanthropic and antislavery in its inception) which ended in

utter failure. Nevertheless from that time British traders remained on the

lower Niger, their continued presence leading ultimately to the acquisition

of political rights over the delta and the Hausa states by Great Britain.7

Another endeavour by the British government to open up commercial relations

with the Niger countries resulted in the addition of a vast amount of

information concerning the countries between Timbuktu and Lake Chad, owing

to the labours of Heinrich Barth (1850-1855), originally a subordinate, but

the only surviving member of the expedition sent out.

Meantime considerable changes had been made in other parts of the

continent, the most notable being—the occupation of Algiers by France in

1830, an end being thereby put to the piratical proceedings of the Barbary

states; the continued expansion southward of Egyptian authority with the

consequent additions to the knowledge of the Nile; and the establishment of

independent states ((Orange Free State and the Transvaal) by Dutch farmers

(Boers) dissatisfied with British rule in Cape Colony. Natal, so named by

Vasco da Gama, had been made a British colony (1843), the attempt of the

Boers to acquire it being frustrated. The city of Zanzibar, on the island

of that name, founded in 1832 by Seyyid Said of Muscat, rapidly attained

importance, and Arabs began to penetrate to the great lakes of East

Africa,8 concerning which little more was known (and less believed) than in

the time of Ptolemy. Accounts of a vast inland sea, and the discovery in

1848-1840, by the missionaries Ludwig Krapf and J.Rebmann, of the snow-clad

mountains of Kilimanjaro and Kenya, stimulated in Europe the desire for

further knowledge.

At this period, the middle of the 19th century, Protestant missions were

carrying on active propaganda on the Guinea

The era of great explorers.

coast, in South Africa and in the Zanzibar dominions. Their work, largely

beneficent, was being conducted in regions and among peoples little known,

and in many instances missionaries turned explorers and became pioneers of

trade and empire. One of the first to attempt to fill up the remaining

blank spaces in the map was David Livings tone, who had been engaged since

1840 in missionary work north of the Orange. In 1849 Livingstone crossed

the Kalahari Desert from south to north and reached Lake Ngami, and between

1851 and 1856 he traversed the continent from west to east, making known

the great waterways of the upper Zambezi. During these journeyings

Livingstone discovered, November 1855, the famous Victoria Falls, so named

after the queen of England. In 1858-1864 the lower Zambezi, the Shire and

Lake Nyasa were explored by Livingstone, Nyasa having been first reached by

the confidential slave of Antonio da Silva Porto, a Portuguese trader

established at Bihe in Angola, who crossed Africa during 1853-1856 from

Benguella to the mouth of the Rovuma. While Livingstone circumnavigated

Nyasa, the more northerly lake, Tanganyika, had been visited (1858) by

Richard Burton and J. H. Speke, and the last named had sighted Victoria

Nyanza. Returning to East Africa with J. A. Grant, Speke reached, in 1862,

the river which flowed from Victoria Nyanza, and following it (in the main)

down to Egypt, had the distinction of being the first man to read the

riddle of the Nile. In 1864 another Nile explorer, Samuel Baker, discovered

the Albert Nyanza, the chief western reservoir of the river. In 1866

Livingstone began his last great journey, in which he made known Lakes

Mweru and Bangweulu and discovered the Lualaba (the upper part of the

Congo), but died (1873) before he had been able to demonstrate its ultimate

course, believing indeed that the Lualaba belonged to the Nile system.

Livingstone's lonely death in the heart of Africa evoked a keener desire

than ever to complete the work he left undone. H. M. Stanley, who had in

1871 succeeded in finding and succouring Livingstone, started again for

Zanzibar in 1874, and in the most memorable of all exploring expeditions in

Africa circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika, and, striking

farther inland to the Lualaba, followed that river down to the Atlantic

Ocean—reached in August 1877—and proved it to be the Congo. Stanley had

been preceded, in 1874, at Nyangwe, Livingstone's farthest point on the

Lualaba, by Lovett Cameron, who was, however, unable farther to explore its

course, making his way to the west coast by a route south of the Congo.

While the great mystery of Central Africa was being solved explorers were

also active in other parts of the continent. Southern Morocco, the Sahara

and the Sudan were traversed in many directions between 1860 and 1875 by

Gerhard Rohlfs, Georg Schweinfurth and Gustav Nachtigal. These travellers

not only added considerably to geographical knowledge, but obtained

invaluable information concerning the people, languages and natural history

of the countries in which they sojourned.9 Among the discoveries of

Schweinfurth was one that confirmed the Greek legends of the existence

beyond Egypt of a pygmy race. But the first discoverer of the dwarf races

of Central Africa was Paul du Chaillu, who found them in the Ogowe district

of the west coast in 1865, five years before Schweinfurth's first meeting

with the Pygmies; du Chaillu having previously, as the result of journeys

in the Gabun country between 1855 and 1859, made popular in Europe the

knowledge of the existence of the gorilla, perhaps the gigantic ape seen by

Hanno the Carthaginian, and whose existence, up to the middle of the 19th

century, was thought to be as legendary as that of the Pygmies of

Aristotle.

In South Africa the filling up of the map also proceeded apace. The

finding, in 1869, of rich diamond fields in the valley of the Vaal river,

near its confluence with the Orange, caused a rush of emigrants to that

district, and led to conflicts between the Dutch and British authorities

and the extension of British authority northward. In 1871 the ruins of the

great Zimbabwe in Mashonaland, the chief fortress and distributing centre

of the race which in medieval times worked the goldfields of South-East

Africa, were explored by Karl Mauch. In the following year F. C. Selous

began his journeys over South Central Africa, which continued for more than

twenty years and extended over every part of Mashonaland and Matabeleland.

(F. R. C.)

V. PARTITION AMONG EUROPEAN POWERS

In the last quarter of the 19th century the map of Africa was

transformed. After the discovery of the Congo the story of exploration

takes second place; the continent becomes the theatre of European

expansion. Lines of partition, drawn often through trackless wildernesses,

marked out the possessions of Germany, France, Great Britain and other

powers. Railways penetrated the interior, vast areas were opened up to

civilized occupation, and from ancient Egypt to the Zambezi the continent

was startled into new life.

Before 1875 the only powers with any considerable interest in Africa were

Britain, Portugal and France. Between 1815 and 1850, as has been shown

above, the British government devoted much energy, not always informed by

knowledge, to western and southern Africa. In both directions Great Britain

had met with much discouragement; on the west coast, disease, death,

decaying trade and useless conflicts with savage foes had been the normal

experience; in the south recalcitrant Boers and hostile Kaffirs caused

almost endless trouble. The visions once entertained of vigorous negro

communities at once civilized and Christian faded away; to the hot fit of

philanthropy succeeded the cold fit of indifference and a disinclination to

bear the burden of empire. The low-water mark of British interest in South

Africa was reached in 1854 when independence was forced on the Orange River

Boers, while in 1865 the mind of the nation was fairly reflected by the

unanimous resolution of a representative House of Commons committee:10

``that all further extension of territory or assumption of government, or

new treaty offering any protection to native tribes, would be

inexpedient.'' For nearly twenty years the spirit of that resolution

paralysed British action in Africa, although many circumstances—the absence

of any serious European rival, the inevitable border disputes with

uncivilized races, and the activity of missionary and trader—conspired to

make British influence dominant in large areas of the continent over which

the government exercised no definite authority. The freedom with which

blood and treasure were spent to enforce respect for the British flag or to

succour British subjects in distress, as in the Abyssinian campaign of 1867-

68 and the Ashanti war of 1873, tended further to enhance the reputation of

Great Britain among African races, while, as an inevitable result of the

possession of India, British officials exercised considerable power at the

court of Zanzibar, which indeed owed its separate existence to a decision

of Lord Canning, the governor-general of India, in 1861 recognizing the

division of the Arabian and African dominions of the imam of Muscat.

It has been said that Great Britain was without serious rival. On the

Gold Coast she had bought the Danish forts in 1850 and acquired the Dutch,

1871-1872, in exchange for establishments in Sumatra. But Portugal still

held, both in the east and west of Africa, considerable stretches of the

tropical coast-lands, and it was in 1875 that she obtained, as a result of

the arbitration of Marshal MacMahon, possession of the whole of Delagoa

Bay, to the southern part of which England also laid claim by virtue of a

treaty of cession concluded with native chiefs in 1823. The only other

European power which at the period under consideration had considerable

possessions in Africa was France. Besides Algeria, France had settlements

on the Senegal, where in 1854 the appointment of General Faidherbe as

governor marked the beginning of a policy of expansion; she had also

various posts on the upper Guinea coast, had taken the estuary of the Gabun

as a station for her navy, and had acquired (1862) Obok at the southern

entrance to the Red Sea.

In North Africa the Turks had (in 1835) assumed direct control of

Tripoli, while Morocco had fallen into a state of decay though retaining

its independence. The most remarkable change was in Egypt, where the

Khedive Ismail had introduced a somewhat fantastic imitation of European

civilization. In addition Ismail had conquered Darfur, annexed Harrar and

the Somali ports on the Gulf of Aden, was extending his power southward to

the equatorial lakes, and even contemplated reaching the Indian Ocean. The

Suez Canal, opened in 1869, had a great influence on the future of Africa,

as it again made Egypt the highway to the East, to the detriment of the

Cape route.

Any estimate of the area of African territory held by European nations in

1875 is necessarily but approximate, and varies chiefly

The division of the continent in 1875.

as the compiler of statistics rejects or accepts the vague claims of

Portugal to sovereignty over the hinterland of her coast possessions. At

that period other European nations—with the occasional exception of Great

Britain—were indifferent to Portugal's pretensions, and her estimate of her

African empire as covering over 700,000 sq. m. was not challenged.11 But

the area under effective control of Portugal at that time did not exceed

40,000 sq. m. Great Britain then held some 250,000 sq. m., France about

170,000 sq. m. and Spain 1000 sq.m. The area of the independent Dutch

republics (the Transvaal and Orange Free State) was some 150,000 sq. m., so

that the total area of Africa ruled by Europeans did not exceed 1,271,000

sq. m.; roughly one-tenth of the continent. This estimate, as it admits the

full extent of Portuguese claims and does not include Madagascar, in

reality considerably overstates the case.

Egypt and the Egyptian Sudan, Tunisia and Tripoli were subject in

differing ways to the overlordship of the sultan of Turkey, and with these

may be ranked, in the scale of organized governments, the three principal

independent states, Morocco, Abyssinia and Zanzibar, as also the negro

republic of Liberia. There remained, apart from the Sahara, roughly one

half of Africa, lying mostly within the tropics, inhabited by a multitude

of tribes and peoples living under various forms of government and subject

to frequent changes in respect of political organization. In this region

were the negro states of Ashanti, Dahomey and Benin on the west coast, the

Mahommedan sultanates of the central Sudan, and a number of negro kingdoms

in the east central and south central regions. Of these Uganda on the north-

west shores of Victoria Nyanza, Cazembe and Muata Hianvo (or Yanvo) may be

mentioned. The two last-named kingdoms occupied respectively the south-

eastern and south-western parts of the Congo basin. In all this vast region

the Negro and Negro-Bantu races predominated, for the most part untouched

by Mahommedanism or Christian influences. They lacked political cohesion,

and possessed neither the means nor the inclination to extend their

influence beyond their own borders. The exploitation of Africa continued to

be entirely the work of alien races.

The causes which led to the partition of Africa may now be considered.

They are to be found in the economic and political

Causes which led to partition.

state of western Europe at the time. Germany, strong and united as the

result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was seeking new outlets for her

energies —new markets for her growing industries, and with the markets,

colonies. Yet the idea of colonial expansion was of slow growth in Germany,

and when Prince Bismarck at length acted Africa was the only field left to

exploit, South America being protected from interference by the known

determination of the United States to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, while

Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain already held

most of the other regions of the world where colonization was possible. For

different reasons the war of 1870 was also the starting-point for France in

the building up of a new colonial empire. In her endeavour to regain the

position lost in that war France had to look beyond Europe. To the two

causes mentioned must be added others. Great Britain and Portugal, when

they found their interests threatened, bestirred themselves, while Italy

also conceived it necessary to become an African power. Great Britain awoke

to the need for action too late to secure predominance in all the regions

where formerly hers was the only European influence. She had to contend not

only with the economic forces which urged her rivals to action, but had

also to combat the jealous opposition of almost every European nation to

the further growth of British power. Italy alone acted throughout in

cordial co-operation with Great Britain.

It was not, however, the action of any of the great powers of Europe

which precipitated the struggle. This was brought about by the ambitious

projects of Leopold II, king of the Belgians. The discoveries of

Livingstone, Stanley and others had aroused especial interest among two

classes of men in western Europe, one the manufacturing and trading class,

which saw in Central Africa possibilities of commercial development, the

other the philanthropic and missionary class, which beheld in the newly

discovered lands millions of savages to Christianize and civilize. The

possibility of utilizing both these classes in the creation of a vast

state, of which he should be the chief, formed itself in the mind of

Leopold II. even before Stanley had navigated the Congo. The king's action

was immediate; it proved successful; but no sooner was the nature of his

project understood in Europe than it provoked the rivalry of France and

Germany, and thus the international struggle was begun.

Conflicting ambitions of the European powers.

At this point it is expedient, in the light of subsequent events, to set

forth the designs then entertained by the European powers that participated

in the struggle for Africa. Portugal was striving to retain as large a

share as possible of her shadowy empire, and particularly to establish her

claims to the Zambezi region, so as to secure a belt of territory across

Africa from Mozambique to Angola. Great Britain, once aroused to the

imminence of danger, put forth vigorous efforts in East Africa and on the

Niger, but her most ambitious dream was the establishment of an unbroken

line of British possessions and spheres of influence from south to north of

the continent, from Cape Colony to Egypt. Germany's ambition can be easily

described. It was to secure as much as possible, so as to make up for lost

opportunities. Italy coveted Tripoli, but that province could not be seized

without risking war. For the rest Italy's territorial ambitions were

confined to North-East Africa, where she hoped to acquire a dominating,

influence over Abyssinia. French ambitions, apart from Madagascar, were

confined to the northern and central portions of the continent. To extend

her possessions on the Mediterranean littoral, and to connect them with her

colonies in West Africa, the western Sudan, and on the Congo, by

establishing her influence over the vast intermediate regions, was France's

first ambition. But the defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia and the

impending downfall of the khalifa's power in the valley of the upper Nile

suggested a still more daring project to the French government—none other

than the establishment of French influence over a broad belt of territory

stretching across the continent from west to east, from Senegal on the

Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Aden. The fact that France possessed a small

part of the Red Sea coast gave point to this design. But these conflicting

ambitions could not all be realized and Germany succeeded in preventing

Great Britain obtaining a continuous band of British territory from south

to north,while Great Britain, by excluding France from the upper Nile

valley, dispelled the French dream of an empire from west to east. King

Leopold's ambitions have already been indicated. The part of the continent

to which from the first he directed his energies was the equatorial region.

In September 1876 he took what may be described as the first definite step

in the modern partition of the continent. He summoned to a conference at

Brussels representatives of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany,

Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia, to deliberate on the best methods to be

adopted for the exploration and civilization of Africa, and the opening up

of the interior of the continent to commerce and industry. The conference

was entirely unofficial. The delegates who attended neither represented nor

pledged their respective governments. Their deliberations lasted three days

and resulted in the foundation of ``The International African

Association,'' with its headquarters at Brussels. It was further resolved

to establish national committees in the various countries represented,

which should collect funds and appoint delegates to the International

Association. The central idea appears to have been to put the exploration

and development of Africa upon an international footing. But it quickly

became apparent that this was an unattainable ideal. The national

committees were soon working independently of the International

Association, and the Association itself passed through a succession of

stages until it became purely Belgian in character, and at last developed

into the Congo Free State, under the personal sovereignty of King Leopold.

At first the Association devoted itself to sending expeditions to the great

central lakes from the east coast; but failure, more or less complete

attended its efforts in this direction, and it was not until the return of

Stanley, in January 1878, from his great journey down the Congo, that its

ruling spirit, King Leopold, definitely turned his thoughts towards the

Congo. In June of that year, Stanley visited the king at Brussels, and in

the following November a private conference was held, and a committee was

appointed for the investigation of the upper Congo.

Stanley's remarkable discovery had stirred ambition in other capitals

than Brussels. France had always taken a keen interest

The struggle for the Congo.

in West Africa, and in the years 1875 to 1878 Savorgnan de Brazza had

carried out a successful exploration of the Ogowe river to the south of the

Gabun. De Brazza determined that the Ogowe did not offer that great

waterway into the interior of which he was in search, and he returned to

Europe without having heard of the discoveries of Stanley farther south.

Naturally, however, Stanley's discoveries were keenly followed in France.

In Portugal, too, the discovery of the Congo, with its magnificent unbroken

waterway of more than a thousand miles into the heart of the continent

served to revive the languid energies of the Portuguese, who promptly began

to furbish up claims whose age was in inverse ratio to their validity.

Claims, annexations and occupations were in the air, and when in January

1879 Stanley left Europe as the accredited agent of King Leopold and the

Congo committee, the strictest secrecy was observed as to his real aims and

intentions. The expedition was, it was alleged, proceeding up the Congo to

assist the Belgian expedition which had entered from the east coast, and

Stanley himself went first to Zanzibar. But in August 1879 Stanley found

himself again at Banana Point, at the mouth of the Congo, with, as he

himself has written, ``the novel mission of sowing along its banks

civilized settlements to peacefully conquer and subdue it, to remould it in

harmony with modern ideas into national states, within whose limits the

European merchant shall go hand in hand with the dark African trader, and

justice and law and order shall prevail, and murder and lawlessness and the

cruel barter of slaves shall be overcome.'' The irony of human aspirations

was never perhaps more plainly demonstrated than in the contrast between

the ideal thus set before themselves by those who employed Stanley, and the

actual results of their intervention in Africa. Stanley founded his first

station at Vivi, between the mouth of the Congo and the rapids that

obstruct its course where it breaks over the western edge of the central

continental plateau. Above the rapids he established a station on Stanley

Pool and named it Leopoldville, founding other stations on the main stream

in the direction of the falls that bear his name.

Meanwhile de Brazza was far from idle. He had returned to Africa at the

beginning of 1880, and while the agents of King Leopold were making

treaties and founding stations along the southern bank of the river, de

Brazza and other French agents were equally busy on the northern bank. De

Brazza was sent out to Africa by the French committee of the International

African Association, which provided him with the funds for the expedition.

His avowed object was to explore the region between the Gabun and Lake

Chad. But his real object was to anticipate Stanley on the Congo. The

international character of the association founded by King Leopold was

never more than a polite fiction, and the rivalry between the French and

the Belgians on the Congo was soon open, if not avowed. In October 1880 de

Brazza made a solemn treaty with a chief on the north bank of the Congo,

who claimed that his authority extended over a large area, including

territory on the southern bank of the river. As soon as this chief had

accepted French protection, de Brazza crossed over to the south of the

river, and founded a station close to the present site of Leopoldville. The

discovery by Stanley of the French station annoyed King Leopold's agent,

and he promptly challenged the rights of the chief who purported to have

placed the country under French protection, and himself founded a Belgian

station close to the site selected by de Brazza. In the result, the French

station was withdrawn to the northern side of Stanley Pool, where it is now

known as Brazzaville.

The activity of French and Belgian agents on the Congo had not passed

unnoticed in Lisbon, and the Portuguese government saw that no time was to

be lost if the claims it had never ceased to put forward on the west coast

were not to go by default. At varying periods during the 19th century

Portugal had put forward claims to the whole of the West African coast,

between 5 deg. 12' and 8 deg. south. North of the Congo mouth she claimed

the territories of Kabinda and Molemba, alleging that they had been in her

possession since 1484. Great Britain had never, however, admitted this

claim, and south of the Congo had declined to recognize Portuguese

possessions as extending north of Ambriz. In 1856 orders were given to

British cruisers to prevent by force any attempt to extend Portuguese

dominion north of that place. But the Portuguese had been persistent in

urging their claims, and in 1882 negotiations were again opened with the

British government for recognition of Portuguese rights over both banks of

the Congo on the coast, and for some distance inland. Into the details of

the negotiations, which were conducted for Great Britain by the 2nd Earl

Granville, who was then secretary for foreign affairs, it is unnecessary to

enter; they resulted in the signing on the 26th of February 1884 of a

treaty, by which Great Britain recognized the sovereignty of the king of

Portugal ``over that part of the west coast of Africa, situated between 8

deg. and 5 deg. 12' south latitude,'' and inland as far as Noki, on the

south bank of the Congo, below Vivi. The navigation of the Congo was to be

controlled by an Anglo-Portuguese commission. The publication of this

treaty evoked immediate protests, not only on the continent but in Great

Britain. In face of the disapproval aroused by the treaty, Lord Granville

found himself unable to ratify it. The protests had not been confined to

France and the king of the Belgians. Germany had not yet acquired formal

footing in Africa, but she was crouching for the spring prior to taking her

part in the scramble, and Prince Bismarck had expressed, in vigorous

language, the objections entertained by Germany to the Anglo-Portuguese

treaty.

For some time before 1884 there had been growing up a general conviction

that it would be desirable for the powers who were interesting themselves

in Africa to come to some agreement as to ``the rules of the game,'' and to

define their respective interests so far as that was practicable. Lord

Granville's ill-fated treaty brought this sentiment to a head, and it was

agreed to hold an international conference on African affairs. But before

discussing the Berlin conference of 1884-1885, it will be well to see what

was the position, on the eve of the conference, in other parts of the

African continent. In the southern section of Africa, south of the Zambezi,

important events had been happening. In 1876 Great Britain had concluded an

agreement

British influence consolidated in South Africa.

with the Orange Free State for an adjustment of frontiers, the result of

which was to leave the Kimberley diamond fields in British territory, in

exchange for a payment of L. 90,000 to the Orange Free State. On the 12th

of April 1877 Sir Theophilus Shepstone had issued a proclamation declaring

the Transvaal— the South African Republic, as it was officially

designated—to be British territory (see TRANSVAAL.) In December 1880 war

broke out and lasted until March 1881, when a treaty of peace was signed.

This treaty of peace was followed by a convention, signed in August of the

same year, under which complete self-government was guaranteed to the

inhabitants of the Transvaal, subject to the suzerainty of Great Britain,

upon certain terms and conditions and subject to certain reservations and

limitations. No sooner was the convention signed than it became the object

of the Boers to obtain a modification of the conditions and limitations

imposed, and in February 1884 a fresh convention was signed, amending the

convention of 1881. Article IV. of the new convention provided that ``The

South African Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement with any state

or nation other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to

the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same has been approved

by Her Majesty the Queen.'' The precise effect of the two conventions has

been the occasion for interminable discussions, but as the subject is now

one of merely academic interest, it is sufficient to say that when the

Berlin conference held its first meeting in 1884 the Transvaal was

practically independent, so far as its internal administration was

concerned, while its foreign relations were subject to the control just

quoted.

But although the Transvaal had thus, between the years 1875 and 1884,

become and ceased to be British territory, British influence in other parts

of Africa south of the Zambezi had been steadily extended. To the west of

the Orange Free State, Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape in 1880,

while to the east the territories beyond the Kei river were included in

Cape Colony between 1877 and 1884, so that in the latter year, with the

exception of Pondoland, the whole of South-East Africa was in one form or

another under British control. North of Natal, Zululand was not actually

annexed until 1887, although since 1879, when the military power of the

Zulus was broken up, British influence had been admittedly supreme. In

December 1884 St Lucia Bay—upon which Germany was casting covetous eyes—had

been taken possession of in virtue of its cession to Great Britain by the

Zulu king in 1843, and three years later an agreement of non-cession to

foreign powers made by Great Britain with the regent and paramount chief of

Tongaland completed the chain of British possessions on the coast of South

Africa, from the mouth of the Orange river on the west to Kosi Bay and the

Portuguese frontier on the east. In the interior of South Africa the year

1884 witnessed the beginning of that final stage of the British advance

towards the north which was to extend British influence from the Cape to

the southern shores of Lake Tanganyika. The activity of the Germans on the

west, and of the Boer republic on the east, had brought home to both the

imperial and colonial authorities the impossibility of relying on vague

traditional claims. In May 1884 treaties were made with native chiefs by

which the whole of the country north of Cape Colony, west of the Transvaal,

south of 22 deg. S. and east of 20 deg. E., was placed under British

protection, though a protectorate was not formally declared until the

following January.

Meanwhile some very interesting events had been taking place or: the west

coast, north of the Orange river and south of the Portuguese province of

Mossamaede. It must be sufficient here to touch very briefly on the events

that preceded the foundation of the colony of German South-West Africa. For

many years before 1884 German missionaries had settled among the Damaras

(Herero) and Namaquas, often combining small trading operations with their

missionary work. From time to time trouble arose between the missionaries

and the native chiefs, and appeals

Germany enters the field.

were made to the German government for protection. The German government in

its turn begged the British government to say whether it assumed

responsibility for the protection of Europeans in Damaraland and

Namaqualand. The position of the British government was intelligible, if

not very intelligent. It did not desire to see any other European power in

these countries, and it did not want to assume the responsibility and incur

the expense of protecting the few Europeans settled there. Sir Bartle

Frere, when governor of the Cape (1877-1880), had foreseen that this

attitude portended trouble, and had urged that the whole of the unoccupied

coastline, up to the Portuguese frontier, should be declared under British

protection. But he preached to deaf ears, and it was as something of a

concession to him that in March 1878 the British flag was hoisted at

Walfish Bay, and a small part of the adjacent land declared to be British.

The fact appears to be that British statesmen failed to understand the

change that had come over Germany. They believed that Prince Bismarck would

never give his sanction to the creation of a colonial empire, and, to the

German inquiries as to what rights Great Britain claimed in Damaraland and

Namaqualand, procrastinating replies were sent. Meanwhile the various

colonial societies established in Germany had effected a revolution in

public opinion, and, more important still, they had convinced the great

chancellor. Accordingly when, in November 1882, F. A. E. Luderitz, a Bremen

merchant, informed the German government of his intention to establish a

factory on the coast between the Orange river and the Little Fish river,

and asked if he might rely on the protection of his government in case of

need, he met with no discouragement from Prince Bismarck. In February 1883

the German ambassador in London informed Lord Granville of Luderitz's

design, and asked ``whether Her Majesty's government exercise any authority

in that locality.'' It was intimated that if Her Majesty's government did

not, the German government would extend to Luderitz's factory ``the same

measure of protection which they give to their subjects in remote parts of

the world, but without having the least design to establish any footing in

South Africa.'' An inconclusive reply was sent, and on the 9th of April

Luderitz's agent landed at Angra Pequena, and after a short delay concluded

a treaty with the local chief, by which some 215 square miles around Angra

Pequena were ceded to Luderitz. In England and at the Cape irritation at

the news was mingled with incredulity, and it was fully anticipated that

Luderitz would be disavowed by his government. But for this belief it can

scarcely be doubted that the rest of the unoccupied coast-line would have

been promptly declared under British protection. Still Prince Bismarck was

slow to act. In November the German ambassador again inquired if Great

Britain made any claim over this coast, and Lord Granville replied that Her

Majesty exercised sovereignty only over certain parts of the coast, as at

Walfish Bay, and suggested that arrangements might be made by which Germany

might assist in the settlement of Angra Pequena. By this time Luderitz had

extended his acquisitions southwards to the Orange river, which had been

declared by the British government to be the northern frontier of Cape

Colony. Both at the Cape and in England it was now realized that Germany

had broken away from her former purely continental policy, and, when too

late, the Cape parliament showed great eagerness to acquire the territory

which had lain so long at its very doors, to be had for the taking. It is

not necessary to follow the course-of the subsequent negotiations. On the

15th of August 1884 an official note was addressed by the German consul at

Capetown to the high commissioner, intimating that the German emperor had

by proclamation taken ``the territory belonging to Mr A. Luderitz on the

west coast of Africa under the direct protection of His Majesty.'' This

proclamation covered the coast-line from the north bank of the Orange river

to 26 deg. S. latitude, and 20 geographical miles inland, including ``the

islands belonging thereto by the law of nations.'' On the 8th of September

1884 the German government intimated to Her Majesty's government ``that the

west coast of Africa from 26 deg. S. latitude to Cape Frio, excepting

Walfish Bay, had been placed under the protection of the German emperor.''

Thus, before the end of the year 1884, the foundations of Germany's

colonial empire had been laid in South-West Africa.

In April of that year Prince Bismarck intimated to the British

government, through the German charge d'affaires in London,

Nachtigal's mission to West Africa.

that ``the imperial consul-general, Dr Nachtigal, has been commissioned by

my government to visit the west coast of Africa in the course of the next

few months, in order to complete the information now in the possession of

the Foreign Office at Berlin, on the state of German commerce on that

coast. With this object Dr Nachtigal will shortly embark at Lisbon, on

board the gunboat `Mowe.' He will put himself into communication with the

authorities in the British possessions on the said coast, and is authorized

to conduct, on behalf of the imperial government, negotiations connected

with certain questions. I venture,'' the official communication proceeds,

``in accordance with my instructions, to beg your excellency to be so good

as to cause the authorities in the British possessions in West Africa to be

furnished with suitable recommendations.'' Although at the date of this

communication it must have been apparent, from what was happening in South

Africa, that Germany was prepared to enter on a policy of colonial

expansion, and although the wording of the letter was studiously vague, it

does not seem to have occurred to the British government that the real

object of Gustav Nachtigal's journey was to make other annexations on the

west coast. Yet such was indeed his mission. German traders and

missionaries had been particularly active of late years on the coast of the

Gulf of Guinea. German factories were dotted all along the coast in

districts under British protection, under French protection and under the

definite protection of no European power at all. It was to these latter

places that Nachtigal turned his attention. The net result of his

operations was that on the 5th of July 1884 a treaty was signed with the

king of Togo, placing his country under German protection, and that just

one week later a German protectorate was proclaimed over the Cameroon

district. Before either of these events had occurred Great Britain had

become alive to the fact that she could no longer dally with the subject,

if she desired to consolidate her possessions in West Africa. The British

government had again and again refused to accord native chiefs the

protection they demanded. The Cameroon chiefs had several times asked for

British protection, and always in vain. But at last it became apparent,

even to the official mind, that rapid changes were being effected in

Africa, and on the 16th of May Edward Hyde Hewett, British consul, received

instructions to return to the west coast and to make arrangements for

extending British protection over certain regions. He arrived too late to

save either Togoland or Cameroon, in the latter case arriving five days

after King Bell and the other chiefs on the river had signed treaties with

Nachtigal. But the British consul was in time to secure the delta of the

river Niger and the Oil Rivers District, extending from Rio del Rey to the

Lagos frontier, where for a long period British traders had held almost a

monopoly of the trade.

Meanwhile France, too, had been busy treaty-making. While the British

government still remained under the spell of the

French and British rivalry in West Africa.

fatal resolution of 1865, the French government was strenuously

endeavouring to extend France's influence in West Africa, in the countries

lying behind the coastline. During the year 1884 no fewer than forty-two

treaties were concluded with native chiefs, an even larger number having

been concluded in the previous twelve months. In this fashion France was

pushing on towards Timbuktu, in steady pursuance of the policy which

resulted in surrounding all the old British possessions in West Africa with

a continuous band of French territory. There was, however, one region on

the west coast where, notwithstanding the lethargy of the British

government, British interests were being vigorously pushed, protected and

consolidated. This was on the lower Niger, and the leading spirit in the

enterprise was Mr Goldie Taubman (afterwards Sir George Taubman Goldie). In

1877 Sir George Goldie visited the Niger and conceived the idea of

establishing a settled government in that region. Through his efforts the

various trading firms on the lower Niger formed themselves in 1879 into the

``United African Company,'' and the foundations were laid of something like

settled administration. An application was made to the British government

for a charter in 1881, and the capital of the company increased to a

million sterling. Henceforth the company was known as the ``National

African Company,'' and it was acknowledged that its object was not only to

develop the trade of the lower Niger, but to extend its operations to the

middle reaches of the river, and to open up direct relations with the great

Fula empire of Sokoto and the smaller states associated with Sokoto under a

somewhat loosely defined suzerainty. The great development of trade which

followed the combination of British interests carried out under Goldie's

skilful guidance did not pass unnoticed in France, and, encouraged by

Gambetta, French traders made a bold bid for a position on the river. Two

French companies, with ample capital, were formed, and various stations

were established on the lower Niger. Goldie realized at once the

seriousness of the situation, and lost no time in declaring commercial war

on the newcomers. His bold tactics were entirely successful, and a few days

before the meeting of the Berlin conference he had the satisfaction of

announcing that he had bought out the whole of the French interests on the

river, and that Great Britain alone possessed any interests on the lower

Niger.

To complete the survey of the political situation in Africa at the time

the plenipotentiaries met at Berlin, it is necessary to

The position in Tunisia and Egypt.

refer briefly to the course of events in North and East Africa since 1875.

In 1881 a French army entered Tunisia, and compelled the bey to sign a

treaty placing that country under French protection. The sultan of Turkey

formally protested against this invasion of Ottoman rights, but the great

powers took no action, and France was left in undisturbed possession of her

newly acquired territory. In Egypt the extravagance of Ismail Pasha had led

to the establishment in 1879, in the interests of European bondholders, of

a Dual Control exercised by France and Great Britain. France had, however,

in 1882 refused to take part in the suppression of a revolt under Arabi

Pasha, which England accomplished unaided. As a consequence the Dual

Control had been abolished in January 1883, since when Great Britain, with

an army quartered in the country, had assumed a predominant position in

Egyptian affairs (see EGYPT.) In East Africa, north of the Portuguese

possessions, where the sultan of Zanzibar was the most considerable native

potentate, Germany was secretly preparing the foundations of her present

colony of German East Africa. But no overt act had warned Europe of what

was impending. The story of the foundation of German East Africa is one of

the romances of the continent. Early in 1884 the Society for German

Colonization was founded, with the avowed object of furthering the newly

awakened colonial aspirations of the German people.12 It was a society

inspired and controlled by young men, and on the 4th of November 1884,

eleven days before the conference assembled at Berlin, three young Germans

arrived as deck passengers at Zanzibar. They were disguised as mechanics,

but were in fact Dr Karl Peters, the president of the Colonization Society,

Joachim Count Pfeil, and Dr Juhlke, and their stock-in-trade consisted of a

number of German flags and a supply of blank treaty forms. They proposed to

land on the mainland opposite Zanzibar, and

The German flag raised in East Africa.

to conclude treaties in the back country with native chiefs placing their

territories under German protection. The enterprise was frowned upon by the

German government; but, encouraged by German residents at Zanzibar, the

three young pioneers crossed to the mainland, and on the 19th of November,

while the diplomatists assembled at Berlin were solemnly discussing the

rules which were to govern the game of partition, the first ``treaty'' was

signed at Mbuzini, and the German flag raised for the first time in East

Africa.

Italy had also obtained a footing on the African continent before the

meeting of the Berlin conference. The Rubattino Steamship Company as far

back as 1870 had bought the port of Assab as a coaling station, but it was

not until 1882 that it was declared an Italian colony. This was followed by

the conclusion of a treaty with the sultan of Assab, chief of the Danakil,

signed on the 15th of March 1883, and subsequently approved by the king of

Shoa, whereby Italy obtained the cession of part of Ablis (Aussa) on the

Red Sea, Italy undertaking to protect with her fleet the Danakil littoral.

One other event must be recorded as happening before the meeting of the

Berlin conference. The king of the Belgians had

Recognition of the International Association.

been driven to the conclusion that, if his African enterprise was to obtain

any measure of permanent success, its international status must be

recognized. To this end negotiations were opened with various governments.

The first government to ``recognize the flag of the International

Association of the Congo as the flag of a friendly government'' was that of

the United States, its declaration to that effect bearing date the 22nd of

April 1884. There were, however, difficulties in the way of obtaining the

recognition of the European powers, and in order to obtain that of France,

King Leopold, on the 23rd of April 1884, while labouring under the feelings

of annoyance which had been aroused by the Anglo-Portuguese treaty

concluded by Lord Granville in February, authorized Colonel Strauch,

president of the International Association, to engage to give France ``the

right of preference if, through unforeseen circumstances, the Association

were compelled to sell its possessions.'' France's formal recognition of

the Association as a government was, however, delayed by the discussion of

boundary questions until the following February, and in the meantime

Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Holland and Spain had all

recognized the Association; though Germany alone had done so—on the 8th of

November—before the assembling of the conference.

The conference assembled at Berlin on the 15th of November 1884, and

after protracted deliberations the ``General Act of

The Berlin Conference of 1884-85.

the Berlin Conference'' was signed by the representatives of all the powers

attending the conference, on the 26th of February 1885. The powers

represented were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, the

United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, Holland, Portugal, Russia,

Sweden and Norway, and Turkey, to name them in the alphabetical order

adopted in the preamble to the French text of the General Act.

Ratifications were deposited by all the signatory powers with the exception

of the United States. It is unnecessary to examine in detail the results of

the labours of the conference. The General Act dealt with six specific

subjects: (1) freedom of trade in the basin of the Congo, (2) the slave

trade, (3) neutrality of territories in the basin of the Congo, (4)

navigation of the Congo, (5) navigation of the Niger, (6) rules for future

occupation on the coasts of the African continent. It will be seen that the

act dealt with other matters than the political partition of Africa; but,

so far as they concern the present purpose, the results effected by the

Berlin Act may be summed up as follows. The signatory powers undertook that

any fresh act of taking possession on any portion of the African coast must

be notified by the power taking possession, or assuming a protectorate, to

the other signatory powers. It was further provided that any such

occupation to be valid must be effective. It is also noteworthy that the

first reference in an international act to the obligations attaching to

``spheres of influence'' is contained in the Berlin Act.

It will be remembered that when the conference assembled, the

International Association of the Congo had only been

Constitution of the Congo State.

recognized as a sovereign state by the United States and Germany. But King

Leopold and his agents had taken full advantage of the opportunity which

the conference afforded, and before the General Act was signed the

Association had been recognized by all the signatory powers, with the not

very important exception of Turkey, and the fact communicated to the

conference by Colonel Strauch. It was not, however, until two months later,

in April 1885, that King Leopold, with the sanction of the Belgian

legislature, formally assumed the headship of the new state; and on the 1st

of August in the same year His Majesty notified the powers that from that

date the ``Independent State of the Congo'' declared that ``it shall be

perpetually neutral'' in conformity with the provisions of the Berlin Act.

Thus was finally constituted the Congo Free State, under the sovereignty of

King Leopold, though the boundaries claimed for it at that time were

considerably modified by subsequent agreements.

From 1885 the scramble among the powers went on with renewed vigour, and

in the fifteen years that remained of the

The chief partition treaties.

century the work of partition, so far as international agreements were

concerned, was practically completed. To attempt to follow the process of

acquisition year by year would involve a constant shifting of attention

from one part of the continent to another, inasmuch as the scramble was

proceeding simultaneously all over Africa. It will therefore be the most

convenient plan to deal with the continent in sections. Before doing so,

however, the international agreements which determined in the main the

limits of the possessions of the various powers may be set forth. They

are:— I. The agreement of the 1st of July 1890 between Great Britain and

Germany defining their spheres of influence in East, West and South-West

Africa. This agreement was the most comprehensive of all the ``deals'' in

African territory, and included in return for the recognition of a British

protectorate over Zanzibar the cession of Heligoland to Germany.

II. The Anglo-French declaration of the 5th of August 1890, which

recognized a French protectorate over Madagascar, French influence in

the Sahara, and British influence between the Niger and Lake Chad.

III. The Anglo-Portuguese treaty of the 11th of June 1891, whereby the

Portuguese possessions on the west and east coasts were separated by a

broad belt of British territory, extending north to Lake Tanganyika.

IV. The Franco-German convention of the 15th of March 1894, by which the

Central Sudan was left to France (this region by an Anglo-German

agreement of the 15th of November 1893 having been recognized as in the

German sphere). By this convention France was able to effect a

territorial )unction of her possessions in North and West Africa with

those in the Congo region.

V. Protocols of the 24th of March and the 15th of April 1891, for the

demarcation of the Anglo-Italian spheres in East Africa.

VI. The Anglo-French convention of the 14th of June 1898, for the

delimitation of the possessions of the two countries west of Lake Chad,

with the supplementary declaration of the 21st of March 1899 whereby

France recognized the upper Nile valley as in the British sphere of

influence.

Coming now to a more detailed consideration of the operations of the

powers, the growth of the Congo Free State, which

The growth of the Congo State.

occupied, geographically, a central position, may serve as the starting-

point for the story of the partition after the Berlin conference. In the

notification to the powers of the 1st of August 1885, the boundaries of the

Free State were set out in considerable detail. The limits thus determined

resulted partly from agreements made with France, Germany and Portugal, and

partly from treaties with native chiefs. The state acquired the north bank

of the Congo from its mouth to a point in the unnavigable reaches, and in

the interior the major part of the Congo basin. In the north-east the

northern limit was 4 deg. N. up to 30 deg. E., which formed the eastern

boundary of, the state. The south-eastern frontier claimed by King Leopold

extended to Lakes Tanganyika, Mweru and Bangweulu, but it was not until

some years later that it was recognized and defined by the agreement of May

1894 with Great Britain. The international character of King Leopold's

enterprise had not long been maintained, and his recognition as sovereign

of the Free State confirmed the distinctive character which the Association

had assumed, even before that event.

In April 1887 France was informed that the right of pre-emption accorded

to her in 1884 had not been intended by King Leopold to prejudice Belgium's

right to acquire the Congo State, and in reply the French minister at

Brussels took note of the explanation, ``in so far as this interpretation

is not contrary to pre-existing international engagements.'' By his will,

dated the 2nd of August 1889, King Leopold made Belgium formally heir to

the sovereign rights of the Congo Free State. In 1895 an annexation bill

was introduced into the Belgian parliament, but at that time Belgium had no

desire to assume responsibility for the Congo State, and the bill was

withdrawn. In 1901, by the terms of a loan granted in 1890, Belgium had

again an opportunity of annexing the Congo State, but a bill in favour of

annexation was opposed by the government and was withdrawn after King

Leopold had declared that the time was not ripe for the transfer.

Concessionaire companies and a Domaine de la Couronne had been created in

the state, from which the sovereign derived considerable revenues—facts

which helped to explain the altered attitude of Leopold II. The agitation

in Great Britain and America against the Congo system of government, and

the admissions of an official commission of inquiry concerning its

maladministration, strengthened, however, the movement in favour of

transfer. Nevertheless in June 1906 the king again declared himself opposed

to immediate annexation. But under pressure of public opinion the Congo

government concluded, 28th of November 1907, a new annexation treaty. As it

stipulated for the continued existence of the crown domain the treaty

provoked vehement opposition. Leopold II. was forced to yield, and an

additional act was signed, 5th of March 1908, providing for the suppression

of the domain in return for financial subsidies. The treaty, as amended,

was approved by the Belgian parliament in the session of 1908. Thus the

Congo state, after an existence of 24 years as an independent power, became

a Belgian colony. (See CONGO FREE STATE.)

The area of the Free State, vast as it was, did not suffice to satisfy

the ambition of its sovereign. King Leopold maintained that the Free State

enjoyed equally with any other state the right to extend its frontiers. His

ambition involved the state in the struggle between Great Britain and

France for the upper Nile. To understand the situation it is necessary to

remember the condition of the Egyptian Sudan at that time. The mahdi,

Mahommed Ahmed, had preached a holy war against the Egyptians, and, after

the capture of Khartum and the death of General C. G. Gordon, the Sudan was

abandoned to the dervishes. The Egyptian frontier was withdrawn to Wadi

Haifa, and the vast provinces of Kordofan, Darfur and the Bahr-el-Ghazal

were given over to dervish tyranny and misrule. It was obvious that Egypt

would sooner or later seek to recover her position in the Sudan, as the

command of the upper Nile was recognized as essential to her continued

prosperity. But the international position of the abandoned provinces was

by no means clear. The British government, by the Anglo-German agreement of

July 1890, had secured the assent of Germany to the statement that the

British sphere of influence in East Africa was bounded on the west by the

Congo Free State and by ``the western watershed of the basin of the upper

Nile''; but this claim was not recognized either by France or by the Congo

Free State. From her base on the Congo, France was busily engaged pushing

forward along the northern tributaries of the great river. On the 27th of

April 1887 an agreement was signed with the Congo Free State by which the

right bank of the Ubangi river was secured to French influence, and the

left bank to the Congo Free State. The desire of France to secure a footing

in the upper Nile valley was partly due, as has been seen, to her anxiety

to extend a French zone across Africa, but it was also and to a large

The contest for the upper Nile.

extent attributable to the belief, widely entertained in France, that by

establishing herself on the upper Nile France could regain the position in

Egyptian affairs which she had sacrificed in 1882. With these strong

inducements France set steadily to work to consolidate her position on the

tributary streams of the upper Congo basin, preparatory to crossing into

the valley of the upper Nile. Meanwhile a similar advance was being made

from the Congo Free State northwards and eastwards. King Leopold had two

objects in view—-to obtain control of the rich province of the Bahr-el-

Ghazal and to secure an outlet on the Nile. Stations were established on

the Welle river, and in February 1891 Captain van Kerckhoven left

Leopoldville for the upper Welle with the most powerful expedition which

had, up to that time, been organized by the Free State. After some heavy

fighting the expedition reached the Nile in September 1892, and opened up

communications with the remains of the old Egyptian garrison at Wadelai.

Other expeditions under Belgian officers penetrated into the Bahr-el-

Ghazal, and it was apparent that King Leopold proposed to rely on effective

occupation as an answer to any claims which might be advanced by either

Great Britain or France. The news of what was happening in this remote

region Of Africa filtered through to Europe very slowly, but King Leopold

was warned on several occasions that Great Britain would not recognize any

claims by the Congo Free State on the Bahr-el-Ghazal. The difficulty was,

however, that neither from Egypt, whence the road was barred by the khalifa

(the successor of the mahdi), nor from Uganda, which was far too remote

from the coast to serve as the base of a large expedition, could a British

force be despatched to take effective occupation of the upper Nile valley.

There was, therefore, danger lest the French should succeed in establishing

themselves on the upper Nile before the preparations which were being made

in Egypt for ``smashing'' the khalifa were completed.

In these circumstances Lord Rosebery, who was then British foreign

minister, began, and his successor, the 1st earl of

The Anglo-Congolese agreement of 1894.

Kimberley, completed, negotiations with King Leopold which resulted in the

conclusion of the Anglo-Congolese agreement of 12th May 1894. By this

agreement King Leopold recognized the British sphere of influence as laid

down in the Anglo-German agreement of July 1890, and Great Britain granted

a lease to King Leopold of certain territories in the western basin of the

upper Nile, extending on the Nile from a point on Lake Albert to Fashoda,

and westwards to the Congo-Nile watershed. The practical effect of this

agreement was to give the Congo Free State a lease, during its sovereign's

lifetime, of the old Bahr-el-Ghazal province, and to secure after His

Majesty's death as much of that territory as lay west of the 30th meridian,

together with access to a port on Lake Albert, to his successor. At the

same time the Congo Free State leased to Great Britain a strip of

territory, 15 1/2 m. in breadth, between the north end of Lake Tanganyika

and the south end of Lake Albert Edward. This agreement was hailed as a

notable triumph for British diplomacy. But the triumph was short-lived. By

the agreement of July 1890 with Germany, Great Britain had been reluctantly

compelled to abandon her hopes of through communication between the British

spheres in the northern and southern parts of the continent, and to Consent

to the boundary of German East Africa marching with the eastern frontier of

the Congo Free State. Germany frankly avowed that she did not wish to have

a powerful neighbour interposed between herself and the Congo Free State.

It was obvious that the new agreement would effect precisely what Germany

had declined to agree to in 1890. Accordingly Germany protested in such

vigorous terms that, on the 22nd of June 1894, the offending article was

withdrawn by an exchange of notes between Great Britain and the Congo Free

State. Opinion in France was equally excited by the new agreement. It was

obvious that the lease to the Congo Free State was intended to exclude

France from the Nile by placing the Congo Free State as a barrier across

her path. Pressure was brought to bear on King Leopold, from Paris, to

renounce the rights acquired under the agreement, and on the 14th of August

1894 King Leopold signed an agreement with France by which, in exchange for

France's acknowledgment of the Mbomu river as his northern frontier, His

Majesty renounced all occupation and all exercise of political influence

west of 30 deg. E., and north of a line drawn from that meridian to the

Nile along 5 deg. 30' N.

This left the way still open for France to the Nile, and in June 1896

Captain J. Marchand left France with secret instructions to lead an

expedition into the Nile valley. On the 1st of March in the following year

he left Brazzaville, and began a journey which all but plunged Great

Britain and France into war. The difficulties which Captain Marchand had to

overcome were mainly those connected with transport. In October 1897 the

expedition reached the banks of the Sue, the waters of which eventually

flow into the Nile. Here a post was established and the ``Faidherbe,'' a

steamer which had been carried across the Congo-Nile watershed in sections,

was put together and launched. On the 1st of May 1898 Marchand started on

the final stage of his journey, and reached Fashoda on the 10th of July,

having established a chain of posts en route. At Fashoda the French flag

was at once raised, and a ``treaty'' made with the local chief. Meanwhile

other expeditions had been concentrating on

The French at Fashoda.

Fashoda—a mud-flat situated in a swamp, round which for many months raged

the angry passions of two great peoples. French expeditions, with a certain

amount of assistance from the emperor Menelek of Abyssinia, had been

striving to reach the Nile from the east, so as to join hands with Marchand

and complete the line of posts into the Abyssinian frontier. In this,

however, they were unsuccessful. No better success attended the expedition

under Colonel (afterwards Sir) Ronald Macdonald, R.E., sent by the British

government from Uganda to anticipate the French in the occupation of the

upper Nile. It was from the north that claimants arrived to dispute with

the French their right to Fashoda, and all that the occupation of that

dismal post implied. In 1896 an Anglo-Egyptian army, under the direction of

Sir Herbert (afterwards Lord) Kitchener, had begun to advance southwards

for the reconquest of the Egyptian Sudan. On the 2nd of September 1898

Khartum was captured, and the khalifa's army dispersed. It was then that

news reached the Anglo-Egyptian commander, from native sources, that there

were white men flying a strange flag at Fashoda. The sirdar at once

proceeded in a steamer up the Nile, and courteously but firmly requested

Captain Marchand to remove the French flag. On his refusal the Egyptian

flag was raised close to the French flag, and the dispute was referred to

Europe for adjustment between the British and French governments. A

critical situation ensued. Neither government was inclined to give way, and

for a time war seemed imminent. Happily Lord Salisbury was able to

announce, on the 4th of November, that France was willing to recognize the

British claims, and the incident was finally closed on the 21st of March

1899, when an Anglo-French declaration was signed, by the terms of which

France withdrew from the Nile valley and accepted a boundary line which

satisfied her earlier ambition by uniting the whole of her territories in

North, West and Central Africa into a homogeneous whole, while effectually

preventing the realization of her dream of a transcontinental empire from

west to east. By this declaration it was agreed that the dividing line

between the British and French spheres, north of the Congo Free State,

should follow the Congo-Nile water-parting up to its intersection with the

11th parallel of north latitude, from which point it was to be ``drawn as

far as the 15th parallel in such a manner as to separate in principle the

kingdom of Wadai from what constituted in 1882 the province of Darfur,''

but in no case was it to be drawn west of the 21st degree of east

longitude, or east of the 23rd degree. From the 15th parallel the line was

continued north and north-west to the intersection of the Tropic of Cancer

with 16 deg. E. French influence was to prevail west of this line, British

influence to the east. Wadai was thus definitely assigned to France.

When, by the declaration of the 21st of March 1899, France renounced all

territorial ambitions in the upper Nile basin, King

Fate of the Bar-el-Ghazal.

Leopold revived his claims to the Bahr-el-Ghazal province under the terms

of the lease granted by Article 2 of the Anglo-Congolese agreement of 1894.

This step he was encouraged to take by the assertion of Lord Salisbury, in

his capacity as secretary of state for foreign affairs during the

negotiations with France concerning Fashoda, that the lease to King Leopold

was still in full force. But the assertion was made simply as a declaration

of British right to dispose of the territory, and the sovereign of the

Congo State found that there was no disposition in Great Britain to allow

the Bahr-el-Ghazal to fall into his hands. Long and fruitless negotiations

ensued. The king at length (1904) sought to force a settlement by sending

armed forces into the province. Diplomatic representations having failed to

secure the withdrawal of these forces, the Sudan government issued a

proclamation which had the effect of cutting off the Congo stations from

communication with the Nile, and finally King Leopold consented to an

agreement, signed in London on the 9th of May 1906, whereby the 1894 lease

was formally annulled. The Bahr-el-Ghazal thenceforth became undisputedly

an integral part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. King Leopold had, however, by

virtue of the 1894 agreement administered the comparatively small portion

of the leased area in which his presence was not resented by France. This

territory, including part of the west bank of the Nile and known as the

Lado Enclave, the 1906 agreement allowed King Leopold to ``continue during

his reign to occupy.'' Provision was made that within six months of the

termination of His Majesty's reign the enclave should be handed over to the

Sudan government (see CONGO FREE STATE.) In this manner ended the long

struggle for supremacy on the upper Nile, Great Britain securing the

withdrawal of all European rivals.

The course of events in the southern half of the continent may now be

traced. By the convention of the 14th of February

Portugal's trans-African schemes.

1885, in which Portugal recognized the sovereignty of the Congo Free State,

and by a further convention concluded with France in 1886, Portugal secured

recognition of her claim to the territory known as the Kabinda enclave,

lying north of the Congo, but not to the northern bank of the river. By the

same convention of 1885 Portugal's claim to the southern bank of the river

as far as Noki (the limit of navigation from the sea) had been admitted.

Thus Portuguese possessions on the west coast extended from the Congo to

the mouth of the Kunene river. In the interior the boundary with the Free

State was settled as far as the Kwango river, but disputes arose as to the

right to the country of Lunda, otherwise known as the territory of the

Muato Yanvo. On the 25th of May 1891 a treaty was signed at Lisbon, by

which this large territory was divided between Portugal and the Free State.

The interior limits of the Portuguese possessions in Africa south of the

equator gave rise, however, to much more serious discussions than were

involved in the dispute as to the Muato Yanvo's kingdom. Portugal, as has

been stated, claimed all the territories between Angola and Mozambique, and

she succeeded in inducing both France and Germany, in 1886, to recognize

the king of Portugal's ``right to exercise his sovereign and civilizing

influence in the territories which separate the Portuguese possessions or

Angola and Mozambique.'' The publication of the treaties containing this

declaration, together with a map showing Portuguese claims extending over

the whole of the Zambezi valley, and over Matabeleland to the south and the

greater part of Lake Nyasa to the north, immediately provoked a formal

protest from the British government. On the 13th of August 1887 the British

charge d'affaires at Lisbon transmitted to the Portuguese minister for

foreign affairs a memorandum from Lord Salisbury, in which the latter

formally protested ``against any claims not founded on occupation,'' and

contended that the doctrine of effective occupation had been admitted in

principle by all the parties to the Act of Berlin. Lord Salisbury further

stated that ``Her Majesty's government cannot recognize Portuguese

sovereignty in territory not occupied by her in sufficient strength to

enable her to maintain order, protect foreigners and control the natives.''

To this Portugal replied that the doctrine of effective occupation was

expressly confined by the Berlin Act to the African coast, but at the same

time expeditions were hastily despatched up the Zambezi and some of its

tributaries to discover traces of former Portuguese occupation.

Matabeleland and the districts of Lake Nyasa werespecially mentioned in the

British protest as countries in which Her Majesty's government took a

special interest. As a matter of fact the extension of British influence

northwards to the Zambezi had engaged the attention of the British

authorities ever since the appearance of Germany in South-West Africa and

the declaration of a British protectorate over Bechuanaland. There were

rumours of German activity in Matabeleland, and

Rhodesia secured for Great Britain.

of a Boer trek north of the Limpopo. Hunters and explorers had reported in

eulogistic terms on the rich goldfields and healthy plateau lands of

Matabeleland and Mashonaland, over both of which countries a powerful

chief, Lobengula, claimed authority. There were many suitors for

Lobengula's favours; but on the 11th of February 1888 he signed a treaty

with J. S. Moffat, the assistant commissioner in Bechuanaland, the effect

of which was to place all his territory under British protection. Both the

Portuguese and the Transvaal Boers were chagrined at this extension of

British influence. A number of Boers attempted unsuccessfully to trek into

the country, and Portugal opposed her ancient claims to the new treaty. She

contended that Lobengula's authority did not extend over Mashonaland, which

she claimed as part of the Portuguese province of Sofala.

Meanwhile preparations were being actively made by British capitalists

for the exploitation of the mineral and other resources of Lobengula's

territories. Two rival syndicates obtained, or claimed to have obtained,

concessions from Lobengula; but in the summer of 1889 Cecil Rhodes

succeeded in amalgamating the conflicting interests, and on the 29th of

October of that year the British government granted a charter to the

British South Africa Company (see RHODESIA.) The first article of the

charter declared that ``the principal field of the operations'' of the

company ``shall be the region of South Africa lying immediately to the

north of British Bechuanaland, and to the north and west of the South

African Republic, and to the west of the Portuguese dominions.'' No time

was lost in making preparations for effective occupation. On the advice of

F. C. Selous it was determined to despatch an expedition to eastern

Mashonaland by a new route, which would avoid the Matabele country. This

plan was carried out in the summer of 1890, and, thanks to the rapidity

with which the column moved and Selous's intimate knowledge of the country,

the British flag was, on the 11th of September, hoisted at a spot on the

Makubusi river, where the town of Salisbury now stands, and the country

taken possession of in the name of Queen Victoria. Disputes with the

Portuguese ensued, and there were several frontier incidents which for a

time embittered the relations between the two countries.

Meanwhile, north of the Zambezi, the Portuguese were making desperate but

futile attempts to repair the neglect

Anglo-Portuguese disputes in Central Africa.

of centuries by hastily organized expeditions and the hoisting of flags. In

1888 an attempt to close the Zambezi to British vessels was frustrated by

the firmness of Lord Salisbury. In a despatch to the British minister at

Lisbon, dated the 25th of June 1888, Lord Salisbury, after brushing aside

the Portuguese claims founded on doubtful discoveries three centuries old,

stated the British case in a few sentences:—

It is (he wrote) an undisputed point that the recent discoveries of the

English traveller, Livingstone, were followed by organized attempts on the

part of English religious and commercial bodies to open up and civilize the

districts surrounding and adjoining the lake. Many British settlements have

been established, the access to which from the sea is by the rivers Zambezi

and Shire. Her Majesty's government and the British public are much

interested in the welfare of these settlements. Portugal does not occupy,

and has never occupied, any portion of the lake, nor of the Shire; she has

neither authority nor influence beyond the confluence of the Shire and

Zambezi, where her interior custom-house, now withdrawn, was placed by the

terms of the Mozambique Tariff of 1877.

In 1889 it became known to the British government that a considerable

Portuguese expedition was being organized under the command of Major Serpa

Pinto, for operating in the Zambezi region. In answer to inquiries

addressed to the Portuguese government, the foreign minister stated that

the object of the expedition was to visit the Portuguese settlements on the

upper Zambezi. The British government was, even so late as 1889, averse

from declaring a formal protectorate over the Nyasa region; but early in

that year H. H. (afterwards Sir Harry) Johnston was sent out to Mozambique

as British consul, with instructions to travel in the interior and report

on the troubles that had arisen with the Arabs on Lake Nyasa and with the

Portuguese. The discovery by D. J. Rankin in 1889 of a navigable mouth of

the Zambezi—the Chinde—and the offer by Cecil Rhodes of a subsidy of L.

10,000 a year from the British South Africa Company, removed some of the

objections to a protectorate entertained by the British government; but

Johnston's instructions were not to proclaim a protectorate unless

circumstances compelled him to take that course. To his surprise Johnston

learnt on his arrival at the Zambezi that Major Serpa Pinto's expedition

had been suddenly deflected to the north. Hurrying forward, Johnston

overtook the Portuguese expedition and warned its leader that any attempt

to establish political influence north of the Ruo river would compel him to

take steps to protect British interests. On arrival at the Ruo, Major Serpa

Pinto returned to Mozambique for instructions, and in his absence

Lieutenant Coutinho crossed the river, attacked the Makololo chiefs and

sought to obtain possession of the Shire highlands by a coup de main. John

Buchanan, the British vice-consul, lost no time in declaring the country

under British protection, and his action was subsequently confirmed by

Johnston on his return from a treaty-making expedition on Lake Nyasa. On

the news of these events reaching Europe the British government addressed

an ultimatum to Portugal, as the result of which Lieutenant Coutinho's

action was disavowed, and he was ordered to withdraw the Portuguese forces

south of the Ruo. After prolonged negotiations, a convention was signed

between Great Britain and Portugal on the 20th of August 1890, by which

Great Britain obtained a broad belt of territory north of the Zambezi,

stretching from Lake Nyasa on the east, the southern end of Tanganyika on

the north, and the Kabompo tributary of the Zambezi on the west; while

south of the Zambezi Portugal retained the right bank of the river from a

point ten miles above Zumbo, and the western boundary of her territory

south of the river was made to coincide roughly with the 33rd degree of

east longitude. The publication of the convention aroused deep resentment

in Portugal, and the government, unable to obtain its ratification by the

chamber of deputies, resigned. In October the abandonment of the convention

was accepted by the new Portuguese ministry as a fait accompli; but on the

14th of November the two governments signed an agreement for a modus

vivendi, by which they engaged to recognize the territorial limits

indicated in the convention of 20th August ``in so far that from the date

of the present agreement

British and Portuguese spheres defined.

to the termination thereof neither Power will make treaties, accept

protectorates, nor exercise any act of sovereignty within the spheres of

influence assigned to the other party by the said convention.'' The

breathing-space thus gained enabled feeling in Portugal to cool down, and

on the 11th of June 1891 another treaty was signed, the ratifications being

exchanged on the 3rd of July, As already stated, this is the main treaty

defining the British and Portuguese spheres both south and north of the

Zambezi. It contained many other provisions relating to trade and

navigation, providing, inter alia, a maximum transit duty of 3% on imports

and exports crossing Portuguese territories on the east coast to the

British sphere, freedom of navigation of the Zambezi and Shire for the

ships of all nations, and stipulations as to the making of railways, roads

and telegraphs. The territorial readjustment effected was slightly more

favourable to Portugal than that agreed upon by the 1890 convention.

Portugal was given both banks of the Zambezi to a point ten miles west of

Zumbo—the farthest settlement of the Portuguese on the river. South of the

Zambezi the frontier takes a south and then an east course till it reaches

the edge of the continental plateau, thence running, roughly, along the

line of 33 deg. E. southward to the north-eastern frontier of the

Transvaal. Thus by this treaty Portugal was left in the possession of the

coast-lands, while Great Britain maintained her right to Matabele and

Mashona lands. The boundary between the Portuguese sphere of influence on

the west coast and the British sphere of influence north of the Zambezi was

only vaguely indicated; but it was to be drawn in such a manner as to leave

the Barotse country within the British sphere, Lewanika, the paramount

chief of the Marotse, claiming that his territory extended much farther to

the west than was admitted by the Portuguese. In August 1903 the question

what were the limits of the Barotse kingdom was referred to the arbitration

of the king of Italy. By his award, delivered in June 1905, the western

limit of the British sphere runs from the northern frontier of German South-

West Africa up the Kwando river to 22 deg. E., follows that meridian north

to 13 deg. S., then runs due east to 24 deg. E., and then north again to

the frontier of the Congo State.

Before the conclusion of the treaty of June 1891 with Portugal, the

British government had made certain arrangements for the administration of

the large area north of the Zambezi reserved to British influence. On the

1st of February Sir Harry Johnston was appointed imperial commissioner in

Nyasaland, and a fortnight later the British South Africa Company intimated

a desire to extend its operations north of the Zambezi. Negotiations

followed, and the field of operations of the Chartered Company was, on the

2nd of April 1891, extended so as to cover (with the exception of

Nyasaland) the whole of the British sphere of influence north of the

Zambezi (now known as Northern Rhodesia). On the 14th of May a formal

protectorate was declared over Nyasaland, including the Shire highlands and

a belt of territory extending along the whole of the western shore of Lake

Nyasa. The name was changed in 1893 to that of the British Central Africa

Protectorate, for which designation was substituted in 1907 the more

appropriate title of Nyasaland Protectorate.

At the date of the assembling of the Berlin conference the German

government had notified that the coast-line on the

Germany's share of South Africa.

south-west of the continent, from the Orange river to Cape Frio, had been

placed under German protection. On the 13th of April 1885 the German South-

West Africa Company was constituted under an order of the imperial cabinet

with the rights of state sovereignty, including mining royalties and

rights, and a railway and telegraph monopoly. In that and the following

years the Germans vigorously pursued the business of treaty-making with the

native chiefs in the interior; and when, in July 1890, the British and

German governments came to an agreement as to the limits of their

respective spheres of influence in various parts of Africa, the boundaries

of German South-West Africa were fixed in their present position. By

Article III. of this agreement the north bank of the Orange river up to the

point of its intersection by the 20th degree of east longitude was made the

southern boundary of the German sphere of influence. The eastern boundary

followed the 20th degree of east longitude to its intersection by the 22nd

parallelof south latitude, then ran eastwards along that parallel to the

point of its intersection by the 21st degree of east longitude. From that

point it ran northwards along the last-named meridian to the point of its

intersection by the 18th parallel of south latitude, thence eastwards along

that parallel to the river Chobe or Kwando, and along the main channel of

that river to its junction with the Zambezi, where it terminated. The

northern frontier marched with the southern boundary of Portuguese West

Africa. The object of deflecting the eastern boundary near its northern

termination was to give Germany access by her own territory to the upper

waters of the Zambezi, and it was declared that this strip of territory was

at no part to be less than 20 English miles in width.

To complete the survey of the political partition of Africa south of the

Zambezi, it is necessary briefly to refer to the events

Fate of the Dutch Republics.

connected with the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. In

October 1885 the British government made an agreement with the New

Republic, a small community of Boer farmers who had in 1884-85 seized part

of Zululand and set up a government of their own, defining the frontier

between the New Republic and Zululand; but in July 1888 the New Republic

was incorporated in the South African Republic. In a convention of July-

August 1890 the British government and the government of the South African

Republic confirmed the independence of Swaziland, and on the 8th of

November 1893 another convention was signed with the same object; but on

the 19th of December 1894 the British government agreed to the South

African Republic exercising ``all rights and powers of protection,

legislation, jurisdiction and administration over Swaziland and the

inhabitants thereof,'' subject to certain conditions and provisions, and to

the non-incorporation of Swaziland in the Republic. In the previous

September Pondoland had been annexed to Cape Colony; on the 23rd of April

1895 Tongaland was declared by proclamation to be added to the dominions of

Queen Victoria, and in December 1897 Zululand and Tongaland, or

Amatongaland, were incorporated with the colony of Natal. The history of

the events that led up to the Boer War of 1899-1902 cannot be recounted

here (see TRANSVAAL, History), but in October 1899 the South African

Republic and the Orange Free State addressed an ultimatum to Great Britain

and invaded Natal and Cape Colony. As a result of the military operations

that followed, the Orange Free State was, on the 28th of May 1900,

proclaimed by Lord Roberts a British colony under the name ``Orange River

Colony,'' and the South African Republic was on the 25th of October 1900

incorporated in the British empire as the ``Transvaal Colony.'' In January

1903 the districts of Vryheid (formerly the New Republic), Utrecht and part

of the Wakkerstroom district, a tract of territory comprising in all about

7000 sq. m., were transferred from the Transvaal colony to Natal. In 1907

both the Transvaal and Orange River Colony were granted responsible

government.

On the east coast the two great rivals were Germany and Great Britain.

Germany on the 30th of December 1886, and Great

Anglo-German rivalry in East Africa.

Britain on the 11th of June 1891, formally recognized the Rovuma river as

the northern boundary of the Portuguese sphere of influence on that coast;

but it was to the north of that river, over the vast area of East or East

Central Africa in which the sultan of Zanzibar claimed to exercise

suzerainty, that the struggle between the two rival powers was most acute.

The independence of the sultans of Zanzibar had been recognized by the

governments of Great Britain and France in 1862, and the sultan's authority

extended almost uninterruptedly along the coast of the mainland, from Cape

Delgado in the south to Warsheik on the north—a stretch of coast more than

a thousand miles long—though to the north the sultan's authority was

confined to certain ports. In Zanzibar itself, where Sir John Kirk,

Livingstone's companion in his second expedition, was British consul-

general, British influence was, when the Berlin conference met, practically

supreme, though German traders had established themselves on the island and

created considerable commercial interests. Away from the coasts the limits

and extent of the sultan's authority were far from being clearly defined.

The sultanhimself claimed that it extended as far as Lake Tanganyika, but

the claim did not rest on any very solid ground of effective occupation.

The little-known region of the Great Lakes had for some time attracted the

attention of the men who were directing the colonial movement in Germany;

and, as has been stated, a small band of pioneers actually landed on the

mainland opposite Zanzibar in November 1884, and made their first

``treaty'' with the chief of Mbuzini on the 19th of that month Pushing up

the Wami river the three adventurers reached the Usagara country, and

concluded more ``treaties,'' the net result being that when, in the middle

of December, Karl Peters returned to the coast he brought back with him

documents which were claimed to concede some 60,000 sq. m. of country to

the German Colonization Society. Peters hurried back to Berlin, and on the

17th of February 1885 the German emperor issued a ``Charter of Protection''

by which His Majesty accepted the suzerainty of the newly-acquired

territory, and ``placed under our Imperial protection the territories in

question.'' The conclusion of these treaties was, on the 6th of March,

notified to the British government and to the sultan of Zanzibar.

Immediately on receipt of the notification the sultan telegraphed an

energetic protest to Berlin, alleging that the places placed under German

protection had belonged to the sultanate of Zanzibar from the time of his

fathers. The German consul-general refused to admit the sultan's claims,

and meanwhile agents of the German society were energetically pursuing the

task of treaty-making. The sultan (Seyyid Bargash) despatched a small force

to the disputed territory, which was subsequently withdrawn, and in May

sent a more imposing expedition under the command of General Lloyd Mathews,

the commander-in-chief of the Zanzibar army, to the Kilimanjaro district,

in order to anticipate the action of German agents. Meanwhile Lord

Granville, then at the British Foreign Office, had

Lord Granville's complaisance towards Germany.

taken up an extremely friendly attitude towards the German claims. Before

these events the sultan of Zanzibar had, on more than one occasion,

practically invited Great Britain to assume a protectorate over his

dominions. But the invitations had been declined. Egyptian affairs were, in

the year 1885, causing considerable anxiety to the British government, and

the fact was not without influence on the attitude of the British foreign

secretary. On the 25th of May 1885, in a despatch to the British ambassador

at Berlin, Lord Granville instructed Sir E. Malet to communicate the views

of the British cabinet to Prince Bismarck:—

I have to request your Excellency to state that the supposition that Her

Majesty's Government have no intention of opposing the German scheme of

colonization in the neighbourhood of Zanzibar is absolutely correct. Her

Majesty's Government, on the contrary, view with favour these schemes, the

realization of which will entail the civilization of large tracts over

which hitherto no European influence has been exercised, the co-operation

of Germany with Great Britain in the work of the suppression of the slave

gangs, and the encouragement of the efforts of the Sultan both in the

extinction of the slave trade and in the commercial development of his

dominions.

In the same despatch Lord Granville instructed Sir E. Malet to intimate

to the German government that some prominent capitalists had originated a

plan for a British settlement in the country between the coast and the

lakes, which are the sources of the White Nile, ``and for its connexion

with the coast by a railway.'' But Her Majesty's government would not

accord to these prominent capitalists the support they had called for,

``unless they were fully satisfied that every precaution was taken to

ensure that it should in no way conflict with the interests of the

territory that has been taken under German protectorate,'' and Prince

Bismarck was practically invited to say whether British capitalists were or

were not to receive the protection of the British government. The reference

in Lord Granville's despatch was to a proposal made by a number of British

merchants and others who had long been interested in Zanzibar, and who saw

in the rapid advance of Germany a menace to the interests which had

hitherto been regarded as paramount in the sultanate. In 1884 H. H.

Johnston had concluded treaties with the chief of Taveta in the Kilimanjaro

district, and had transferred these treaties to John Hutton of Manchester.

Hutton, with Mr (afterwards Sir William) Mackinnon, was one of the founders

of what subsequently became the Imperial British East Africa Company. But

in the early stages the champions of British interests in East Africa

received no support from their own government, while Germany was pushing

her advantage with the energy of a recent convert to colonial expansion,

and had even, on the coast, opened negotiations with the sultan of Witu, a

small territory situated north of the Tana river, whose ruler claimed to be

independent of Zanzibar. On the 5th of May 1885 the sultan of Witu executed

a deed of sale and cession to a German subject of certain tracts of land on

the coast, and later in the same year other treaties or sales of territory

were effected, by which German subjects acquired rights on the coast-line

claimed by the sultan. Inland, treaties had been concluded on behalf of

Germany with the chiefs of the Kilimanjaro region, and an intimation to

that effect made to the British government. But before this occurred the

German government had succeeded in extracting an acknowledgment of the

validity of the earlier treaties from the sultan of Zanzibar. Early in

August a powerful German squadron appeared off Zanzibar, and on the 14th of

that month the sultan yielded to the inevitable, acknowledged the German

protectorate over Usagara and Witu, and undertook to withdraw his soldiers.

Meanwhile negotiations had been opened for the appointment of an

international commission, ``for the purpose of inquiring

Partition of the sultanate of Zanzibar.

into the claims of the sultans of Zanzibar to sovereignty over certain

territories on the east coast of Africa, and of ascertaining their precise

limits.'' The governments to be represented were Great Britain, France and

Germany, and towards the end of 1885 commissioners were appointed. The

commissioners reported on the 9th of June 1886, and assigned to the sultan

the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu, Mafia and a number of other small

islands. On the mainland they recognized as belonging to the sultan a

continuous strip of territory, 10 sea-miles in depth, from the south bank

of the Minengani river, a stream a short distance south of the Rovuma, to

Kipini, at the mouth of the Tana river, some 600 m. in length. North of

Kipini the commissioners recognized as belonging to the sultan the stations

of Kismayu, Brava, Marka and Mukdishu, with radii landwards of 10 sea-

miles, and of Warsheik with a radius of 5 sea-miles. By an exchange of

notes in October—November 1886 the governments of Great Britain and Germany

accepted the reports of the delimitation commissioners, to which the sultan

adhered on the 4th of the following December. But the British and German

governments did more than determine what territories were to be assigned to

the sultanate of Zanzibar. They agreed to a delimitation of their

respective spheres of influence in East Africa. The territory to be

affected by this arrangement was to be bounded on the south by the Rovuma

river, ``and on the north by a line which, starting from the mouth of the

Tana river, follows the course of that river or its affluents to the point

of intersection of the equator and the 38th degree of east longitude,

thence strikes direct to the point of intersection of the 1st degree of

north latitude with the 37th degree of east longitude, where the line

terminates.'' The line of demarcation between the British and the German

spheres of influence was to start from the mouth of the river Wanga or Umba

(which enters the ocean opposite Pemba Island to the north of Zanzibar),

and running north-west was to skirt the northern base of the Kilimanjaro

range, and thence to be drawn direct to the point on the eastern side of

Victoria Nyanza intersected by the 1st degree of south latitude. South of

this line German influence was to prevail; north of the line was the

British sphere. The sultan's dominions having been thus truncated, Germany

associated herself with the recognition of the ``independence'' of Zanzibar

in which France and Great Britain had joined in 1862. The effect of this

agreement was to define the spheres of influence of the two countries as

far as Victoria Nyanza, but it provided no limit westwards, and left the

country north of the Tana river, in which Germany had already acquired some

interests near the coast, open for fresh annexations. The conclusion of the

agreement immediately stimulated the enterprise both of the German East

African Company, to which Peters's earlier treaties had been transferred,

and of the British capitalists to whom reference had been made in Lord

Granville's despatch. The German East African Company was incorporated by

imperial charter in March 1887, and the British capitalists formed

themselves into the British East Africa Association, and on the 24th of May

1887 obtained, through the good offices of Sir William Mackinnon, a

concession of the 10-miles strip of coast from the Umba river in the south

to Kipini in the north. The British association further sought to extend

its rights in the sphere reserved to British influence by making treaties

with the native chiefs behind the coast strip, and for this purpose various

expeditions were sent into the interior. When they had obtained concessions

over the country for some 200 m. inland the associated

Formation of British East Africa.

capitalists applied to the British government for a charter, which was

granted on the 3rd of September 1888, and the association became the

Imperial British East Africa Company (see BRITISH EAST AFRICA).

The example set by the British company in obtaining a lease of the coast

strip between the British sphere of influence and the sea was quickly

followed by the German association, which, on the 28th of April 1888,

concluded an agreement with the sultan Khalifa, who had succeeded his

brother Bargash, by which the association leased the strip of Zanzibar

territory between the German sphere and the sea. It was not,however, until

August that the German officials took over the administration, and their

want of tact and ignorance of native administration almost immediately

provoked a rebellion of so serious a character that it was not suppressed

until the imperial authorities had taken the matter in hand. Shortly after

its suppression the administration was entrusted to an imperial officer,

and the sultan's rights on the mainland strip were bought outright by

Germany for four millions of marks.

Events of great importance had been happening, meanwhile, in the country

to the west and north of the British sphere of influence. The British

company had sent caravans into the interior to survey the country, to make

treaties with the native chiefs and to report on the commercial and

agricultural possibilities. One of these had gone up the Tana river. But

another and a rival expedition was proceeding along the northern bank of

this same river. Karl Peters, whose energy cannot be denied, whatever may

be thought of his methods, set out with an armed caravan up the Tana on the

pretext of leading an expedition to the relief of Emin Pasha, the governor

of the equatorial province of the Egyptian Sudan, then reported to be

hemmed in by the dervishes at Wadelai. His expedition was not sanctioned by

the German government, and the British naval commander had orders to

prevent his landing. But Peters succeeded in evading the British vessels

and proceeded up the river, planting German flags and fighting the natives

who opposed his progress. Early in 1890 he reached Kavirondo, and there

found letters from Mwanga, king of Uganda, addressed to F. J. Jackson, the

leader of an expedition sent out by the British East Africa

Uganda secured by Great Britain.

Company, imploring the company's representative to come to his assistance

and offering to accept the British flag. To previous letters, less plainly

couched. from the king, Jackson had returned the answer that his

instructions were not to enter Uganda, but that he would do so in case of

need. The letters that fell into Peters's hands were in reply to those from

Jackson. Peters did not hesitate to open the letters, and on reading them

he at once proceeded to Uganda, where, with the assistance of the French

Roman Catholic priests, he succeeded in inducing Mwanga to sign a loosely

worded treaty intended to place him under German protection. On hearing of

this Jackson at once set out for Uganda, but Peters did not wait for his

arrival, leaving for the south of Victoria Nyanza some days before Jackson

arrived at Mengo, Mwanga's capital. As Mwanga would not agree to Jackson's

proposals, Jackson returned to the coast, leaving a representative at Mengo

to protect the company's interests. Captain (afterwards Sir) F. D. Lugard,

who had recently entered the company's employment, was at once ordered to

proceed to Uganda. But in the meantime an event of great importance had

taken place, the conclusion of the agreement between Great Britain and

Germany with reference to their different spheres of influence in various

parts of Africa.

The Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 has already been

referred to and its importance insisted upon. Here we have to deal with the

provisions in reference to East Africa. In return for the cession of

Heligoland, Lord Salisbury obtained from Germany the recognition of a

British protectorate over the dominions of the sultan of Zanzibar,

including the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, but excluding the strip leased

to Germany, which was subsequently ceded absolutely to Germany. Germany

further agreed to withdraw the protectorate declared over Witu and the

adjoining coast up to Kismayu in favour of Great Britain, and to recognize

as within the British sphere of influence the vast area bounded, on the

south by the frontier line laid down in the agreement of 1886, which was to

be extended along the first parallel of south latitude across Victoria

Nyanza to the frontiers of the Congo Free State, on the west by the Congo

Free State and the western watershed of the Nile, and on the north by a

line commencing on the coast at the north bank of the mouth of the river

Juba, then ascending that bank of the river until it reached the territory

at that time regarded as reserved to the influence of Italy13 in Gallaland

and Abyssinia, when it followed the frontier of the Italian sphere to the

confines of Egypt. To the south-west of the German sphere in East Africa

the boundary was formed by the eastern and northern shore of Lake Nyasa,

and round the western shore to the mouth of the Songwe river, from which

point it crossed the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau to the southern end of the

last-named lake,

Limits of German East Africa defined.

leaving the Stevenson Road on the British side of the boundary. The effect

of this treaty was to remove all serious causes of dispute about territory

between Germany and Great Britain in East Africa. It rendered quite

valueless Peters's treaty with Mwanga and his promenade along the Tana; it

freed Great Britain from any fear of German competition to the northwards,

and recognized that her influence extended to the western limits of the

Nile valley. But, on the other hand, Great Britain had to relinquish the

ambition of connecting her sphere of influence in the Nile valley with her

possessions in Central and South Africa. On this point Germany was quite

obdurate; and, as already stated, an attempt subsequently made (May 1894)

to secure this object by the lease of a strip of territory from the Congo

Free State was frustrated by German opposition.

Uganda having thus been assigned to the British sphere of influence by

the only European power in a position to contest its possession with her,

the subsequent history of that region, and of the country between the

Victoria Nyanza and the coast, must be traced in the articles on BRITISH

EAST AFRICA and UGANDA, but it may be well briefly to record here the

following facts:—The Imperial British East Africa Company, finding the

burden of administration too heavy for its financial resources, and not

receiving the assistance it felt itself entitled to receive from the

imperial authorities, intimated that it would be compelled to withdraw at

the end of the year 1892. Funds were raised to enable the company to

continue its administration until the end of March 1893, and a strong

public protest against evacuation compelled the government to determine in

favour of the retention of the country. In January 1893 Sir Gerald Portal

left the coast as a special commissioner to inquire into the ``best means

of dealing with the country, whether through Zanzibar or otherwise.'' On

the 31st of March the union jack was raised, and on the 29th of May a fresh

treaty was concluded with King Mwanga placing his country under British

protection. A formal protectorate was declared over Uganda proper on the

19th of June 1894, which was subsequently extended so as to include the

countries westwards towards the Congo Free State, eastwards to the British

East Africa protectorate and Abyssinia, and northwards to the Anglo-

Egyptian Sudan. The British East Africa protectorate was constituted in

June 1895, when the Imperial British East Africa Company relinquished all

its rights in exchange for a money payment, and the administration was

assumed by the imperial authorities. On the 1st of April 1902 the eastern

province of the Uganda protectorate was transferred to the British East

Africa protectorate, which thus secured control of the whole length of the

so-called Uganda railway, and at the same time obtained access to the

Victoria Nyanza.

Early in the 'eighties, as already seen, Italy had obtained her first

formal footing on the African coast at the Bay of Assab

Italy in East Africa.

(Aussa) on the Red Sea. In 1885 the troubles in which Egypt found herself

involved compelled the khedive and his advisers to loosen their hold on the

Red Sea littoral, and, with the tacit approval of Great Britain, Italy took

possession of Massawa and other ports on that coast. By 1888 Italian

influence had been extended from Ras Kasar on the north to the northern

frontier of the French colony of Obok on the south, a distance of some 650

m. The interior limits of Italian influence were but ill defined, and the

negus Johannes (King John) of Abyssinia viewed with anything but a

favourable eye the approach of the Italians towards the Abyssinian

highlands. In January 1887 an Italian force was almost annihilated at

Dogali, but the check only served to spur on the Italian government to

fresh efforts.

The Italians occupied Keren and Asmara in the highlands, and eventually,

in May 1889, concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the negus

Menelek, who had seized the throne on the death of Johannes, killed in

battle with the dervishes in March of the same year. This agreement, known

as the treaty of Uccialli, settled the frontiers between Abyssinia and the

Italian sphere, and contained the following article:—

XVII. His Majesty the King of Kings of Ethiopia consents to avail himself

of the Italian government for any negotiations which he may enter into with

the other powers or governments.

In Italy and by other European governments this article was generally

regarded as establishing an Italian protectorate over Abyssinia; but this

interpretation was never accepted by the emperor Menelek, and at no time

did Italy succeed in establishing any very effective control over

Abyssinian affairs. North of the Italian coast sphere the Red Sea littoral

was still under Egyptian rule, while immediately to the south a small

stretch of coast on the Gulf of Tajura constituted the sole French

possession on the East African mainland (see SOMALILAND.) Moreover, when

Egyptian claims to the Somali coast were withdrawn, Great Britain took the

opportunity to establish her influence on the northern Somali coast,

opposite Aden. Between the 1st of May 1884 and the 15th of March 1886 ten

treaties were concluded, placing under British influence the northern

Somali coast from Ras Jibuti on the west to Bandar Ziada on the east. In

the meantime Italy, not content with her acquisitions on the Red Sea, had

been concluding treaties with the Somali chiefs on the east coast. The

first treaty was made with the sultan of Obbia on the 8th of February 1889.

Later in the same year the British East Africa Company transferred to

Italy—the transference being subsequently approved by the sultan of

Zanzibar—the ports of Brava, Marka, Mukdishu and Warsheik, leased from

Zanzibar. On the 24th of March 1891 an agreement between Italy and Great

Britain fixed the northern bank of the Juba up to latitude 6 deg. N. as the

southern boundary of Italian influence in Somaliland, the boundary being

provisionally prolonged along lines of latitude and longitude to the

intersection of the Blue Nile with 35 deg. E. longitude. On the 15th of

April 1891 a further agreement fixed the northern limit of the Italian

sphere from Ras Kasar on the Red Sea to the point on the Blue Nile just

mentioned. By this agreement Italy was to have the right temporarily to

occupy Kassala, which was left in the Anglo-Egyptian sphere, in trust for

Egypt—a right of which she availed herself in 1894. To complete the work of

delimitation the British and Italian governments, on the 5th of May 1894,

fixed the boundary of the British sphere of influence in Somaliland from

the Anglo-French boundary, which had been settled in February 1888.

But while Great Britain was thus lending her sanction to Italy's

ambitious schemes, the Abyssinian emperor was becoming more and more

incensed at Italy's pretensions to exercise a protectorate over Ethiopia.

In 1893 Menelek denounced the treaty of Uccialli, and eventually, in a

great battle, fought at Adowa on the 1st of March 1896, the Italians were

disastrously defeated. By the subsequent treaty of Adis Ababa, concluded on

the 26th of October 1896, the whole of the country to the

The independence of Abyssinia recognized.

south of the Mareb, Belesa and Muna rivers was restored to Abyssinia, and

Italy acknowledged the absolute independence of Abyssinia. The effect of

this was practically to destroy the value of the Anglo-Italian agreement as

to the boundaries to the south and west of Abyssinia; and negotiations were

afterwards set on foot between the emperor Menelek and his European

neighbours with the object of determining the Abyssinian frontiers. Italian

Somaliland, bordering on the south-eastern frontier of Abyssinia, became

limited to a belt of territory with a depth inland from the Indian Ocean of

from 180 to 250 m. The negotiations concerning the frontier lasted until

1908, being protracted over the question as to the possession of Lugh, a

town on the Juba, which eventually fell to Italy. After the battle of Adowa

the Italian government handed over he administration of the southern part

of the country to the enadir Company, but in January 1905 the government

resumed control and at the same time transformed the leasehold rights it

held from the sultan of Zanzibar into sovereign rights by the payment to

the sultan of L. 144,000. To facilitate her communications with the

interior, Italy also secured from the British government the lease of a

small area of land immediately to the north of Kismayu. In British

Somaliland the frontier fixed by agreement with Italy in 1894 was modified,

in so far as it marched with Abyssinian territory, by an agreement which

Sir Rennell Rodd concluded with the emperor Menelek in 1897. The effect of

this agreement was to reduce the area of British Somaliland from 75,000 to

68,000 sq. m. In the same year France concluded an agreement with the

emperor, which is known to have fixed the frontier of the French Somali

Coast protectorate at a distance of 90 kilometres (56 m.) from the coast.

The determination of the northern, western and southern limits of Abyssinia

proved a more difficult matter. A treaty of July 1900 followed by an

agreement of November 1901 defined the boundaries of Eritrea on the side of

Abyssinia and the Sudan respectively. In certain details the boundaries

thus laid down were modified by an Anglo-Italian-Abyssinian treaty signed

at Adis Ababa on the 15th of May 1902. On the same day another treaty was

signed at the Abyssinian capital by Sir John Harrington, the British

minister plenipotentiary, and the emperor Menelek, whereby the western, or

Sudan-Abyssinian, frontier was defined as far south as the intersection of

6 deg. N. and 35 deg. E. Within the British sphere were left the Atbara up

to Gallabat, the Blue Nile up to Famaka and the Sobat up to the junction of

the Baro and Pibor. While not satisfying Abyssinian claims to their full

extent, the frontier laid down was on the whole more favourable to

Abyssinia than was the line fixed in the Anglo-Italian agreement of 1891.

On the other hand, Menelek gave important economic guarantees and

concessions to the Sudan government.

In Egypt the result of the abolition of the Dual Control was to make

British influence virtually predominant, though theoretically Turkey

remained the suzerain power; and after the reconquest of the Sudan by the

Anglo-Egyptian army a convention between the British and Egyptian

governments was signed at Cairo on the 19th of January 1899, which, inter

alia, provided for the joint use of the British and Egyptian flags in the

territories south of the 22nd parallel of north latitude. From the

international point of view the British position in Egypt was strengthened

by the Anglo-French declaration of the 8th of April 1904. For some time

previously there had been

The Anglo-French agreements of April 1904.

a movement on both sides of the Channel in favour of the settlement of a

number of important questions in which British and French interests were

involved. The movement was no doubt strengthened by the desire to reduce to

their least dimensions the possible causes of trouble between the two

countries at a time when the outbreak of hostilities between Russia (the

ally of France) and Japan (the ally of Great Britain) rendered the European

situation peculiarly delicate. On the 8th of April 1904 there was signed in

London by the British foreign secretary, the marquess of Lansdowne, and the

French ambassador, M. Paul Cambon, a series of agreements relating to

several parts of the globe. Here we are concerned only with the joint

declaration respecting Egypt and Morocco and a convention relating, in

part, to British and French frontiers in West Africa. The latter we shall

have occasion to refer to later. The former, notwithstanding the

declarations embodied in it that there was ``no intention of altering the

political status'' either of Egypt or of Morocco, cannot be ignored in any

account of the partition in Africa. With regard to Egypt the French

government declared ``that they will not obstruct the action of Great

Britain in that country by asking that a limit of time be fixed for the

British occupation or in any other manner.'' France also assented—as did

subsequently the other powers interested—to a khedivial decree simplifying

the international control exercised by the Caisse de la Dette over the

finances of Egypt.

In order to appreciate aright that portion of the declaration relating to

Morocco it is necessary to say a few words about the course of French

policy in North-West Africa. In Tunisia the work of strengthening the

protectorate established in 1881 had gone steadily forward; but it was in

Algeria that the extension of French influence had been most marked. The

movement of expansion southwards was inevitable. With the progress of

exploration it became increasingly evident that the Sahara constituted no

insurmountable barrier between the French possessions in North and West

Central Africa. But France had not only the hope of placing Algeria in

touch with the Sudan to spur her forward. To consolidate her position in

North-West Africa she desired to make French influence supreme in Morocco.

The relations between the two countries did not favour the realization of

that ambition. The advance southwards of the French forces of occupation

evoked loud protests from the Moorish government, particularly with regard

to the occupation in 1900-1901 of the Tuat Oases. Under the Franco-Moorish

treaty of 1845 the frontier between Algeria and Morocco was defined from

the Mediterranean coast as far south as the pass of Teniet el Sassi, in

about 34 deg. N.; beyond that came a zone in which no frontier was defined,

but in which the tribes and desert villages (ksurs) belonging to the

respective spheres of influence were named; while south of the desert

villages the treaty stated that in view of the character of the country

``the delimitation of it would be superfluous.'' Though the frontier was

thus left undefined, the sultan maintained that in her advance southwards

France had trespassed on territories that unmistakably belonged to Morocco.

After some negotiation, however, a protocol was signed in Paris on

France's privileged position in Morocco.

the 20th of July 1901, and commissioners appointed to devise measures for

the co-operation of the French and Moorish authorities in the maintenance

of peaceful conditions in the frontier region. It was reported that in

April 1902 the commissioners signed an agreement whereby the Sharifan

government undertook to consolidate its authority on the Moorish side of

the frontier as far south as Figig. The agreement continued: ``Le

Gouvernement francais, en raison de son voisinage, lui pretera son appui,

en cas de besoin. Le Gouvernement francais etablira son autorite et la paix

dans les regions du Sahara, et le Gouvernement marocain, son voisin, lui

aidera de tout son pouvoir.'' Meanwhile in the northern districts of

Morocco the conditions of unrest under the rule of the young sultan, Abd el

Aziz IV., were attracting an increasing amount of attention in Europe and

were calling forth demands for their suppression. It was in these

circumstances that in the Anglo-French declaration of April 1904 the

British government recognized ``that it appertains to France, more

particularly as a power whose dominions are conterminous for a great

distance with those of Morocco, to preserve order in that country, and to

provide assistance for the purpose of all administrative, economic,

financial and military reforms which it may require.'' Both parties to the

declaration, ``inspired by their feeling of sincere friendship for Spain,

take into special consideration the interests which that country derives

from her geographical position and from her territorial possessions on the

Moorish coast of the Mediterranean. In regard to these interests the French

government will come to an understanding with the Spanish government.'' The

understanding thus foreshadowed was reached later in the same year, Spain

securing a sphere of interest on the Mediterranean coast. In pursuance of

the policy marked out in the Anglo-French declaration, France was seeking

to strengthen her influence in Morocco when in 1905 the attitude of Germany

seriously affected her position. On the 8th of July France secured from the

German government formal ``recognition of the situation created for France

in Morocco by the contiguity of a vast extent of territory of Algeria and

the Sharifan empire, and by the special relations resulting therefrom

between the two adjacent countries, as well as by the special interest for

France, due to this fact, that order should reign in the Sharifan Empire.''

Finally, in January-April 1906, a conference of the powers was held at

Algeciras to devise, by invitation of the sultan, a scheme of reforms to be

introduced into Morocco (q.v..) French capital was allotted a larger share

than that of any other power in the Moorish state bank which it was decided

to institute, and French and Spanish officers were entrusted with the

organization of a police force for the maintenance of order in the

principal coast towns. The new regime had not been fully inaugurated,

however, when a series of outrages led, in 1907, to the military occupation

by France of Udja, a town near the Algerian frontier, and of the port of

Casablanca on the Atlantic coast of Morocco.

It only remains to be noted, in connexion with the story of French

activity in North-West Africa, that with such energy was the penetration of

the Sahara pursued that in April 1904 flying columns from Insalah and

Timbuktu met by arrangement in mid-desert, and in the following year it was

deemed advisable to indicate on the maps the boundary between the Algerian

and French West African territories.

Brief reference must be made to the position of Tripoli. While Egypt was

brought under British control and Tunisia became a French protectorate,

Tripoli remained a province of the Turkish empire with undefined frontiers

in the hinterland, a state of affairs which more than once threatened to

lead to trouble with France during the expansion of the latter's influence

in the Sahara. As already stated, Italy early gave evidence that it was her

ambition to succeed to the province, and, not only by the sultan of Turkey

but in Italy also, the Anglo-French declaration of March 1899, respecting

the limits of the British and French spheres of influence in north Central

Africa, was viewed with some concern. By means of a series of public

utterances on the part of French and Italian statesmen in the winter 1901-

1902 it

Italy's interest in Tripoli.

was made known that the two powers had come to an understanding with regard

to their interests in North Africa, and in May 1902 Signor Prinetti, then

Italian minister for foreign affairs, speaking in parliament in reply to an

interpellation on the subject of Tripoli, declared that if ``the status quo

in the Mediterranean were ever disturbed, Italy would be sure of finding no

one to bar the way to her legitimate aspirations.''

At the opening of the Berlin conference Spain had established no formal

claim to any part of the coast to the south of Morocco; but while the

conference was sitting, on the 9th of January 1885, the Spanish government

intimated that in view of the importance of the Spanish settlements on the

Rio de Oro, at Angra de Cintra,

Spanish colonies.

and at Western Bay (Cape Blanco), and of the documents signed with the

independent tribes on that coast, the king of Spain had taken under his

protection ``the territories of the western coast of Africa comprised

between the fore-mentioned Western Bay and Cape Bojador.'' The interior

limits of the Spanish sphere were defined by an agreement concluded in 1900

with France. By this document some 70,000 sq. m. of the western Sahara were

recognized as Spanish.

The same agreement settled a long-standing dispute between Spain and

France as to the ownership of the district around the Muni river to be

south of Cameroon, Spain securing a block of territory with a coast-line

from the Campo river on the north to the Muni river on the south. The

northern frontier is formed by the German Cameroon colony, the eastern by

11 deg. 20' E., and the southern by the first parallel of north latitude to

its point of intersection with the Muni river.

Apart from this small block of Spanish territory south of Cameroon, the

stretch of coast between Cape Blanco and the

Division of the Guinea coast.

mouth of the Congo is partitioned among four European powers—Great Britain,

France, Germany and Portugal —and the negro republic of Liberia. Following

the coast southwards from Cape Blanco is first the French colony of

Senegal, which is indented, along the Gambia river, by the small British

colony of that name, and then the comparatively small territory of

Portuguese Guinea, all that remains on this Coast to represent Portugal's

share in the scramble in a region where she once played so conspicuous a

part. To the south of Portuguese Guinea is the French Guinea colony, and

still going south and east are the British colony of Sierra Leone, the

republic of Liberia, the French colony of the Ivory coast, the British Gold

Coast, German Togoland, French Dahomey, the British colony (formerly known

as the Lagos colony) and protectorate of Southern Nigeria, the German

colony of Cameroon, the Spanish settlements on the Muni river, the French

Congo colony, and the small Portuguese enclave north of the Congo to which

reference has already been made, which is administratively part of the

Angola colony. When the General Act of the Berlin conference was signed the

whole of this coast-line had not been formally claimed; but no time was

lost by the powers interested in notifying claims to the unappropriated

sections, and the conflicting claims put forward necessitated frequent

adjustments by international agreements. By a Franco-Portuguese agreement

of the 12th of May 1886 the limits of Portuguese Guinea—surrounded

landwards by French territory—were defined, and by agreements with Great

Britain in 1885 and France in 1892 and 1907 the Liberian republic was

Confined to an area of about 43,000 sq. m.

The real struggle in West Africa was between France and Great Britain,

and France played the dominant part, the exhaustion of Portugal, the apathy

of the British government and the late appearance of Germany in the field

being all elements that favoured the success of French policy. Before

tracing the steps in the historic contest between France and Great Britain

it is necessary, however, to deal briefly with the part played by Germany.

She naturally could not be disposed of by the chief rivals as easily as

were Portugal and Liberia. It will be remembered that Dr Nachtigal, while

the proposals for the Berlin conference were under discussion, had planted

the German flag on the coast of Togo and in Cameroon in the month of July

1884. In Cameroon Germany found herself with Great Britain for a neighbour

to the north, and with France as her southern neighbour on the Gabun river.

The utmost activity was displayed in making treaties with native chiefs,

and in securing as wide a range of coast for German enterprise as was

possible. After various provisional agreements had been concluded between

Great Britain and Germany, a ``provisional line of demarcation'' was

adopted in the famous agreement of the 1st of July 1890, starting from the

head of the Rio del Rey creek and going to the point, about 9 deg. 8' E.,

marked ``rapids'' on the British Admiralty chart. By a further agreement of

the 14th of April 1893, the right bank of the Rio del Rey was made the

boundary between the Oil Rivers Protectorate (now Southern Nigeria) and

Cameroon. In the following November (1893) the boundary was continued from

the ``rapids'' before mentioned, on the Calabar or Cross river, in a

straight line towards the centre of the town of Yola, on the Benue river.

Yola itself, with a radius

Germany in West Central Africa.

of some 3 m., was left in the British sphere, and the German boundary

followed the circle eastwards from the point of intersection as it neared

Yola until it met the Benue river. From that point it crossed the river to

the intersection of the 13th degree of longitude with the 10th degree of

north latitude, and then made direct for a point on the southern shore of

Lake Chad ``situated 35 minutes east of the meridian of Kuka.'' By this

agreement the British government withdrew from a considerable section of

the upper waters of the Benue with which the Royal Niger Company had

entered into relations. The limit of Germany's possible extension eastwards

was fixed at the basin of the river Shari, and Darfur, Kordofan and the

Bahr-el-Ghazal were to be excluded from her sphere of influence. The object

of Great Britain in making the sacrifice she did was two-fold. By

satisfying Germany's desire for a part of Lake Chad a check was put on

French designs on the Benue region, while by recognizing the central Sudan

(Wadai, &c.) in the German sphere, a barrier was interposed to the advance

of France from the Congo to the Nile. This last object was not attained,

inasmuch as Germany in coming to terms with France as to the southern and

eastern limits of Cameroon abandoned her claims to the central Sudan. She

had already, on the 24th of December 1885, signed a protocol with France

fixing her southern frontier, where it was coterminous with the French

Congo colony. But to the east German explorers were crossing the track of

French explorers from the northern bank of the Ubangi, and the need for an

agreement was obvious. Accordingly, on the 4th of February 1894, a

protocol—which, some weeks later, was confirmed by a convention— was signed

at Berlin, by which France accepted the presence of Germany on Lake Chad as

a fait accompli and effected the best bargain she could by making the left

bank of the Shari river, from its outlet into Lake Chad to the 10th

parallel of north latitude, the eastern limit of German extension. From

this point the boundary line went due west some 230 m., then turned south,

and with various indentations joined the south-eastern frontier, which had

been slightly extended so as to give Germany access to the Sanga river— a

tributary of the Congo. Thus, early in 1894, the German Cameroon colony had

reached fairly definite limits. In 1908 another convention, modifying the

frontier, gave Germany a larger share of the Sanga, while France, among

other advantages, gained the left bank of the Shari to 10 deg. 40' N.

The German Togoland settlements occupy a narrow strip of the Guinea

coast, some 35 m. only in length, wedged in between the British Gold Coast

and French Dahomey. At first France was inclined to dispute Germany's

claims to Little Popo and Porto Seguro; but in December 1885 the French

government acknowledged the German protectorate over these

Exclusion of Germany from the Niger.

places, and the boundary between French and German territory, which runs

north from the coast to the 11th decree of latitude, was laid down by the

Franco-German convention of the 12th of July 1897. The fixing of the 11th

parallel as the northern boundary of German expansion towards the interior

was not accomplished without some sacrifice of German ambitions. Having

secured an opening on Lake Chad for her Cameroon colony, Germany was

anxious to obtain a footing on the middle Niger for Togoland. German

expeditions reached Gando, one of the tributary states of the Sokoto empire

on the middle Niger, and, notwithstanding the existence of prior treaties

with Great Britain, sought to conclude agreements with the sultan of that

country. But this German ambition conflicted both with the British and the

French designs in West Africa, and eventually Germany had to be content

with the 11th parallel as her northern frontier. On the west the Togoland

frontier on the coast was fixed in July 1886 by British and German

commissioners at 1 deg. 10' E. longitude, and its extension towards the

interior laid down for a short distance. A curious feature in the history

of its prolongation was the establishment in 1888 of a neutral zone wherein

neither power was to seek to acquire protectorates nor exclusive influence.

It was not until November 1899 that, as part of the Samoa settlement, this

neutral zone was partitioned between the two powers and the frontier

extended to the 11th parallel.

The story of the struggle between France and Great Britain in West Africa

may roughly be divided into two sections, the

Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa.

first dealing with the Coast colonies, the second dealing with the struggle

for the middle Niger and Lake Chad. As regards the Coast colonies, France

was wholly successful in her design of isolating all Great Britain's

separate possessions in that region, and of securing for herself undisputed

possession of the upper Niger and of the countries lying within the great

bend of that river. When the British government awoke to the consciousness

of what was at stake France had obtained too great a start. French

governors of the Senegal had succeeded, before the Berlin Conference, in

establishing forts on the upper Niger, and the advantage thus gained was

steadily pursued. Every winter season French posts were pushed farther and

farther along the river, or in the vast regions watered by the southern

tributaries of the Senegal and Niger rivers. This ceaseless activity met

with its reward. Great Britain found herself compelled to acknowledge

accomplished facts and to conclude agreements with France, which left her

colonies mere coast patches, with a very limited extension towards the

interior. On the 10th of August 1889 an agreement was signed by which the

Gambia colony and protectorate was confined to a narrow strip of territory

on both banks of the river for about 200 m. from the sea. In June 1882 and

in August 1889 provisional agreements were made with France fixing the

western and northern limits of Sierra Leone, and commissioners were

appointed to trace the line of demarcation agreed upon by the two

governments. But the commissioners failed to agree, and on the 21st of

January 1895 a fresh agreement was made, the boundary being subsequently

traced by a mixed commission. Sierra Leone, as now definitely constituted,

has a coast-line of about 180 m. and a maximum extension towards the

interior of some 200 m.

At the date of the Berlin conference the present colonies of Southern

Nigeria and the Gold Coast constituted a single colony under the title of

the Gold Coast colony, but on the 13th of January 1886 the territory

comprised under that title was erected into two separate colonies—Lagos and

the Gold Coast (the name of the former being changed in February 1906 to

the colony of Southern Nigeria). The coast limits of the new Gold Coast

colony were declared to extend from 5 deg. W. to 2 deg. E., but these

limits were subsequently curtailed by agreements with France and Germany.

The arrangements that fixed the eastern frontier of the Gold Coast colony

and its hinterland have already been stated in connexion with German

Togoland. On the western frontier it marches with the French colony of the

Ivory Coast, and in July 1893, after an unsuccessful attempt to achieve the

same end by an agreement concluded in 1889, the frontier was defined from

the neighbourhood of the Tano lagoon and river of the same name, to the 9th

degree of north latitude. In August 1896, following the destruction of the

Ashanti power and the deportation of King Prempeh, as a result of the

second Ashanti campaign, a British protectorate was declared over the whole

of the Ashanti territories and a resident was installed at Kumasi. But no

northern limit had been fixed by the 1893 agreement beyond the 9th

parallel, and the countries to the north—Gurunsi (Grusi), Mossi and Gurma—-

were entered from all sides by rival British, French and German

expeditions. The conflicting claims established by these rival expeditions

may, however, best be considered in connexion with the struggle for

supremacy on the middle Niger and in the Chad region, to which it is now

necessary to turn.

A few days before the meeting of the Berlin conference Sir George Goldie

had succeeded in buying up all the French interests on the lower Niger. The

British company's influence had at that date been extended by treaties with

the native chiefs up the main Niger stream to its junction with the Benue,

and some distance along this latter river But the great Fula states of the

central Sudan were still outside European influence, and this fact did not

escape attention in Germany. German merchants had been settled for some

years on the coast, and one of them, E. R. Flegel, had displayed great

interest in, and activity on, the river. He recognized that in the densely

populated states of the middle Niger, Sokoto and Gando, and in Bornu to the

west of Lake Chad, there was a magnificent field for Germany's new-born

colonizing zeal. The German African Company14 and the German Colonial

Society listened eagerly to Flegel's proposals, and in April 1885 he left

Berlin on a mission to the Fula states of Sokoto and Gando. But it was

impossible to keep his intentions entirely secret, and the (British)

National African Company had no desire to see the French rivals, whom they

had with so much difficulty dislodged from the river, replaced by the even

more troublesome German. Accordingly Joseph Thomson, the young Scottish

explorer, was sent out to the Niger, and had the satisfaction of concluding

on the 1st of June 1885 a treaty with ``Umoru, King of the Mussulmans of

the Sudan and Sultan of Sokoto,'' which practically secured the whole of

the trading rights and the control of the sultan's foreign relations to the

British company. Thomson concluded a similar treaty with the sultan of

Gando, so as to provide against the possibility of its being alleged that

Gando was an independent state and not subject to the suzerainty of the

sultan of Sokoto. As Thomson descended the river with his treaties, he met

Flegel going up the river, with bundles of German flags and presents for

the chiefs. The German government continued its efforts to secure a footing

on the lower Niger until the fall of Prince Bismarck from power in March

1890, when opposition ceased, and on the failure of the half-hearted

attempt made later to establish relations with Gando from Togoland, Germany

dropped out of the competition for the

The Niger Company granted a charter.

western Sudan and left the field to France and Great Britain. After its

first great success the National African Company renewed its efforts to

obtain a charter from the British government, and on the 10th of July 1886

the charter was granted, and the company became ``The Royal Niger Company,

chartered and limited.'' In June of the previous year a British

protectorate had been proclaimed Over the whole of the coast from the Rio

del Rey to the Lagos frontier, and as already stated, on the 13th of

January 1886 the Lagos settlements had been separated from the Gold Coast

and erected into a separate colony. It may be convenient to state here that

the western boundary of Lagos with French territory (Dahomey) was

determined in the Anglo-French agreement of the 10th of August 1889, ``as

far as the 9th degree of north latitude, where it shall stop.'' Thus both

in the Gold Coast hinterland and in the Lagos hinterland a door was left

wide open to the north of the 9th parallel.

Notwithstanding her strenuous efforts, France, in her advance down the

Niger from Senegal, did not succeed in reaching Sego on the upper Niger, a

considerable distance above Timbuktu, until the winter of 1890-1891, and

the rapid advance of British influence up the river raised serious fears

lest the Royal Niger Company should reach Timbuktu before France could

forestall her. It was, no doubt, this consideration that induced the French

government to consent to the insertion in the agreement of the 5th of

August 1890, by which Great Britain recognized France's protectorate over

Madagascar, of the following article:

The Government of Her Britannic Majesty recognizes the sphere of

influence of France to the south of her Mediterranean possessions up to a

line from Say on the Niger to Barrua on Lake Chad, drawn m such a manner as

to comprise in the sphere of action of the Niger Company all that fairly

belongs to the kingdom of Sokoto; the line to be determined by the

commissioners to be appointed.

The commissioners never were in fact appointed, and the proper meaning to

be attached to this article subsequently became a subject of bitter

controversy between the two countries. An examination of the map of West

Africa will show what possibilities of trouble were left open at the end of

1890 by the various agreements concluded up to that date. From Say on the

Niger to where the Lagos frontier came to an abrupt stop in 9 deg. N. there

was no boundary line between the French and British spheres of influence.

To the north of the Gold Coast and of the French Ivory Coast colony the way

was equally open to Great Britain and to France, while the vagueness of the

Say-Barrua line left an opening of which France was quick to avail herself.

Captain P. L. Monteil, who was despatched by the French government to West

Africa in 1890, immediately after the conclusion of the August agreement,

did not hesitate to pass well to the south of the Say-Barrua line, and to

attempt to conclude treaties with chiefs who were, beyond all question,

within the British sphere. Still farther south, on the Benue river, the two

expeditions of Lieutenant Mizon—in 1890 and 1892—failed to do any real harm

to British interests. In 1892 an event happened which had an important

bearing on the future course of the dispute.

French advance Timbuktu.

After a troublesome war with Behanzin king of to the native state of

Dahomey, France annexed some portion of Dahomeyan territory on the coast,

and declared a protectorate over the rest of the kingdom. Thus was removed

the barrier which had up to that time prevented France from pushing her way

Nigerwards from her possessions on the Slave Coast, as well as from the

upper Niger and the Ivory Coast. Henceforth her progress from all these

directions was rapid, and in particular Timbuktu was occupied in the last

days of 1893.

In 1894 it appears to have been suddenly realized in France that, for the

development of the vast regions which she was placing under her protection

in West Africa, it was extremely desirable that she should obtain free

access to the navigable portions of the Niger, if not on the left bank,

from which she was excluded by the Say-Barrua agreement, then on the right

bank, where the frontier had still to be fixed by international agreement.

In the neighbourhood of Bussa there is a long stretch of the river so

impeded by rapids that navigation is practically impossible, except in

small boats and at considerable risk. Below these rapids France had no

foothold on the river, both banks from Bussa to the sea being within the

British sphere. In 1890 the Royal Niger Company had concluded a treaty with

the emir and chiefs of Bussa (or Borgu); but the French declared that the

real paramount chief of Borgu was not the king of Bussa, but the king of

Nikki, and three expeditions were despatched in hot haste to Nikki to take

the king under French protection. Sir George Goldie, however, was not to be

baffled. While maintaining the validity of the earlier treaty with Bussa,

he despatched Captain (afterwards General Sir) F.D. Lugard to Nikki, and

Lugard was successful in distancing all his French competitors by several

days, reaching Nikki on the 5th of November 1894 and concluding a treaty

with the king and chiefs. The French expeditions, which were in great

strength, did not hesitate on their arrival to compel the king to execute

fresh treaties with France, and with these in their possession they

returned to Dahomey. Shortly afterwards a fresh act of aggression was

committed. On the 13th of February 1895 a French officer, Commandant

Toutee, arrived on the right bank of the Niger opposite Bajibo and built a

fort. His presence there was notified to the Royal Niger Company, who

protested to the British government against this invasion of their

territory. Lord Rosebery, who was then foreign minister, at once made

inquiries in Paris, and received the assurance that Commandant Toutee was

``a private traveller.'' Eventually Commandant Toutee was ordered to

withdraw, and the fort was occupied by the Royal Niger Company's troops.

Commandant Toutee subsequently published the official instructions from the

French government under which he had acted. It was thought that the

recognition of the British claims, involved in the withdrawal of Commandant

Toutee, had marked the final abandonment by France of the attempt to

establish herself on the navigable portions of the Niger below Bussa, but

in 1897 the attempt was renewed in the most determined manner. In February

of that year a French force suddenly occupied Bussa, and this act was

quickly followed by the occupation of Gomba and Illo higher up the river.

In November 1897 Nikki was occupied. The situation on the Niger had so

obviously been outgrowing the capacity of a chartered company that for some

time before these occurrences the assumption of responsibility for the

whole of the Niger region

The Franco-British settlement of 1898.

by the imperial authorities had been practically decided on; and early in

1898 Lugard was sent out to the Niger with a number of imperial officers to

raise a local force in preparation for the contemplated change. The advance

of the French forces from the south and west was the signal for an advance

of British troops from the Niger, from Lagos and from the Gold Coast

protectorate. The situation thus created was extremely serious. The British

and French flags were flying in close proximity, in some cases in the same

village. Meanwhile the diplomatists were busy in London and in Paris, and

in the latter capital a commission sat for many months to adjust the

conflicting claims. Fortunately, by the tact and forbearance of the

officers on both sides, no local incident occurred to precipitate a

collision, and on the 14th of June 1898 a convention was signed by Sir

Edmund Monson and M. G. Hanotaux which practically completed the partition

of this part of the continent.

The settlement effected was in the nature of a compromise. France

withdrew from Bussa, Gomba and Illo, the frontier line west of the Niger

being drawn from the 9th parallel to a point ten miles, as the crow flies,

above Giri, the port of Illo. France was thus shut out from the navigable

portion of the middle and lower Niger; but for purely commercial purposes

Great Britain agreed to lease to France two small plots of land on the

river-the one on the right bank between Leaba and the mouth of the Moshi

river, the other at one of the mouths of the Niger. By accepting this line

Great Britain abandoned Nikki and a great part of Borgu as well as some

part of Gando to France. East of the Niger the Say-Barrua line was modified

in favour of France, which gained parts of both Sokoto and Bornu where they

meet the southern edge of the Sahara. In the Gold Coast hinterland the

French withdrew from Wa, and Great Britain abandoned all claim to Mossi,

though the capital of the latter country, together with a further extensive

area in the territory assigned to both powers, was declared to be equally

free, so far as trade and navigation were concerned, to the subjects and

protected persons of both nationalities. The western boundary of the Gold

Coast was prolonged along the Black Volta as far as latitude 11 deg. N.,

and this parallel was followed with slight deflexions to the Togoland

frontier. In consequence of the acute crisis which shortly afterwards

occurred between France and Great Britain on the upper Nile, the

ratification of this agreement was delayed until after the conclusion of

the Fashoda agreement of March 1899 already referred to. In 1900 the two

patches on the Niger leased to France were selected by commissioners

representing the two countries, and in the same year the Anglo-French

frontier from Lagos to the west bank of the Niger was delimited.

East of the Niger the frontier, even as modified in 1898, failed to

satisfy the French need for a practicable route to Lake Chad, and in the

convention of the 8th of April 1904, to which reference has been made under

Egypt and Morocco, it was

Further concessions to France.

agreed, as part of the settlement of the French shore question in

Newfoundland, to deflect the frontier line more to the south. The new

boundary was described at some length, but provision was made for its

modification in points of detail on the return of the commissioners engaged

in surveying the frontier region. In 1906 an agreement was reached on all

points, and the frontier at last definitely settled, sixteen years after

the Say-Barrua line had been fixed. This revision of the Niger-Chad

frontier did not, however, represent the only territorial compensation

received by France in West Africa in connexion with the settlement of the

Newfoundland question. By the same convention of April 1904 the British

government consented to modify the frontier between Senegal and the Gambia

colony ``so as to give to France Yarbutenda and the lands and landing-

places belonging to that locality,'' and further agreed to cede to France

the tiny group of islands off the coast of French Guinea known as the Los

Islands.

Meantime the conclusion of the 1898 convention had left both the British

and the French governments free to devote increased attention to the

subdivision and control of their West African possessions. On the 1st of

January 1900 the imperial authorities assumed direct responsibility for the

whole of the territories of the Royal Niger Company, which became

henceforth a purely commercial undertaking. The Lagos protectorate was

extended northwards; the Niger Coast protectorate, likewise with extended

frontiers, became Southern Nigeria; while the greater part of the

territories formerly administered by the company were constituted into the

protectorate of Northern Nigeria—all three administrations being directly

under the Colonial Office In February 1906 the administration of the

Southern Nigerian protectorate was placed under that of Lagos at the same

time as the name of the latter was changed to the Colony of Southern

Nigeria, this being a step towards the eventual

Organization of the British and French protectorates.

amalgamation of all three dependencies under one governor or governor-

general. In French West Africa changes in the internal frontiers have been

numerous and important. The coast colonies have all been increased in size

at the expense of the French Sudan, which has vanished from the maps as an

administrative entity. There are carved out of the territories comprised in

what is officially known as French West Africa five colonies—Senegal,

French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Dahomey and the Upper Senegal and Niger,

this last being entirely cut off from the sea—and the civil territory of

Mauritania. To the colony of the Upper Senegal and Niger is attached the

military territory of the Niger, embracing the French Sahara up to the

limit of the Algerian sphere of influence. Not only are all these divisions

of French West Africa connected territorially, but administratively they

are united under a governor-general. Similarly the French Congo territories

have been divided into three colonies—the Gabun, the Middle Congo and the

Ubangi-Shari-Chad—all united administratively under a commissioner-general.

There are, around the coast, numerous islands or groups of islands, which

are regarded by geographers as outliers of the

Ownership of the African Islands.

African mainland. The majority of these African islands were occupied by

one or other of the European powers long before the period of continental

partition. The Madeira Islands to the west of Morocco, the Bissagos

Islands, off the Guinea coast, and Prince's Island and St Thomas' Island,

in the Gulf of Guinea, are Portuguese possessions of old standing; while in

the Canary Islands and Fernando Po Spain possesses remnants of her ancient

colonial empire which are a more valuable asset than any she has acquired

in recent times on the mainland. St Helena in the Atlantic, Mauritius and

some small groups north of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, are British

possessions acquired long before the opening of the last quarter of the

19th century. Zanzibar, Pemba and some smaller islands which the sultan was

allowed to retain were, as has already been stated, placed under British

protection in 1890, and the island of Sokotra was placed under the

``gracious favour and protection'' of Great Britain on the 23rd of April

1886. France's ownership of Reunion dates back to the 17th century, but the

Comoro archipelago was not placed under French protection until April 1886.

None of these islands, with the exception of the Zanzibar group, have,

however, materially affected the partition of the continent, and they need

not be enumerated in the table which follows. But the important island of

Madagascar stands in a different category, both on account of its size and

because it was during the period under review that it passed through the

various stages which led to its becoming a French colony. The first step

was the placing of the foreign relations of the island under French

control, which was effected by the treaty of the 17th of December 1885,

after the Franco-Malagasy war that had broken out in 1883. In 1890 Great

Britain and Germany recognized a French protectorate over the island, but

the Hova government declined to acquiesce in this view, and in May 1895

France sent an expedition to enforce her claims. The capital was occupied

on the 30th of September in the same year, and on the day following Queen

Ranavalona signed a convention recognizing the French protectorate. In

January 1896 the island was declared a French possession, and on the 6th of

August was declared to be a French colony. In February 1897 the last

vestige of ancient rule was swept away by the deportation of the queen.

Thus in its broad outlines the partition of Africa was begun and ended in

the short space of a quarter of a century. There are still many finishing

touches to be put to the structure. The southern frontiers of Morocco and

Tripoli remain undefined, while the mathematical lines by which the spheres

of influence of the powers were separated one from the other are being

variously modified on the do ut des principle as they come to be surveyed

and as the effective occupation of the continent progresses. Much labour is

necessary before the actual area of Africa and its subdivisions can be

accurately determined, but in the following table the figures are at least

approximately correct. Large areas of the spheres assigned to different

European powers have still to be brought under European control; but this

work is advancing by rapid strides.

BRITISH— Sq. m.

Cape Colony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276,995

Natal and Zululand . . . . . . . . . . . 35,371

Basutoland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,293

Bechuanaland Protectorate . . . . . . . 225,000

Transvaal and Swaziland . . . . . . . . 117,732

Orange River Colony . . . . . . . . . . 50,392

Rhodesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450,000

Nyasaland Protectorate . . . . . . . . . 43,608

British East Africa Protectorate . . . . 240,000

Uganda Protectorate . . . . . . . . . . 125,000

Zanzibar Protectorate . . . . . . . . . 1,020

Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68,000

Northern Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . 258,000

Southern Nigeria (colony and protectorate) 80,000

Gold Coast and hinterland . . . . . 82,000

Sierre Leone (colony and protectorate) . 34,000

Gambia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000

Total British Africa . . . . . . . 2,101,411

Egypt and Libyan Desert . . . . . . . . 650,000

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . . . . . . . . . . 950,000

1,600,000

FRENCH—

Algeria and Algerian Sahara . . . . . . 945,000

Tunisia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51,000

French West Africa—

Senegal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74,000

French Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . 107,000

Ivory Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129,000

Dahomey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40,000

Upper Senegal and Niger, and

Mauritania (including French West

African Sahara) . . . . 1,581,000 1,931,000

French Congo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700,000

French Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . 12,000

Madagascar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227,950

Total French Africa . . . . . . . 3,866,950

GERMAN—

East Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364,000

South.West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . 322,450

Cameroon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190,000

Togoland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33,700

Total German Africa . . . . . . . . 910,150

ITALIAN—

Eritrea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60,000

Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140,000

Total Italian Africa . . . . . . . . 200,000

PORTUGUESE—

Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,000

West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480,000

East Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293,500

Total Portuguese Africa . . . . . . 787,500

SPANISH—

Rio de Oro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70,000

Muni River Settlements . . . . . . . . . . 9,800

Total Spanish Africa . . . . . . . . 79,800

BELGIAN—

Congo State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000

TURKISH—

Tripoli and Benghazi . . . . . . . . . . 400,000

SEPARATE STATES—

Liberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43,000

Morocco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220,000

Abyssinia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350,000

Total Independent Africa . . . . . . 613,000

Thus, collecting the totals, the result of the ``scramble'' has been to

divide Africa among the powers as follows:—

Sq. m.

British Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,101,411

Egyptian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,600,000

French Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,866,950

German Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 910,150

Italian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200,000

Portuguese Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 787,500

Spanish Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79,800

Belgian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000

Turkish Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400,000

Independent Africa . . . . . . . . . . . 613,000

11,458,811

(J. S. K.)

1. Commercial treaties between Carthage and Rome were made in the 6th and

5th centuries B.C.. The first armed conflict between the rival powers,

begun in 264 B.C., was a contest for the possession of Sicily.

2. This river was called by the Portuguese the Zaire. They appear to have

made no attempt to trace its course beyond the rapids which stop

navigation from the sea.

3. France acquired, as stations for her ships on the voyage to and from

India, settlements in Madagascar and the neighbouring islands. The first

settlement was made in 1642.

4. The Association, in 1831, was merged in the Royal Geographical Society.

5. The Mamelukes, whom the Turks had overthrown in the 16th century, had

regained practically independent power.

6. In imitation of the British example, an American society founded in 1822

the negro colony (now republic) of Liberia.

7. The first territorial acquisition made by Great Britain in this region

was in 1851, when Lagos Island was annexed.

8. As early as 1848 an Arab from Zanzibar journeying across the continent

had arrived at Benguella.

9. Another great traveller of this stamp was Wilhelm Junker, who spent the

greater part of the period 1875-1886 in the east central Sudan.

10. Specially appointed to consider West African affairs.

11. See the tables in Behm and Wagner's Bevolkerung der Erde (Gotha, 1872).

12. in 1887 this society united with the German Colonial Society, an

organization founded in 1882. The united society took the title of the

German Colonial Company.

13. At this period negotiations between Great Britain and Italy had begun

but were not concluded.

14. This association, formed in 1878 by a union of associations primarily

intended for the exploration of Africa, ceased to exist in 1891.

VI. EXPLORATION AND SURVEY SINCE 1875

In giving the history of the partition of the continent, the later work

of exploration, except where, as in the case of de Brazza's expeditions, it

had direct political consequences, has of necessity not been told. The

results achieved during and after the period of partition may now be

indicated. Stanley's great journey down the Congo in 1875-1876 initiated a

new era in African exploration. The numbers of travellers soon became so

great that the once marvellous feat of crossing the continent from sea to

sea became common. With increased knowledge and much ampler means of

communication trans-African travel now presents few difficulties. While

d'Anville and other cartographers of the 18th century, by omitting all that

was uncertain, had left a great blank on the map, the work accomplished

since 1875 has filled it with authentic topographical details. Moreover

surveys of high accuracy have been made at several points. As the work of

exploration and survey progressed journeys of startling novelty became

impossible—save in the eastern Sahara, where the absence of water and

boundless wastes of sand render exploration more difficult, perhaps, than

in any other region of the globe. Within their respective spheres of

influence each power undertook detailed surveys, and the most solid of the

latest accessions to knowledge have resulted from the labours of hard-

working colonial officials toiling individually in obscurity. Their work it

is impossible here to recognize adequately; the following lines record only

the more obvious achievements. The relation of the Congo basin to the

neighbouring river systems was brought out by the journeys of many

travellers. In 1877 an important expedition was sent out by the Portuguese

government under Serpa Pinto, Brito Capello and Roberto

Work in the Congo.

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 16th century. 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.

Opening up East Africa.

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

Expeditions in North and West Africa.

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

Lakes and mountains of Equatorial Africa.

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

Work of international commissions and surveying parties.

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 19th

century. 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 20th century 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

Causes of isolation.

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

Suppression of the slave trade.

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

Chief economic resources.

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

Mineral Wealth.

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 19th century

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

Development of means of communication.

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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Authoritative works dealing with Africa as a whole in any

of its aspects are comparatively rare. Besides such volumes the following

list includes therefore books containing valuable information concerning

large or typical sections of the continent:—

sec. I. General Descriptions.—(a) Ancient and Medieval. Herodotus, ed. G.

Rawlinson, 4 vols.1 (1880); Ptolemy's Geographia, ed. C. Muller, vol. i.

(Paris, 1883-1901); Ibn Haukal, ``Description de l'Afrique (transl. McG. de

Slane), Nouv. Journal asiatique, 1842; Edrisi, ``Geographie'' (transl.

Jaubert), Rec. de voyages . . . Soc. De Geogr. vol. v. (Paris, 1836);

Abulfeda, Geographie (transl. Reinaud and Guyard, Paris, 1848-1883); M. A.

P.d'Avezac, Description de l'Afrique ancienne (Paris, 1845); L. de Marmol,

Description general de Africa (Granada, 1573); L. Sanuto, Geografia dell'

Africa (Venice, 1588); F. Pigafetta, A Report of the Kingdom of Congo, &c.

(1597); Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa (transl. J.

Pory, ed. R. Brown), 3 vols. (1896); O. Dapper, Naukeurige beschrijvinge

der afrikaensche gewesten, &c. (Amsterdam, 1668) (also English version by

Ogilvy, 1670, and French version, Amsterdam, 1686); B. Tellez, ``Travels of

the Jesuits in Ethiopia,'' A New Collection of Voyages, vol. vii. (1710);

G. A. Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, Istorica Descrittione de tre Regni Congo,

Matamba, et Angola (Milan, 1690) (account of the labours of the Capuchin

missionaries and their observations on the country and people); J. Barbot,

``Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea and of Ethiopia

Inferior,', Churchill's Voyages, vol. v. (1707); W. Bosman, A New . . .

Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, &c., 2nd ed. (1721);

J. B. Labat, Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique occidentale, 5 vols. (Paris,

1728); Idem, Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale, 5 vols. (Paris,

1732). (b) Modern. B. d'Anville, Memoire conc. les rivieres de l'interieur

de l'Afrique (Paris, n.d.); M. Vollkommer, Die Quellen B. d'Anville's fur

seine kritische Karte von Afrika Munich, 1904); C. Ritter, Die Erdkunde, i.

Theil, 1. Buch, ``Afrika'' (Berlin, 1822); l. M`Queen, Geographical and

Commercial View of Northern and Central Africa (Edinburgh, 1821 ); Idem,

Geographical Survey of Africa ( 1840); W. D. Cooley, Inner Africa laid open

(1852); E. Reclus, Nouvelle geographie universelle, vols. x.-xiii. (1885-

1888); A. H. Keane, Africa (in Stanford's Compendium), 2 vols., 2nd ed.

(1904-1907); F. Hahn and W. Sievers, Afrika, 2. Aufl. (Leipzig, 1901); M.

Fallex and A.Mairey, L'Afrique au debut du XXe siecle (Paris, 1906); Sir C.

P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, vols. iii. and iv.

(Oxford, 1894, 1904); F. D. and A. J. Herbertson, Descriptive Geographies

from Original Sources: Africa (1902); British Africa (The British Empire

Series, vol. ii., 1899); Journal of the African Society; Comite de

l'Afrique francaise, Bulletin, Paris; Mutteilungen der afrikan.

Gesellschaft in Deutschland (Berlin, 1879-1889); Mitteilungen . . . aus den

deutschen Schutzegebieten (Berlin); H. Schirmer, Le Sahara (Paris, 1893);

Mary H.Kingsley, West African Studies, 2nd ed. (1901); J. Bryce,

Impressions of South Africa (1897); Sir Harry Johnston, The Uganda

Protectorate, 2 vols. (1902) (vol ii. is devoted to anthropology); E. D.

Morel, Affairs of West Africa (1902).

sec. II. Geography (Physical), Geology, Climate, Flora and Fauna. — (For

Descriptive Geogr. see sec. I.)—G. Gurich, ``Uberblick uber den geolog. Bau

des afr. Kontinents,'' Peterm. Mitt., 1887; A. Knox, Notes on the Geology

of the Continent of Africa (1906) (includes a bibliography); L. von Hohnel,

A. Rosiwal, F. Toula and E. Suess, B eitrage zur geologischen Kenntniss des

omstlichcn Afrika (Vienna, 1891);

E. Stromer, Die Geologie der deutschen Schutzgebieten in Afrika (Munich,

1896); J. Chavanne, Afrika im Lichte uniserer Tage: Bodengestalt, &c.

(Vienna, 1881); F.Heidrich, ``Die mittlere Hohe Afrikas,'' Peterm. Mitt.,

1888; J. W. Gregory, The Great Rift-Valley (1896); H. G.Lyons, The

Physiography of the River Nile and its Basin (Cairo, 1906); S. Passarage,

Die Kalahari: Versuch einer physischgeogr. Darstellung . . . des sudafr.

Beckens (Berlin, 1904); Idem, ``Inselberglandschaften im tropischen

Afrika,'' Naturw. Wochenschrift, 1904. 654-665; J. E. S. Moore, The

Tanganyika, Problem (1903); W. H. Hudleston, ``On the Origin of the Marine

(Halolimnic) Fauna of Lake Tanganyika,'' Journ. Of Trans. Victoria Inst.,

1904, 300-351 (discusses the whole question of the geological history of

equatorial Africa); E.Stromer, ``Ist der Tanganyika ein Rellikten-See?''

Peterm. Mitt., 1901, 275-278; E. Kohlschutter, ``Die . . . Arbeiten der

Pendelexpedition . . . in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika,'' Verh. Deuts.

Geographentages Breslau, 1901, 133-153; J. Cornet, ``La geologie du bassin

du Congo,'' Bull. Soc. Beige geol., 1898; E. G. Ravenstein, ``The

Climatology of Africa'' (ten reports), Reports Brit. Association, 1892-

1901; Idem, ``Climatological Observations . . . I. Tropical Africa''

(1904); H. G. Lyons, ``On the Relations between Variations of Atmospheric

Pressure . . . and the Nile Flood,'' Proc. Roy. Soc., Ser. A, vol. lxxvi.,

1905; P. Reichard, ``Zur Frage der Austrocknung Afrikas,'' Geogr.

Zeitschrift, 1895; J. Hoffmann, ``Die tiefsten Temperaturen auf den

Hochlandern,'' &c., Peterm. Mitt., 1905; G. Fraunberger, ``Studien uber die

jahrlichen Niederschlagsmengen des afrik. Kontinents,'' Peterm. Mitt.,

1906; D. Oliver and Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Flora of) Tropical Africa, 10

vols. (1888-1906); K. Oschatz, Anordnung der Vegetation in Afrika

(Erlangen, 1900); A. Engler, Hochgebirgs-flora des tropischen Afrika

(Berlin, 1892); Idem, Die Pflanzenwelt Ostaftikras und der Nachbargebiete,

3 vols. (Berlin, 1895); Idem, Beitrage zur Flora von Afrika (Engler's

Botan. Jahrbucher, 14 vols. &c.); W. P. Hiern, Catalogue of the African

Plants Collected by Dr Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-1861, 2 vols. (1896-

1901); R. Schlechter, Westafrikanische Kautschuk-Expedition (Berlin, 1903);

H. Baum, Kunene-Sambesi-Expedition (Berlin, 1903) (largely concerned with

botany); W. L. Sclater, ``Geography of Mammals, No. iv. The Ethiopian

Region,'' Geog. Journal, March 1896; H. A. Bryden and others, Great and

Small Game of Africa (1899); F. C. Selous, African Nature Notes and

Reminiscences (1908); E. N. Buxton, Two African Trips: with Notes and

Suggestions on Big-Game Preservation in Africa (1902) (contains photographs

of living animals); G. Schillings, With Flash-light and Rifle in Equatorial

East Africa (1906); Idem, In Wildest Africa (1907) (striking collection of

photographs of living wild animals); Exploration scientifique de l'Algerie:

Histoire naturelle, 14 vols. and 4 atlases, Paris (1846-1850); Annales du

Musee du Congo: Botanique, Zoologie (Brussels, 1898, &c.). The latest

results of geographical research and a bibliography of current literature

are given in the Geographical Journal, published monthly by the Royal

Geographical Society.

sec. III. Ethnology.—H. Hartmann, Die Volker Afrikas (Leipzig, 1879); B.

Ankermann, ``Kulturkreise in Afrika,'' Zeit. f. Eth. vol. xxxvii. p. 34;

Idem, ``Uber den gegenwartigen Stand der Ethnographie der Sudhalfte

Afrikas,'' Arch. f. Anth. n.f. iv. p. 24;G.Sergi, Antropologia della stirpe

camitica (Turin, 1897); J. Deniker, ``Distribution geogr. et caracteres

physiques des Pygmees africains,'' La Geographie, Paris, vol. viii. pp. 213-

220; G. W. Stow and G. M. Theal, The Native Races of South Africa (1905);

K. Barthel, Volkerbewegungen auf der Sudhalfte des afrik. Kontinents

(Leipzig, 1893); A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast

(1887); Idem, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast (1890); Idem, The

Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast (1894); H. Ling Roth, Great

Benin, its Customs, &c. (Halifax, 1903); H. Frobenius, Die Heiden-Neger des

agyptischen Sudan (Berlin, 1893); Herbert Spencer and D. Duncan,

Descriptive Sociology, vol. iv. African Races (1875); A. de Preville, Les

Societes africaines (Paris, 1894); D. Macdonald, Africana or, the Heart of

Heathen Africa, 2 vols. (1882); L. Frobenius, Der Ursprung der

afrikanischen Kulturen (Der Ursprung der Kultur, Band i.) (Berlin, 1898);

Idem, ``Die Masken und Geheimbunde Afrikas,'' Abhandl. Kaiserl. Leopoldin.-

Carolin. Deuts. Akad. Naturforscher, 1899, 1-278; G. Schweinfurth, Artes

africanae Illustrations and Descriptions of . . . industrial Arts, &c. (in

German and English) (Leipzig, 1875); F. Ratzel, Die afsikanischen Bogen . .

. eine anthrop. geographische Studie (Leipzig, 1891); K. Weule, . Der

afrikanische Pfeil (Leipzig, 1899); H. Frobenius, Afrikanische Bautypen

(Dauchau bei Munchen, 1894); H. Schurtz, Die afrikan. Gewerbe (Leipzig,

1900); E. W. Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887); James

Stewart, Dawn in the Dark Continent, or Africa and its Missions (Edinburgh

and London, 1903); W. H. J. Bleek, Comparative Grammar of South African

Languages, 2 parts (1862-1869); Idem, Vocabularies of the Districts of

Lourenzo Marques, &c., &c. (1900); R. N. Cust, Sketch of the Modern

Languages of Africa, 2 vols. (1993): F. W. Kolbe, A Language Study based on

Bantu (1888); J. T. Last, Polyglotta Africana orientalis (1885); J.

Torrend, Comparative Grammar of the South African Bantu Languages (1891);

S. W. Koelle, Polyglotta Africana (1854); C. Velten, Schilderungen der

Suaheli von Expeditionen v. Wissmanns, &c., &c. (1900) (narratives taken

down from the mouths of natives); A. Vierkandt, Volksgedichte im westlichen

Central-Afrika (Leipzig, 1895). For latest information the following

periodicals should be consulted:— Journal of the Anthropological Institute

of Great Britain and Ireland; Man (same publishers); Zeitschrift f.

Ethnologie; Archiv f. Anthropologie; L'Anthropologie.

sec. IV. Archaeology and Art.— Publications of the Egyptian Exploration

Fund; A. Mariette-Bey, The Monuments of Upper Egypt (1890); H. Brugsch, Die

Agyptologie (Leipzig, 1891); G. Maspero, L' Archeologie egyptienne (Paris,

1890?); R. Lepsius, Denkmaler aus Agypten und Athiopien . . ., 6 vols.

(Berlin, 1849-1859); G. A. Hoskins, Travels in Ethiopia . . . illustrating

the Antiquities of the Ancient Kingdom of Meroe (1835); Records of the

Past: being English Translations of . . . Egyptian Monuments, vols. 2, 4,

6, 8, 10, 12 (1873-1881); Ditto, new series, 6 vols. (1890-1892); D.

Randall-MacIver and A. Wilkin, Libyan Notes (1901) (archaeology and

ethnology of North Africa); G. Boissier, L'Afrique romaine Promenades

archeologiques en Algerie et en Tunisie, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1901); H. Randall-

MacIver, Mediaeval Rhodesia (1906); Prisse d'Avennes, Histoire de l'art

egyptien d'apres les monuments, &c. with atlas (Paris, 1879; G. Perrot and

C. Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt, 2 vols. (1993); H. Wallis,

Egyptian Ceramic Art (1900); C. H. Read and O. M. Dalton, Antiquities from

the City of Benin and from other parts of West Africa (1899).

sec. V. Travel and Exploration.—Dean W. Vincent, The Commerce and

Navigation of the Ancients, vol. 2, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

(1807); G. E. de Azurara, Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea

(Eng. trans., 2 vols., 1896, 1899); R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry the

Navigator (1868); E. G. Ravenstein, ``The Voyages of Diogo Cao and Barth.

Diaz,'' Geogr. Journ., Dec. 1900; O. Hartig, ``Altere Entdeckungsgeschichte

und Kartographie Afrikas,'' Mitt. Geogr. Gesells. Wien, 1905; J. Leyden and

H. Murray, Historical Account of Discoveries, &c., 2 vols., 2nd ed. (1818);

T. E. Bowditch, Account of the Discoveries of the Portuguese in the

Interior of Angola and Mozambique (1824); P. Paulitschke, Die geogr.

Forschung des afrikan. Continents (Vienna, 1880); A. Supan, ``Ein

Jahrhundert der Afrika-Forschung,'' Peterm. Mitt., 1888; R. Brown, The

Story of Africa and its Explorers, 4 vols. (1892-1895); Sir Harry Johnston,

The Nile Quest (1903); James Bruce, Travels to discover the Source of the

Nile in 1768-1773, 5 vols., Edinburgh (1790); Proceedings of the

Association for . . . Discovery of!the Interior Parts of Africa, 1790-1810;

Mungo Park, Travels into the Interior Districts of Africa (1799); Idem,

Journal of a Mission, &c. (1815); Capt. J. K. Tuckey, Narrative of an

Expedition to explore the River Zaire or Congo in 1816 (1818): D. Denham

and H. Clapperton, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in N. and Cent.

Africa (1826); R. Caillie, Journal d'un voyage a Temboctu et a Jenne, 3

vols., Paris (1830); D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels . . . in South

Africa (1857); The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa,

ed. H. Waller (1874); H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and

Central Africa, 5 vols. (1857); J. L. Krapf, Travels, Researches, &c., in

Eastern Africa (1860); Sir R. F. Burton, The Lake Regions of Central

Africa, 2 vols. (1860); J. H. Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Source

of the Nile (1863).: Sir S. W. Baker, The Albert Nyanza, 2 vols. (1866); G.

Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa, 2 vols. (1873); V. L. Cameron, Across

Africa, 2 vols. (1877); T. Baines, The Gold Regions of South-Eastern Africa

(1877); Sir H. M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 2 vols. (1878);

Idem, In Darkest Africa, 2 vols. (1890); G. Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, 3

vols. (Berlin, 1879-1889); P. S. De Brazza, Les Voyages de . . . (1875-

1882), Paris, 1884; i. Thomson, Through Masai Land (1885); H. von Wissmann,

Unter Deutscher Flagge quer durch Afrika, &c. (Berlin, 1889); Idem, My

Second Journey through Equatorial Africa (1891); W. Junker, Travels in

Africa 1875-1886, 3 vols. (1890-1892); L. G. Binger, Du Niger au Golfe de

Guinee, &c. (Paris, 1892); O. Baumann, Durch Masailand zur Nilquelle

(Berlin, 1894); R. Kandt, Caput Nili (Berlin, 1904); C. A. von Gotzen,

Durch Afrika von Ost nach West (Berlin, 1896); L. Vanutelli and C. Citerni,

Seconda spedizione Bottego: L'Omo (Milan, 1899); P. Foureau, D'Alger au

Congo par le Tchad (Paris, 1902); C. Lemaire, Mission scientifique du Ka-

Tanga: Journal de route, 1 vol., Resultats des observations, 16 parts

(Brussels, 1902); A. St. H. Gibbons, Africa from South to North through

Marotseland, 2 vols. (1904); E. Lenfant, La Grande Route du Tchad (Paris,

1905); Boyd Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, 2 vols. (1907).

sec. VI. Historical and Political.—H.Schurtz, Africa (World's History, vol.

3, part 3) (1903); Sir H. H. Johnston, History of the Colonization of

Africa by Alien Races (Cambridge, 1899) (reprint with additional chapter

``Latest Developments,'' 1905); A. H. L. Heeren, Reflections on the

Politics, Intercourse and Trade of the Ancient Nations of Africa, 2 vols.

(Oxford, 1832); G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt (1881); A. Graham,

Roman Africa (1902); J. De Barros, Asia: Ira Decada, Lisbon (1552 and 1777-

1778); J. Strandes, Die Portugiesenzeit von . . . Ostafrika (Berlin, 1899);

R. Schuck, Brandenburg- Preussens Kolonial-Politik . . . 1641-1721, 2 vols.

Leipzig, 1889): G. M`Call Theal, History and Ethnography of Africa south of

the Zambesi . . . to 1795, 3 vols. (1907-1910), and History of South

Africa since September 1795 (to 1872) 5 vols. (1908); Idem, Records of

South-Eastern Africa, 9 vols., 1898-1903; Lady Lugard, A Tropical

Dependency: Outline of the History of the Western Sudan, &c.; (1905); Sir

F. Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, 3 vols. (3rd ed., 1909); J . S.

Keltie, The Partition of Africa, 2nd ed. (1895); F. Van Ortroy, Conventions

internationales definissant les limites . . . en Afrique (Brussels, 1898);

General Act of the Conference of Berlin, 1885: The Surveys and Explorations

of British Africa (Colonial Reports, No. 500) (1906), and annual reports

thereafter; Sir F. D. Lugard, The Rise or our East African Empire, 2 vols.

(1893); E. Petit, Les colonies francaises, 2 vols. (Paris, 1902-1904); E.

Rouard de Card, Les Traites de protectorat conclus par la France en

Afrique, 1870-1895 (Paris, 1897); A. J. de Araujo, Colonies portuguaises

d'Afrique Lisbon, 1900); B.Trognitz, ``Neue Arealbestimmung des Continents

Afrika,'' Petermanns Mitt., 1893, 220-221; A. Supan, ``Die Bevolkerung der

Erde,'' xii., Peterm. Mitt. Erganzungsh. 146 (Gotha, 1904) (deals with

areas as well as population).

sec. VII. Commerce and Economics.—A. Silva White, The Development of

Africa, 2nd ed. (1892): K. Dove, ``Grundzuge einer Wirtschaftsgeographie

Afrikas,'' Geographische Zeitschrift, 1905, i-18; E. Hahn, ``Die Stellung

Afrikas in der Geschichte des Welthandels,'' Verhandl. 11. Deutsch.

Geographentags zu Bremen (Berlin, 1896); L. de Launay, Les Richesses

minerales de l'Afrique (Paris, 1903); K. Futterer, Afrika in seiner

Bedeutung fur die Goldproduktion (Berlin, 1894); P. Reichard, ``Das

afrikan. Elfenbein und sein Handel,'' Deutsche geogr. Blatter (Bremen,

1889); Sir A. Moloney, Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa (1887);

Dewevre, ``Les Caoutchoucs africains,'' Ann. Soc. Sci. Bruxelles, 1895; Sir

T. F. Buxton, The African Slave Trade and its Remedy (1840); C. M. A.

Lavigerie, L'Esclavage africain (Paris, 1888); E. de Renty, Les chemins de

fer coloniaux en Afrique, 3 vols. (Paris, 1903-1905); H. Meyer, Die

Eisenbahnen im tropischen Afrika (Leipzig, 1902); G. Grenfell, ``The Upper

Congo as a Waterway,'' Geogr. Journ., Nov. 1902; A. St. H. Gibbons, ``The

Nile and Zambezi Systems as Waterways,'' Journ. R. Colon. Inst., 1901; K.

Lent, ``Verkehrsmittel in Ostafrika,'' Deutsches Kolonialblatt, 1894;

``Trade of the United Kingdom with the African Continent in 1898-1902,''

Board of T. Journ., 1903; Diplomatic and Consular Peports, Annual Series;

Colonial Reports; T. H. Parke, Guide to Health in Africa (1893); R. W.

Felkin, Geographical Distribution of Tropical Diseases in Africa (1895)

The following bibliographies may also be consulted: J. Gay, Bibliographie

des ouvrages relatifs a l'Afrique, &c. (San Remo, 1875); P. Paulitschke,

Die Afrika-Literatur von 1500 bis 1750 (Vienne, 1882); Catalogue of the

Colonial Office Library, vol. 3, Africa (specially for government

publications). (E. HE.) 1 Where no place of publication is given, London is

to be understood.