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 AFRICA 
 
 BRUSSELS GEOGRAPHICAL CONFERENCE. 
 
 i 
 
 EMILE BANNING, 
 
 RICHAED HENRY MAJOR. F..S.A. 
 
 „ I ^3 WITH A MAP. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAMPSON LOW, MAESTON, SEAELE & EITINGTON, 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 
 1877. 
 
 right,
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PK1NTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 -3, 
 
 MEMOEANDUM BY THE TEANSLATOE. 
 
 In placing in the hands of the English reader the 
 following highly interesting summary of African geo- 
 graphy, I wish to say that I hold myself responsible 
 for no expression or omission therein, beyond such as 
 the critic may find liable to censure in the translation 
 itself. The text has not been interfered with, except 
 in the conversion of metres into feet, and kilometres 
 into miles. 
 
 E. H. Major. 
 
 1C9'
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The object of the Author in publishing this work 
 has been to promote, as far as lay in his power, an 
 undertaking which will hereafter do honour to the 
 intelligence of the present century, and which, in 
 his opinion, is pregnant with benefits to the various 
 branches of the human family, whether the most 
 advanced in the paths of civilisation, or the most 
 behind-hand. The special duty which he had to 
 perform at the Conference which gave birth to this 
 undertaking, placed it in his power to gain, perhaps, 
 the most intimate insight into its object and tendencies, 
 and to determine, with some degree of certainty, the 
 scope of its movements. Nevertheless, he feels it 
 necessary to state that, in. acquitting himself of this 
 task, he has only consulted, and given expression
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 to, his own personal convictions. The considerations 
 offered, and the opinions uttered, throw no responsi- 
 bility on any but himself, and in claiming them 
 entirely lor his own he is but fulfilling a duty. 
 
 Brussels, 
 November 10, 1876.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Towards the middle of the month of September, 
 1876, there was brought together in the palace at 
 Brussels, under the presidency of, and in virtue of the 
 initiative taken by, the King of the Belgians, an In- 
 ternational Conference, summoned for the purpose of 
 bringing about a solution of one of the greatest problems 
 which have perplexed science and philanthropy in these 
 latter times. From the nature of its object, as well 
 as from the exceptional character of its composition, 
 this assembly could not fail of awakening interest, 
 both at home and abroad. Whatever may be the 
 engrossing subjects of anxiety of the present hour, 
 it was a great and noble thought to induce men's 
 minds to lay them aside for a moment, and to 
 concentrate their attention upon one of general and 
 paramount interest to the human race. When from
 
 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 the mountain peaks of history we take a survey of the 
 world's surface, many unanticipated rays of brightness 
 light up the horizon of nations, and reveal fresh fields 
 for their activity. While the old nations of Europe, 
 not content with their limited boundaries, are con- 
 stantly increasing the circle of their efforts in the cause 
 of civilisation, it is impossible to avoid forecasting in 
 our minds what are the approaching destinies of a vast 
 continent, three times the size of Europe, with a 
 population of two hundred millions, and, one might 
 say, touching, with its northern seaboard, Spain, Sicily, 
 and Greece. Four centuries have sufficed for covering 
 both the Americas with civilised and prosperous states. 
 India has become an English province, and Central 
 Asia is becoming a Kussian province ; Japan is assuming 
 the aspect of an European state ; China, by force of 
 circumstances, is becoming open to the influences of 
 diplomacy and commerce, while Australia and New 
 Zealand are reproducing at the Antipodes some of 
 the political and social institutions of England. 
 
 All the time that this wonderful conquest has been 
 going on, Africa has remained buried in its solitude,
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 stretched out, like a gigantic Helot, at the feet of 
 apathetic Europe. No effort, of any moment, at 
 colonisation or propagandism, has been made since 
 the sixteenth century to penetrate the secrets of its 
 physical or social condition, or to draw it into that 
 broad and powerful current which is tending to unite 
 more and more in one common effort all the dispersed 
 races of the world. The present generation has in its 
 youth seen the map of Central Africa as empty and 
 as bare as that of the Pole. This fate of a continent 
 which has seen arise on its soil the most ancient 
 civilisation of the world, and which in its day imposed 
 its influence on Asia and Europe, will remain hereafter 
 a riddle in history. For four hundred years after the 
 days of Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama, the 
 geographical conformation of the African Continent, 
 and the history and habits of its populations, lay buried 
 in profound darkness. On the seaboard, the nations of 
 Europe had established scarcely any connections with 
 the natives, beyond such as arose out of the abomin- 
 able practice of the slave trade ; and, on the north, 
 the Sahara seemed an impassable barrier, which
 
 Xll INTEODTJCTION. 
 
 condemned to eternal isolation and inferiority the races 
 which it protected even by its dangers and its terrors. 
 
 A new era has at length commenced for this land of 
 slavery and mystery. The thick veil with which 
 ignorance and prejudice had enveloped Africa is being 
 torn in every direction. Fearless travellers, brave 
 missionaries, have, for five and twenty years past, 
 penetrated it from north to south, from east to 
 west. Many a halting-place is dotted with tombs ; 
 but devotion to science and humanity is confronting 
 and surmounting all obstacles. Every year adds a 
 province to our knowledge, and deep openings are 
 being made in every direction in the interior of the 
 African Continent. 
 
 It is this nucleus of Central Africa, a vast region 
 which extends, on both sides of the equator, over a 
 surface of nearly 2,400,000 square miles,* which 
 remains to be explored. Its limits are traced by the 
 expeditions of Barth, of Eohlfs, of Nachtigal on the 
 
 * The empire of Germany measures 324,377 square miles ; 
 France, 317,146. It is, therefore, more than seven times as large 
 as either of these two countries.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI n 
 
 north ; of Schweinfurth, Baker, Gordon, and Stanley 
 on the east; of Livingstone and Cameron on the 
 south ; of Tuckey and Du Chaillu, of Giissfeldt, of 
 Marche and Compiegne on the west. It is with the 
 view of solving this last problem, of easing the labour 
 which it imposes, and, if possible, of diminishing its 
 dangers, by the combination of individual and national 
 efforts, that Leopold II. has convoked the Conference 
 at Brussels. If this generous initiative, which in itself 
 is a weighty fact, should meet with the sympathy of 
 public opinion, it is clear that science will not stand 
 alone in reaping the benefits. A virgin and fruitful 
 soil, and numerous races of men, for the most part 
 better endowed than is commonly supposed, will be 
 rescued from an isolation of centuries ; the task of 
 civilising Africa, hitherto conducted with insufficient 
 means, will acquire a broad and stable basis. The 
 slave trade, that scourge of the African races, may be 
 reached and grappled with at its source. Who could 
 calculate, from this moment, what may be the in- 
 fluences on the social and economical conditions of 
 Europe and Asia produced by regular and continuous
 
 xiv INTEODUCTION. 
 
 relations with an entirely new branch of the human 
 family ? 
 
 The indication of these points exhibits the extent of 
 the idea which has prevailed at the Conference of 
 Brussels, and the scope of its undertaking. Such great 
 results, however, will not be obtained without sustained 
 effort and serious sacrifices. The co-operation of all is 
 necessary to the success of the crusade which is in- 
 tended to be undertaken, and that co-operation will 
 not be active, devoted, or persistent, unless its object is 
 perfectly understood. Have the expeditions for dis- 
 covery in Africa during this century assumed a special 
 character ? What system or what bond has there been 
 in them ? Have they led to decisive results ? What 
 is the present state of our knowledge of Africa ? What 
 do we know of the general aspect of its soil, of the 
 elevations of its surface, of the distribution of its 
 waters ? What are its climate and resources ? To 
 what families do the races which inhabit it belong ? 
 To what degree of civilisation have they raised them- 
 selves? Do there exist reasons for believing that 
 they may reach higher? What is the slave trade of
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 the nineteenth century? How and by whom is it 
 carried on ? 
 
 Here are so many questions to which it seems de- 
 sirable that at least the principles of a solution should 
 be indicated, and the more so that, through a regretable 
 and unique exception, there has hitherto existed in 
 Belgium no Geographical Society taking upon itself 
 the charge of agitating and incessantly discussing 
 under the public eye these grave and important 
 problems. The making common a collection of succinct 
 but well reasoned-out ideas on all these objects will 
 enable the undertaking of the Congress to assume the 
 double character indispensable to its success : viz. — a 
 course of action, both scientific and civilising, directed 
 by the highest influences, and at the same time 
 supported by all the resources of popular sympathy.
 
 1 '.
 
 FIRST PAET. 
 
 A FEI C A: 
 
 VIEWED HISTOEICALLY, PHYSICALLY, 
 AND SOCIALLY.
 
 FIRST PART. 
 
 AFRICA: 
 
 VIEWED HISTORICALLY, PHYSICALLY, AND SOCIALLY. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 
 
 The movement in the direction of geographical dis- 
 covery in Africa, which, since 1840, has been carried 
 on with admirable energy and perseverance, is one of 
 the most interesting spectacles of the present century : 
 a century which has been in other respects fruitful in 
 great scientific enterprises. It might be said that in 
 giving so remarkable an extension and activity to this 
 movement, the nations of Europe had, by tacit consent, 
 been influenced by one thought : viz., that of opening 
 up to the exertions, and admitting to the conquests of 
 civilisation, a continent, which, without any reasonable 
 
 b 2
 
 DISCOVERIES IN AFEICA 
 
 explanation, had become the object of systematic aban- 
 donment. For a long period it had seemed that Africa 
 was doomed to go back rather than advance in this 
 direction. Egypt, which, in the beginning of history, 
 held so high a rank in the world, and propagated to- 
 wards the south its institutions and customs to distances 
 scarcely now recognisable, seemed to have outlived her 
 mission. The rich and industrious populations which 
 antiquity saw established on the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean, at Carthage, in Cyrenaica, Numidia, and 
 Mauritania, had disappeared, leaving scarcely any 
 traces of their passage. Barbarism had again taken 
 possession of those beautiful provinces which the 
 Roman dominion had brought to so high a pitch of 
 cultivation. In the middle ages, Islamism swept like 
 a torrent over Northern Africa from one end to the 
 other, but though it deeply modified the condition of 
 men's minds, and raised up ideas and habits which have 
 resisted the effect of time, it has nowhere founded any 
 important or durable political establishment. 
 
 We must come down to the fifteenth century to get 
 a glimpse of the dawn of a new era. Till then, a
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 
 
 very imperfect idea was formed of the configuration of 
 Africa, and, from Ptolemy's time downwards, scientific 
 notions respecting it were rather away from, than near 
 to, the truth. They had no sort of a correct idea of 
 any but the northern region, and even the ancient 
 maps of Sanudo, of Bianco and of Fra Mauro out- 
 rageously distorted its outlines. The maritime expedi- 
 tions of the Portuguese, the origination of, and per- 
 severance in, which have immortalised the name of one 
 of their greatest princes, Henry the Navigator, revealed 
 a new world. In 1434, Cape Bojador was rounded ; in 
 1482, the Gulf of Guinea was explored ; in 1487, Bar- 
 tholomew Diaz reached and even passed the Cape of 
 Good Hope, and before the close of the century, from 
 1497 to 1499, Vasco da Gama doubled the promontory, 
 and sailed along the eastern coast as far as Arabia. 
 The map of Diego Eibera, published in 1529, in Seville, 
 and that of Dapper, which appeared in 1676 at 
 Amsterdam, gave for the first time the exact profile of 
 the African Continent ; this latter seems even to have 
 out-stepped in many respects the progress of modern 
 geography.
 
 6 DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA 
 
 Numerous commercial establishments were founded 
 soon after on the coasts of Africa, and efforts at coloni- 
 sation were made, but nevertheless they did not go 
 beyond the sea coast, taking very little extension into 
 the interior. The Portuguese, in fact, early explored 
 a great part of Central Africa, and forestalled on the 
 banks of the Zambesi, as well as in the basin of the 
 Congo, some of Livingstone's grand discoveries. After 
 them, the French, in Senegambia, and the Dutch, at the 
 Cape of Good Hope, penetrated the vast continent of 
 Africa, but without considerably adding to the results 
 to science effected by the efforts of the Portuguese. 
 The interior of that immense plateau, the first stages 
 of which show themselves at a few leagues' distance 
 from the sea, remained covered with an impenetrable 
 mystery. 
 
 With the foundation in 1788 of the celebrated African 
 Association of London, commenced that great move- 
 ment of exploration, which in our days only has taken 
 its complete extension. Expeditions were multiplied ; 
 they were organised on a constructive plan, and assumed 
 a scientific character. Africa was attacked at three
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 
 
 points at one time. At the close of the eighteenth 
 century, expeditions started from Tripoli on the north, 
 from Nubia on the east, and from the G-ambia on the 
 west. The German, Hornemann, and, above all, the 
 Scotchman, Mungo Park, were the heroes and also the 
 first victims of these enterprises. 
 
 In the Gulf of Guinea debouches a river, which, by its 
 enormous development, the complication of its course, 
 and the mystery of its source, presents striking analogies 
 with the Nile : this is the Niger. From an early time 
 the exertions of travellers were directed to the solution 
 of this hydrographic problem. In the beginning of 
 this century, Mungo Park penetrated by the Gambia 
 into the basin of the Niger. Exposed to unceasing 
 attacks from the natives, and suffering the severest 
 hardships, he, nevertheless, descended the course of the 
 river as far as Bussa, where he died, after having seen 
 most of his travelling companions perish before him. 
 Nevertheless, this expedition did not fail to call forth 
 numerous successors. In 1818, a French traveller, 
 Mollien, reattempted the enterprise of Mungo Park : 
 he did not reach the Niger, but he determined the
 
 DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA 
 
 sources of the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Eio Grande. 
 After him, two Englishmen, Lander and Laird, ex- 
 plored the mouths of the great river, which the former 
 descended from Bussa (1830 to 1832). Baikie, whose 
 remarkable expedition took place in 1854, starting 
 from the coast of Guinea, reached as far as the junction 
 of the Benue, an imposing river, which he ascended as 
 far as Iola, the extreme point attained by Barth in 
 descending from the north. Some years later, at the 
 instance of General Faidherbe, then Governor of 
 Senegambia, several officers of the French marine, 
 Lambert (1860), Mage and Quintin (1863-66), ex- 
 amined the upper course of the Niger. In 1869, Win- 
 wood Beade approached the sources in those mountains 
 near the sea, which form the eastern boundary of the 
 settlement of Sierra Leone. In spite of the gaps which 
 have still to be filled up, it was an important conquest 
 over inner Africa ; the basin of the Niger, in fact, 
 incloses a host of populous tribes, and of states having 
 at least a beginning of organisation. The recent 
 expedition of the English against Ashanti has, for its 
 part, shed new light on regions, in the neighbour-
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTUKY. 9 
 
 hood, of surprising fertility, which, as yet, present no 
 obstacles to the efforts of civilisation, beyond the heat 
 of a torrid climate and the deadly miasma of its 
 swamps. 
 
 On the north and west, Algeria and Senegal have 
 become, in the hands of the French, points of attack in 
 the direction of the great desert of Sahara, which 
 reaches the boundaries of their possessions. In this 
 direction they at once encounter the most inhospitable 
 part of it, the Sahel, a vast sandy arid plain, dotted 
 with a few rare oases, and inhabited at different points 
 by tribes justly dreaded for their cruelty. It was a 
 French traveller, Caillie, who, starting from the Senegal, 
 first visited, in 1828, the mysterious city of Timbuctoo 
 on the Niger, on the southern borders of the Sahara. 
 After him, Leop. Panet travelled along its western 
 border from St. Louis to Mogadore by Aderer (1852). 
 More recently still, in 1859, one of the most learned 
 geographers of our time, H. Duveyrier, explored with 
 exceptional success that sea of sand in which so many 
 dauntless travellers have perished. There, in especial, 
 died in 1869, murdered by her escort, a woman whose
 
 10 DISCOVERIES IN AFEICA 
 
 great and numerous travels in Africa Lave made her 
 famous, Alexine Tinne of the Hague. Further eastwards, 
 the Sahara changes its aspect ; the soil becomes stony ; 
 the oases increase in number, and the population is less 
 sparse, until we reach the immediate vicinity of Egypt, 
 where the desert resumes its sway. In the winter of 
 1873-74, Gerhard Rohlfs, who had already at this 
 time won renown by considerable enterprises at the 
 most opposite points of northern Africa, led an ex- 
 pedition into this latter region, known as the Libyan 
 Desert, the remarkable results of which he has lately 
 published. 
 
 South of this region, and at several points interblend- 
 ing with it, is the Soudan, which has lately been the 
 object of noteworthy attempts. This is the heart of 
 Africa ; here commences the country of that negro 
 race which is scattered, southwards, over the whole 
 extent of the great African plateau. England and 
 Germany have contributed the most in late years to 
 increase our knowledge of these previously almost 
 entirely unknown countries. In 1823, Clapperton 
 discovered Lake Chad, the great inland basin which
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 11 
 
 receives the waters of the vast hollow of- which the 
 central plateau and that of the Sahara form the borders. 
 It is on the confines of this lake that are grouped the 
 most advanced and populous states of the Soudan, 
 specially those of Bornou, of Kanem, of Bagirmi and 
 of Wadai. The latter borders on Darfur, which has 
 just passed into the sovereignty of Egypt. 
 
 In 1849 took place the great expedition of Bichard- 
 son, Overweg, and Barth, of whom the last only returned 
 and published in 1855 the touching narrative of the 
 journey. Starting from Tripoli, the expedition had 
 crossed the Sahara by a new route, penetrated into the 
 Soudan, and reached Lake Chad. After the death of 
 his companions, Barth turned his steps westwards as 
 far as the Niger, and visited Timbuctoo, which no 
 European, since him, has seen. Vogel, proceeding 
 on his tracks, arrived in 1856 in the Wadai, but 
 there he was assassinated by order of the sultan of 
 that state. Seven expeditions in succession went in 
 search of him. One of them, led by Beurmann, reached 
 the goal, but likewise at the cost of the life of its 
 leader (1863).
 
 12 DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA 
 
 From 1865 to 1867 Gerhard Kohlfs, who had 
 previously attracted public attention by his perilous 
 journey from Morocco to Tripoli by Tafilet, Tuat 
 and Ghadatnes, performed his great journey to Bornou, 
 and successfully crossed the African Continent from 
 Tripoli on the Mediterranean to Lagos at the bottom 
 of the Gulf of Guinea. This memorable expedition, 
 one of the most daring and most profitable of this 
 century, was followed by that of Dr. Nachtigal, who, in 
 1870, carried to the Sultan of Bornou presents from 
 the King of Prussia in recognition of the services 
 rendered by that sovereign to Barth, to Vogel, and to 
 Bohlfs. During the following years, Nachtigal con- 
 tinued his explorations in the different states border- 
 ing on Lake Chad, and, thanks to him, the geography 
 of these countries has made sensible progress. He 
 was also the first European who, by the route from 
 Murzook to Kuka, penetrated, in spite of the greatest 
 dangers, into the country of the Tibboo Beskade and 
 visited Tibesti. He arrived in Egypt at the close of 
 1874, after having crossed the Wadai (that inhospit- 
 able land where Vogel and Beurmann had perished),
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 13 
 
 Darfur, and Kordofan, and thus connected his dis- 
 coveries with those of the explorers of the Yalley of 
 the Nile. This expedition, extending oyer five years, is 
 one of the most remarkable that has been performed 
 in our times. It has placed Dr. Nachtigal in the first 
 rank of African travellers, and opened up new prospects 
 to such of them as shall hereafter take the Egyptian 
 possessions for their basis of operations. 
 
 Egypt, since the reign of Mahomet Ali, has taken an 
 exceptional position amongst the African states. When 
 we look at the incurable decrepitude under which the 
 Turkish Empire in Europe is sinking, she seems to be 
 destined to inherit a very essential portion of the 
 succession. The sword of General Bonaparte seems 
 to have been the magic wand which has aroused from 
 its tomb of thirty centuries the genius of Ancient 
 Egypt. Thanks to the initiative of a series of princes 
 who have been able, in more ways than one, to dis- 
 entangle themselves from the narrow circle of Moham- 
 medanism ; thanks to the assistance of a host of men 
 of administrative skill collected from every European 
 nation, the Valley of the Nile has assumed quite a
 
 14 DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA 
 
 modern aspect. A regular service of steam-boats has 
 been organised on the river up to the first cataract at 
 Syene, and boats provided with every European com- 
 fort, every year convey thousands of tourists up to this 
 point. Locomotives whistle at the foot of the Pyramids, 
 and soon they will penetrate even into the desert, 
 thanks to the contrivance of Fowler, the engineer, who 
 has undertaken to construct a railway from the second 
 cataract in Nubia as far as Khartoom, across the steppe 
 of Bejuda, over an extent of nearly 200 leagues. At 
 present Egypt possesses 1068 miles of railway line. 
 At the north-east extremity of the country, the im- 
 portance of the Isthmus of Suez is increasing year by 
 year, and recent transactions have brought afresh into 
 notice its high importance in view of the political 
 changes of which the East may soon become the arena. 
 This revival of Egypt, with the territorial ambitions 
 which it could not fail to excite, has come powerfully 
 to the aid of the advancement of African geography. 
 The government of the Khedive, especially, has lent a 
 generous and unfailing support to those daring mis- 
 sionaries of science, who took his states as the point of
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTUEY. 15 
 
 departure of their explorations. The scantly hospitable 
 reception recently given to the Italian expedition of 
 the Marquis Antinori is an event as rare as it is 
 regretable. 
 
 The determination of the basin of the Nile, and 
 especially the search for its sources, have for a long 
 time been and continue still to be the predominant 
 aim of all enterprises. These have taken two directions, 
 corresponding to the two branches of the Nile, which 
 unite their waters at Khartoom, a city of 40,000 souls, 
 the commercial metropolis of Eastern Soudan and the 
 point of connection between Egypt and Central Africa. 
 The eastern branch is called the Blue Nile (Bahr-el- 
 Asrah), the west is called the White Nile (Bahr-el- 
 Abiad). 
 
 At the close of last century the English traveller, 
 Bruce, determined the sources of the Blue Nile. The 
 system of its waters and the configuration of the 
 Abyssinian plateau have been ascertained since in the 
 most complete manner by two Frenchmen, Lefebvre, 
 whose journey was made in 1839-43, and Lejean, who 
 travelled through Abyssinia in 1862-64. The English 
 
 ".
 
 16 DISCOVEEIES IN AFEICA 
 
 expedition has made every one acquainted with this 
 sort of African Switzerland, where the Christianity 
 and the observances of the middle ages have been 
 maintained down to our own times. 
 
 The Western system of the Nile is by far the more 
 important of the two. The exploration of it began in 
 the course of this century with the Swiss traveller, 
 Burekhardt, who, in 1812-14, at the expense of the 
 London African Society, traversed Nubia, and died at 
 the time when he was about to enter the Libyan Desert 
 with the view of reaching Fezzan. His immediate 
 successor was a Frenchman, Francois Cailliaud, who 
 penetrated into Upper Nubia as far as the tenth 
 degree of latitude. This journey, which was made in 
 1819-22, gave a strong impulse to the study of Egyptian 
 archaeology. In 1819 — 41 Mahomet Ali sent two great 
 expeditions to the Upper Nile. The first reached the 
 sixth degree of latitude, and the second went as far as 
 Gondokoro. About the same time the Austrian tra- 
 veller, Eussegger, visited the countries of Dar Nubar and 
 of Takale, south of Kordofan, and enriched geographical 
 science with some notable discoveries. (1837.)
 
 [ CENTURY. 17 
 
 At this period religious enthusiasm took its place 
 Vy the side of scientific zeal. Catholic Missions were 
 founded at Khartoom (1848), at Gondokoro (1851), 
 and at St. Croix (1855), the object being to diffuse 
 Christianity among the negro tribes and to put a check 
 to the traffic in slaves. This attempt was not successful. 
 The hostility of the slave dealers, famine, and, above all, 
 fever, decimated the missionaries to so cruel an extent, 
 that, in spite of their heroic devotedness, they finally 
 abandoned an undertaking which, for science, at any 
 rate, had not been unfruitful. 
 
 Protestant missions had scarcely better success in 
 this region, but at another point they gave rise to an 
 extraordinary impulse. In 1848 and 1849 the German 
 missionaries Rebmann and Krapf discovered to the 
 north of Zanzibar and nearly under the line two 
 lofty mountains covered with perpetual snow, which 
 they believed to be Ptolemy's Mountains of the Moon 
 and the probable site of the sources of the Nile. This 
 discovery at once stimulated the zeal of explorers in an 
 exceptional manner. It afforded a glimpse of the 
 possibility of penetrating southward to the Valley of 
 
 C
 
 18 DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA 
 
 the Nile, and of arriving by this new route at the 
 solution of the problem. 
 
 Two officers of the Indian army, Captains Burton 
 and Speke, received from the Geographical Society of 
 London the charge of attempting this great enterprize. 
 In 1857 they started from Zanzibar, pushed straight 
 into the interior, and on the 13th of February, 1858, 
 reached the shore of Lake Tanganyika. It was a day 
 of mark in the annals of African exploration. After 
 crossing the lake in its breadth, the two travellers 
 separated. Speke turned his steps alone northward, 
 and reached in this direction the southern shore of a 
 second vast reservoir named by the natives Ukerewe, 
 but which Speke baptized with the name of the Queen 
 of England (Victoria Nyanza). Convinced that he 
 had now found the true source of the Nile, Speke soon 
 set out again, accompanied by Captain Grant. In 1861 
 the expedition again found itself near the Victoria, 
 skirting it to the westward, but without perceiving 
 another great lake in the neighbourhood, and pene- 
 trated into the country of Uganda, whose king, 
 Mtesa, received them with great cordiality. On the 
 
 .' 
 
 )
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 19 
 
 northern shore of the lake, Speke and Grant discovered 
 the outlet which, from that moment, they signalised as 
 the head stream of the Nile. Although they were 
 unable to follow its downward course continuously, the 
 statements of the two English travellers have received 
 a striking verification from subsequent expeditions, 
 especially those of Colonel Long (1874), and of Stanley 
 (1875). At Gondokoro, on their way back, Speke and 
 Grant met Samuel Baker, who, with his heroic wife, 
 had just undertaken the same exploration in a contrary 
 direction. The meeting of the two expeditions was 
 like a prophecy that the solution of the great problem 
 was at hand. 
 
 In pursuing his course southwards, Baker again 
 struck the Nile at the Falls of Karuma, a point from 
 which his predecessors had diverged from the river, and 
 he found that the river discharged itself into a second 
 vast basin, the Mwutan, to which he gave the name of 
 Albert Nyanza. This was in March, 1864. Although 
 Baker saw only a small part of the shore of this lake, 
 and had not found the outlet, the main system of the 
 Nile was, from that time, almost settled. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 DISCOVEEIES IN AFRICA 
 
 These great discoveries, while they stimulated the 
 ardour of scientific men and travellers, at the same 
 time gave birth to vast political plans. The concen- 
 tration of all the territories composing the immense 
 basin of the Nile under the sceptre of the Viceroy of 
 Egypt, was a notion conceived at Cairo, the execution 
 of which rapidly passed into the domain of facts. In 
 1870, Samuel Baker started at the head of a small corps 
 d'armee with the double mission of extending the 
 authority of the Khedive as far as the lakes and of 
 putting down the slave trade. This expedition, which 
 lasted till 1873, and cost the Egyptian treasury the 
 enormous sum of twenty-six millions of francs, only 
 partly effected its object. In 1874, Colonel Gordon 
 was charged to take it up on another footing. This 
 campaign, which is not yet entirely completed, has 
 already produced notable results. The dominion of 
 the viceroy has acquired a solid basis in these countries, 
 and at the same time the attempt to carry a steamer 
 by the Nile as far as the Mvvutan has been crowned 
 with success. One member of the expedition, an 
 engineer named Gessi, has just entered the lake by its 

 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 21 
 
 northern outlet and made the circuit of the lake. The 
 course of the White Nile is thus determined in a defi- 
 nite manner. Another traveller, renowned for his 
 daring as much as for the success of his enterprises, 
 the American, Stanley, has completed at another poin 
 this collection of discoveries. He carried a boat from 
 the east coast up to Lake Victoria, and thus succeeded 
 in making the circumnavigation of this grand reservoir 
 which receives ten rivers, and measures more than 96(> 
 miles in circuit. After a prolonged residence with thl 
 King of Uganda, he is now prosecuting his explora- 
 tions towards the west. 
 
 In this direction, in fact, there lies another vast field 
 for investigation. What is wanted is to trace west- 
 wards the line of hills which form the boundary of the 
 basin of the White Nile, and to ascertain the system oi 
 its numerous affluents. Besides, in this direction, a 
 meeting might be effected with travellers who had 
 been engaged in the exploration of the central part oi 
 the Soudan, and thus observations made by those who 
 had started from opposite points would be connected. 
 Here, one after the other, we fall in with the Italians
 
 :2 DISCOVERIES IX AFRICA 
 
 •liani and Marquis Antinori, who, in 1860, travelled 
 long the shores of the Bahr-el-Gazal and the Djur ; 
 he Frenchmen, Lejean and Peney, who visited the 
 ame regions in 1861 ; the Erjglish Consul Petherick, 
 ,vho, in his repeated excursions between 1848-1863, 
 penetrated southward as far as the country of the 
 Niam-Niam, where the Italian, Piaggia, took up his 
 abode for a whole year (1864). Two Germans, Th. von 
 Heuglin, and the botanist Steudner, which latter died 
 in the course of the expedition, pushed their explora- 
 tions beyond the Bahr-el-Gazal and the Djur as far as 
 into the Dar Fertit. All these expeditions led to the 
 remarkable journey of Dr. Schweinfurth, who, starting 
 from Ehartoom, in 1869, reached 3° 35' of north lati- 
 tude across the country of the Niam-Niam and the 
 Monbuttu. He described this previously unknown 
 people, reached the ridge of the mountains (not very 
 high, by the way) which separates the basin of the 
 Nile from that of the Chad, and discovered on its 
 western side the still mysterious river which he calls 
 the Uelle. When he reached this point, although the 
 courage of the daring traveller did not fail him, the 
 
 A
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 23 
 
 exhaustion of his resources compelled him to return. 
 
 VI th 49,000 francs more at his disposal, he believes 
 it he would have been able to lead his men into the 
 
 .eart of the Soudan, where he would, perhaps, have 
 met with Dr. Nachtigal. A worthy rival of these two 
 men, the Austrian, Marno, who in 1872 had reached 
 the south of Abyssinia as far as the country of the 
 Cralla, has made a reconnaissance to the left of the White 
 Nile in the direction of the countries which Schwein- 
 furth has reached by another road (1875). Here a 
 field of research presents itself which is as extensive as 
 it is new ; the very centre of equatorial Africa now 
 challenges the courage and the curiosity of explorers. 
 
 This vast unknown region of the central plateau, 
 whose northern boundary the expeditions into the 
 Soudan and the Valley of the Nile now make to range 
 between two and ten degrees of north latitude, has not 
 been free from a considerable number of attempts on its 
 other frontiers. The Portuguese expeditions to these 
 parts, some time ago now, have been of greater import- 
 ance than is generally supposed. The great states of 
 the Casembe and of the Muata Yamvo, which are only
 
 24 DISCOVEEIES IX AFRICA 
 
 now beginning to emerge from • • ity, were travelled 
 
 over during the first half of thia century by a whole 
 series of Portuguese explorers, vvho, starting from the 
 west coast, reached the eastern limit of the plateau. 
 These were Lacerda, who died on the field of his re- 
 searches (1798) ; the Pombeiros (1808-10) ; Monteiro 
 (1831) and Graca (1843-46). Ladislas Magyar, whose 
 union with a native princess of Bihe places him in a 
 peculiar position amongst his rivals, also visited these 
 countries in 1850. 
 
 On the west coast, the English Captain, Tuckey, 
 ascended the Congo in 1816, but without succeeding in 
 passing the cataracts, and died under the pernicious 
 influences of the climate. Du Chaillu, in 1856 and 
 1864, explored successively the mouths of the Gaboon 
 and Ogowe, and penetrated, south of the latter river, 
 222 miles into the interior of the continent. After 
 him the English missionary, Walker, and the French 
 travellers, Marche and the Marquis de Compiegne, 
 followed up the exploration of the Ogowe. These last 
 made their way, in 1874, to beyond the Falls of Boue, 
 the farthest point hitherto reached by Europeans. 
 
 . A
 
 IX THE 19TH CENTURY. 25 
 
 It the bottom of the Bay of Biafra, Burton, in 1860, 
 made the ascent of the gigantic Cameroon's Peak ; 
 while, on the opposite side of the African Continent, 
 not far from the East Coast, Baron von der Decken, 
 about the same period, ascended the still higher sum- 
 mit of Kilimanjaro, and died, in 1865, in attempting 
 to ascend the River Juba. 
 
 Other interesting expeditions have made Southern 
 Africa their starting points. The German zoologist, 
 Fritsch, passed three years (1864-66) in the Orange 
 Republic and among the Bechuanas, and collected in 
 his journeys the materials of his learned work on 
 the races of South Africa. In 1869 Ed. Mohr under- 
 took his journey to the great cataract of the Zambesi. 
 C. Mauch at the same time travelled over the Trans- 
 vaal and the kingdom of Mosilikatse ; he discovered the 
 auriferous deposits of Tati, made his way, in 1872, 
 throughout the whole of the south-east region, and 
 discovered, in the twentieth degree of latitude, the 
 remarkable ruins of Zimbabe. But one pre-eminently 
 illustrious name stands high above those of all the 
 travellers, who, in this part of the world, were his rivals
 
 26 DISCOVEEIES IN AFRICA 
 
 or successors. David Livingstone occupies a place by 
 himself in the history of African discovery. During 
 more than thirty years, this admirable man fulfilled, 
 with untiring zeal and superhuman energy, the double 
 apostolate of the Gospel and of science. He singly 
 traversed from south to north, and from west to east, 
 one half of the African Continent, which had, in a 
 manner, become to him a second country. 
 
 The travels of Livingstone began in 1840, in the 
 English mission of Kuruman, among the Bechuanas. 
 In 1845 they led him to the shores of Lake Ngami, 
 the first of the great inland lakes discovered in Africa. 
 His explorations extended, at that time, over the 
 territories north of the Cape in which the Transvaal 
 Eepublic has since been founded. Between 1853 and 
 1856, he accomplished the first of his great expeditions. 
 He advanced northward towards the upper course of 
 the Zambesi, and discovered its magnificent falls, even 
 more imposing than those of the Niagara, visited the 
 region of the sources of that river, and thence pushed 
 westwards as far as Loanda, on the Atlantic coast. 
 From this point he retraced his steps, and crossed
 
 IN THE I9TH CENTURY. 27 
 
 Africa throughout its breadth, coming out at Quilimane, 
 on the Indian Ocean. Between 1858 and 1861, he 
 accomplished a series of journeys which enabled him 
 to determine the basin of the Zambesi, whose lower 
 course he explored; he then ascended, across a suc- 
 cession of cataracts, its affluent, the Shire, and 
 discovered that this river was but the channel of 
 discharge of an immense reservoir, the Lake Nyassa. 
 
 After a short interruption, during which he revisited 
 England, Livingstone undertook, in 1866, his third and 
 last expedition. Starting from the mouth of the 
 Eovuma, he passed the end of the Nyassa, leaving it to 
 the south, and penetrated the unknown country ex- 
 tending to the west of that basin. There he fell in 
 with a new series of great lakes, the Bangweolo, the 
 Moero, the Eamolondo, united by a mighty water- 
 course, the Lualaba or Luapula, which Livingstone, by 
 mistake, took for the upper source of the Nile, but 
 which later discoveries have connected with the systems 
 of the Congo. In 1869, he reached Lake Tanganyika, 
 which he partly traversed, and then turned westward and 
 reached Nyangwe, the northern limit of his explorations.
 
 28 DISCOVERIES IN AEBICA 
 
 He returned exhausted and ill to Ujiji, where, in 
 the autumn of 1871, he met Stanley, who had been 
 sent out to seek him ; for, several times during the 
 previous five years, the report of his death had been 
 circulated in Europe. While Stanley returned to the 
 coast, Livingstone, recomforted and reprovided with 
 fresh means, skirted the east bank of the Tanganyika, 
 and again plunged into the interior ; he completed his 
 investigations at different points, but before long, the 
 fever contracted in the marshes under torrents of rain 
 again laid hold of him, never to quit him more. At 
 the beginning of 1873, he made the tour of Lake 
 Bangweolo, and reached its southern shore. There he 
 expired on the night of the 1st of May, under a shed 
 improvised by his followers : in the morning he was 
 found kneeling at the foot of his bed. History con- 
 tains few pages more touching, or of a more sublime 
 character, than the simple narrative of this silent and 
 solitary death of a great man, the martyr to a great 
 cause. 
 
 In this same year in which Livingstone died two 
 expeditions started from England to seek traces of him.
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTURY. 29 
 
 One under the command of Lieutenant G-randy, R.N., 
 took the coast of Congo as its base of operations, but 
 did not succeed. The second, also placed under the 
 direction of a naval officer, Lieutenant Cameron, then 
 twenty-eight years of age, produced results of extreme 
 importance. Guided by the counsels of a man of high 
 stamp, Sir Bartle Frere, Cameron started from Zanzibar 
 at the close of 1873. At Kaseh, halfway to Tanganyika, 
 he met the escort of Livingstone's attendants bringing 
 back the remains of their master. After taking every 
 step for insuring the transport of these precious remains, 
 and the preservation of the papers of the illustrious 
 traveller, Cameron resolutely went on his way. On the 
 2nd of February he reached Tanganyika, which he 
 examined throughout its extent, and of which he made 
 an exact map. In the course of his operations, he 
 discovered the outlet of the lake, the Lukuga, which 
 flows west and joins the Lualaba. This discovery 
 decided Cameron on descending this river, and thus 
 continuing the work of Livingstone. He reached 
 Nyangwe, but there the hostility of a native chief 
 compelled him to direct his steps south-west. In this
 
 30 DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA 
 
 direction he crossed the populous states of the Balu'ida, 
 determined the system of affluents on the left shore ol 
 the Congo, and came out on the Atlantic in November, 
 1875, in the neighbourhood of Benguela. This memor- 
 able expedition, which has enriched science with eighty - 
 five astronomical determinations of position, and 3,718 
 observations of altitude, was worthy of Livingstone, 
 whose conception had led to the undertaking. Its 
 success has been received throughout Europe with a 
 well deserved feeling of admiration. 
 
 While we write these lines, new efforts are being 
 set in motion. Germany is organising, under the 
 probable direction of Ed. Mohr, a campaign of ex- 
 ploration which will take up, on the coast of Loango, 
 the work commenced in 1873 by Dr. Gussfeldt, with 
 the assistance of Major Homeyer, Dr. Lenz, Lieutenant 
 Lux and other scientific men. France has expeditions 
 in course of execution on the Ogowe : Italy has sent, 
 under the command of Marquis Antinori, an expedi- 
 tion, the success of which is now very doubtful, but 
 which proposed to go from Zeila, on the Gulf of 
 Aden, to Lake Victoria, across the Galla Country.
 
 IN THE 19TH CENTUEY. 31 
 
 Engknd, absorbed at the present moment in its enter- 
 prise to the North Pole,* will not be long in bringing 
 back its attention to Africa. Grave interests invite 
 her thoughts in this direction. 
 
 The essential results of the principal journeys which 
 have just been mentioned are brought together 
 synoptically in the interesting map of Africa, published 
 by the learned German geographer, H. Kiepert, in 1874, 
 in vol. viii. of the Zeitschrift of the Geographical Society 
 of Berlin. The tints employed show at the same time 
 the part which appertains to the different nationalities 
 of Europe in this great work of exploration, which has 
 unhappily counted so many martyrs. But if the sacri- 
 fices have been cruel, at least they have not been 
 fruitless. An idea may be formed of the progress 
 accomplished by comparing the map of Kiepert with 
 the description of the African Continent given in 1822 
 by Carl Bitter in his ' Geographie comparee,' which, it 
 is true, in spite of the gaps in it, remains a monument of 
 genius and knowledge. It is verily a new world which 
 
 * The expedition to the Pole returned to England on the 27th of 
 October, 1876.
 
 32 DISCOYEj LIES IN AFK: 
 
 is opened up to the activity of mankind. DouUless 
 many localities still continue to be blanks on our maps. 
 There still remains about a quarter of Africa to examine 
 and describe ; but so great has been the impulse 
 communicated to research, that we may venture to 
 hope that this century will not close without seeing 
 the completion of this vast undertaking, especially if 
 it should prove possible to place the enterprises of 
 travellers on a footing which is at the same time 
 broader and safer.
 
 ( 33 ) 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 A GLANCE AT THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP AFRICA 
 — ITS OROGRAPHICAL AND HYDROGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS 
 ITS CLIMATE AtfD PRODUCTS. 
 
 In its general Outline, Africa presents the form of a 
 vast triangle, especially if we include the peninsula of 
 Arabia, which is a natural dependency of it. Since the 
 Isthmus of Suez has given place to a canal of seventy- 
 six miles in length, it lias become an entirely separated 
 island. Its greatest vertical length, from Cape Blanco 
 to Cape Agulhas, is 4809 miles ; its greatest breadth, 
 from Cape Verde to Cape Guardafui, 4674 miles ; its 
 total superficial measurement is nearly 18,000,000 of 
 square miles. A simple glance at the map of this 
 continent immediately shows one of the most pro- 
 minent characteristics of its conformation. The con- 
 tour of the African coast follows straight lines. It 
 
 D
 
 34 OEOGEAPHICAL AND 
 
 has no deep indentations, except the Syrtes on the north, 
 and the Gulf of Guinea on the west, and these gull's 
 themselves have no spacious healthy bays. The sea- 
 board of Africa is in proportion three times less ex- 
 tensive than that of Europe. If we add to this charac- 
 teristic the elevation of the ground in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the coast, and nearly always parallel 
 to it, it is easy to recognise the causes of the long 
 isolation of Africa. Draw along the eastern shore of 
 South America a chain of mountains parallel to the 
 Andes, and the physical conditions of Africa are 
 immediately reproduced : the low marshy coasts, at 
 unequal distances, but always near the ocean ; a vast 
 central plateau traversed by numerous depressions, 
 sometimes transverse, sometimes following the- direction 
 of the range ; water-courses, sometimes insignificant like 
 those of Algeria, Morocco, and the Cape, sometimes 
 singularly imposing and extensive, but reaching the 
 sea only by a succession of cataracts which present 
 extreme difficulties to navigation. Such is, in brief, 
 the picture of Africa, and these facts supply, in many 
 respects, the explanation of its past history.
 
 HYDROGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 35 
 
 As regards the relief of its surface, the African Con- 
 tinent presents the most violent contrasts. In spite of 
 the gaps which still exist in our knowledge of this 
 branch of the subject, seven mountain systems are 
 discernible, four of which are parallel, and three 
 perpendicular to the equator. 
 
 On the north is the chain of the Atlas, stretching 
 S.S.W. to N.N.E., from Agadir on the Atlantic to 
 Tunis, where it descends perpendicularly to the Medi- 
 terranean. It reaches its greatest height in Morocco, 
 at Miltsin, viz. 11,400 feet, and in the south of Algeria 
 it again rises to 7493 feet. 
 
 Behind the Atlas range and the plateaux of Hamadan 
 and Barka, which continue it eastwards, stretches from 
 the Atlantic to the Nile, over an average breadth of 
 720 miles, the immense desert of the Sahara, the second 
 rampart which has so long fenced off the interior of 
 Africa against the investigations of science. Now that 
 a number of travellers, at the head of whom we must 
 quote Barth, Bohlfs, Duveyrier, and Nachtigal, have 
 penetrated it in different directions, the Sahara is seen 
 under a new aspect. It is no longer the uniform and 
 
 d 2
 
 36 OROGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 deep depression, the moving and sterile bed of a dried- 
 up sea which we always imagined it ; it is a vast plain, 
 with its valleys and mountains, containing tribes, not 
 nomadic only, but stationary also, and covered with 
 vegetation wherever the action of rain can make itself 
 felt. The character of the sandy, arid desert prevails 
 in the west ; that of the occasionally verdant and occa- 
 sionally rocky steppe, towards the east. The Sahara 
 presents some deep depressions; such as that of El 
 Juf, in the south of Morocco, where not Ions; ago it 
 was contemplated to admit the Atlantic by a canal ; 
 that of Wad Righ, in the south of Algeria, descends 
 sensibly like that of Libya, below the level of the 
 Mediterranean: the latter falls as low as 340 feet. 
 Everywhere else the country rather presents the form 
 of plateaux intersected by valleys ; that of Fezzan 
 reaches 1476 feet. Some of these isolated plateaux 
 become, as they rise, picturesque oases : such are the 
 mountainous groups of Asgar (4265 feet); of Air 
 (4757 feet); of Anahef (5249 feet). The islet of 
 Tibesti, visited by Dr. Nachtigal for the first time in 
 1870, and which is perhaps the most iuhospitable spot
 
 HYDKOGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 37 
 
 in the Sahara, forms its culminating point. It is as 
 much as 8530 feet high. 
 
 At the opposite extremity of Africa stands the 
 enormous Cape range of mountains, which sinks by a 
 succession of three terraces towards the southern point 
 of the continent. The seaboard, the plain of the 
 Karroos (3280 feet), and the lofty Orange plateau, 
 which developes itself into the Roggeveld, the Nieuvve- 
 veld and the Schneeberg (5249 feet) form the layers. 
 This system is continued in Caffraria and Natal, where 
 it abuts on the Drakenberg. Imposing peaks prevail 
 in it ; the Compas (8800 feet), on the Cape side, the 
 Cathkin (10,032 feet), in the colony of Natal : every- 
 where the slopes are abrupt, and admit access to the 
 interior only by narrow passes. 
 
 With this system correspond, but at much lower 
 elevations, the heights which separate the basins of 
 the Orange River and the Limpopo from that of the 
 Zambesi. Their principal features are the arid and 
 desert plateau of Kalahari, with its two counter-forts of 
 Owaherero (8530 feet) to the west, and the mountains 
 of Matoppo (7217 feet) to the east. Between these
 
 38 OKOGEAPHICAL AND 
 
 two ranges is the hollow which forms the Lake Ngami. 
 Beyond stretches a country of Alpine plateaux travelled 
 over in every direction by Livingstone. The prevail- 
 ing characteristic of this region, which is but of 
 moderate and inconsiderable elevation, is its extreme 
 wealth of water. The Zambesi and its numerous 
 affluents spread around fertility and life. In the rainy 
 season, the whole zone corresponding with the upper 
 and middle course of the Zambesi is converted into a 
 lake, and the inundation extends even beyond the water- 
 shed into the basin of the Congo. This circumstance 
 it was that suggested to Cameron the idea that it would 
 be possible to unite these two river-systems by a canal. 
 The basin of the Zambesi is inclosed on the north 
 by the plateau of Lobisa, which is continued westwards 
 by the Muxinga chain. The plateau, more than 6560 
 feet high, sinking suddenly to the east, forms, at an 
 altitude of 1522 feet, the vast hollow of Lake Nyassa. 
 Westward the slope descends gently by a series of 
 terraces. Its culminating point in that direction is in 
 the Mountains of Mossambain the province of Benguela. 
 This elevation constitutes, in a range of about 1500
 
 HYDKOGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 39 
 
 miles, the line of separation between the waters which 
 fall into the Atlantic on the one side, and into the 
 Indian Ocean on the other. The abundance of river 
 heads, the majority of which become large rivers, is in 
 this part extraordinary. Livingstone counted thirty- 
 two over a distance of sixty-six miles. Travellers have 
 compared the numberless meshes of this hydro- 
 graphical net-work to the radiations traced on our 
 windows by the frost on winter nights. 
 
 Between this mountain-system on the south, and the 
 plateaux of the Sahara on the north, lies Central Africa, 
 which has now become the leading object of scientific 
 exploration. It is an elevated mass of an extent un- 
 rivalled on the globe, and presenting the general aspect 
 of a trapezium ; the inclination of the land is from 
 east to west. It is either bordered or traversed by lofty 
 plateaux, from which spring up isolated mountains, 
 reckoned amongst the highest on earth, from whose 
 sides descend the most majestic rivers, while in the 
 intervals between them lie spread out the most gigantic 
 lakes in the world. 
 
 Three lines of heights intersect the central plateau
 
 40 OEOGEAPHICAL AND 
 
 of Africa, from south to north. The first constitutes 
 the eastern border. It begins near the seventh degree 
 of south latitude, runs parallel to the coast, and expands 
 itself into the enormous Abyssinian range, from which 
 the Arabian chain detaches itself towards the north. 
 This imposing rampart serves as the watershed to three 
 seas ; it reaches its culminating point nearly under 
 the equator, in Kilimanjaro (20,065 feet), and Kenia 
 (20,000 feet), the summits of which, covered with 
 eternal snow, are not only the loftiest in Africa, but 
 have no equal in Europe, and are rarely surpassed in 
 Asia.* The average altitude of the chain is from 5900 
 to 6800 feet ; towards the west it developes itself into 
 a plateau, the two enormous depressions of which form, 
 one northward at an elevation of 3766 feet, the 
 immense lake, Victoria Nyanza, the original reservoir 
 of the Nile, the other southward, at an elevation of 
 2710 feet, the not less considerable basin of the 
 Tanganyika, which the recent discoveries of Cameron 
 
 * Mont Blanc the highest summit in Europe, is 15,780 feet high. 
 The highest in the world is Mount Everest in the Himalayas, 
 which is 29,000 feet high.
 
 HYDKOGEAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 
 
 have connected with the river system of the Congo. 
 Westward of this line, a second presents itself, with 
 analogous average altitudes ; it follows the west bank 
 of the Tanganyika, passes between the two lakes, 
 Victoria and Albert Nyanza, where its culminating 
 point presents itself in Mfumbiro (10,825 feet). There 
 it sinks eastwards, forming a succession of plateaux ; 
 westwards it joins on to the Blue Mountains of Baker, 
 and thence passes to the Atlantic Ocean, separating 
 the respective basins of Lake Chad, of the Nile, of the 
 Ogowe, and of the Congo ; raises, in Adamawa, the 
 imposing peaks of Mindif (6561 feet) and of Atlantika 
 (9840 feet), and terminates, at the bottom of the Bay of 
 Biafra, in the colossal Peak of Cameroons (10,770 feet). 
 The third chain of mountains of Central Africa is 
 that which forms the western border of the plateau. 
 It extends, under the successive names of Sierra de 
 Cristal, Sierra Cumplida, Sierra Fria, etc., across the 
 provinces of Loango, Angola, and Benguela, where it 
 joins on to the range of the Mossamba Mountains. 
 Its distance from the coast varies from 132 to 198 
 miles ; the altitude, which follows a decreasing scale in
 
 42 OEOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 the direction of south to north, descends from 4493 to 
 656 feet. It is in clearing this rampart that the great 
 rivers of West Africa form those cataracts which have 
 hitherto prevented travellers from penetrating by 
 these ways into the heart of the country. The line of 
 heights which separates the coast of Guinea from the 
 Soudan, and known under the name of the Kong 
 Mountains, if we take the Cameroons as the common 
 point of junction, may be regarded as the western pro- 
 longation of this chain. In its northern course, this 
 coast-line chain expands itself into the Senegambian 
 range, the last counter-forts of which sink towards the 
 Sahara and form the dividing line between the waters 
 of the Niger, the Senegal, and the Gambia. 
 
 The orographic-al description of the African Con- 
 tinent directly furnishes the key to the distribution of 
 its waters. The worse provided Northern Africa is, in 
 this respect, the greater is the superabundance in 
 Central Africa. The latter forms the base of nearly 
 the whole fluvial system, covering a surface of about 
 3,600,000 square miles. It contains the sources of 
 three enormous water-courses, the first of which is the
 
 HYDKOGEAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 43 
 
 unique tributary of the Mediterranean, and the two 
 others, the principal affluents, one of the Atlantic, and 
 the other of the Indian Ocean. These are the Nile, 
 the Congo, and the Zambesi. 
 
 The Nile is the king of the rivers of the terrestrial 
 globe. The distance in a straight line from its sources 
 to its mouth, is 2340 miles, which supposes a real 
 length, exceeding that of the Mississippi, Missouri, and 
 Amazons. According to the calculations of Schweinfurth, 
 its fluvial basin extends over a surface of 4,956,000 
 square miles; the basin of the Amazon measures no 
 more than 4,200,000 ; that of the Mississippi scarcely 
 exceeds 2,000,000 square miles. The source of this 
 gigantic artery, Lake Ukereme or Victoria Nyanza, is 
 itself an immense reservoir fed by numerous water- 
 courses. The height of this reservoir is 3766 feet, and 
 its surface measures 50,400 square miles, that is to say, 
 an extent nearly triple that of Belgium. The Nile 
 issues from the northern side of this basin, with a 
 breadth of 393 feet, and descends by a series of falls 
 into a second reservoir, the Mwutan or Albert Nyanza, 
 but only traverses its northern part. The Mwutan,
 
 44 OKOGEAPHICAL AND 
 
 according to the most recent observations, is at an 
 elevation of 2198 feet above the level of the sea ; it 
 measures 132 miles in length, and from twenty-one to 
 fifty-four in breadth. At its exit from this second 
 lake, the river, which is there 1443 feet broad, takes 
 the name of the White Nile (Bahr-el-Abiad). It 
 crosses an uneven country, and its bed is strewed with 
 rocks, which, with the rapids, forbid all navigation. It 
 receives a multitude of affluents, the principal of 
 which are the Bahr-el-Gazal on the left, and the Sobat, 
 which descends from the Abyssinian plateau, on the 
 right. From Gondokoro, the Nile continues to be 
 navigable : but here commences a marshy hollow, 
 which, in the rainy season, converts this region into a 
 vast lake covered with impenetrable reeds. The 
 putrid miasmas which arise from these submerged 
 and hot lands, have made numerous victims amongst 
 travellers and missionaries. 
 
 Beyond the point of junction with the Bahr-el-Gazal, 
 the Nile takes its northward direction, but not without 
 describing many curves ; it is dotted with islets and 
 floating masses of vegetation as far as Khartoom, where
 
 *N 
 
 HYDEOGKAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 45 
 
 it receives the eastern branch which, under the name of 
 Blue Nile (Bahr-el-Asrak), brings it the rich tribute of 
 the Abyssinian waters. Farther down it is joined by 
 another considerable affluent, the Atbara or Takazze, 
 also descending from the eastern plateau. It is the 
 diluvian rains falling every year on these high grounds 
 which constitutes the principal cause of the periodical 
 rises of the Nile ; the rich mud which fertilises the 
 Egyptian Valley is a present from Abyssinia. 
 
 From Khartoom, the capital of the Egyptian Soudan, 
 and the point of departure of the scientific expeditions 
 which penetrate Africa from the north-east, the river 
 flows northwards, describing vast curves across Nubia. 
 The cataracts which occur again in this second half of 
 its course as far as Assouan, only partially interfere 
 with navigation. At Cairo the Nile splits and throws 
 itself into the Mediterranean by several branches, the 
 principal of which are those of Damietta and Bosetta. 
 
 For length of course and volume of water the Congo 
 takes rank immediately after the Nile. Like it, it is a 
 giant river at its mouth. It measures nearly six miles 
 in breadth, and it is as much as 1312 feet deep. Such
 
 46 OEOGKAPHICAL AND 
 
 is the force of the current that, at a distance of sixty 
 miles out at sea, its waters are not entirely blended 
 with those of the ocean, and at fifteen miles from the 
 coast the water is quite fresh. The enormous outflow 
 of the Congo (167,000 cubic feet per second) supposes a 
 hydrographical basin of extreme abundance. Until 
 recent times, its lower course was only known as far 
 as Yellali, but the explorations of Livingstone and 
 Cameron have changed the aspect of things. 
 
 The first of these travellers discovered in the heart 
 of Central Africa, and ascertained the sources of, the 
 River Lualaba, which from many indications is regarded 
 as the upper course of the Congo. This river, which 
 under the name of Chambeze, descends from the 
 western slope of the plateau of Lobisa, traverses a 
 series of great lakes, the Baugweolo, the Moero, and 
 the Kamolondo, in stages one above the other, and fed 
 by numerous streams. The region surrounding them 
 is one of excessive humidity, and has been compared to 
 a sponge constantly charged with water. At every 
 two or three miles Livingstone had to cross a river. 
 At Nyangwe, the northernmost point reached by this
 
 HYDROGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 47 
 
 traveller, and beyond which Cameron was not able to 
 penetrate, the Lualaba, after a course of more than 180 
 miles, presents a breadth of from 5250 to 5905 feet, and 
 a depth of from nine to thirteen feet. The number of 
 its affluents is considerable ; the most important of all 
 perhaps is the Lukuga, recently discovered by Cameron. 
 This river pours into the Lualaba the waters of the 
 vast reservoir of Tanganyika, the first of the great lakes 
 encountered by Burton and Speke in their expedition 
 of 1858. The Tanganyika, at an elevation of 2710 
 feet, measures 402 miles in length, and from twelve to 
 sixty-six miles in breadth with 22,320 square miles of 
 superficies. The Lukuga is its only outlet, and this 
 fact would suffice to account for the enormous volume 
 of water which the Congo discharges at its mouth. 
 Supposing, however, that later researches confirm the 
 identity of the Lualaba with the Congo — of which 
 there can be little doubt — the middle course of the 
 river would still remain to be determined. It is to this 
 part of its basin that the two great affluents of Kassabi 
 and Quango belong, the sources of which have been 
 recently explored by Cameron.
 
 48 OEOGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 The Zambesi, the entire examination of which 
 remains one of Livingstone's great titles to glory, is 
 the third of the colossal arteries which descend from 
 Central Africa. The hvdrographical network of which 
 its upper course consists expands itself, between the 
 Mossamba Mountains and the heights of Ovaherero, 
 over a terrace superabundantly watered ; the Liba 
 which issues from Lake Dilolo (4265 feet in elevation), 
 the Liambey, the name of which it for some time bears, 
 and the Chobe are here the principal affluents. 'When 
 it reaches the plateau of the Batokas, it falls in a 
 mass from a height of 4757 feet, forming the celebrated 
 fall called by the natives Mosiwatnnja, which means 
 "thundering smoke," but to which Livingstone gave 
 the name of Victoria Falls. Downwards, from this 
 point, the river is deeply embosomed in a narrow 
 valley, overleaps the pass of Lupate, and receives the 
 Shire, which brings it across one of the roughest of 
 roads, the tribute of the waters of Lake Nyassa, 
 another large inland basin, lying 1522 feet above the 
 level of the sea, and equal in extent to half of Tangan- 
 yika. Its length is, in fact, 210 miles, and its average
 
 HYDEOGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 49 
 
 breadth thirty miles, and its superficies 9000 square 
 miles. On nearing the sea-coast, the Zambesi, after 
 having formed numerous cataracts, suddenly widens its 
 banks, and falls in manifold branches into the Indian 
 Ocean between Quilirnane and Luabo. 
 
 Besides these three water-courses of incomparable 
 power, Africa presents a fourth, which is but little 
 inferior to them ; viz., the Niger. This river, the 
 exploration of which was for a long time the passion 
 of travellers, is far from being completely known even 
 now. In its whole length, estimated at 2220 miles, 
 it presents many analogies with the Nile, the physical 
 conditions of which it reproduces in an inverse sense, 
 on the opposite side of the African Continent. It 
 rises in the same mountains whose opposite slope 
 gives birth to the Senegal and Gambia, flows north- 
 east as far as the edge of the Sahara near Timbuctoo, 
 that great emporium of the Soudan so rarely visited 
 even to this day ; and from this point it describes a vast 
 curve to the south-east across the rich and populous 
 states of the Fellata. It is at their southern borders 
 that the Niger receives its principal affluent, the 
 
 E
 
 50 OROGRAPHICAL AND 
 
 Chadda or Benue, an imposing river, of which the 
 lower course only is known, and the further descrip- 
 tion of which remains, on account of the beauty of 
 its banks, one of the most interesting problems of 
 African geography. Beyond its confluence with the 
 Benue, the Niger breaks up into a multitude of 
 branches, and finishes its course in the Gulf of Guinea, 
 forming a delta, sadly famous for its exceptional 
 unheal thiness. 
 
 Between the basin of the Nile and that of the 
 Niger, bordered on the north by the Sahara, and on 
 the south by the central plateau of Africa, there 
 is a vast depression, the bottom of which is occupied 
 by Lake Chad. This large reservoir, of which 
 Dr. Nachtigal has recently made the circuit, covers 
 an approximate superficies of 6600 square miles, an 
 extent which may be multiplied by five in the rainy 
 season. On the south it receives a considerable 
 affluent, the Share, which has not as yet been as- 
 cended to any great distance. Schweinfurth believes 
 that he has discovered its upper course in the Uelle, 
 which descends from the western slope of the Blue
 
 HYDROGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. 51 
 
 Mountains, and, not far from its sources, already has 
 a breadth of 885 feet. 
 
 The limits of this work compel us here to close 
 this summary picture of the water systems of Africa. 
 In order to complete it, there would remain to be 
 described the characteristics of the Senegal and 
 Gambia, whose waters are gradually being opened 
 to navigation under the auspices of France, which is 
 in possession of the shores ; the vast estuary of the 
 Gaboon under the equator ; the Ogowe which belongs 
 to the system of Central Africa, and has only within 
 the last few years come within the range of our 
 positive knowledge ; the Coanza and the Cunene, 
 which debouch in the Portuguese possessions on the 
 west coast, but are still almost entirely unknown ; 
 the Garib, or Orange, which, deeply embosomed in its 
 bed, crosses, without fertilising, the northern plateau 
 of the Cape; the Limpopo which, both on the west 
 and on the north, forms the boundary of the Transvaal 
 Kepublic ; the Eufuma, the Lufiji, and the Juba, 
 which water the east coast, but as yet are but little 
 known to any distance from their mouths. The 
 
 e 2
 
 52 CLIMATE AND PEODUCTS. 
 
 greater part of these arteries, moreover, present the 
 characteristics common to all the great African 
 rivers; viz., marshes or lakes in the region of the 
 sources : rapids and cataracts in their middle course, 
 and submerged deltas at their lower course. Periodical 
 risings also are by no means a phenomenon peculiar 
 to the Nile ; they occur nearly everywhere : those 
 of the Zambesi, for example, reach fifty-nine feet in 
 the centre of the continent. 
 
 The astronomical position of Africa, combined with 
 the system of its mountains and its waters, explains 
 its climate. It is comparatively the hottest continent 
 of the globe, four-fifths of its surface being under the 
 torrid zone. Its great extension to the north of the 
 equator, and the extent and slightness of elevation 
 of the Sahara re-act on the temperature of a great 
 part of Africa. The north coast has an average 
 temperature of 12° Reaumur ; to the south this 
 figure rises to 16°. In the equatorial zone, the 
 climate varies sensibly, in consequence of the height 
 of the terraces and plateaux ; the heat is not really 
 excessive, except on the low and humid coasts in
 
 CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. 53 
 
 Nubia and the Sahara, where the thermometer is 
 often above 40° Reaumur. At the same time the 
 difference between the temperature of the day and 
 that of the night is considerable; under the influence 
 of radiation it reaches sometimes 36°. This cir- 
 cumstance explains how even in these regions frost 
 and snow are not altogether unknown. The thermal 
 equator, which represents the maximum of the mean 
 temperatures of the year (22° Keaumur), cuts Africa 
 at the 6th degree of north latitude on the west coast, 
 rises to the 15th degree in the interior, and touches 
 the western coast under the 10th degree of north 
 latitude. Most of the countries which it crosses are, 
 nevertheless, on account of their elevation, habitable 
 bv Europeans ; this is notably the case in most of 
 the regions of the Soudan. The central plateau is 
 not formidable, except in its marshy hollows, and the 
 Cape, Caffraria and the Republics of the Boors enjoy 
 everywhere a temperate and healthy climate. 
 
 With respect to the distribution of rain, Africa is 
 divided into seven zones. In Algeria, Morocco, and 
 Tripoli, it rains in winter, spring, and autumn, but
 
 54 CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. 
 
 never in summer. These same conditions are repro- 
 duced south of the 26th degree of south latitude : i.e., 
 in Cape Colony, the Orange Eepublic, Caffraria, and 
 Natal. The Sahara, Egypt, and Nubia know nothing 
 of rain, except as a rare phenomenon. In Senegambia, 
 the Soudan, and Guinea, on the north ; in the country 
 of the Hottentots, in the Transvaal, and the coast of 
 Sofala on the south, it only rains in summer. The 
 region extending 4° on each side of the equator is 
 visited by rains every month of the year, with the 
 ordinary accompaniment of violent storms. Finally, in 
 the zone comprised between the 4th and 16th degrees of 
 south latitude (Angola, Benguela, the upper basins of 
 the Congo and Zambesi, and Mozambique) it rains 
 in summer and winter. In the countries where the 
 rains are periodical, the revolution effected is startling : 
 vast dried up and burnt tracts become covered, as 
 by enchantment, with a luxurious vegetation. 
 
 The flora and fauna of Africa are of extreme richness 
 and variety. The narratives of travellers abound with 
 animated pictures of the splendours of the vegetation. 
 The impenetrable virgin forests, the picturesque palm
 
 CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. 55 
 
 groves, the immense baobab, whose circumference 
 reaches 160 feet, and whose age is counted by centuries, 
 form the well-known elements of their descriptions. 
 Africa, moreover, lends herself to all the growths 
 of hot and temperate countries ; she produces all the 
 cereals of Europe, as well as dourah (Indian millet) ; 
 common millet and rice ; spices ; oils and resins ; coffee, 
 sugar-cane, cotton ; plants for dyeing (madder, indigo, 
 orchil) ; and for medicine (aloes, senna, Colombo, &c.) : 
 woods for building and for cabinet work (santal, ebony, 
 pallissander or rosewood) ; a great variety of fruits (pine- 
 apples, figs, dates, oranges) ; and, lastly, the vine, which 
 in several countries gives wonderful yields, while there 
 is almost an unlimited field for its extension. 
 
 The African fauna is not less richly provided. In 
 domestic species, it reproduces, especially in north and 
 south Africa, all the European animals, as well as the 
 camel, which is peculiar to the deserts and steppes of 
 the north. Wild species abound. All the great races 
 are there represented. The lion is met from Algeria 
 to the Cape ; the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopo- 
 tamus, the buffalo, the antelope, and the gazelle are
 
 56 CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. 
 
 there in countless numbers. The ostrich runs over all 
 the plains, and the crocodile is found in all the waters 
 of tropical Africa. Serpents swarm ; apes, among which 
 the chimpanzee and the formidable gorilla of the 
 western coast deserve special mention, are in legions. 
 Insects, locusts, ants, termites ; and, in the south, the 
 tsetse fly are among the scourges of Africa, from their 
 numbers, the ravages they make, and the tortures they 
 inflict. 
 
 In the way of mineral products, one can scarcely 
 catch a glimpse as yet at the resources of the African 
 soil : a certainty however has been arrived at as to 
 the presence of the precious metals, especially gold, 
 of iron in great quantity, of copper, lead, sulphur, 
 coal, and precious stones, particularly diamonds and 
 emeralds. 
 
 The physical conditions thus summarily indicated 
 enable us to form at least a vague idea of the infinite 
 variety of the African landscape as soon as we have 
 crossed the border of the Sahara on the north and that 
 of the Kalahari on the south. Here it is the intermin- 
 able savannah, with its tall grasses intermixed with
 
 CLIMATE AND TRODUCTS. 57 
 
 tree-clumps ; elsewhere it is the virgin forest which dis- 
 plays the matchless splendour of its forms and its 
 colours under slender colonnades surmounted by a 
 triple arch of verdure. Farther on, it is the Alpine 
 type of nature reappearing with its lakes and its cas- 
 cades, its valleys dotted with picturesque villages, its 
 mountains with abrupt flanks over-towering vast 
 plateaux ; everywhere springs, rivers, reservoirs uniting 
 and interblending the superabundant mass of their 
 waters. Schweinfurth describes with admiration the 
 country of Niam-Niam on the extreme limits of the 
 Nile basin, and extols the richness of its appearance. 
 Under the same latitude (10° north latitude), but in 
 quite a different direction, Rohlfs calls the plateau of 
 the Bautschi a real paradise ; Stanley never tires of 
 admiring the beauty of the countries lying behind 
 Zanzibar. Linant de Bellefonds compares Uganda, 
 with its splendid plantations of bananas, to the fairest 
 countries of Italy. The magnificence of the basin of 
 the Lualaba inspires Livingstone with enthusiasm, 
 even when already a dying man. Lastly, Cameron 
 describes the interior of Central Africa as a country
 
 58 CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. 
 
 almost always marvellous, healthy, and of incredible 
 richness. 
 
 These smiling pictures have, it is true, dark shadows. 
 The narratives of travellers testify at every page to 
 the sufferings which have to be endured, and the 
 dangers which have to be defied, in order to reach these 
 distant lands and wrest from them their secrets. How 
 many of them have paid with their lives for the dis- 
 tinguished discoveries which have immortalised them ! 
 Whatever contrivance may be conceived for rendering 
 their task more easy, it would be rash to hope that the 
 four millions of square miles which remain to be dis- 
 covered in Central Africa, will be won to our knowledge 
 without new and cruel sacrifices. But, on the other 
 hand, it is also certain that Africa does not present 
 to Europeans any obstacles more formidable than 
 those which have had to be overcome in the two 
 Americas, in India, and Java, or even in Australia. 
 When this conviction shall have become general, a 
 few well directed efforts will suffice to remove the 
 last impediments to our enlightenment.
 
 ( 59 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF AFRICA — MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDI- 
 TION OF THE NEGROES. 
 
 The physical conformation of the African Continent 
 has exercised a preponderating influence on the history 
 and civilisation of the races that inhabit it. The idea 
 which Carl Bitter made the basis of his celebrated 
 ' Geographie comparee,' seems to have been suggested 
 by the study of Africa, in which it found its first and 
 most fruitful application. The regular and straight 
 line of the coasts, the falls and rapids so frequent in 
 its rivers, had the effect of concentrating on the sea- 
 coast the activity of the native populations. These 
 have all confined themselves to the first elements of 
 the art of navigation. The ocean has never attracted 
 them far from their shores, which have always been 
 to them the extremity of the world. The Ancient 
 
 s
 
 60 ETHNOGEAPHY OF AFRICA. 
 
 Egyptians themselves form no exception to this rule ; 
 they have never been a sea-going people. 
 
 To this cause of isolation has to be added the 
 immense barrier of the Sahara, extending from the 
 Valley of the Nile to the shores of the Atlantic, and 
 whose arid solitudes, before the acclimatisation of the 
 camel in Africa by the Ptolemies, no human being had 
 ever dreamed of crossing. From these two facts it has 
 resulted that, during the whole range of antiquity, the 
 influence of civilising nations has been confined to 
 the northern zone of Africa, and has not passed 
 beyond the chain of the Atlas or the Valley of the Nile. 
 These regions alone have been found to be in regular 
 intercourse with Europe and Asia. In them has 
 flourished the civilisation of Egypt, of Cyrenaica, of 
 Carthage, and of the Roman provinces ; and from them 
 some few elements of refinement have penetrated 
 among the races of the interior. Thus the art of 
 casting iron, which has remained unknown to the 
 aborigines of America, has little by little spread as far 
 as the southern extremity of the continent, and has 
 become a common inheritance.
 
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF AFRICA. 01 
 
 These observations explain an interesting pheno- 
 menon which has been confirmed by all travellers : viz., 
 that in regard to intellectual and social development, 
 the African races follow on a decreasing scale in the 
 direction from north to south and from east to west. 
 The negroes of the west coast are the most backward 
 amongst their congeners ; the Bechuanas, in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the Cape, occupy, so to 
 speak, the lowest scale in the hierarchy of races. 
 There exist, very many indications of an ebbing of the 
 races in these same directions. The more energetic 
 and industrious tribes of the Soudan, of the Upper Nile, 
 and of the Caffres, are constantly driving before them, 
 towards the shores of the Atlantic, as well as towards 
 the lofty and sterile plateaux extending northward of 
 the Cape, the tribes which are inferior to themselves. 
 Were it not for the comparatively limited density of the 
 African population, and, above all, for the enormous 
 losses inflicted by the slave trade, this movement 
 would doubtless have produced more momentous 
 disturbances. 
 
 With respect to ethnography, the inhabitants of
 
 62 ETHNOGRAPHY OF AFRICA. 
 
 Africa range themselves in zones with an almost 
 mathematical regularity. The whole of the north, 
 down to the southern border of the Sahara, belongs to 
 the Caucasian race. From the desert to the extremity 
 of the tropical zone extends the country of the negro, 
 Beyond that, hemmed in more and more by the 
 European establishments of the Cape and of the Boors, 
 the exhausted race of the Hottentots and the Bechuanas 
 still holds on. 
 
 This last group is only of secondary importance. 
 The tribes of which it is composed seem doomed to an 
 early extinction. They lead a wandering life, the 
 Bechuanas as hunters, the Hottentots as shepherds. 
 Nevertheless, wretched as is their physical and social 
 condition, and deep as is the degeneration of species 
 that is evident amongst them, these races, in some 
 respects, cannot fail to excite a very keen interest. 
 Modern travellers have been struck, for example, with 
 the beauty and remarkable amount of development of 
 the idiom of the Hottentots, which exhibits astonishing 
 analogies with the language of the Ancient Egyptians. 
 It would doubtless be rash to found inferences on
 
 ETHNOGEAPHY OF AFRICA. 63 
 
 such a fact, but if we bring into connection with it the 
 recent discovery due to C. Mauch, of the imposing 
 ruins of Zimbabe, north-east of the country now 
 inhabited by the Hottentots, we gain a perception of 
 what an amount of perspectives, as yet unforeseen by 
 science, may still be opened up by the study of Africa. 
 But we must close this parenthesis in order to return 
 to the two dominant groups of African races, each of 
 which comprises several great subdivisions. 
 
 The Caucasians of Africa divide themselves into 
 two main branches : those which speak the Hamitic 
 language and those that speak the Semitic language. 
 To the former category belong the Ancient Egyptians, 
 whose race survives only in the insignificant residue 
 of the Copts. The Libyans, who now bear the name of 
 Berbers, are, on the other hand, in full existence, thanks 
 to the Desert, which is their true domain. The 
 Numidians, the Getulians, and the Moors, were the 
 ancestors of that great family which now exists in 
 Morocco (the Masig), in Algeria (the Kabyles and the 
 Mosabites), in Tunis and the Oases, especially in the 
 Western Sahara, where the Tuaregs are their most
 
 64 ETHNOGKAPHY OF AFKICA. 
 
 characteristic representatives. Groups of Berbers are 
 found in Nubia, on the middle of the Nile, and the 
 shores of the Red Sea ; the Gallas, who inhabit the 
 plains to the south of Abyssinia, perhaps even the 
 Somauli, who occupy the extreme promontory of East 
 Africa, are also branches of the same stock. 
 
 The Berbers generally have a clear complexion, with 
 noble and stongly-marked features. They have pre- 
 served many of the elements of the physiognomy, 
 manners, and culture of the Ancient Egyptians. The 
 Tuaregs on the west, and the Gallas on the east, are 
 the purest representatives of the Egyptian type. They 
 are wandering tribes, warlike, and of an energetic and 
 hardy character; they are by turn the protectors or 
 the worst enemies of the caravans which convey the 
 products of Central Africa across the desert. The 
 Berber tribes have rarely founded states ; their 
 political development has been limited to the tribe. 
 
 The Caucasians of Semitic race are represented in 
 Africa by three groups : the Arabs, who poured them- 
 selves like a torrent over Africa, driving northwards 
 the Berbers of all the countries on the seaboard of the
 
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF AFRICA. 65 
 
 Mediterranean and Atlantic, founding on the eastern 
 coast the Sultanate of Zanzibar, imposing their lan- 
 guage and propagating their religion throughout about 
 half of the African Continent; the Jews, who have 
 established little communities at different points of 
 the northern zone, but have nowhere gained for them- 
 selves independence; and the Ahjssinians, who, in 
 spite of many vicissitudes, uphold on the lofty plateaux 
 of their country a nationality which has often been 
 threatened, and an appearance, scarcely recognisable, 
 of Christianity. 
 
 In modern times, but especially in the nineteenth 
 century, the Caucasian race on the soil of Africa has 
 received accessions from a new source. European 
 nations have begun to extend their possessions and 
 their influence there, both on the continent and in the 
 islands. The French in Algeria and Senegambia ; 
 the English on the coast of Guinea, at the Cape and at 
 Natal ; the Dutch in the two Southern Kepublics ; the 
 Portuguese in the Cape Yerde Islands and the provinces 
 of Angola, Benguela and Mozambique ; the Spaniards, 
 in the Canary Islands and Fernando Po, have founded 
 
 F
 
 66 ETHNOGRAPHY OF AFRICA. 
 
 colonies, and commercial establishments, which, as 
 centres of civilisation, cannot fail to extend their 
 influence towards the interior of the continent. The 
 hitherto surprisingly limited number, however, of 
 colonists, and the obstacles to the extension of their 
 intercourse with the natives, presented by the deserts 
 and mountains at most of the points where they have 
 established themselves, have been the causes why their 
 presence has not produced all the results which might 
 have been hoped for. If modern Egypt continues to 
 develope itself in the path of progress introduced by 
 its latest sovereigns, it may contribute in the most 
 effectual manner to the work undertaken by the nations 
 of Europe. 
 
 Behind the Desert of Sahara, from the Atlantic to 
 the Upper Nile, stretches southwards the vast empire 
 of the negroes. The line of transition is not so strongly 
 defined as is commonly believed. Thus, the origin of 
 the tribe of the Tibboo, or Teda, is a contested point, 
 so uncertain do their physical characteristics appear. 
 The same difficulties are met with in classifying 
 the Fulbe, or Fellatas, which caused the learned
 
 ETHNOGRAPHY OF AFRICA. 67 
 
 Munzinger to say that, "After attentive observation, 
 the conscientious traveller is unable to distinguish 
 where the negro type really commences, and gives up 
 the belief in the absolute separation of the races." 
 
 Contemporary science has confirmed this assertion. 
 A veritable revolution has been effected in the notions 
 which for too long a time prevailed with respect to the 
 populations of Central Africa. Till only quite recently, 
 when negroes were spoken of, how many people looked 
 upon them as quite inferior beings, leading a purely 
 animal existence, strangers to every kind of cultivation, 
 dwelling in the woods in separate groups, almost on a 
 par with the monkeys, with which, indeed, sometimes 
 people were not far from confounding them ! Their 
 physical type had become proverbial : an ovoid cranium, 
 a low and retreating forehead, the jaws very prominent, 
 the nose flat, the lips thick, the hair short and curly 
 and resembling tufts of wool, a complexion black as 
 ebony, the arms long, the feet flat, etc. Such were the 
 characteristic marks of the race in general opinion, and 
 even amongst authors. 
 
 Now it is of importance to show, that, according 
 
 2 F
 
 68 MOKAL CONDITION OF THE NEGEOES. 
 
 to the concurrent testimony of all travellers, the 
 combination of these traits is not to be found in any 
 tribe, not even the lowest in the scale of the race. The 
 typical negro, says "Winwood Beade, is a rare exception. 
 Among negroes, the complexion passes through the 
 whole gamut of shades, from deep black and coppery 
 red, to bright yellow, approaching nearly to white (the 
 Fellata) ; the protrusion of the jaw and thickness of the 
 lips disappear in a number of the tribes, and a good 
 many of them have the nose straight and pointed ; 
 long, straight hair is not uncommon ; and Schweinfurth 
 has seen even blonde negroes. Travellers assert that 
 they have frequently met with Greek profiles in Africa. 
 Livingstone speaks highly of the plastic beauty of the 
 Africans of Equatorial Africa. Speaking of one of 
 their nations, he writes in his last journal : " They 
 are a fine-looking race ; I would back a company of 
 Manyuema men to be far superior in shape of head, 
 and generally in physical form too against the whole 
 Anthropological Society. Many of the women are 
 very light-coloured and very pretty." 
 
 This language is applied to a tribe living in the
 
 MORAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES. 69 
 
 heart of Africa, some degrees south of the equator, 
 aud is by no means an exception. We must therefore 
 renounce old prejudices, and acknowledge that nature 
 has not physically disgraced the negroes to the point 
 of excluding them, in some sort, from the human 
 family. 
 
 The negroes, whose total number is reckoned at one 
 hundred and fifty millions of souls, form one single 
 race, subdivided into two leading groups, which again 
 break up into a multitude of inferior unities. These 
 groups are : 
 
 Firstly : The negroes of the Soudan, which spread 
 from Senegambia to the sources of the Nile, and 
 descend southward as far as the fourth degree of north 
 latitude. 
 
 Secondly: The Bantoo negroes, or Caffres, who 
 occupy the whole of Central Africa, as far as the 
 southern limits of the basin of the Zambesi, which 
 they even overstep on the eastern side, where they 
 advance towards the Cape. 
 
 The negroes of the Soudan present a great variety of 
 types and of degrees of civilisation. The Fulbe, or
 
 70 MORAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES. 
 
 Fellatas, hold the first rank among them ; their ethno- 
 graphical derivation is uncertain ; some even profess 
 to discover in them a race distinct from that of 
 the negroes. The Fellatas have a clear brown, some- 
 times olive complexion, aquiline nose, regular mouth, 
 and hair generally long and silky : the physiognomy is 
 noble, the build of the body vigorous, and, in all these 
 respects, they are scarcely to be distinguished from the 
 inhabitants of the southern countries of Europe. The 
 moral character of these people answers to the idea 
 suggested by their physical appearance. Courage, 
 frankness, dignity of bearing, energy, and determina- 
 tion are their distinctive traits. Eeligious feeling is 
 highly developed among the Fellatas: they are 
 fanatical followers of Islamism, of which they are the 
 indefatigable apostles among the Pagan tribes. They 
 are fond of work, devoted to agriculture and the 
 rearing of cattle, and successfully cultivate various 
 branches of industry. 
 
 The number of the Fellatas is reckoned at from six 
 to eight millions. Their principal establishment is in 
 Senegambia, from the mouths of the Senegal to the
 
 MOEAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES. 71 
 
 lofty range from which flows the Niger. From this 
 region they have spread, on one side, southwards, to 
 the neighbourhood of the coast of Sierra Leone, and on 
 the other, eastwards, into the basin of the Niger, where 
 they have become the preponderant, if not exclusive, 
 element. There they have founded the three con- 
 siderable states of Massina, of which Timbuctoo (20,000 
 souls) is the principal city, Gando and Sokoto. South- 
 east, they extend as far as Adamawa, a province which 
 no traveller has yet explored. Beyond the countries 
 which they rule over, their influence makes itself felt 
 in all the negro states of the basin of Lake Chad, and 
 even in Darfur. 
 
 The Soudanian negroes, properly so called, of whom 
 the Kanuri of Bornou are the typical representatives, 
 differ sensibly from their neighbours in the west. 
 They are tall and strong ; the face is broad, the nose 
 flat, the mouth large, and the physiognomy, in general } 
 far from attractive. This physical conformation is not, 
 however, uniform ; the population of certain districts 
 of Bornou even differ from it so widely, that the 
 beauty of their women is renowned throughout the
 
 72 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGKOES. 
 
 Avhole of North Africa. These negroes are gentle, 
 indolent, and timid. The introduction of Islainism has 
 divided them into two categories, the believers and the 
 infidels. 
 
 Under the influence of this religious teaching, the 
 social condition of the Mussulman Soudanians has 
 undergone a transformation. They have founded a 
 series of principalities more or less independent, repro- 
 ducing in a tolerably faithful fashion the usual type 
 of states ruled by the Koran. Four of these states 
 surround Lake Chad : Bornou on the west, Kanem on 
 the north, Wadai on the east, Bagirmi on the south- 
 east. Two others, Darfur and Kordofan, lying at the 
 eastern extremity of the Soudan, have just passed 
 under the sovereignty of Egypt. 
 
 All these states are governed by absolute chiefs, who 
 assume the title of Sultan ; they possess a social 
 hierarchy, strictly exclusive, small bodies of troops 
 partially provided with fire-arms (the army of Bornou 
 counts 30,000 men, the greater part cavalry), and 
 chief towns, some of which, such as that of Bornou 
 (Kuka), for example, contain not less than 60,000
 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGEOES. 73 
 
 souls. These capitals have regular streets and houses 
 built either of wood or earth. Their handiwork, 
 naturally primitive, has nevertheless, in some branches, 
 not failed to produce notable results. The products 
 of Europe reach as far as this by the Arab caravans 
 from Morocco or Tripoli. With a wealth of soil that 
 might be said to be inexhaustible, these countries 
 unhappily, only give in return, ivory and ostrich 
 feathers. Slavery, which is a universal institution 
 there, paralyses the development of industry, by 
 degrading labour ; the traffic in men, which is the 
 immediate consequence of slavery, has, in Africa, this 
 natural result of rendering regular commerce im- 
 possible. The long sojourn which the latest German 
 travellers, such as Barth, Rohlfs, and Nachtigal have 
 made in the principalities of the Soudan, have initiated 
 us into the minutest details of their organisation. 
 
 The Pagan negroes of this region have not reached 
 the same point of cultivation as their Mussulman 
 brethren ; the Ashantees and Dahomians, however, 
 hostile as they have shown themselves on various 
 occasions to Europeans, have developed amongst
 
 74 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES. 
 
 themselves the rudiments of a civilisation. The 
 state of Joruba, bordering on Dahomey to the west, 
 contains towns, such as Ilori and Ibadan, the population 
 of which amounts to between 70,000 and 100,000 
 souls. These large cities, which have regular streets, 
 markets, and public squares, have extensive and active 
 commercial connections. 
 
 The negroes of the Upper Nile, the Shilluks, the 
 Dinkas, the Djurs, etc., are, in every respect, the least 
 advanced among the Pagan negroes of the Soudan. 
 The more deeply, however, we penetrate, on this side, 
 into the heart of Africa, the more we shall find the 
 social aspect of the populations exhibit a change. 
 There, among others, we come upon tribes of the 
 Niam-Niam and Monbuttu, who, by the physical 
 development of the race, as well as by the branches 
 of industry and arts which they cultivate, appear so 
 manifestly of a superior order that they have been 
 supposed to be related to the Fellatas of the west. 
 
 The second of the two great groups of native tribes 
 of Central Africa consists of the Bantoo negroes. 
 They beloDg to the Caffre race, the characteristics
 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES. 75 
 
 of which are reproduced in them, but not without 
 numerous deviations and shades. Generally, these 
 negroes have a clearer complexion than those of the 
 Soudan ; the combined expression of the characteristic 
 traits of these last exhibits a sensible degree of eu- 
 feeblement. Except on the east coast, near Zanzibar, 
 they have remained absolutely rebels against Mo- 
 hammedanism, so that their primitive institutions have 
 net been changed thereby. The splitting up of these 
 tribes is extreme; the number of communities thus 
 formed is as considerable as their composition is 
 changeable. The family has continued to form the 
 basis of their political organisation ; they have rarely 
 risen above the state of life of a tribe. The authority 
 of the chiefs is confined to certain villages, and 
 although frequently arbitrary and cruel, is scarcely 
 so despotic as in the Mussulman States. The laws 
 of succession are uncertain ; the groupings of families 
 very shifting. English travellers, however, who 
 almost exclusively have explored these regions, Living- 
 stone and Cameron in particular, have made us ac- 
 quainted with some important states of the centre
 
 76 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGEOES. 
 
 of Africa. Such are the empires of Muata-Yainvo, 
 east of the Portuguese Government of Angola ; of 
 Casenibe, south-west of Lake Tanganyika ; of the 
 Makololo on the Upper Zambesi ; of the Matebele 
 on the right bank of the same river, etc. More north- 
 ward, the expeditions directed towards the sources of 
 the Nile have revealed the existence of a whole series 
 of states spread along the borders of the great lakes ; 
 those of Karagwe, of Kittara, and of Uganda with ii& 
 king, Mtesa, from their well-known tendencies, only- 
 wait for the establishment of a regular line of com- 
 muuication with the coast, to enter on the broad roads 
 of civilisation. 
 
 The classification of the negroes, in the religious 
 point of view, corresponds tolerably exactly with their 
 ethnographical division. An oblique line drawn from 
 the mouth of the Senegal to Zanzibar defines the two 
 great forms of creed. All north of that line, with 
 the exception of Abyssinia and the negro tribes of 
 the Upper Nile, belongs to Mohammedanism : in the 
 south, fetishism and idolatry prevail. The worship 
 of the shades of the dead, or of ancestors, exists
 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGROES. 77 
 
 amongst numerous tribes, and gives rise to frequent 
 human sacrifices. The belief in magic, sorcery, and 
 talismans, is diffused everywhere, and is the cause of 
 many calamities. The brutality of fetishism and the 
 sufferings which it leads to are active aids to the 
 propagation of Mohammedanism : but this itself is only 
 an improvement half-way. The polygamy, slavery, 
 and despotism which it introduces in its train, can only 
 bring with them a low degree of civilisation. 
 
 With the exception of the principalities of the Soudan, 
 the political and social institutions of the negroes have 
 continued in a state of infancy, but judicial institu- 
 tions are better developed. Among many communities 
 a remarkable judicial instinct exists ; suits are well 
 followed up, and the parties exhibit no lack of telling 
 arguments. Three degrees of proceeding are observed : 
 the superior court consists of the old men, who give 
 judgment according to established rule. If precedents 
 are wanting, a consultation is held among the tribes. 
 Calumny is put down as on a level with robbery; the 
 
 t 
 
 producing of abortion is regarded as a crime. 
 
 Among all the negroes the well-being of the family
 
 78 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGEOES. 
 
 suffers from polygamy and slavery; this double 
 scourge is universal. Filial affection is strongly 
 developed, but it extends almost exclusively to the 
 mother. The Damaras swear "by the tears of their 
 mother." The negro females justify this devotion by 
 the maternal attentions which they lavish on their 
 offspring. Domestic life wears a character of great 
 simplicity ; its necessities are very limited. A taste 
 for dress exists and is often exhibited in the most 
 grotesque disguises, but for the most part, except in 
 the states of the Soudan, the costume is limited to 
 the most indispensable garments ; the state of simple 
 nature is not uucomnion. The predominant character 
 of the negro is that of a big child. He is artless, free 
 from care, lazy, full of fun, fond of festivities, of music, 
 and of dancing. Kindliness is natural to him, but 
 intercourse with the slave merchants make him mis- 
 trustful, and sometimes cruel. One characteristic is 
 to be noticed : viz., the existence, in different degrees, 
 of cannibalism among many of the tribes, and, by a 
 strange contradiction, these are generally the hand- 
 somest in form and the most advanced in civilisation.
 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGEOES. 79 
 
 Agriculture and the breeding of cattle are the two 
 principal branches of industry among the negroes ; 
 the former prevails in the states of the Soudau, the 
 latter in Central Africa. The wealth of cereals and 
 of cattle is very great, the produce being susceptible 
 of an almost unlimited development. Many growths, 
 such as those of the doucq and the ground-nut 
 (Araehis hypogeea) seem to be indigenous ; those of 
 maize, of manioc, of wheat and barley, are spread 
 throughout the whole of Equatorial Africa, but have 
 been introduced from outside. It is noteworthy that 
 the negroes everywhere use milk and its derivatives. 
 
 Among the industrial arts cultivated by the tribes 
 of the interior of Africa, pottery, exhibiting both skill 
 and taste, holds the first place. All, from the in- 
 labitants of Kordofan down to the Hottentots, are ac- 
 quainted with the art of casting iron and copper ; they 
 lraw off a very pure metal, of which they make both 
 itensils and arms. In Bornou, they have attained 
 the art of casting cannon ; at several places they make 
 guns, helmets, and coats of mail. The Ashantees work 
 in gold and have skilful goldsmiths. The tanning of
 
 80 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGEOES. 
 
 hides, the weaving of mats, the art of sewing, of 
 weaving and dyeing cotton are widely spread among the 
 negroes, and many of their productions are remarkable 
 for the solidity as well as the fineness of the work. 
 These results of a growing spirit of industry deserve 
 the attention of Europe. The negro in himself has 
 but little invention, but he possesses in a high degree 
 the desire and the ability to learn ; he easily lays 
 hold of the information which is brought within his 
 reach, and, in order to raise the level of his moral and 
 social standard at once and to a considerable elevation, 
 all that is wanted is the organisation of a practical 
 mode of instructing him in the arts and handicrafts of 
 Europe. 
 
 Commerce exists under primitive forms in all the 
 countries of Central Africa. Every village has a 
 market, and the towns have several. Goods are paid 
 for in kind or with money. In the Northern States 
 dollars of the coin of Maria Theresa, gold-dust, cowries 
 (the African small coin) are the principal mediums of 
 exchange. The commerce of the interior, of which 
 the necessaries of life form the basis, is tolerably active.
 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE NEGKOES. 81 
 
 The export is confined to a small number of articles, 
 principally ivory, ostrich feathers, gums, etc. The most 
 important of all, however, is man himself. Here comes 
 in the question of the slave trade, and this grave 
 subject deserves the most serious attention, for it is 
 the opinion of all travellers and missionaries that it 
 exercises a preponderating influence over the moral 
 and social condition of the races of Central Africa, 
 and it will not do to dream of civilising them until 
 an end has been put to what Livingstone justly called 
 the Monster Iniquity.
 
 ( 82 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TEADE OF THE NINETEENTH 
 CENTURY — TERRITORIES OVER WHICH IT EXTENDS — 
 CHARACTER AND IMPORTANCE OF ITS OPERATIONS. 
 
 Not one of the least strange among the phenomena of 
 
 this age of publicity, is the almost universal ignorance 
 
 and even indifference which prevail in our midst with 
 
 regard to the African Slave Trade. If, however, there 
 
 be a subject which appeals in a high degree to the 
 
 pity as well as the justice of Europe, it is this. On 
 
 a continent, in immediate and continuous contact with 
 
 our own, at our very doors and under our eyes, a 
 
 system of brigandage, of devastation and massacres, 
 
 the daily horrors of which are scarcely equalled by 
 
 the most sanguinary wars recorded at wide intervals 
 
 in history, has been organised and prospers. Since 
 
 the abolition of slavery in America, since the official
 
 THE AFKICAN SLAVE TRADE. 83 
 
 proscription of the slave trade by all civilised nations, 
 it would seem that man-hunting ought naturally to 
 have disappeared, or at least have been reduced to 
 insignificant proportions. Nothing of the sort. The 
 traffic in slaves exists, and has its regular markets 
 of supply and of sale, and the number of its victims is 
 reckoned every year by hundreds of thousands. Let 
 us for a moment take a close view of this abominable 
 trade. Its details are revealed to us by English Parlia- 
 mentary documents and by African travellers, and 
 have been taken up with equal knowledge and feeling 
 by M. Berlioux in his work on ' La Traite Orientale.'* 
 
 Man-hunting is organised in three great regions of 
 Africa : the states of the Soudan, the Valley of the 
 Upper Nile, and the central plateau. On the west 
 coast the cruisers have nearly put an end to this 
 odious traffic. 
 
 In the Soudan, the providers of the slave dealers 
 are no other than the native princes themselves. It is 
 the principal source of their revenues. As disciples of 
 
 * Paris, 1870. Also may be consulted with advantage : 
 J. Cooper, ' The Lost Continent.' London, 1875. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 Islam, they look upon the Pagan populations, whether 
 subject to their own states or not, as devoid of every 
 kind of right in the preseuce of believers; the raids 
 which they organise, and in which they interest the 
 leaders and soldiers of their little armies, extend over 
 vast territories. They surround and set fire to villages, 
 they kill everything which resists or appears unsuited 
 for marching, for labour, or for pleasure ; the rest they 
 take away. The devastation and carnage which mark 
 the track of these sinister expeditions are indescribable; 
 whole provinces which had recently been populous and 
 prosperous are sometimes found, after the lapse of a few 
 years, deserted and waste. 
 
 The produce of these raids are taken to the markets 
 of the interior ; Kuka in Bornou is one of the principal. 
 " The purchasers of Kuka," writes M. Berlioux, "under- 
 stand their business. The traffic is accordingly ex- 
 hibited in all its melancholy hideousness. The slaves 
 are filthy and covered with wretched rags ; they are 
 examined; their size is measured; the mouth is opened 
 to see the teeth, and inquiries are made whether they 
 eat well, because the appetite is looked upon as a sign
 
 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 85 
 
 of health. A young boy fetches from fifteen to thirty 
 dollars (the thaler is worth three shillings) ; a young 
 girl sells for from thirty to sixty dollars ; the young 
 Fellata girls, whose complexion is clear and features 
 regular, always fetch more. An old man or matron 
 goes at a price of from three to ten dollars. This is 
 also the price of a child. On Monday, the market 
 day, it often happens that thousands of slaves are 
 put up for sale ; every other day, one is sure to find 
 small clusters of some hundreds. Thus every week 
 there are brought into the market-place at Kuka at 
 least five or six thousand slaves." 
 
 A portion of these unfortunates remain in the country 
 for the necessities of the interior : the great mass of 
 them are bought by Arab merchants and marched across 
 the desert under a burning sun, by arid roads from 
 seven to nine hundred miles in leDgth to Murzook, the 
 capital of Fezzan, a tributary province of Turkey. 
 The privations and tortures that these troops of slaves — 
 the great annual caravan from Kuka alone conveys 
 about 4000 — suffer is inconceivable. "On both sides 
 of the road," says G. Rohlfs, " are seen the blanched
 
 86 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 bones of dead slaves ; some skeletons still have on 
 them the katoun (garment) of the negroes. Even a 
 person who is ignorant of the road from Bornou has 
 only to follow the bones which lie scattered right and 
 left of the road, and he will make no mistake." 
 
 The slave trade to Fezzan is reckoned at 10,000 
 head per annum ; one dealer alone had imported in 
 one year (1864) 1100. This human cattle is brought 
 in at night, with the complicity of the Turkish agents, 
 who receive a premium of ten francs per slave. From 
 Murzook, the caravans journey eastwards to Cairo, 
 where they discharge their merchandise. Some idea 
 may be formed of the extent of the evil caused by the 
 slave trade in the Soudan, when one reflects that it 
 carries off annually about 15,000 men, that it destroys 
 at least an equal number, that it spreads insecurity 
 and unceasing alarms among a number of tribes, 
 and condemns to sterility provinces of incomparable 
 richness. 
 
 The second theatre of the slave trade is met with in 
 the Valley of the Upper Nile, among the very little 
 advanced negro tribes of the Shilluks, the Dinkas,
 
 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TEADE. 87 
 
 the Djurs, etc. Its controllers are partly Egyptian 
 and Arab merchants, and partly adventurers from all 
 countries, the scum of the nations of Europe. It is the 
 ivory trade which has been the point of departure of 
 the slave trade, and which serves as a cloak to it at the 
 present time. The dealers select for themselves a field 
 of operation, sometimes as extensive as a province. In 
 the middle is constructed an entrenched camp, in- 
 habited by the speculator or his deputy, the servants and 
 the hunters and soldiers, the number of whicli varies 
 from 100 to 300 ; this is called a Seribah. At the 
 commencement, the allotted task of these men was to 
 hunt elephants ; a primitive mode of making a fortune 
 which has long since been abandoned. It has been 
 found more profitable first to buy of the negroes the 
 ivory they had to dispose of, and afterwards to take it 
 from them ; once arrived at that point, they com- 
 pleted the operation by carrying off their cattle, and 
 finally, the people themselves. More than twenty 
 years ago, man-hunting was established iu these 
 countries on the same footing as in the Soudan, and 
 an idea may be formed of its activity from the fact
 
 88 THE AFKICAN SLAVE TKADE. 
 
 that, iii 1864, one single battue led to the capture of 
 8000 slaves. 
 
 The head-quarters of the slave trade is established 
 at Khartoom, under the too unobservant eyes of the 
 Egyptian authorities. From this point the greater 
 number of the slaves are sent to Massowa, whence they 
 are taken to the markets of the East. They reach 
 Khartoom by the affluents of the Nile, packed in chains, 
 like cattle, in boats which are the ordinary abodes of 
 the smallpox and the plague. 
 
 There are twenty Seribahs on the Upper Nile. The 
 average profit of each master is reckoned by Sir Samuel 
 Baker at 450 slaves per annum ; the soldiers and 
 hunters receive their pay in slaves. These facts show 
 an annual total of at least 20,000 head. If to these be 
 added the men taken in the raids, the number of 
 negroes carried off every year by the trade in the 
 valley of the Upper Nile cannot be reckoned at less 
 than 30,000, without including those that are left on the 
 field of battle or on the road. 
 
 The central plateau of Africa is the third theatre on 
 which this execrable traffic is carried on, and nowhere
 
 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 89 
 
 has it produced more cruel ravages. Scarcely has the 
 traveller passed the boundaries of the sultanate of 
 Zanzibar, than he comes upon the regions of Usagara, 
 and Ugongo, formerly called the garden of Africa, but 
 now uncultivated and waste under the influence of the 
 slave trade. The inhabitants scattered in the woods 
 watch with an hostile eye the passage of the /traveller 
 and of the caravans. Throughout the whole of this 
 eastern zone the slave trade has assumed the appear- 
 ance of a war of races : it is the contest of the Arab 
 invader against the native negro, the former armed 
 with gun and revolver, the latter having no arms to 
 defend himself with but the javelin and the arrow. 
 The expeditions penetrate to great distances into the 
 interior ; they reach beyond the Tanganyika as far as 
 the kingdom of Cazembe. At some points the Arab 
 traders have discovered the art of associating in their 
 infernal operations their very victims themselves. The 
 hunting then becomes complicated with a multitude of 
 intestine wars between the tribes, which prove more 
 fruitful for the spoilers, and still more disastrous for 
 the natives. Under the influence of these degrading
 
 90 THE AFEICAN SLAVE TEADE. 
 
 alliances, negroes have been known to sell themselves to 
 negroes, and to deliver up their own children iDto 
 slavery. 
 
 It is at Kaseh or Taboro, some hundred leagues from 
 the eastern shore of the Tanganyika that the head- 
 quarters of the Arab dealers are located. " Here, from 
 the plateau to the sea, from the point where the raid 
 has taken place, to the port of embarkation, the journey 
 is no longer reckoned by tedious weeks, and it can be 
 made with smaller numbers. But it is requisite to go 
 fast, for behind the rocks or in the depth of the copses 
 ambuscades may lie concealed. The native does not 
 spare the Arab, when he finds a favourable opportunity. 
 "Walk quickly," is the repeated order to the shackled 
 slaves ; but when the order is no more heard, and the 
 stick has no more effect on the wretch overdone with 
 fatigue, he is pitilessly left in the midst of the solitude. 
 Baker tells us of a convoy brought back not by Arabs 
 but by Turks. The old women carried off in the raid 
 were not proceeding fast enough. So soon as fatigue 
 caused one to fall, she was felled ; a blow of a club on 
 the neck, and a carcase only remained in the throes of
 
 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 91 
 
 death. The road was dotted with these frightful beacons. 
 On approaching the sea, when the danger seems past, 
 then the interest of the dealer suggests somewhat more 
 precaution. If in the troop there remain some men to 
 whom hunger and fatigue have left a little strength, 
 they are made to carry their enfeebled companions. 
 There is something horrible and sickening in such a 
 caravan. The troop no longer proceeds in a body ; the 
 unfortunates are clustered in groups along the road, 
 stumbling about and like so many skeletons : their 
 countenances no longer bearing any expression but 
 that of famine, their eyes wan and sunken, and their 
 cheeks bony. But what benefit will this close of their 
 journey bring to the poor wretches ? The black boats 
 are there, sombre, narrow, fetid, waiting for the human 
 merchandise. Here we have the slave trade in all its 
 physical hideousness. It would be more frightful still 
 if it were possible to expose before our eyes the moral 
 sores, the vices, the revolting degradation which slavery 
 produces both in the master and in the slave." * 
 
 This lamentable and sickening picture is by no means 
 * Berlioux, ' La Traite Orientale,' p. 248.
 
 92 THE AFKICAN SLAVE TEADE. 
 
 borrowed from the imagination. It is strictly confirmed 
 in all its details by the narratives of travellers. It is 
 repeated every year from the eastern side of the African 
 plateau, over an extent of 600,000 square miles, from 
 the top of Tanganyika to the extremity of Lake Nyassa. 
 It is in fact on the shores of this latter lake that the 
 trade is most active and the most disastrous in its 
 effects. In 1851 Livingstone visited this previously 
 unknown country. He found there a numerous popu- 
 lation, devoted to agricultural labour and initiated in 
 the primitive arts of civilisation. The climate ap- 
 peared to him so beautiful, the land so fruitful, the 
 men so kindly, that he conceived the idea of founding 
 a colony in those parts. Ten years later, in 1861 and 
 1863, the illustrious traveller again visited the same 
 places. He no longer recognised them ; the slave 
 trade had reached there in the interval. The planta- 
 tions had disappeared ; the villages were burnt ; the in- 
 habitants dispersed, carried off or killed. The copses 
 were filled with bloody corpses ; the rivers were choked 
 with them ; from the branches of the trees hung women 
 whom the chief of the band had condemned to perish
 
 THE AFKICAN SLAVE TRADE. 93 
 
 when exhaustion prevented their following the convoy 
 any longer, by way of intimidating their companions, 
 or of revenge for the losses sustained. Livingstone, 
 whose noble and heroic figure appears at every point of 
 this immense field of carnage as the representative of 
 justice and the vindicator of the rights of humanity, 
 denounces these and such like scenes at every step : 
 the disgust and horror occasioned by them poisoned the 
 closing days of his life. " When I have endeavoured," 
 he wrote a short time before his death, " to give some 
 idea of the slave trade and its attendant evils in this 
 country, it was necessary to keep far within the truth 
 in order not to be thought guilty of exaggeration. But, 
 in sober seriousness, the subject does not admit of 
 being over-drawn. To exaggerate its enormities is 
 a simple impossibility. The sights I have seen, 
 though common incidents of the so-called trade, are 
 so terribly nauseous, that I always strive to drive 
 them from memory ; and in cases of other disagree- 
 able recollections, I can, in time, succeed in consigning 
 them to oblivion. These slaving scenes, however, 
 come back unbidden and unwelcome, and sometimes
 
 94 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 make me start up at dead of night, horrified by their 
 vividness." 
 
 The evil must indeed be very great when we see the 
 results which it produces. Colonel Rigby, the English 
 Consul at Zanzibar, reckons at 19,000 the number of 
 negroes which the Nyassa country supplies annually to 
 that place. The port of Quiloa serves here as the base 
 of operations for the traffic in slaves. When we com- 
 bine this export movement with that which exists on 
 both sides of the Tanganyika, we arrive at a total of 
 not less than 40,000 captives carried off every year on 
 the west coast of Africa. Since the interdiction by 
 recent treaties of the exportation of slaves by Zanzibar, 
 the effect has been that the trade has been carried 
 further north, and the expeditions from Muscat and 
 Quiloa defy the efforts of the English cruisers. 
 
 The figures just quoted, although taken at the lowest 
 estimate, need no commentary. They show between 
 80,000 and 90,000 as the number of negroes annually 
 taken by force from Africa. This amount is equivalent 
 to the losses of a great war; and what renders it the 
 more frightful is that in itself it is but a fraction of
 
 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 95 
 
 a total to be taken into account in far other senses. 
 Livingstone declares that the number of slaves which 
 reach the coast only represents the fifth part, and in 
 certain districts even, where the resistance is more 
 energetic, the tenth part of the real victims of the trade. 
 The others die in the attacks on the villages and in 
 the massacres and conflagrations which accompany 
 them, or else perish along the roads during the march 
 of the convoys or on board the boats. The destruction 
 of human life would thus reach annually to 400,000 
 persons at least. According to Sir Bartle Frere, this 
 minimum is far exceeded. The superior of the Catholic 
 mission of Central Africa estimates at a million of 
 men the amount of loss which the slave trade inflicts 
 annually on the populations of Africa. These estimates 
 cease to cause astonishment when we reflect that the 
 trade rages over a territory as extensive as the whole 
 of Europe, inhabited by about eighty millions of 
 negroes. 
 
 Whither flows this unceasingly renewed stream of 
 slaves ? 
 
 After the suppression of all the colonial markets, there
 
 96 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 scarcely remain any but those of the East. Egypt, 
 Arabia, Turkey, both European and Asiatic, Persia and 
 Madagascar, these are henceforth the countries of des- 
 tination for this human merchandise. Far from dimin- 
 ishing, the demand only increases ; the fresh outbreak, 
 for instance, of slavery in Egypt, is a certain fact. It 
 would seem that in proportion as their own vitality 
 dies out, Mussulman communities experience a greater 
 need of foreign strength. The negro, moreover, does 
 not breed in the countries of the East : the second gene- 
 ration is rare ; the third does not exist. When to this 
 is added the horrible practice of castration, kept up in 
 Turkey and Egypt, which kills two out of three of the 
 wretched children subjected to this torture, it will be 
 understood how this demand for African blood remains 
 constantly fresh, and constantly pressing. 
 
 It is high time that civilised nations should combine 
 in one generous and powerful effort to put an end to 
 such abominable iniquities. Without the absolute sup- 
 pression of the slave trade, every attempt at introducing 
 civilisation into Africa, must, at best, be fruitless. This 
 has been the rock on which past enterprises have split,
 
 THE AFRICAN SLAVE TEADE. 97 
 
 this is still the stumbling-block of new establishments. 
 By setting up in perpetuity a foreign and a civil war- 
 fare in the heart of Africa, the slave trade stifles there- 
 in every germ of progress, and unceasingly replunges 
 into barbarism the communities which were beginning 
 to extricate themselves from it. The profits of the 
 odious traffic are moreover so enormous that they pre- 
 vent the establishment of all legitimate commerce : 
 honest merchants could not find a channel for their 
 products, and the natives have no interest in increasing 
 their own, while the foreigner nearly everywhere runs 
 the risk of being taken for an enemy. Such is the 
 work of the slave trade, and here we see the reason 
 why Africa has remained for four centuries stationary, 
 and, except at a few points in her seaboard, has not 
 
 made a step in the way of civilisation- 

 
 SECOND PART, 
 
 THE BEUSSELS GEOGRAPHICAL 
 CONFEBENCE. 
 
 h 2
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 THE BRUSSELS GEOGRAPHICAL CONFERENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BRUSSELS GEOGRAPHICAL CONFERENCE — ITS 
 PROGRAMME AND OBJECT— INTERNATIONAL STATIONS 
 IN AFRICA. 
 
 However contracted may be the frame of the fore- 
 going picture, and soberly as we have been obliged to 
 handle its details, it nevertheless justifies in its general 
 features the three following conclusions, which it is of 
 importance to place in a clear light : 
 
 1. Africa, in its extension across three zones, presents, 
 thanks to the relief of its surface and the distribution 
 of its waters, the most various conditions of habitability. 
 It is not absolutely impenetrable at any point ; it 
 is rich in products of every kind, and possesses in 
 abundance all the resources which form the material 
 basis of civilisation.
 
 102 THE BKUSSELS GEOGKAPHICAL CONFEEENCE. 
 
 2. The African populations, both the Berbers of the 
 north and the negroes of the centre and of the south, 
 are neither unfitted for nor opposed to all improvement. 
 Christianity, science, and commerce are capable of 
 changing their whole social condition. The phenom- 
 enon which has been produced in America will certainly 
 not be repeated in Africa. The negroes will not 
 disappear, like the Indians, from the contact with a 
 superior civilisation ; they will rather be enticed by it. 
 The advances which they have already realised under 
 the least favorable circumstances are a guarantee for 
 the future. Doubtless no one could fix the limit to 
 which education will be able to lead them, but it is a 
 demonstrated fact that that education is possible.* 
 
 3. If, for four centuries, Europe's acquaintance with 
 Africa and the condition of its inhabitants has been at 
 a standstill, the principal, if not the only, cause has 
 
 * Peschel, in his ' Treatise on Ethnography,' quotes this indica- 
 tion of genius in a Vei negro, who succeeded in reducing the idiom 
 spoken by bis fellow citizens into a distinct alphabet. He had been, 
 it is true, educated by Europeans ; but this circumstance precisely 
 shows to what a point the negro is capable of receiving and utilising 
 instruction.
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 103 
 
 been the existence of the slave trade. The slave trade 
 is the enemy and the stumbling-block of all progress. 
 It exists and it spreads, even in our own days, in spite 
 of the formal proscription levelled at it, time after 
 time, by all civilised nations. The period is now come 
 for giving an effective and universal support both to 
 their declarations and their engagements. Every 
 attempt to civilise the populations of Africa must have 
 for its immediate object the extinction of the trade, 
 not only in its direct manifestations but also in the 
 principle which feeds it, viz., the institution of slavery 
 itself both in the Mussulman States in the east and 
 among Africans themselves. 
 
 These three fundamental truths explain the whole 
 work of the Conference, for they have been the point of 
 departure and the rule of its labours. The possibility 
 of " definitively planting the standard of civilisation on 
 the soil of Central Africa " — these are the very words 
 of theEoyal opening address* — was never for an instant 
 placed in doubt. The discussion was directly brought 
 to bear upon the practical means of carrying it out, 
 * See the text of this document in Appendix II.
 
 104 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 
 
 and with regard to this, the Conference has had to 
 examine in its turn what it was advisable to do in 
 Africa and what it was possible to propose to Europe. 
 
 The creation of a system of permanent stations dis- 
 tributed over different points of the African Continent 
 was the first of these means which the Conference had 
 to consider. In proposing the establishment of them, 
 the King of the Belgians described at the same time 
 in his address, their triple character : they were to be 
 at once stations for the relief of travellers, for the 
 advancement of science, and for the promotion of 
 peace. This combination did not give rise to the 
 least objection. The celebrated travellers who were 
 present at the meeting at Brussels were unanimous 
 in declaring that the existence of such establishments 
 would render invaluable services to their successors, 
 and would effectively promote the work of scientific 
 exploration. One amongst them, M. Bohlfs, even 
 remarked that the English had already founded, 
 under the form of religious missions or diplomatic 
 posts, some establishments of the same kind, though, 
 it is true, on a much more modest scale than might be
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 105 
 
 expected from an international association. Difficulties, 
 doubtless, of more than one kind were foreseen, but no 
 one looked upon them as insurmountable. 
 
 What will be the duties that these stations will 
 have to fulfil ? They will be of a triple character, cor- 
 responding to the several objects which the Conference 
 proposed to itself when it decided on establishing 
 them. 
 
 But before entering on this subject, an explanation is 
 necessary. The Conference of Brussels took no measures 
 towards its own organisation of scientific expeditions, 
 but it did not preclude itself from the employment 
 of its exertions in this direction. If its resources be- 
 came developed, and if the solution of any problem 
 appeared essential to its objects, it would certainly be 
 able, without deviating from its programme, to afford 
 relief to travellers or even to send out such at its own 
 expense. This task, which, moreover, must, it would 
 seem, be an exceptional one, depends upon the con- 
 tingencies of the future ; under present circumstances, 
 the Conference has had to leave it in the hands of 
 governments, of geographical societies, and, above all,
 
 106 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFEICA. 
 
 to private initiation, which, hitherto, has appeared to be 
 the most successful and the most profitable. In fact, 
 experience lias shown that national expeditions pro- 
 vided with a numerous retinue and a great train of 
 baggage, scarcely ever succeed ; the army of porters 
 which they require, the difficulty of provisioning them 
 and of maintaining order and discipline, are rocks on 
 which all run aground. The most remarkable dis- 
 coveries, the most daring campaigns, have, on the 
 contrary, been the work of isolated travellers. It is 
 true that, in their case, obstacles ^and dangers are not 
 wanting either, and the results are often incomplete : 
 insufficiency of supplies, or exhaustion of strength will 
 often necessitate an interruption to explorations in the 
 full tide of success ; but it is precisely at this point that 
 the international association proposes to step in. By 
 tracing a united plan of investigation, it organises 
 system between individual enterprises, introduces 
 therein unity and combination, and prevents the loss of 
 time and strength. By establishing stations in the 
 interior of Africa, it supports the traveller in his 
 journey, gives him greater security, and enables him to
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 107 
 
 bring to bear directly upon bis object all the energy 
 and endurance which he possesses. 
 
 The permanent stations which will be established on 
 the soil of Africa, will be, then, pre-eminently relief 
 stations. 
 
 They will neither be the object nor the terminus of 
 new expeditions ; they do not precede exploration, 
 they follow it. Established at first on the seaboard, 
 they will advance progressively towards the interior, 
 securing behind them, as far as may be feasible, 
 regular communications with the coast. In this 
 manner, bases of operations will be formed, which, when 
 united, will become lines, and finally roads. For the 
 most part, travellers will start from the stations to 
 penetrate into the heart of the country. The stations 
 will serve as a protection to them, to lend security and 
 brightness to their journey, as a storehouse for com- 
 pleting or renewing their provisions, their means of 
 study or exchange, as an infirmary in case of sickness, 
 and as a refuge on which they can fall back in case of 
 danger. The destitution and privations, the physical 
 and moral sufferings which have so severely tried the
 
 108 INTEKNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFEICA. 
 
 Livingstones, the Bohlfs, the Nachtigals, the Schwein- 
 furths and the Cainerons, and so often forced them to 
 renounce the extension of their discoveries, will be less 
 to be feared. In the stations, travellers will become 
 the guests of Europe ; there they will be able to take 
 rest from their fatigues, and await the propitious 
 moment for resuming their journey ; their powers of 
 resistance and perseverance will be in a great measure 
 increased, and the final end of their labours will be 
 brought sensibly nearer. 
 
 But while the principal object of the stations is to 
 afford relief, it is by no means confined to that duty ; 
 it is also scientific. Each post will naturally become a 
 centre of studies and researches of every kind : on the 
 character and aspect of the soil, the products, the 
 climate, the surrounding populations, their wants, 
 their resources, etc. The traveller traces his line in 
 the unknown : the station radiates within a limited 
 diameter, no doubt, but exhausting all the better the 
 circle over which it presides. It will be at the same 
 time, a little observatory and a museum, in which will 
 be accumulated the observations and collections which
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 109 
 
 would be made, primarily, in the service of science, and 
 secondarily, for the advancement of commerce, industry, 
 and civilisation. 
 
 To meet these manifold requirements the stations 
 should be supplied with a tolerable variety of utensils, 
 and be provided with stores of every kind. It is not 
 sufficient for them to have enough for their own needs : 
 they will have to provide for those of the travellers 
 whom they will be bound to re-victual. To the 
 character of relief station and scientific observatory 
 will further be added that of a depot, or warehouse, 
 containing such articles as are most indispensable for 
 African travellers ; maps and special books ; astronom- 
 ical and scientific instruments, medicines, and clothes, 
 merchandise, and funds, etc. 
 
 To aid science then, and the men who constitute 
 themselves her apostles, will be the immediate and 
 essential object of the stations which are about to be 
 established in Africa. In a short time another not 
 less important one will be added thereto, viz. : — that of 
 diffusing the light of civilisation among the natives. 
 The Conference has not discussed or arranged the
 
 110 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 
 
 details of all these questions ; it has reserved this task 
 for the central committee of management, which it 
 appointed before closing its labours; but its general 
 intention in this direction has been very clearly defined. 
 It was formulated with eclat by the king, on opening 
 the first session of the assembly, which, on its part, has 
 invariably continued to entertain the same view. The 
 stations then will be all equally mediums of civilisation, 
 means of promoting progress, and guarantees of peace 
 for the populations amongst which they will be esta- 
 blished. From this point of view, the duties of these 
 establishments extend over a wide area, and take a 
 considerable range. 
 
 It would doubtless be overstepping the intention, and 
 overloading the already very complicated duties, of the 
 stations, to aim at the immediate initiation of the 
 negroes into the arts of civilisation. They cannot be, 
 in the strict sense of the word, professional schools, or 
 apprentices' workshops ; but, by the fact alone of their 
 presence, and the daily practice of simple arts, under 
 the eyes of the natives, by the contrast of European 
 existence, of its manners, customs, and modes of
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. Ill 
 
 working, with the rudeness of savage life, there will be 
 established a medium of real instruction, and a prac- 
 tical education, the results of which cannot fail to be 
 important. Little by little, by the irresistible attrac- 
 tion which knowledge exercises over ignorance, and 
 strength over weakness, new populations will settle 
 around the stations, and, under their influence, will 
 assume the aspect of better organised communities. 
 The dissensions and quarrels so frequent among the 
 tribes, and so fatal to individual liberty may thus be 
 extinguished or suppressed. By his influence, and by 
 the services which he will be called upon to render 
 them, the governor of the station will insensibly 
 become an arbiter, who will promote peace and harmony 
 among them. This duty will lead to another of still 
 greater utility to the interests of civilisation. If the 
 European stations should, as will certainly be attempted, 
 be ranged, from preference, along the regular highway 
 of the slave trade, they will be able to organise effective 
 plans in opposition to it, for the defence of the natives, 
 and for barring the road against the convoys of slaves. 
 The difficulty will not be so great as might be thought
 
 112 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 
 
 at first sight. It will nearly always be sufficient to 
 provide Africans with fire-arms, to destroy the one only 
 superiority which the kidnappers possess over the 
 negroes, whom now they make their victims. The 
 cowardice of kidnappers, is, by the testimony of all 
 travellers, equal to their cruelty : it will not need 
 a very great exertion of strength to keep them at a 
 distance. 
 
 Here arises a series of questions, each one more 
 serious and complex than the other. Will the stations 
 be occupied by a numerous and armed staff? Will 
 they be of a national, international, or compound cha- 
 racter? Is their organisation to be strictly circumscribed 
 within the limits of civilisation and science ; or is it to 
 be further developed in a religious and commercial 
 direction ? The solution of the greater part of these 
 questions is reserved for the future ; the Conference 
 has not made it the subject of a special debate ; its 
 intention, however, has been manifested too clearly 
 to admit of any doubt as to the essential bases of the 
 undertaking. 
 
 For example : the stations will have no military
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 113 
 
 surroundings ; they will be established under conditions 
 as simple and inexpensive as possible. Sir Bartle Frere 
 has well defined their principle of action; under all 
 circumstances they will have recourse to gentleness 
 persuasion, and that natural ascendancy which emanates 
 from the superiority of civilised man. Hence the 
 numerical strength will scarcely need to be very great. 
 A chief who must be at the same time a man of 
 action and a man of science either theoretical or 
 technical, a medical naturalist, perhaps a physical 
 astronomer, five or six artisans, skilled in various 
 handicrafts, will probably in most cases suffice. The 
 number of persons will rarely exceed, under ordinary 
 conditions, ten or twelve men ; in certain respects 
 a newly established station may even fall below this 
 figure. 
 
 As for the second problem, the international point of 
 view has been that which has influenced the Conference ; 
 but it has evidently not been its intention to exclude 
 or oppose any generous proposition. 
 
 The same feeling has influenced the Conference in 
 the solution of the third question. Sir H. Rawlinson 
 
 I
 
 114 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFEICA. 
 
 and Vice-Adiniral de la Ronciere-le-Noury, have given 
 expression to very just views on this point, which cor- 
 responded with the opinions held by the Conference. 
 " We must not," said the former, " give the stations an 
 exclusively religious, political, or commercial charac- 
 ter; they should be centres of information, medical 
 assistance, and civilisation. "Beligious missions," 
 added the second, " which need not be immediately 
 organised, but which might follow the establishment of 
 stations, would be a useful medium of co-operation. 
 Commercial relations, which it is a matter of general 
 interest to form and extend, conduce to the same 
 result." From the tenor of these expressions, the 
 establishments which it is proposed to form, will bear 
 a purely lay character; the international assembly 
 bore no other ; they impose upon themselves no re- 
 ligious mission, they represent no creed, no form of 
 worship. 
 
 This abstention, however, proceeds neither from 
 indifference nor scepticism. Far from being hostile to 
 the preaching of the gospel, the greater part of the 
 members of the Conference were of opinion that this
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 115 
 
 preaching would be highly salutary, and might become 
 the most active forerunner of the moral regeneration 
 of the nations of Africa. History shows that Christianity 
 possesses a special virtue for rescuing savage races 
 from barbarism, and making them rapidly overstep the 
 first barriers to civilisation. This great and legitimate 
 influence will not therefore be disregarded, but its 
 guidance must necessarily rest in the hands of the 
 Christian Churches. The isolated efforts of propa- 
 gandism, made up to these later times, at different 
 points of Africa, have given but unsatisfactory results ; 
 they might be resumed under more favourable 
 conditions. Missionaries will be free to come and 
 establish themselves in the neighbourhood of the 
 stations, and to erect, within their range, places of 
 worship and schools : to whatever creed they belong, 
 they will receive from them aid and support; they 
 will avail themselves of the relations which may 
 have been established and the advances already 
 gained, and will be able effectively to contribute to 
 their consolidation and extension. 
 
 This principle is of general application. While 
 
 i 2
 
 116 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 
 
 limiting the field of their own efforts, in order to 
 render them more effective, the stations do not exclude 
 other forms of action ; they rather encourage them and 
 support them with their patronage. By the same 
 process, the question of economical relationships is 
 solved. International establishments could not be 
 counting-houses, any more than they could be missions ; 
 yet, so far has the Conference been from disregarding 
 the importance of the commercial question, that one of 
 its most distinguished members, Dr. Nachtigal, felt 
 justified in saying that: "It is by commerce that the 
 interior of Africa will best be civilised." The spirit 
 of enterprise will therefore be able to give itself 
 scope; and the stations, without relinquishing their 
 special task, will actively support that spirit ; while 
 it, in its turn, will become a powerful auxiliary to 
 them. 
 
 These considerations recall to us one of the most 
 remarkable pages of the ' Geographie comparee ' of Carl 
 Ritter ; that learned geographer applied the remark 
 only to the Soudan, but later discoveries have proved 
 it to be of general application. " Commerce," he
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 117 
 
 says, " opens all roads in Africa, and civilisation can 
 make no way but in its train. The enfeeblement of 
 the domination of the Moors in the negro states, on 
 the banks of the Niger, offers now, to Europeans 
 and Christianity, a favourable opportunity for enter- 
 ing the Soudan. The agents of the powers and of 
 European commercial houses, might establish them- 
 selves much more easily there than in the Moham- 
 medan East. The English residents accredited to the 
 courts of the north and of the south, to Murzook, 
 in the Fezzan, and to Coomassie in the country of 
 Ashantee, the colonies of the Senegal and of the 
 Gambia, and, above all, the fair and flourishing state 
 of Sierra Leone, are already, if we were only wise 
 enough to take advantage of them, the most im- 
 portant stepping-stones for arriving at the realisation 
 of this idea. A direct commerce of Europeans 
 with the markets of % the Soudan, such as Mungo 
 Park and his successors endeavoured to introduce 
 on the banks of the Gambia, would give more poli- 
 tical independence to the negro states, and more 
 prosperity to individuals, and would render them
 
 118 INTEKNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFKICA. 
 
 independent of the Moors and Arabs. By this means 
 they might be supplied with fire-arms for self-defence, 
 and missionaries would have an opportunity of con- 
 verting and civilising them as at Sierra Leone. One 
 result of these generous efforts would be the complete 
 and progressive abolition of the slave trade, from the 
 interior to the coasts. But, in the first place, it 
 would be necessary to substitute for it another traffic 
 equally advantageous to the native princes, whose 
 principal revenues are derived from slave-hunting and 
 from tributes paid in slaves. Commerce with Europeans 
 would soon afford them profits, both safer and larger. 
 By this means, the Mohammedans would be deprived 
 of the pretext for slave-hunting. For, according to 
 the Koran, they consider it their duty to make war on 
 idolaters, and their right to throw heathens into slavery 
 and bondage. These enterprises would favour and 
 powerfully help the emancipation of the negroes of the 
 Soudan, which, meanwhile, can only be the result of 
 their own exertions, for experience has proved that it 
 cannot be effected by maritime operations, not even if 
 thousands of generous individuals were to unite their
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 119 
 
 subscriptions and their efforts ; not even if all the 
 nations of Christianity were to combine in the 
 resolution."* 
 
 The principle, the character, and the work of the 
 African stations being well defined, where will it be 
 convenient, in the first instance, to establish them? 
 The examination of this important question occupied 
 the whole of the second session of the Conference. Two 
 projects were presented for consideration ; the first, by- 
 General Sir H. Eawlinson in the name of the English, 
 French, and Italian members of the Conference, 
 especially directed attention to the final object to be 
 attained ; the second, formulated by M. de Semenow 
 in the name of the German, Austrian, and Eussian 
 members, took more into consideration the conditions 
 of the point of departure. The Belgian members re- 
 frained from opposing a third project to the two others, 
 in order to leave the initiative, in pursuance of the 
 declaration made by the king, "exclusively to the 
 representatives of states, whose authority in this 
 
 * Ritter, ' Geographie generate compare'e,' translated by E. Bervet 
 and E. Desor, p. 258. Brussels, 1837.
 
 120 INTEKNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFKICA. 
 
 matter is founded upon long experience and brilliant 
 services." 
 
 The report drawn up by Sir H. Rawlinson, without 
 neglecting the interests of science, had a strong 
 economical and political bearing; it proposed a con- 
 tinuous line of communication to be established 
 between the east and west coasts of Africa to the south 
 of the equator. This line would debouch on the east, 
 in the neighbourhood of Zanzibar; on the west, at 
 St. Paul de Loanda ; stations, or at least agencies, 
 should be posted along its extent. Two localities 
 were fixed upon for the present ; Ujiji, on Lake 
 Tanganyika, and Nyangwe, on the upper course of 
 the Lualaba. From the main trunk should be sent 
 out three subsidiary branches, the first in the direc- 
 tion of the mouth of the Congo, the second towards 
 the sources of the Nile, and the third to strike 
 the Zambezi. These two last branches would, when 
 united, form a grand continuous line, crossing the first, 
 and extending from the Valley of the Nile on the 
 north, to that of the Zambezi on the south, across 
 the great lakes. Steam-boats launched on the Victoria,
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFEICA. 121 
 
 the Tanganyika, and the Nyassa would unite the land 
 sections of the route. It was a grand conception, 
 exhibiting the genius and the spirit of enterprise 
 peculiar to powerful maritime nations. It may have 
 taken too little into account the difficulties of a first 
 attempt ; this defect does not interfere with its con- 
 formity with the several objects contemplated by the 
 Conference, nor with its continuing to be the pro- 
 gramme for the future, should circumstances prove 
 favourable to the undertaking. 
 
 The report presented by M. de Semenow, was 
 conceived on less extensive bases; the interests of 
 science alone had evidently influenced the group to 
 whose ideas this report gave expression. It proposed 
 to* organise, upon a combined plan, the exploration 
 of the as yet unknown regions of Central Africa, con- 
 fiding this task to individual travellers starting from 
 opposite points and relying on relief-stations. These 
 stations should be established simultaneously on the 
 coast, at Bagamoyo (near Zanzibar), and at Loanda, 
 for instance, as well as in the interior, following as well 
 as might be the track of Cameron ; the points of Ujiji,
 
 122 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 
 
 Nyangwe, etc., were indicated. With respect to the 
 junction of these stations by regular roads of com- 
 munication, it was doubted whether this plan would 
 be at present practicable : it was a result to be looked 
 for from the future development of the undertaking. 
 This project exhibited more limited views than those 
 expressed in the report of General Rawlinson, but 
 it was more practical ; it was founded on recent 
 experience, and while concentrating the first efforts of 
 the Conference on scientific exploration, did not ex- 
 clude more remote anticipations nor more complicated 
 enterprises. 
 
 The system which has been preferred is one of 
 compromise. Its formula has been determined by a 
 mixed committee, of which the learned secretary- 
 general of the Society of Geography of Paris, M. 
 Maunoir, is the reporter. This document constitutes 
 the official declaration of the Conference with reference 
 to the mission undertaken by the international associa- 
 tion created under its auspices. Its immediate object 
 is appointed to be the exploration of the as yet 
 unknown parts of Equatorial Africa. Individual
 
 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 123 
 
 travellers will be the active instruments, and the 
 stations will be the relief posts of this exploration. 
 These latter will be established at first on the sea- 
 board, viz., at Bagamoyo, in the Sultan of Zanzibar's 
 territories, on the Indian Ocean side, and at St. Paul 
 de Loanda, in the Portuguese possessions on the 
 Atlantic side. Other stations will be placed in the 
 interior : at Ujiji, on the eastern shore of Lake Tan- 
 ganyika; at Nyangwe, on the Lualaba, at some 
 hundred leagues from the western shore of the same 
 lake, the extreme point reached to the northward by- 
 Livingstone and Cameron ; and at a spot to be 
 determined on hereafter, in the states of the principal 
 chief of Central Africa, Muata-Yamvo. These posts 
 describe on the map, to the south of the equator, 
 an oblique line stretching from north-east to south- 
 west, which corresponds exactly, except at the western 
 point of abutment, with the route of Captain Cameron. 
 The Conference, thus reproducing under a modified 
 form the suggestion of the Anglo-Italian- French 
 group, concludes by expressing the wish that the 
 stations may be connected by a line of communication,
 
 124 INTERNATIONAL STATIONS IN AFRICA. 
 
 "as far as possible continuous," and that the lines 
 perpendicular to the first may be opened in the 
 direction of from north to south. 
 
 Such are, in substance, the declaration of the Con- 
 ference, and the suggestions from which that declara- 
 tion proceeds. This manifestly opens up an immense 
 career both \ to science and to civilisation ; it will 
 produce glorious and fruitful results, if all the forces 
 mustered to carry it into actual operation are deeply 
 imbued with the sense of their noble mission, and 
 acquit themselves of it with unflagging zeal.
 
 ( 125 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ORGANISATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION 
 FOR THE EXPLORATION AND CIVILISATION OF AFRICA 
 — DUTIES AND RELATIONS OF THE COMMITTEES. 
 
 If an institution is to live and prosper, it is not merely 
 requisite that it should have a well-traced programme 
 and a definite object, it must also have an organisa- 
 tion suited to its nature, which will enable it to come 
 forward and act, uniting as in a sheaf the forces at its 
 disposal, and importing into its action, consecutive- 
 ness, harmony, and unity. This essential point has 
 not escaped the attention of the Conference ; it has 
 been the subject of its latest consultations. It has 
 been concluded that travellers and stations are to be 
 regarded as the representatives and agents of the 
 association on the soil of Africa; the former will be 
 the auxiliaries, the latter the instruments of its
 
 126 INTEENATIONAL ASSOCIATION 
 
 scientific and humanitarian intentions. But in the old 
 as in the new continent, it was necessary to create a 
 system of organisation conceived on an entirely dif- 
 ferent footing, in consequence of its having an entirely 
 different mission. The Conference has had to find with- 
 in its own compass the plan and the first elements of 
 this system. 
 
 Seven nations, being no other than the six great 
 European powers and Belgium, have had their dele- 
 gates at the Conference of Brussels. Unforeseen 
 circumstances, overruling accidents, have caused some 
 of these delegations to be incomplete, but in no way 
 modifying the good intention. No sort of public 
 mandate was connected with their functions ; all the 
 members of the assembly have acted and spoken in 
 their own names ; but they had been selected in such 
 a manner as that they should faithfully represent, 
 whether they were one or many, the opinion of their 
 different nations on the subject of African questions. 
 Science, philanthropy, and general policy have had 
 their representatives at these meetings : meetings, the 
 exceptional character of which has been intensified by
 
 FOE THE EXPLOKATION OF AFRICA. 127 
 
 the presidency of a lung. The geographical societies 
 of five foreign nations had sent to Brussels, either their 
 presidents or vice-presidents ; that of Italy sent one of 
 its founders. Independently of this element, Germany 
 reckoned a group of its most illustrious travellers; 
 Austria had an eminent statesman, a philanthropist, 
 full of sympathy with every generous sentiment, and 
 a young and courageous traveller; France brought 
 both the theoretical science and the practical expe- 
 rience of African expeditions ; England united in 
 ten men, most of whom were of European celebrity, 
 the knowledge of travel and political wisdom, with 
 the most active and the most inexhaustible charity. 
 
 The Belgian deputation held a separate situation and 
 had a different part to act. It was concentrated in the 
 person of the King, the chief, the organiser and the 
 initiator of the undertaking. Its special mission was 
 rather outside, than within, the Conference, where 
 courtesy bade it to keep in the background. This 
 does not mean that its presence was to be fruitless in 
 the course of the consultations. In the discussions of 
 the committees, of which no trace has been kept in the
 
 128 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION 
 
 proces verbaux, the Belgian delegates were able to give 
 full effect to their own views and propositions ; but their 
 main action was to be exerted in another direction. In 
 some respects it preceded the calling together of the 
 assembly, and it must survive it, in order to constitute 
 one of the essential pieces of machinery in the execution 
 of its programme, if the glorious task which the 
 Sovereign of Belgium has conceived for his country 
 should be converted into a reality, and if Brussels 
 should truly become — to quote his happy expression — 
 " the head-quarters of this beneficent movement." 
 
 The constituent elements of the Conference must not 
 be confounded with the principles of the organisation 
 which has to give movement and life to the work. 
 This organisation comprises three fundamental pieces 
 of machinery : an international commission, an executive 
 committee, and national committees. The composition, 
 duties, and relative positions of these different holies 
 will be as follows. 
 
 The international commission is the parliament of the 
 association. It is composed, in the terms of the resolu- 
 tions adopted by the Conference, of the presidents of the
 
 FOR THE EXPLORATION OF AFRICA. 129 
 
 principal geographical societies represented at Brussels, 
 or accepting its programme, and of two members 
 delegated by each national committee. Although in 
 this latter respect it is only an emanation from the 
 national committees, the commission is above them ; it 
 holds the superior direction of the association, and 
 decides all essential questions relating to its constitution 
 or its development. The president has the exercise 
 of extensive powers ; he receives into the association 
 the national committees of countries which have not 
 taken part in the deliberations of the Conference; he 
 has the power to fill up the commission itself by adding 
 to its effective and honorary members. The object of 
 this last faculty is to adapt the representation of each 
 country to its proportionate importance in the services 
 rendered to the undertaking. In the exercise of its 
 constituent prerogative, the assembly has deferred the 
 presidency of the international commission to the King 
 of the Belgians for the first period of its existence. 
 
 The commission having occasion to meet but at in- 
 frequent intervals, it became necessary to establish a 
 permanent medium which should represent it, and take 
 
 K
 
 130 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION: 
 
 upon itself to carry the resolutions into effect : such is 
 the mission of the executive committee. This body is 
 composed of the president of the international com- 
 mission, who sits thereat under this same title; of 
 three or four members designated the first time by the 
 Conference, subsequently by the commission ; and of a 
 secretary-general named by the president. The latter 
 acquires also, by the fact of his nomination, a seat and 
 a voice in the international commission. The members 
 of the committee are bound to answer at all times the 
 summons of the president : it is the governing power 
 of the association, the heart of its organisation, from 
 which its central and continuous operations proceed. 
 In the terms of the statutes, it will have for its mission 
 " to direct the enterprises and labours tending to achieve 
 the purpose of the association, and to administer the 
 funds supplied by the governments, by the national 
 committees, and by individuals." 
 
 The Conference could not dissolve without appoint- 
 ing a directing body. It has named, as members of the 
 executive committee, Sir Bartle Frere, Dr. Nachtigal, 
 and M. de Quatrefages. Sir Bartle Frere is one of the
 
 DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEES. 131 
 
 most eminent of English statesmen ; he has recently 
 distinguished himself by his mission to the Sultan of 
 Zanzibar, and by the negotiation of a treaty intended 
 to fix upon the broadest bases the abolition of the 
 slave trade. Dr. Nachtigal ranks among the first of 
 African explorers ; his great expedition into the 
 Soudan has gained him a prominent place in history. 
 M. de Quatrefages is one of the most learned naturalists 
 of the age, and is at the present moment Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the Society of Geography of Paris. 
 
 The national committees are the third element in the 
 system organised by the Conference ; they are the 
 popular basis of the work, the instruments of its mission, 
 the foundation of its resources. The national com- 
 mittees need not be constructed upon an uniform 
 model ; each country may decide, according to its own 
 taste, the method of organisation ; but in all cases they 
 will have the same mission to fulfil. This mission can- 
 not fail to be admirable and important. It will have 
 within its scope the familiarising in every way the 
 popular mind with all ideas connected with Africa, to 
 make known its physical and ethnographical conditions, 
 
 k 2
 
 132 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION: 
 
 its wants and its resources, its splendour and its suffer- 
 ing. It will have to interest in the work and in the 
 heroic enterprises of "travellers a number of people 
 who are only apathetic because they are ignorant, and 
 to draw the sympathies of the public to the millions of 
 men who up to the present time have lived excluded 
 from the benefits of civilisation, or have only known 
 it by the evils inflicted upon them by the most un- 
 worthy of its representatives. Lastly, its work will 
 be to excite a spirit of sacrifice and devotion ; to 
 beg and obtain from all directions a generous and con- 
 tinuous pecuniary support. The African subscription, 
 under the popular form assigned to it by the king, 
 may make the tour of the world, and never shall 
 charity have sown on its surface holier or more fruitful 
 seed. 
 
 It would be useless to go further into the details of 
 this system of organisation ;* suffice it to say that the 
 general details are well planned and understood. At 
 the very moment when we write these lines the germs 
 
 * See the text of the resolutions of the Conference on this 
 subject, in Appendix IV.
 
 DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEES. 133 
 
 of committees are forming in several parts of Europe ; 
 they will have to appeal to individual energy, they 
 will have to utilise, in order to attain the common 
 object, all that they shall find ready to their hand, in 
 the way of constituted bodies, whether learned, artistic, 
 or even simply banded societies, among the different 
 nations. Here a consideration presents itself on which 
 we must pause for a moment. The Conference of 
 Brussels, and the international association which takes 
 its origin from it, have had, and still have a private 
 character: is it to be said that the governments of 
 civilised nations are to be absolutely excluded from 
 all interest in these questions ? We think not ; and 
 without prejudice to any other considerations which 
 may be suggested by political wisdom and foresight, 
 historical precedents bear out this opinion. 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1815, the plenipotenti- 
 aries of eight powers, assembled in congress at Vienna, 
 had to give a decision, in virtue of the initiative taken 
 by Great Britain and France, on the question of the 
 universal and definitive abolition of the slave trade. This 
 movement met with a warm support, the declaration
 
 134 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION : 
 
 of which, on the 8th of February, contains the 
 following eloquent utterance : — 
 
 " It being understood," says this document, " that the 
 traffic known by the name of the Traite des Negres 
 d'Afrique has been regarded by just and enlightened 
 men of all times as repugnant to the principles of 
 humanity and universal morality . . . That the 
 plenipotentiaries assembled iu the congress, could not 
 more effectually do honour to their mission and fulfil 
 their duty than by proclaiming in the names of their 
 sovereigns their desire to put an end to a scourge 
 which has for so long desolated Africa, degraded 
 Europe, and afflicted humanity . . . Consequently, 
 and being duly authorised in this course by the 
 unanimous consent of their respective courts, . . . 
 they declare, in the presence of all Europe, that re- 
 garding the universal abolition of the slave trade, as a 
 measure peculiarly worthy of their attention, conform- 
 able to the spirit of the age, and to the generous 
 principles of their august sovereigns, they are animated 
 by a sincere desire to effect the most prompt and effica- 
 cious execution of this measure, by every means in their
 
 DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEES. 135 
 
 power, and to act, in the employment of these means, 
 with all the zeal and all the perseverance which they 
 owe to so great and noble a cause." 
 
 This declaration bears, among others, the signatures 
 of Castlereagh, Wellington, Nesselrode, Humboldt, 
 Metternich, and Talleyrand. 
 
 Seven years afterwards, on the 28th of November, 
 1822, the plenipotentiaries of the five great powers 
 solemnly renewed these engagements at the Congress 
 of Verona. They laid it down that the slave trade, 
 although proscribed, "has continued to this day ; that 
 it has gained in intensity what it may have lost in 
 extent ; that it has even assumed a more odious and 
 deadly character from the nature of the means to 
 which those who exercise it are forced to have recourse ; 
 that thousands of human beings become from year to 
 year its innocent victims. They declare, in consequence, 
 that they are ready to lend their support to amjthing that 
 may tend to secure and accelerate the complete and definite 
 abolition of this trade." 
 
 Half a century has passed since this language was 
 held ; and it may be judged by the picture which
 
 136 INTEENATIONAL ASSOCIATION: 
 
 lias been drawn above, whetber tbe powers bave gained 
 their end, and wbether tbey may consider themselves as 
 freed from tbe obligations which they had contracted. 
 The maritime states, especially England, have made 
 energetic and persevering efforts ; but there exists in 
 the present day a universal conviction that the most 
 active cruising is useless, and that the trade can only 
 be destroyed on the actual scene of its outrages. 
 Such is, in fact, one of the essential aims pursued by 
 the international association ; in opening up Africa to 
 science, Christianity, commerce, and civilisation, it 
 adopts the true and only system which, by consent of 
 all travellers, can result in the complete and definitive 
 abolition of the slave trade. Consequently it is the 
 programme of all Europe which it carries out, and 
 what more just, therefore, than to see all governments 
 lend it their sympathetic support ? It is not our place 
 here to determine the form which their assistance may 
 take ; it may, according to place and circumstance, 
 assume divers forms; but, supposing it only to be 
 sincere, energetic and sustained, is it too much to hope 
 favourably of a work which responds, in every object
 
 DUTIES OP THE COMMITTEES. 137 
 
 which it purposes, to the highest aspirations of the age ? 
 If these hopes come to be realised, the association 
 will acquire at the outset a broad and solid foundation. 
 Perhaps, if powerfully assisted at the same time by 
 private benevolence, it may begin from several points 
 at once the execution of its purpose. Under these 
 conditions, the final success of the enterprise does not 
 admit of a single doubt, and the operations in Africa 
 will receive an impulse, the consequences of which 
 cannot fail to be felt in the most divergent directions. 
 
 ;i ^TON H 
 
 ^S-CIATION,^
 
 ( 138 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 If what has been just read has been successful in con- 
 veying at least some vague notion of the object of this 
 undertaking, it will have justified the high expectations 
 to which expression was given at the close of the 
 debates of the Conference. To achieve the scientific 
 exploration of Africa, to carry into it light and civil- 
 isation, to spread therein the ideas and the products of 
 Christian nations, above all, to prosecute with invincible 
 energy the suppression of the slave trade; this, it has 
 been thought, was to formulate a programme in har- 
 mony with the wishes of all nations. Kindly in its 
 purpose, the enterprise has seemed justified in counting 
 on their assistance, all the more, that its execution 
 made no appeal to force, and looked only to moral 
 influence, persuasion, devotedness, and individual gene-
 
 CONCLUSION. 139 
 
 rosity. Can this confidence have been overweening ? 
 Can an assembly composed of so many specially selected 
 men, at which sat so many competent judges, so many 
 men who spoke from their own experience, have been 
 the dupe of a beautiful but vain Utopia ? Who would 
 venture to say so? "Who would willingly think so? 
 No; the conclusion that the Conference has arrived at 
 has been founded on a firm reality. Its work has not 
 been built upon the sand ; it contains the germ of a 
 grand future, because it is inspired with thoughts and 
 is addressed to feelings which form the living principle 
 of modern communities, and the diffusion of which is 
 as necessary as it is justifiable. To grasp these moral 
 forces, to group them in a powerful organisation, to 
 indicate to them an object as worthy of tempting, as 
 it is capable of recompensing, their efforts ; in this we 
 have a task, vast no doubt, but not unrealisable, the 
 accomplishment of which it has been thought might 
 be trusted to the combination of all civilised nations 
 meeting together on this common ground. 
 
 It is true that, even seconded as it must be, by the 
 prevailing currents of thought which influence mankind
 
 140 CONCLUSION. 
 
 at the present time, this task will still be long and 
 laborious : yet, at the same time, it possesses special 
 attractions calculated to support zeal and encourage 
 self-devotion. In fact, what undertaking fulfils to a 
 higher degree all the conditions requisite for popular 
 success ? Have not the labours of travellers going forth 
 for the discovery of distant lands, braving all dangers 
 and all sufferings, in order to open up new fields of 
 civilisation, always possessed the gift of exciting the 
 curiosity and the admiration of the masses ? What story 
 exceeds in interest the narrative of their heroic adven- 
 tures ? With what transports of enthusiasm is not their 
 happy return welcomed in every country after some 
 daring and successful campaign? What feeling more 
 natural than that of wishing to associate ourselves with 
 their efforts, and to help on their achievements. These 
 feelings belong to all times and to all places ; they are 
 not peculiar to scientific men who follow the steps of 
 explorers with an attentive and anxious eye : they 
 are entertained by all enlightened minds which are 
 open to generous ideas and sympathise with manly 
 undertakings.
 
 CONCLUSION. 141 
 
 Now what land is more suited by its marvels to 
 realise the flights of imagination than this immense 
 Africa, — so near to us in actual distance, seen only by 
 glimpses throughout the succession of ages, where 
 nature has been pleased to accumulate all her magni- 
 ficence, to display all the splendour of her contrasts, 
 where, by a melancholy contradiction, history has for 
 ages past written the most sinister, the most shameful 
 pages of her annals ? For — and this is a characteristic 
 trait of this noble work — it interests the heart at least 
 as much as it fascinates the mind. Every step forward 
 in the way of science will be here a step forward in the 
 way of justice ; every obstacle that is removed will 
 speak of chains being broken, and no where will light 
 prove to such a degree the parent of liberty — liberty 
 in its humblest, but also its holiest acceptation — liberty 
 which means the in-born right of men to their own 
 existence, and to the possession of their own persons, 
 their own labour, and their own children. 
 
 From whatever side, then, we view it, the enterprise 
 which occupies our attention is alive with noble impulses 
 and suggests grand thoughts. What if, anticipating
 
 142 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the future, we were to contemplate in advance the 
 total result ; what a spectacle would be presented to 
 the eyes of the man of science, as well as of the states- 
 man! If directed with unity of view and harmony 
 in operation, and if supplied with plentiful resources, 
 the geographical exploration of the hitherto unknown 
 regions of Africa will be completed before the close of 
 this century. The present generation will not disap- 
 pear without having seen the entire map of the con- 
 tinent, if not perfect in its minute details, at least 
 correct in its general features. 
 
 The conquests of civilisation will have followed 
 close on those of science. The stations after having 
 been points of support and refuge for the explorers, 
 will become focuses of light, and centres of so many 
 groups of races, gradually rising, under their auspices, 
 to social conditions of a higher order. Eeligious 
 missions, now confined to the coasts, will be able to 
 penetrate into the interior, and sow the seed of the 
 gospel in a soil which, more than any other, promises 
 abundant harvests. Under the combined influence of 
 these civilising agencies, the fountain-head of the slave
 
 CONCLUSION. 143 
 
 trade will be dried up ; the progressive diminution of 
 its ravages, by increasing the security of the natives, 
 will give scope to the growing communities of Central 
 Africa to develope themselves without hindrance. 
 Thanks to the establishment of extensive and distant 
 commercial relations, their material prosperity would 
 soon acquire a broad and stable basis. Before fifty 
 years from this time it would not be impossible that 
 Africa should become one of the great markets pro- 
 ducing some of the primary materials of European 
 industry, and she would then necessarily absorb in a 
 proportionate degree considerable quantities of manu- 
 factured goods. Much physical and moral force, now 
 unemployed in the countries of Europe, will then be 
 able to find useful and profitable modes of application 
 on this new soil. The combined efforts of so many 
 men of different nationality will create among the 
 states of the Old World an additional bond of solidarity, 
 and, in its enlarged domain, mankind will henceforth 
 see all the races of the globe co-operating towards the 
 fulfilment of its destinies. Such is in substance the 
 picture which history has already partially drawn since
 
 144 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the discovery of America and of Oceania ; it may 
 be renewed before our eyes in Africa, but under con- 
 ditions more complete, and, at the same time, more 
 worthy of the civilisation of our age, without being 
 disfigured either by the spirit of conquest, which 
 has been the source of so many bloody rivalries, nor 
 by the criminal excesses of which the native popu- 
 lations were in the sixteenth century the unhappy 
 victims, nor by the mistakes in economy, which have 
 so often smitten with sterility the richest gifts of 
 Providence. 
 
 These views are no longer those of a small number 
 of men ; they spread from place to place, and rapidly 
 gain the masses. This accounts for the sympathetic 
 echo which has so promptly responded from all countries 
 to the initiative taken at Brussels. Already England, 
 Germany, France, and Russia have set to work. Centres 
 of action, in connection with the general direction, are 
 being formed in the principal nations of Europe. In 
 the constitution of national committees, now definitely 
 settled, the Conference sees an essential element of its 
 programme converted into a reality, and au immediate
 
 CONCLUSION. 145 
 
 and indispensable means of bringing into play the 
 organs which itself has created. 
 
 Belgium — significant symptoms bear testimony to 
 the fact — will hold it a point of honour not to allow 
 herself to be outrun in this race ; she will not remain 
 behind other nations, either in the extent of the sacri- 
 fices which she will impose upon herself in order to 
 give a broad material foundation to the undertaking, 
 or in the unflagging zeal which she will bring to 
 bear for its support and extension. No element is 
 wanting for the well fulfilling of her task ; she pos- 
 sesses riches, she has science at her disposal, and men 
 eager for work outside their own country, on which to 
 exert their superabundant energies and talents. Being 
 capable of action, Belgium has every interest in acting ; 
 while she finds in Africa a vast field of expansion, 
 which invites her activity in every direction, she may 
 assume in Europe an attitude which will not be with- 
 out a certain moral dignity. Higher considerations still 
 will not find her indifferent : she has in this position 
 duties to fulfil towards herself. She will remember 
 the proud traditions of her past, when her banner waved 
 
 L
 
 146 CONCLUSION. 
 
 both on land and sea in the advanced guard of civilising 
 enterprises, She will not allow the glorious mission 
 which has been assigned to her by the initiation of her 
 sovereign to dwindle in her hands. Above all, she 
 will not forget that the nations of Europe, in making 
 her capital the centre of their united action, give her a 
 proof of esteem and confidence, which it is the duty of 
 a generous nation to be heartily grateful for.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE BRUSSELS GEOGRAPHICAL 
 CONFERENCE. 
 
 (12, 13, and 14 SEPTEMBER, 1876). 
 
 Li .i
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 MEMBEES OF THE BEUSSELS GEOGRAPHICAL 
 CONFERENCE. 
 
 (12, 13, and 14 September, 1876). 
 THE KING OF THE BELGIANS. 
 
 MEMBEES: 
 
 FOR GERMANY- 
 
 Baron von Eichthofen, President of the Geographical 
 
 Society of Berlin. 
 Dr. G. Nachtigal. 
 Dr. G. Bohlfs, Councillor of the Court of Prussia. 
 
 Dr. G. ScHWEINFTJRTH. 
 
 FOR AUSTRIA-HUNGARY- 
 
 Baron Hofmann, Privy Councillor, Minister of Finance of 
 
 the Empire. 
 Count Ed. Zichy, Privy Councillor. 
 Dr. F. von Hochstetter, Court Councillor, Professor at the 
 
 Upper Institute of Arts and Manufactures, President of 
 
 the Geographical Society of Vienna. 
 First Lieutenant A. Lux.
 
 150 APPENDIX. 
 
 FOR BELGIUM- 
 
 Baron A. Lambermont, Minister Plenipotentiary, Secretary- 
 General of the Department of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 M. E. Banning, Director in the Department of Foreign 
 Affairs. 
 
 M. Emile de Borchgrave, Councillor of Legation. 
 
 M. A. Couvreur, Member of the Chamber of Representatives. 
 
 Count Goblet d'Alviella, Member of the Provincial 
 Council of Brabant. 
 
 M. E. James, Professor in the University of Brussels. 
 
 M. E. de Laveleye, Professor in the University of Liege. 
 
 M. J. Quairier, Director at the Societe Generale. 
 
 M. Ch. Sainctelette, Member of the Chamber of Eepre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 M. T. Smolders, Member of the Chamber of Representatives, 
 Professor in the University of Louvain. 
 
 M. VAN Biervliet. 
 
 M. L. van den Bossche, Councillor of Legation. 
 
 M. J. VAN YOLXEM. 
 
 FOR FRANCE- 
 
 Vice-Admiral Baron de la Ronciere-le-Noury, Senator, 
 
 President of the Geographical Society of Paris. 
 M. Maunoir, Secretary-General of the Geographical Society 
 
 of Paris. 
 M. H. Duveyrier, Assistant-Secretary of the Geographical 
 
 Society of Paris. 
 The Marquis de Compiegne. 
 
 FOR GREAT BRITAIN- 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere, Vice-President of the Council of India. 
 Sir Rutherford Alcock, Minister Plenipotentiary, Pre- 
 sident of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
 
 APPENDIX. 151 
 
 FOR GREAT BRITAIN— continued. 
 
 Major-General Sir Henry Eawlinson, Member of the 
 
 Council of India. 
 Bear-Admiral Sir Leopold Heath. 
 Lt.-Colonel J. A. Grant. 
 Commander Verney Lovett Cameron. 
 
 Mr. W. MACKINNON. 
 
 Sir T. Fowell Buxton. 
 Sir J. Kennaway. 
 Sir Harry Verney. 
 
 FOR ITALY- 
 
 The Commendatore C. Negri, Minister Plenipotentiary. 
 
 FOR RUSSIA- 
 
 M. P. de Semenow, President of the Statistical Council, 
 Vice-President of the Geographical Society of St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 The Bureau consisted of the following : — 
 PRESIDENT : 
 
 THE KING OF THE BELGIANS. 
 
 VICE-PEESIDENTS : 
 
 The Baion von Bichthofen, President of the Geographical 
 
 Society of Berlin. 
 Dr. F. von Hochstetter, President of the Geographical Society 
 
 of Vienna.
 
 152 APPENDIX. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS— continued. 
 
 Vice-Admiral Baron de la Bonciere-le-Noury, President of 
 
 the Geographical Society of Paris. 
 Sir Kutherford Alcock, President of the Geographical Society 
 
 of London. 
 
 SECRETARIES : 
 M. E. Banning. M. E. James. 
 
 II. 
 
 Speech Delivered by the King at the Opening of the 
 Conference. 
 
 " Gentlemen, — Allow me to thank you warmly for the obliging 
 readiness with which you have been so good as to respond to 
 my invitation. Besides the satisfaction I shall have in listening 
 to the discussion of the problems in the solution of which we 
 are interested, I experience the keenest pleasure in meeting with 
 the distinguished men whose labours and courageous exertions 
 in behalf of civilisation I have for several years observed. 
 
 " The subject which brings us together to-day is one of those 
 which deserve to take a leading place in engaging the attention 
 of the friends of humanity. To open up to civilisation the only 
 part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the 
 darkness in which entire populations are enveloped, is, I venture 
 to say, a crusade worthy of this age of progress, and I am happy 
 to perceive how much the public feeling is in favour of its 
 accomplishment ; the tide is with us. 
 
 "Gentlemen, amongst those who have studied Africa the 
 most, a great number have been led to think that it would be 
 advantageous for the common object, that they should aim at
 
 APPENDIX. 153 
 
 bringing about the means of meeting and conferring together, 
 with the view of regulating proceedings, combining efforts, 
 turning to account all resources, and avoiding the waste caused 
 by duplicate labour. 
 
 " It has seemed to me that Belgium, a central and neutral 
 state, would be a well-selected country for such a meeting, and 
 this has emboldened me to invite you all here to my palace, to 
 the little Conference which I have the great satisfaction of 
 opening to-day. Need I say that, in bringing you to Brussels, I 
 have not been influenced by selfish views. No, gentlemen, if 
 Belgium is small, she is happy and contented with her lot. I have 
 no other ambition than to serve her well. But I will not go so 
 far as to assert that I should be insensible to the honour which 
 would result to my country from the fact that an important pro- 
 gress in a question which will make its mark in our era, should 
 be dated from Brussels. I should be happy that Brussels became, 
 in some sort, the head-quarters of this civilising movement. 
 
 " I have allowed myself then to entertain the thought that it 
 might fall within your convenience to come and discuss, and, 
 with the authority which belongs to you, unitedly to decide upon 
 the roads to follow and the means to employ for definitively 
 planting the standard of civilisation on the soil of Central 
 Africa ; to agree upon what ought to be done in order to interest 
 the public in your noble enterprise, and to induce it to aid with 
 its subscriptions. For, gentlemen, in works of this kind, it is 
 the concurrence of the great number which brings success, it is 
 the sympathy of the masses which it is necessary to invite and 
 to succeed in obtaining. 
 
 " What resources, in fact, should we not have at our disposal, 
 if all those to whom a franc is nothing, or very little, consented 
 to throw it into the treasury devoted to the suppression of the 
 slave trade in the interior of Africa ?
 
 154 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Great progress has been already made, and the unknown 
 country has been assailed on many sides; and if those here 
 present, who have enriched science with discoveries of so great 
 importance, would retrace for us the principal points of them, 
 their recital would be a powerful encouragement for all. 
 
 " Among the questions which remain still to be examined, the 
 following have been specified : 
 
 " First. The exact laying down of bases of operation to be 
 acquired, among others, on the coast of Zanzibar, and near the 
 mouth of the Congo, either by stipulation with the chiefs, or by 
 purchase, or by arrangements with private individuals. 
 
 " Secondly. The laying down of the routes to be successively 
 opened towards the interior, and of the stations for purposes of 
 relief, of science, and of pacification, which have to be organised, 
 as a means of abolishing slavery, of establishing harmony among 
 the chiefs, and of providing for them just and disinterested 
 arbitrators, etc. 
 
 " Thirdly. The creation, so soon as the work shall have been 
 well defined, of an international and central committee and of 
 national committees, to carry out its execution, by each, in its 
 own special direction, making the object desired known in 
 their respective countries, and also by making an appeal to 
 that feeling of charity to which no good cause has ever yet 
 addressed itself in vain. 
 
 " Such, gentlemen, are some of the different points which seem 
 to deserve your consideration ; if there be others they will evolve 
 themselves in the course of your discussions, and you will not 
 fail to throw light upon them. 
 
 " My desire is, to help on, in the manner that you may point 
 out to me, the great cause for which you have already done so 
 much. With this object, I place myself at your disposal, and 
 bid you a hearty welcome."
 
 APPENDIX. 155 
 
 III. 
 
 Decision of the Conference on the Subject of Stations. 
 
 In order to attain the objects of the International Con- 
 ference of Brussels, that is to say, to explore scientifically the 
 unknown parts of Africa, to facilitate the opening of roads by 
 which civilisation may be introduced into the interior of the 
 African Continent, and to find means of suppressing the negro 
 slave trade in Africa, it is necessary : 
 
 First. To organise on one common international plan the 
 exploration of the unknown parts of Africa, on the understanding 
 that the region to be explored is to have for its boundaries, 
 eastward and westward, the two seas ; southward, the basin of the 
 Zambesi; and northward the frontiers of the new Egyptian 
 territory and independent Soudan. The means best adapted 
 for this exploration will be the employment of a sufficient 
 number of separate travellers starting from different bases of 
 operation. 
 
 Secondly. To establish as the bases of these operations a certain 
 number of scientific and relief stations, both on the coasts of 
 Africa, and in the interior of the continent. 
 
 Of these stations some will be established, in very limited 
 numbers, on the eastern and western coasts of Africa, at points 
 where European civilisation is already represented, as for 
 example, at Bagamoyo and at Loanda. Tbe stations should 
 have the character of depdts provided with the means of supplying 
 travellers with the necessaries of existence and for exploration. 
 They might be established at small expense, for they would be 
 intrusted to the charge of the Europeans residing at these 
 points. 
 
 The other stations could be established at points in the interior 
 best adapted to serve as direct bases for explorations. The
 
 156 APPENDIX. 
 
 establishment of these latter stations could be commenced at the 
 points which at the present time recommend themselves as the 
 most favourable for the proposed purpose. For example, Ujiji, 
 Nyangwe, the residence of the king, or some point lying within 
 the domains of Muata-Yamvo, might be specified. The explorers 
 would be able afterwards to point out other positions where it 
 would be convenient to set up similar stations. 
 
 Leaving to the future the care of establishing safe communica- 
 tions between the stations, the Conference above all expresses the 
 desire that a line of communication as unbroken as possible 
 should be established from one ocean to the other, following ap- 
 proximately the route of Commander Cameron. The Conference 
 also expresses the hope that lines of operation will be subse- 
 quently established in the direction of from north to south. 
 
 The Conference requests the good-will and co-operation of all 
 travellers, who henceforward shall undertake scientific explora- 
 tions in Africa, whether they travel under the auspices of the 
 international commission instituted by its agency, or not. 
 
 rv. 
 
 Kesoltjtions of the Conference concerning the System of 
 Organisation. 
 
 1. There shall be established au international commission of 
 exploration and civilisation of Central Africa, and national 
 committees which shall keep themselves in communication 
 with the commission with the view of centralising, as far 
 as possible, the efforts made by their fellow-countrymen, 
 and to facilitate, by their co-operation, the execution of the 
 resolutions of the commission.
 
 APPENDIX. 157 
 
 2. The national committees constitute themselves in such 
 
 manner as may seem to them preferable. 
 
 3. The commission shall be composed of the presidents of the 
 
 principal geographical societies which are represented at 
 the Conference of Brussels, or who may subsequently give 
 in their adherence to its programme, and of two members 
 chosen by each national committee. 
 
 4. The president shall have the power to admit into the asso- 
 
 ciation countries which were not represented at the 
 Conference. 
 
 5. The president shall have the power of filling up the inter- 
 
 national commission by adding to it effective members and 
 honorary members. 
 
 6. The central committee, after having drawn up its regulations, 
 
 shall make it its duty to direct by means of an executive 
 committee the enterprises and operations aiming at the 
 fulfilment of the object of the association and to administer 
 the funds supplied by government, by the national com- 
 mittees and by individuals. 
 
 7. The executive committee shall be appointed under the 
 
 president, and shall consist of three or four members 
 nominated beforehand by the present Conference and 
 subsequently by the international committee. 
 
 S. The members of the committee shall hold themselves in 
 readiness to answer to the summons of the president. 
 
 9. The president appoints a secretary-general, who by the very 
 fact of his nomination will become a member of the inter- 
 national commission and of the executive committee ; the 
 president also appoints a treasurer.
 
 158 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Congress of Vienna. 
 
 Declaration of the Plenipotentiaries of the Powers who Signed the 
 Treaty of Paris of the 30th of May, 1814, relative to the Abolition 
 of the Traite des Negres cFAfrique, or the Slave Trade. 
 
 The Plenipotentiaries of the Powers who signed the Treaty of 
 Paris of the 30th of May, 1814, assembled in conference, having 
 taken into consideration that the traffic known by the name 
 of Traite des Negres d'Afrique has been regarded by just and 
 enlightened men of all times as repugnant to the principles of 
 humanity and universal morality ; 
 
 That the particular circumstances to which this traffic owed 
 its origin, and the difficulty of putting a sudden check upon its 
 progress have, up to a certain point, succeeded in hiding from 
 view the hatefulness of its continuation ; but that at length the 
 public voice has been raised in every civilised country to demand 
 its suppression as soon as possible ; 
 
 That, since the character and details of this traffic have become 
 better known, and the evils of every kind which accompany 
 it have been completely exposed, several European Governments 
 have, in fact, resolved to put a stop to it, and that one after the 
 other all the powers possessing colonies in the different parts of 
 the world, have, either by legislative acts, or by treaties and 
 other formal engagements, recognised the obligation and the 
 necessity of abolishing it ; 
 
 That, by a separate article of the last Treaty of Paris, Great 
 Britain and France pledged themselves to unite their efforts at 
 the congress of Vienna to induce all the powers of Christendom 
 to declare for the universal and definitive abolition of the slave 
 trade ;
 
 APPENDIX. 159 
 
 That the plenipotentiaries assembled in this congress could 
 not more effectually do honour to their mission, fulfil their duty, 
 and set forth the principles which influence their august 
 sovereigns than by striving to realise this engagement and by 
 proclaiming in the name of their sovereigns, the desire to put 
 an end to a scourge which for so long a time has desolated 
 Africa, degraded Europe and afflicted humanity ; 
 
 The said plenipotentiaries are agreed to open their delibera- 
 tions on the means of accomplishing so salutary an object by a 
 formal declaration of the principles which have influenced them 
 in this work. 
 
 Consequently, and being duly authorised in this course by the 
 unanimous consent of their respective courts, they declare in the 
 presence of all Europe that, regarding the universal abolition of 
 the slave trade as a measure peculiarly worthy of their atten- 
 tion, and conformable to the spirit of the age and to the generous 
 principles of their august sovereigns, they are animated by a 
 sincere desire to effect the most prompt and efficacious execution 
 of this measure by every means in their power, and to act, in 
 the employment of these means, with all the zeal and all the 
 perseverance which they owe to so great and so noble a cause. 
 
 Bcinp, however, too well acquainted with the sentiments of 
 their sovereigns not to foresee that however honourable their 
 objects, they must not pursue it without just consideration for 
 the interests, habits, and even prejudices of their subjects, the 
 said plenipotentiaries at the same time recognise it as a principle 
 that this general declaration is not to prejudge the period which 
 each power in particular may regard as most convenient for the 
 definitive abolition of the traffic in negroes : Consequently, the 
 determination of the time when this traffic must universally 
 cease, will be a subject of negotiation between the powers; it 
 being well understood that no means will be neglected which
 
 160 APPENDIX. 
 
 are adapted to ensure and to accelerate the movement, and that 
 the mutual engagement contracted by the present declaration 
 between the sovereigns who have taken part in it, will not be 
 considered as fulfilled until the moment when complete success 
 shall have crowned their united efforts. 
 
 In bringing this declaration to the knowledge of Europe and 
 of all the civilised nations of the world the said plenipotentiaries 
 hope to induce all other governments, and especially those 
 which, in the abolition of the slave trade, have already given 
 proof of the same feelings, to support them with their concurrence 
 in a cause the final triumph of which will be one of the noblest 
 monuments of the age which has undertaken it and which will 
 have brought it to so glorious a completion. 
 
 Vienna, the 8th of February, 1815. 
 
 (Signed) Castlereagh. Palmella. 
 
 Stewart. Saldanha. 
 
 Wellington. Lobo. 
 
 Nesselrode. Humboldt, 
 
 c. loewenhielm. metternich. 
 
 Gomez Labrador. Talleyrand. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Congress of Verona. 
 
 Declaration of the 28th of November, 1822, on the Abolition of the 
 Traite des Negres aVAfrique. 
 
 The Plenipotentiaries of Austria, of France, of Great Britain, of 
 Prussia and of Kussia, assembled in Congress at Verona ; 
 
 Taking into consideration, that their august sovereigns have 
 taken part in the declaration of the 8th of February, 1815, by
 
 APPENDIX. 161 
 
 which the powers assembled in congress at Vienna, proclaimed 
 in the face of Europe their unalterable resolution to put an 
 end to the traffic known under the name of Traite des Kegres 
 d'Afrique ; 
 
 Taking moreover into consideration that, notwithstanding 
 this declaration, and in spite of the legislative measures by 
 which it has been followed in many countries, and of the different 
 treaties concluded since the said period between the maritime 
 powers, this traffic, formally proscribed, has continued to this 
 very day ; that it has gained in intensity what it may have lost 
 in extent, that it has even assumed a more hateful and more 
 sinister character from the nature of the means to which those 
 who carry it on have been compelled to have recourse ; that 
 the causes of so revolting an abuse, are principally to be found 
 in the fraudulent practices by which the undertakers of these 
 condemnable speculations evade the laws of their country, 
 baffle the surveillance of the vessels employed to arrest the 
 progress of their iniqvuties, and hide from view the criminal 
 operations of which thousands of human beings become the 
 yearly victims ; 
 
 That the powers of Europe are called upon by their previous 
 engagements, as well as by a sacred duty, to seek the most 
 effective means of preventing a traffic which has already been 
 pronounced unlawful and culpable by the laws of almost every 
 civilised country, and severely to jranish those who prosecute it 
 in open contravention of those laws ; 
 
 Have recognised the necessity of devoting the most serious 
 attention to an object of such great importance to the well- 
 being and honour of humanity, and, consequently, they declare 
 in the name of their august sovereigns, that they unalterably 
 persist in the same principles and sentiments which these 
 sovereigns manifested by the declaration of the 8th of February,
 
 1(32 APPENDIX. 
 
 1815; — That they have not ceased, and will never cease to 
 regard the trade in negroes as a scourge which has too long 
 desolated Africa, degraded Europe, and afflicted humanity, and 
 that they are ready to concur in everything which may insure 
 and accelerate the complete and definitive abolition of this 
 traffic. 
 
 That in order to give effect to this renewed declaration, their 
 respective cabinets will devote themselves with earnestness to 
 the seeking out of every measure 'compatible with their rights 
 and the interests of then- subjects to bring about a result, 
 which shall prove in the eyes of the world the sincerity of their 
 desires and of their efforts in favour of a cause deserving of 
 their united solicitude. 
 
 Verona, the 28th of November, 1822. 
 
 (Signed) Metternich. Wellington. 
 
 Lebzeltern. Hatzfeldt. 
 
 Chateaubriand. Nesselrode. 
 
 Caraman. Lieven. 
 
 Ferronais. Tatischeff. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Address delivered by the King at the Meeting for 
 Installing the Belgian Committee, held on the 6th of 
 November, 1876, in the Palace at Brussels. 
 
 " Gentlemen,— The slavery which is still continued over a con- 
 siderable portion of the African Continent is a plague-spot 
 which all friends of civilisation must desire to see obliterated. 
 " The horrors of this state of things, the thousands of victims
 
 APPENDIX. 103 
 
 which the slave trade causes to be massacred every year, the 
 still greater number of perfectly innocent beings who are 
 brutally dragged into captivity and condemned wholesale to 
 hard labour for life, have keenly touched the feelings of all 
 those who have in any degree studied with attention this 
 deplorable reality, and they have conceived the idea of com- 
 bining, of co-operating and, in one word, of founding an inter- 
 national association to put a stop to an odious traffic, which 
 is a disgrace to the age in which we live, and to tear away 
 the veil of darkness which still hangs over Central Africa. 
 The discoveries for which we are indebted to brave explorers, 
 enable us now to say that it is one of the fairest and richest 
 countries that God has created. 
 
 " The Brussels Conference has named a committee of three 
 members : Sir Bartle Frere, Dr. Nachtigal and M. de Quatrefages, 
 of the Institute of France, to put in execution, in conjunction 
 with the presidents and secretary-general, the declarations and 
 resolutions which it has formulated as follows * : — 
 
 " The Conference has desired, with the view of bringing it into 
 closer relations with the public, whose sympathy will be our 
 strength, to found national committees in each country. These 
 committees, after having each delegated two members to take 
 part in the international committee, will give publicity in their 
 respective countries to the programme adopted. 
 
 "The undertaking has already received in France and in 
 Belgium important subscriptions, to the givers of which we owe a 
 debt of gratitude. These acts of charity, so honourable to the 
 doers, are a stimulus to our zeal in the task which we have under- 
 taken. Our first endeavour must be to reach the heart of the 
 masses, and, as the numbers increase, to bring together our 
 
 * For the text of these documents, see Appendix III. and IV. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 APPENDIX. 
 
 adherents into a fraternal union, which, while it will weigh but 
 lightly on each side, will be powerful and fruitful by means 
 of the combination of individual efforts and their results. 
 
 "The international association does not pretend to take upon 
 itself all the good that can, and ought to be done in Africa. It 
 must, especially at first, deny to itself a very extended pro- 
 gramme : but supported by public sympathy, we are convinced 
 that if we succeed in opening roads, and in establishing stations 
 on the tracks followed by the slave merchants, this odious 
 traffic will be put a stop to, and the stations, while serving as 
 points of relief for travellers, will powerfully help in the 
 evangelisation of the negroes, and in the introduction amongst 
 them of commerce and modern industrial occupations. We 
 unhesitatingly assert that all who wish the enfranchisement of 
 the black race are interested in our success. 
 
 "The Belgian committee, emanating from the international 
 committee and representing it in Belgium, will make every effort 
 to gain the greatest possible number of adherents to the under- 
 taking. It will assist my fellow-countrymen in once more 
 proving, that Belgium is not only a land of hospitality, but that 
 she is also a generous nation in which the cause of humanity 
 finds as many defenders as she can count citizens. 
 
 " I fulfil a very agreeable duty, when I thank this assembly, 
 and warmly congratulate it on having undertaken a task, the 
 completion of which will contribute to our country's glory one 
 fair page more in the annals of charity and of progress."
 
 APPENDIX/'^ 165 
 
 \ v M - ■ 
 
 vni. 
 
 
 International Association for the Suppression of the 
 Slave Trade and Opening up Central Africa. 
 
 statutes of the belgian national committee. 
 
 Article 1. A national committee lias been established at 
 Brussels charged with the carrying into execution, as far as 
 itself is concerned and within the limits of Belgium, the pro- 
 gramme of the International Conference for the suppression of 
 the slave trade, and the exploration of Africa. 
 
 Article 2. This programme, according to the views of the 
 Belgian Committee, may be summed up in the two following 
 points : — 
 
 (a). To make known in Belgium, both by word of mouth and 
 by the press, all the information of every kind which bears upon 
 the object which the international association has in view. 
 
 (5). To organise a national subscription, and to centralise the 
 resources of every kind which may be placed at their disposal, 
 for the execution of the international programme. 
 
 Article 3. The Belgian committee consists of persons who 
 have accepted the invitation to be present at the meeting of 
 to-day. 
 
 Article 4. The committee nominates the members of its own 
 bureau, which consists of a president, two vice-presidents, and 
 two delegates representing the committee at the international 
 commission, the secretary-general, and the treasurer of the 
 executive committee, and an assistant secretary. 
 
 The bureau, if it thinks fit, can add to itself two supplementary 
 
 members. 
 
 m 3
 
 166 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the absence of the president, each of the vice-presidents is 
 called upon alternately to preside. 
 
 Article 5. The bureau will have the right to add to the 
 present members of the committee, such persons as shall have 
 rendered signal services to the undertaking, and those "whose 
 co-operation would be particularly serviceable to it. 
 
 The bureau represents the Belgian committee in the intervals 
 of its meetings ; it is its executive organ, and may be summoned 
 by the president whenever he may deem it convenient. 
 
 Besides these occasions, the bureau meets regularly once a 
 month, at least, at the office of the association. The strictly 
 administrative work is assigned to the secretary-general and 
 the treasurer, who refer to the president whenever occasion 
 requires it. 
 
 Article 6. The duration of the functions of the president, 
 the vice-presidents, and the two members delegate, is three 
 years. These officers are re-eligible. 
 
 The committee nominates its own secretary, and its own 
 treasurer. Their habitual residence must be in Brussels. 
 
 The functions of president, vice-president, member delegate, 
 secretary, and treasurer are gratuitous. 
 
 The secretary receives the communications which are ad- 
 dressed to the committee : the treasurer the funds placed at the 
 disposal of the committee. 
 
 Of these funds, such part as the bureau shall judge strictly 
 necessary for the expenses of the national committee shall 
 remain appropriated to that special purpose : the remainder 
 shall be handed over to the treasurer of the international under- 
 taking who will negotiate its investment, and hold the revenue 
 at the disposal of the executive international committee. 
 
 Article 7. The local committees which may hereafter be esta-
 
 APPENDIX. 167 
 
 Wished in the country, shall, as far as possible, be centralised in 
 the province, except in Brabant, where the national committee 
 sits. They will hold themselves in constant communication 
 with the national committee, from which they take their instruc- 
 tions, and to which they make a monthly remittance of the 
 funds collected through their exertions. 
 
 Article 8. The national committee, through the medium of 
 its bureau, corresponds, for the purposes of the undertaking, 
 with public authorities, private associations, and individuals. 
 
 Article 9. The national committee nominates two members 
 of the international commission : the appointment of these 
 delegates lasts for three years ; these officers are re-eligible. 
 
 Article 10. In the execution of its duties, the national com- 
 mittee informs itself of the views, and conforms itself to the 
 instructions of the international commission and of the executive 
 committee with which it will hold itself in regular communi- 
 cation. 
 
 Article 11. The national committee meets at Brussels at the 
 summons of its president. 
 
 Article 12. The members of the national committee con- 
 tribute to the undertaking by an annual contribution accord- 
 ing to their means, or by some work conducive to the general 
 object. 
 
 Article 13. Every year, on the 1st of March, the committee . 
 meets in formal public assembly for the purpose of receiving the 
 report of the secretary-general and of the treasurer, and of 
 taking into consideration every thing which may be of advan- 
 tage to the undertaking, as well as of giving expansion to 
 opinions relative to the duties undertaken, and to the amount 
 of progress realised by the international association.
 
 168 APPENDIX. 
 
 Article 14. A copy of all the publications which may be 
 issued, either by the international commission, or by the 
 executive committee, or by the national committee, shall be 
 sent, through the latter, to each of its members. Copies shall 
 also be placed at the disposal of the provincial committees. 
 
 Article 15. The national committee shall have power to 
 confer honorary diplomas and medals on such persons both 
 within or outside of the association as shall have rendered 
 exceptional services to the undertaking. The conferment of 
 these diplomas, and medals, shall take place every year at the 
 formal public meeting provided by Article 13. 
 
 Article 16. The national committee shall have power to 
 introduce into the regulatory arrangements of the present 
 statutes such modifications as experience may show to be 
 desirable, but which must be in harmony with the declarations 
 and resolutions of the Brussels Conference. 
 
 Bead and adopted at the meeting of the 6th November, 1876.
 
 APPENDIX. 169 
 
 IX. 
 
 Members of the Belgium International Committee. 
 
 PRESIDENT : 
 
 H. R. H. THE COUNT OF FLANDERS. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS : 
 
 Baron d'Anethax, Minister of State, and Senator. 
 M. H. Dolez, Minister of State, and Senator. 
 
 Delegates to the International Commission : 
 
 Baron Lambermont, Minister Plenipotentiary, Secretary-General 
 
 of the Department for Foreign Affairs. 
 General Liagre, Commandant of the Military School, Perpetual 
 
 Secretary of the Academy. 
 
 SECRETARY : 
 Baron Greindl, Minister Plenipotentiary. 
 
 TREASURER: 
 M. Galezot, Sab-Director of the Finance Department. 
 
 MEMBERS : 
 
 Major Adan, Second Commandant of the Military College. 
 
 M. Anspach, Representative, Mayor of Brussels. 
 
 Count Charles d'Aspremont-Lynden, Member of the Provincial 
 
 Council of the province of Namur. 
 M. Banning, Director of the Department for Foreign Affairs. 
 M. Bischoffsheim, Senator. 
 M. Braconier, Senator.
 
 170 APPENDIX. 
 
 M. Cannart d'Hamale, Senator. 
 
 Baron Constantine de Caters, Ship-owner. 
 
 M. Couvreur, Representative. 
 
 M. Crombez, Representative, Mayor of Tournai. 
 
 M. de Becker, Advocate of the Court of Cassation. 
 
 M. Em. de Laveleye, Professor at the University of Liege. 
 
 M. Delloye-Mathieu, Mayor of Huy. 
 
 M. de Ronge, Councillor of the Court of Cassation. 
 
 M. Gheeland, Member of the Provincial Council of the province 
 
 of Antwerp. 
 Count Goblet d'Alviella, Member of the Provincial Council 
 
 of the province of Brabant. 
 M. HotxzEAu, Director of the Observatory, Member of the 
 
 Academy. 
 M. James, Professor at the University of Brussels. 
 Colonel Baron F. Jolly, Commandant of the Military College. 
 Baron Kervyn de Volkaersbeke, representative. 
 M. Lefebvre, Representative. 
 M. Leclercq, Advocate at the Court of Cassation. 
 M. Lemme, formerly Member of the Chamber of Commerce of 
 
 Antwerp. 
 M. Linden, Naturalist, Consul-General. 
 Baron de Montblanc, Representative. 
 M. Orban de Xivry, Senator. 
 Count d'Oultremont de Warfusee, Member of the Provincial 
 
 Council of the province of Liege. 
 M. Parmentier, Manufacturer. 
 M. Picard, President of the Provincial Council of the province 
 
 of Brabant. 
 M. Quairier, Director of the Societe Generate. 
 M. Sabatier, Representative. 
 M. Sadoine, Director of John Cockerill's works at Seraing.
 
 APPENDIX. 171 
 
 M. Sainctelette, Eepresentative. 
 
 M. Saint-Paul-de-Sin9Ay, Managing Director of the Soci^te de 
 
 la Vieille Montagne. 
 M. Schollaert, Eepresentative. 
 M. Smolders, Eepresentative. 
 M. Solvyns, Senator. 
 
 M. Trasenster, Professor at the University of Liege. 
 M. van Beneden, Professor at the University of Louvain, 
 
 Member of the Academy. 
 M. van Biervliet, Advocate. 
 M. van den Bossche, Councillor of Legation, Chief of the 
 
 Cabinet of the Department of Foreign Affairs. 
 M. van der Stichelen, formerly Minister for Foreign Affairs 
 
 and Public Works. 
 M. van Hoegaerden, Director at the National Bank. 
 M. van Schelle, Advocate. 
 M. van Volxem, Proprietor. 
 M. Warocqtte, Eepresentative. 
 Baron Gustave de Woelmont, Senator. 
 Baron Gustave van de Woestyne, Senator. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON! PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 EPILOGUE.* 
 
 Since the preceding pages were written and published, 
 several new and important documents concerning Africa 
 have made their appearance. Among them are two 
 which have been received everywhere with extreme 
 interest, and would seem to be of a character to exer- 
 cise peculiar influence on public opinion in England. 
 The first of these documents is a lecture delivered 
 before the Chamber of Commerce at Cape Town by 
 Lieutenant Young, K.N., on his return from the Living- 
 stonia Expedition on the shores of the Lake Nyassa ; 
 the second is no other than Commander Cameron's 
 Narrative of his Voyage across Africa. 
 
 The Report of Lieutenant Young circumstantially 
 and conclusively proves what great results it is possible 
 to obtain, both for the civilisation of the negroes and 
 the suppression of the slave trade, as the sole result 
 of moral influence and of enlightened and kindly 
 patronage without any resort to force. The facts 
 
 * Written in March, 1877. 
 
 o
 
 174 EPILOGUE. 
 
 which it specifies confirm, with singular precision, 
 several of the leading points in our book. In another 
 direction Commander Cameron presents us, as the 
 conclusion to his work, with an assemblage of 
 remarks and of views, which, coming from so clear- 
 sighted and experienced a traveller, constitute important 
 testimony in favour of the generous and practical 
 character of the undertaking set on foot by the 
 Brussels Conference. 
 
 In view of these facts, it will not be amiss to give 
 here some quotations from each of these publications, 
 in which are strongly exhibited, as over-riding all 
 personal or national prejudices, those noble and truly 
 Christian feelings which, on these questions, have at 
 all times actuated the English nation. 
 
 "The expedition," says Lieutenant Young, "had 
 been quite successful in everything they took in hand. 
 Everything, in fact, had exceeded his expectations. 
 The expedition was in possession of Lake Nyassa, and 
 had established a good name there. They had made 
 friends with every one, and enemies with no one. . . . 
 As for the mission, it was firmly and satisfactorily 
 established on the lake, and had already made itself 
 felt. He had orders not to interfere with the slave 
 trade, but indirectly a great check had been put upon 
 it. Formerly not fewer than 10,000 slaves passed the 
 southern end of the lake per annum, but last year only
 
 EPILOGUE. 175 
 
 thirty-eight were known to have succeeded in getting 
 to the coast by that route. Thus far, therefore, the 
 Livingstonia Expedition had been the means of saving 
 the lands from slavery, and not only so, but as soon as 
 it was known that the English had come there, the 
 people flocked back, and built villages on the side of 
 the lake. If they asked them, ' Why are you doing 
 so ?' the reply was, ' The English are come, and we are 
 quite satisfied.' 
 
 " As for the country, it was the finest he had ever 
 seen. The Nyassa was called a lake, but it was in fact 
 a vast inland sea. The native canoes never thought 
 of crossing the lake, but they went along its shores. 
 It was not so densely populated now as when Living- 
 stone first discovered it ; but nothing would be easier 
 than to develop its resources and to open up trade. 
 He did not altogether believe in missionaries going in 
 for trade, but, nevertheless, it must be introduced, and 
 the banks of the upper shore would supply all the 
 world with cotton and sugar. The natives were very 
 willing, and with a little encouragement could easily 
 be made to produce very largely. He found they 
 obeyed him with alacrity, and readily acknowledged 
 him as head, because they knew he was English. . . . 
 When the last steamer went up, he said that he required 
 1(X0 natives on a certain day, and they were there. 
 They never asked what they were going to receive, 
 
 o 2
 
 176 EPILOGUE. 
 
 and they carried heavy loads without injuring or losing 
 anything. They found themselves in provisions, and 
 when they went home he paid them each six yards of 
 calico, with which they were quite satisfied. When 
 he came down to meet Dr. Stewart, he returned 
 with 500 carriers, and on this occasion he paid 
 them only four yards of calico each. The English 
 name was good, and the natives were ready to do 
 whatever they were told. The pure African, not 
 spoilt by the European, they could mould into any 
 shape they liked. 
 
 Lake Nyassa was a deep basin ; it was deep all over. 
 On the north-east shores a range of very high moun- 
 tains ran parallel with the lake for upwards of 100 
 miles. Their height was from 10,000 feet to 12,000 feet, 
 and they came down very steeply to the margin. 
 Table Mountain would look quite insignificant beside 
 them. During his voyage of circumnavigation, a heavy 
 gale of wind was experienced, which compelled them to 
 lay to for two days. The attempt to sound one part 
 of the lake a quarter of a mile from shore with 140 
 fathoms of line failed to get bottom at that depth. 
 The mission had nothing to complain of. The lake 
 teemed with iish, and plenty of fowls, goats, and sheep 
 were to be had, and there would soon be oxen. For 
 some 800 miles the coast was a beautiful country. An 
 Englishman coukl live there as well as in Cape Town.
 
 EPILOGUE. 177^ 
 
 " He might say that the Zambezi and its tributaries 
 were a mine of wealth, and all that was wanted was 
 men of energy and enterprise to develop it. As to 
 the mission, there had not been a hitch of any kind. 
 Everything had succeeded better than he expected, and 
 he looked for better things yet. If a more suitable 
 man could not be got, he was quite ready and willing 
 to go and do what was necessary himself. In reply to 
 questions put to him, Lieutenant Young stated, among 
 other things, that the country was exceedingly healthy* 
 As to navigating the rivers, steamers could be so con- 
 structed as to be able to go up at any time. There 
 was no reason why communication between Lake 
 Nyassa and the sea should not be maintained con- 
 tinually. Moreover, there was plenty of fuel. 
 Steamers could be constructed so as to take to pieces, 
 no part weighing more than half a ton. His boiler 
 weighed more than that, but he took it over the 
 cataracts, and nothing was lost or injured. He quite 
 agreed with what had been said about communication 
 by telegraph. At the northern end of Lake Nyassa 
 they were not so very far from Lake Tanganyika, from 
 which communication could, without much trouble, be 
 made with the Nile, and so on to Cairo. In flood 
 times the Zambezi would rise twenty-four feet, and run 
 to the sea at a pretty rapid rate. There was an 
 abundance of all kinds of game in the^ country.
 
 178 EPILOGUE. 
 
 especially elephants. The natives, for the most part, 
 caught game in pitfalls. They had only old flint-lock 
 muskets The way in which the slave trade icas carried 
 on teas something frightful. The xVrabs would come 
 down wanting so many slaves, and surround a village so 
 that there should be no escape, and after capturing the 
 men, women, and children, they would slaughter the 
 old people on the spot. He had seen skeletons by the 
 thousand. The natives wore cotton of a very coarse 
 kind, and they much preferred our calico. Some of 
 them were dressed in skins, but they got cloth from 
 the Arabs. Ivory was almost as expensive as it would 
 be in England. 
 
 " Not very long ago a woman who had made her 
 escape from a slave gang crossed the Zambezi and 
 came back again. She was picked up in the grass and 
 brought to him. The opening of the Zambezi would 
 be destructive to the slave trade, inasmuch as it would 
 lead to the cultivation of the soil and development of 
 commerce. Supposing that it w r as decided to carry a 
 line of telegraph through Central Africa, he did not 
 apprehend any danger about the poles being burnt or 
 other destruction occasioned. Any amount of timber 
 could be got for poles ; in fact, it was a most magni- 
 ficent country. Cape Town and its neighbourhood was 
 the only barren part of Africa that he had seen. The 
 distance from the lake to the sea was about 450 miles
 
 EPILOGUE. 179 
 
 altogether, but when once the cataracts were passed 
 there were no sandbanks or other impediments to 
 navigation ; and as to the cost of transport, he could 
 only say that for carrying fifty to sixty pounds a 
 distance of eighty miles he paid four yards of calico. 
 There was no reason, however, why a road should not 
 be made by native labour, which would much facilitate 
 transport where navigation was impracticable." — Cape 
 Standard and Mail of January 9, 1877. 
 
 We now come to the final impressions recorded 
 by Captain Cameron of a sojourn of three years in 
 Central Africa, both in the interior and on the 
 coast. 
 
 " I only desire to show the present condition of the 
 large and fertile country I have traversed, the different 
 routes by which it may be approached, and in what 
 manner they may be utilised, and, above all, how 
 the utilisation of these routes may best serve to 
 develop the vast latent resources of the country, and 
 remove that blot on the boasted civilisation of the 
 nineteenth century, ' the cursed slave trade.' 
 
 " Slaves, ivory, beeswax, and india-rubber are now 
 the only articles exported from either coast, with 
 the exception of a small and local trade from the 
 eastern littoral in gum-copal and grain. 
 
 "Of these, ivory and slaves occupy such a pro- 
 minent position, that it would be hardly worth while
 
 180 EPILOGUE. 
 
 to mention the others, were it not that the existing 
 trade in them proves that commerce in other articles 
 besides slaves and ivory may be made profitable. . . . 
 
 "The whole trade of tropical Africa is at present 
 dependent on human beings as beasts of burden, and 
 valuable labour which may be profitably employed in 
 cultivating the ' ground, or collecting products for 
 exportation is thus lost. . . . 
 
 " The internal trade is principally carried on by 
 slaves of merchants residing at the coast, and — as is 
 always the case with those equally low in the scale of 
 civilisation — they are the most cruel oppressors of all 
 who fall into their clutches. 
 
 " Ivory is not likely to last for ever (or for long), as 
 the main export from Africa; indeed the ruthless 
 manner in which the elephants are destroyed and 
 harassed has already began to. show its effects. . . . 
 Having this probable extinction of the ivory trade in 
 view, and allowing, as all sensible people must, that 
 legitimate commerce is the proper way to open up 
 and civilise a country, we must see what other 
 lucrative sources of trade may hereafter replace that 
 in ivory. 
 
 " Fortunately we have not far to go ; for the vege- 
 table and mineral products of this marvellous land are 
 equal in variety, value, and quantity to those of the 
 most favoured portions of the globe. And if the in-
 
 EPILOGUE. 181 
 
 habitants can be employed in their exploitation, vast 
 fortunes will reward those who may be the pioneers 
 of commerce; but the first step necessary towards 
 tins is the establishment of proper means of com- 
 munication. . . . 
 
 "Already the rind of the continent has been 
 pierced, and the Scotch missionaries on Lake Nyassa 
 have demonstrated the feasibility of transporting a 
 steamer past rapids, and have established a settlement 
 on the shores of that lake. Mr. Cotterill is now 
 engaged in tentative trade in the same direction, and 
 I have no doubt that his efforts will be crowned with 
 success. . . . Missionary efforts, however, will not 
 avail to stop the slave trade, and open the country to 
 civilisation, unless supplemented by commerce. Com- 
 mercial enterprise and missionary effoit, instead of 
 acting in opposition, as is too oiten the case, should 
 do their best to assist each other. . . . 
 
 "The philanthropic efforts of his Majesty the King 
 of the Belgians, if they meet with the support they 
 deserve, although not either of a missionary or com- 
 mercial character, must also materially assist in opening 
 up the country. 
 
 " The establishment of depots or stations on a trunk 
 route across the continent, where the tired and weary 
 explorer may find a resting-place and fresh stores, and 
 men to carry on bis task, cannot fail to do much
 
 1 82 EPILOGUE. 
 
 towards systeinatising the work of discovery, instead 
 of leaving every man to hunt for his own needle in 
 his own bundle of hay. 
 
 " The establishment of these stations would necessi- 
 tate the maintenance of regular means of communica- 
 tion between them, and therefore each new explorer 
 would be able to travel direct to the one which is to 
 serve as the base of his operations, without wasting 
 time, money, and energy in getting into a new 
 country. These stations may either be commanded 
 by Europeans, or by men of character amongst 
 the Arab merchants, who might be thoroughly relied 
 on to do their duty in an upright and honourable 
 manner. 
 
 " By commencing from both coasts, a chain of 
 stations, some two hundred miles apart, might be 
 established in a comparatively short space of time; 
 but money is needed. 
 
 " There are many men well fitted to take charge of 
 these expeditions, whose means do not allow them to 
 travel on their own account, but who would volunteer 
 in hundreds if they could see their way to aiding in 
 the work, without endangering their scanty fortunes. . . 
 
 " Many people may say that the rights of native 
 chiefs to govern their countries must not be interfered 
 with. I doubt whether there is a country in Central 
 Africa where the people would not soon welcome and
 
 EPILOGUE. 183 
 
 rally round a settled form of government. The rule 
 of the chiefs over their subjects is capricious and bar- 
 barous, and death or mutilation is ordered and carried 
 out at the nod of a drunken despot. 
 
 " The negroes always seem prone to collect round 
 any place where they may be comparatively safe from 
 the constant raids of their enemies, and thus the 
 settlements of both east and west coast traders 
 frequently become nuclei of considerable native 
 populations. . . . 
 
 "The question now before the civilised world is, 
 whether the Slave Trade in Africa, which causes, at the 
 lowest estimate, an annual loss of over half a million 
 lives, is to be permitted to continue ? 
 
 " Every one worthy of the name of a man will say, 
 No! 
 
 " Let us then hope that England, which has hitherto 
 occupied the proud position of being foremost amongst 
 the friends of the unfortunate slave, may still hold 
 that place. 
 
 " Let those who seek to employ money now lying 
 idle, join together to open the trade of Africa. 
 
 "Let those interested in scientific research, come 
 forward and support the King of the Belgians in his 
 noble scheme for united and systematic exploratiou. 
 
 " Let those who desire to stamp out the traffic in 
 slaves, put their shoulders to the wheel in earnest, and
 
 184 EPILOGUE. 
 
 by their voice, money, and energy aid those to whom 
 the task may be intrusted. 
 
 " Let those interested in missionary efforts, aid to 
 their utmost those who are labouring in Africa, and 
 send them worthy assistants, prepared to devote their 
 lives to the task. 
 
 "It is not by talking and writing that Africa is to 
 be regenerated, but by action. Let each one who 
 thinks he can lend a helping hand do so. All cannot 
 travel, or become missionaries and traders; but they 
 can give their cordial assistance to those whose duty 
 leads them to the as yet untrodden places of the 
 world. 
 
 " But I would impress upon all who approach this 
 question the necessity for not being too sanguine. 
 Many a name must be added to the roll of those who 
 have fallen in the cause of Africa, much patient and 
 enduring labour must be gone through without flinch- 
 ing or repining, before we see Africa truly free and 
 happy. 
 
 " I firmly believe that opening up proper lines of 
 communication will do much to check the cursed 
 traffic in human flesh, and that the extension of 
 legitimate commerce will ultimately put an end to it 
 altogether. . . . 
 
 " And with regard to education and civilisation, we 
 must be satisfied to work gradually, and not attempt
 
 EPILOGUE. 185 
 
 to force our European customs and manners upon a 
 people who are at present unfitted for them. . . . 
 
 " Let us therefore work soberly and steadily, never 
 being driven back or disheartened by any apparent 
 failure or rebuff; but, should such be met with, search 
 for the remedy, and then press on all the more eagerly. 
 And so in time, with God's blessing on the work, 
 Africa may be free and happy." Across Africa, vol. ii. 
 chapter xvii. 
 
 In the midst of the difficulties and even misgivings 
 which every undertaking of an exalted character must 
 at the beginning inevitably have to encounter, these 
 last words acquire a special significance. All the 
 friends of the undertaking which the African Associa- 
 tion proposes to itself, will keenly appreciate the 
 manly advice of the intrepid traveller. Moreover, 
 public opinion has vigorously seconded what the 
 Association has begun ; scarcely six months have 
 passed since its foundation, and the future of the 
 undertaking presents itself under the best of auguries. 
 The Belgian Committee, formed at the close of last 
 year, has devoted itself with energy to its duties, 
 and it already has at its disposal very considerable 
 resources which are receiving daily accessions. 
 
 Abroad, the enterprise has everywhere met \\ itb. 
 zealous promoters. The Royal Geographical Society 
 of London has just set on lout, under its own auspices,
 
 186 EPILOGUE. 
 
 a Special African Fund, to be devoted to the systematic 
 exploration of that continent; and in stipulating for 
 an interchange of views and information bearing on 
 that object, with similar institutions of other countries, 
 the Society carries into execution one of the essential 
 elements of the programme drawn up at Brussels. 
 There are old and generous traditions among the 
 English people, which sanction the hope that the 
 other interests involved will not fail to be actively 
 protected simply because they are intrusted to other 
 hands. If England, in adopting this peculiar mode of 
 offering its co-operation, deviates in some respects from 
 the International Union established by the Brussels 
 Conference, she does not the less support its views 
 and its object, and we may be allowed to trust that 
 she will impose upon herself exertions all the more 
 energetic that she has come to the determination to 
 act alone. 
 
 In most countries the undertaking can reckon upon 
 august and powerful patronage. The King of Sweden, 
 and the King of Saxony, the Grand Duke Constantine 
 of Kussia, the Grand Dukes of Baden and of Weimar, 
 the Crown Prince of Denmark, the Archduke Charles 
 Louis of Austria, are already enrolled as honorary 
 members of the International Association. The organi- 
 sation of the Association is everywhere progressing. 
 The Committees of Germany, of Austria, of Spain, and
 
 EPILOGUE. 187 
 
 of the Netherlands are formed, and are about to enter 
 without delay upon the period of action. That of 
 France is on the eve of being regularly constituted. 
 National Committees are also being formed on the 
 most favourable conditions in Italy, in Switzerland, 
 and in Portugal. The co-operation of the United 
 States of America was secured from the commence- 
 ment. In all these countries the affiliated sections 
 are established on broad and strong bases; they 
 adopt the programme and conform to the resolutions 
 of the International Conference of the month of 
 September last. It is impossible that so imposing 
 a combination of forces, acting under the influence of 
 one and the same feeling, should not lead, after a 
 comparatively short space of time, to results corres- 
 ponding to the extent of the effort and the grandeur 
 of the design. 
 
 To sum up, the Association for the exploration and 
 civilisation of Central Africa now rests on a solid 
 foundation. Its action will proceed from two distinct 
 centres, but will concentrate itself upon the same 
 object and be actuated by the same principles. A 
 genuine solidarity will protect all the enterprises 
 whether individual or national, and will henceforth 
 subordinate them to one common purpose. This fact, 
 and it may be assumed to be an accomplished fact, 
 forms the climax of the present position. If it should
 
 188 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 not succeed in absolutely preventing partial disagree- 
 ments, it will at least contribute to allay them and to 
 confine them within such limits as shall prevent them 
 from being dangerous to the progress of science and 
 
 the welfare of humanity. 
 
 L
 
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