forests is thus brought to the surface will have been gathered from
the facts already described; but no one who has not seen it with his
own eyes can appreciate the gigantic magnitude of the process.
Occasionally one sees a whole trunk or branch, and sometimes almost
an entire tree, so swathed in red mud that the bark is almost
completely concealed, the tree looking as if it had been taken out
bodily and dipped in some crystallizing solution. It is not only one
tree here and there that exhibits the work of the white ant, but in
many places the whole forest is so colored with dull red tunnels and
patches as to give a distinct tone to the landscape--an effect which,
at a little distance, reminds one of the _abend-roth_ in a pine
forest among the Alps. Some regions are naturally more favorable
than others to the operations of the termites; and to those who have
only seen them at work in India or in the lower districts of Africa
this statement may seem an exaggeration. But on one range of
forest-clad hills on the great plateau between Lake Nyassa and
Tanganyika I have walked for miles through trees, every one of which,
without exception, was ramified, more or less, with tunnels. The
elevation of this locality was about 5000 feet above the sea and the
distance from the equator some 9°; but nowhere else have I seen a
spot where the termites were so completely masters of the situation
as here. If it is the case that in these, the most elevated regions
of Central Africa, the termite colonies attain their maximum
development, the fact is of much interest in connection with the
geological and agricultural function which they seem to serve; for it
is here precisely, before the rivers have gathered volume, that
alluvium is most wanting; it is here that the tiny headwaters of
these same rivers collect the earth for subsequent distribution over
the distant plains and coasts; and though the white ant may itself
have no power, in the first instance, of creating soil, as a denuding
and transporting agent, its ministry can scarcely be exaggerated. If
this is its function in the economy of nature, it is certainly clear
that the insect to which this task is assigned is planted where, of
all places, it can most effectively fulfil the end.
The direct relation of the termites' work to denudation will still
further appear if we try to imagine the effect upon the accumulations
of earth pellets and grains of an ordinary rainy season. For two or
three months in the tropics, though intermittently, the rains lash
the forests and soils with a fury such as we, fortunately, have
little idea of. And though the earthworks, and especially the larger
ant-hills, have marvellous resisting properties, they are not
invulnerable, and must ultimately succumb to denuding agents. The
tunnels, being only required for a temporary purpose, are made
substantial enough only to last the occasion. And in spite of the
natural glue which cements the pellets of earth together, the
structure, as a whole, after a little exposure, becomes extremely
friable, and crumbles to pieces at a touch. When the earth-tubes
crumble into dust in the summer season the debris is scattered over
the country by the wind, and this way tends to increase and refresh
the soil. During the rains, again, it is washed into the rivulets
and borne away to fertilize with new alluvium the distant valleys, or
carried downward to the ocean, where, along the coast line, it "sows
the dust of continents to be." Herodotus, with equal poetic and
scientific truth, describes Egypt as "the gift of the Nile."
Possibly had he lived to-day he might have carried his vision farther
back still, and referred some of it to the labors of the humble
termites in the forest slopes about Victoria Nyanza.
VII.
MIMICRY.
THE WAYS OF AFRICAN INSECTS.
Mimicry is imposture in nature. Carlyle in his blackest visions of
"shams and humbugs" among human kind never saw anything so finished
in hypocrisy as the naturalist now finds in every tropical forest.
There are to be seen creatures, not singly, but in tens of thousands,
whose very appearance, down to the minutest spot and wrinkle, is an
affront to truth, whose every attitude is a pose for a purpose, and
whose whole life is a sustained lie. Before these masterpieces of
deception the most ingenious of human impositions are vulgar and
transparent. Fraud is not only the great rule of life in a tropical
forest, but the one condition of it.
Although the extraordinary phenomena of mimicry are now pretty
generally known to science, few workers have yet had the opportunity
of studying them in nature. But no study in natural history depends
more upon observation in the field; for while in the case of a few
mimetic forms--the _Heliconidæ_, for example--the imitated form is
also an insect, and the two specimens may be laid side by side in the
cabinet at home, the great majority of mimetic insects are imitations
of objects in the environment which cannot be brought into comparison
with them in the drawers of a museum. Besides this, it is not only
the form but the behavior of the mimetic insect, its whole habit and
habitat, that have to be considered; so that mere museum
contributions to mimicry are almost useless without the amplest
supplement from the field naturalist. I make no further apology,
therefore, for transcribing here a few notes bearing upon this
subject from journals written during a recent survey of a region in
the heart of Africa--the Nyassa-Tanganyika plateau--which has not yet
been described or visited by any naturalist.
The preliminaries of the subject can be mastered in a moment even by
the uninitiated, and I may therefore begin with a short preface on
animal coloring in general. Mimicry depends on resemblances between
an animal and some other object in its environment of which it is a
practical gain to the creature to be a more or less accurate copy.
The resemblance may be to any object, animate or inanimate. It may
be restricted to color, or it may extend to form, and even to habit;
but of these the first is by far the most important.
Apart from sexual selection, color in animals mainly serves two
functions. It is either "protective" or "warning." The object of
the first is to render the animal inconspicuous, the object of the
second is the opposite--to make it conspicuous. Why it should be an
object with some animals to be palpably exposed will be apparent from
the following familiar instance of "warning" coloration. There are
two great families of butterflies, the _Danaidæ_ and _Acraiedæ_,
which are inedible owing to the presence in their bodies of acrid and
unwholesome juices. Now to swallow one of these creatures--and
birds, monkeys, lizards, and spiders are very fond of
butterflies--would be gratuitous. It would be disappointing to the
eater, who would have to disgorge his prey immediately, and it would
be an unnecessary sacrifice of the subject of the experiment. These
butterflies, therefore, must have their disagreeableness in some way
advertised, and so they dress up with exceptional eccentricity,
distinguishing themselves by loud patterns and brilliant colorings,
so that the bird, the monkey, and the rest can take in the situation
at a glance. These animated danger-signals float serenely about the
forests with the utmost coolness in the broadest daylight,
leisureliness, defiance and self-complacency marking their every
movement, while their duskier brethren have to hurry through the
glades in terror of their lives. For the same reason, well-armed or
stinging insects are always conspicuously ornamented with warning
colors. The expense of eating a wasp, for instance, is too great to
lead to a second investment in the same insect, and wasps therefore
have been rendered as showy as possible so that they may be at once
seen and as carefully avoided. The same law applies to bees,
dragonflies, and other gaudy forms; and it may be taken as a rule
that all gayly-colored insects belong to one or other of these two
classes: that is, that they are either bad eating or bad-stingers.
Now the remarkable fact is that all these brilliant and unwholesome
creatures are closely imitated in outward apparel by other creatures
not themselves protected by acrid juices, but which thus share the
same immunity. That these are cases of mimicry is certain from many
considerations, not the least striking of which is that frequently
one of the sexes is protectively colored and not the other.
The brilliant coloring of poisonous snakes is sometimes set down by
naturalists to "warning," but the details of coloring among reptiles
have never been thoroughly worked out. The difficulty suggests
itself that if the vivid yellows and oranges of some snakes are meant
to warn off dangerous animals, the same conspicuousness would warn
off the animals on which the venomous forms prey. Thus, while being
hunted, a showy skin might be of advantage to the snake; in hunting
it would be an equal disadvantage. But when one watches on the spot
the manner in which snakes really do their hunting, it becomes
probable that the coloring, vivid and peculiar as it is, in most
cases is designed simply to aid concealment. One of the most
beautiful and ornate of all the tropical reptiles is the puff-adder.
This animal, the bite of which is certain death, is from three to
five feet long, and disproportionately thick, being in some parts
almost as thick as the lower part of the thigh. The whole body is
ornamented with strange devices in green, yellow, and black, and
lying in a museum its glittering coils certainly form a most striking
object. But in nature the puff-adder has a very different
background. It is essentially a forest animal, its true habitat
being among the fallen leaves in the deep shade of the trees by the
banks of streams. Now in such a position, at the distance of a foot
or two, its appearance so exactly resembles the forest bed as to be
almost indistinguishable from it. I was once just throwing myself
down under a tree to rest when, stooping to clear the spot, I noticed
a peculiar pattern among the leaves. I started back in horror to
find a puff-adder of the largest size, its thick back only visible,
and its fangs within a few inches of my face as I stooped. It was
lying concealed among fallen leaves so like itself that, but for the
exceptional caution which in African travel becomes a habit, I should
certainly have sat down upon it, and to sit down upon a puff-adder is
to sit down for the last time. I think this coloration in the
puff-adder is more than that of warning, and that this semi-somnolent
attitude is not always the mere attitude of repose. This reptile lay
lengthwise, concealed all but a few inches, among the withered
leaves. Now the peculiarity of the puff-adder is that it strikes
_backward_. Lying on the ground, therefore, it commands as it were
its whole rear, and the moment any part is touched, the head doubles
backward with inconceivable swiftness, and the poison-fangs close
upon their victim. The puff-adder in this way forms a sort of horrid
trap set in the woods which may be altogether unperceived till it
shuts with a sudden spring upon its prey.
But that the main function of coloring is protection may be decided
from the simplest observation of animal life in any part of the
world. Even among the larger animals, which one might suppose
independent of subterfuge and whose appearance anywhere but in their
native haunts suggests a very opposite theory, the harmony of color
with environment is always more or less striking. When we look, for
instance, at the coat of a zebra with its thunder-and-lightning
pattern of black and white stripes, we should think such a
conspicuous object designed to court rather than to elude attention.
But the effect in nature is just the opposite. The black and white
somehow take away the sense of a solid body altogether; the two
colors seem to blend into the most inconspicuous gray, and at close
quarters the effect is as of bars of light seen through the branches
of shrubs. I have found myself in the forest gazing at what I
supposed to be a solitary zebra, its presence betrayed by some motion
due to my approach, and suddenly realized that I was surrounded by an
entire herd which were all invisible until they moved. The
motionlessness of wild game in the field when danger is near is well
known; and every hunter is aware of the difficulty of seeing even the
largest animals though they are just standing in front of him. The
tiger, whose stripes are obviously meant to imitate the reeds of the
jungle in which he lurks, is nowhere found in Africa: but its
beautiful cousin, the leopard, abounds in these forests, and its
spotted pelt probably conveys the same sense of indistinctness as in
the case of the zebra. The hippopotamus seems to find the deep water
of the rivers--where it spends the greater portion of its time--a
sufficient protection; but the crocodile is marvellously concealed by
its knotted mud-colored hide, and it is often quite impossible to
tell at a distance whether the objects lying along the river banks
are alligators or fallen logs.
But by far the most wonderful examples of protective adjustments are
found where the further disguise of form is added to that of color,
and to this only is the term mimicry strictly applicable. The pitch
of intricate perfection to which mimicry has attained in an
undisturbed and unglaciated country like Central Africa is so
marvellous and incredible, that one almost hesitates to utter what
his eyes have seen. Before going to Africa I was of course familiar
with the accounts of mimetic insects to be found in the works of
Bates, Belt, Wallace, and other naturalists; but no description
prepares one in the least for the surprise which awaits him when
first he encounters these species in nature. My introduction to them
occurred on the borders of Lake Shirwa--one of the smaller and less
known of the great African lakes--and I shall record the incident
exactly as I find it in my notes. I had stopped one day among some
tall dry grass to mark a reading of the aneroid, when one of my men
suddenly shouted "Chirombo!" "Chirombo" means an inedible beast of
any kind, and I turned round to see where the animal was. The native
pointed straight at myself. I could see nothing, but he approached,
and pointing close to a wisp of hay which had fallen upon my coat,
repeated "Chirombo!" Believing that it must be some insect among the
hay, I took it in my fingers, looked over it, and told him pointedly
there was no "Chirombo" there. He smiled, and pointing again to the
hay, exclaimed "Moio!"--"It's alive!" The hay itself was the
Chirombo. I do not exaggerate when I say that that wisp of hay was
no more like an insect than my aneroid barometer. I had mentally
resolved never to be taken in by any of these mimetic frauds; I was
incredulous enough to suspect that the descriptions of Wallace and
the others were somewhat highly colored; but I confess to have been
completely stultified and beaten by the very first mimetic form I
met. It was one of that very remarkable family the _Phasmidæ_, but
surely nowhere else in nature could there be such another creature.
Take two inches of dried yellow grass-stalk, such as one might pluck
to run through the stem of a pipe; then take six other pieces nearly
as long and a quarter as thick; bend each in the middle at any angle
you like, stick them in three opposite pairs, and again at any angle
you like, upon the first grass stalk, and you have my Chirombo. When
you catch him, his limbs are twisted about at every angle, as if the
whole were made of one long stalk of the most delicate grass, hinged
in a dozen places, and then gently crushed up into a dishevelled
heap. Having once assumed a position, by a wonderful instinct he
never moves or varies one of his many angles by half a degree. The
way this insect keeps up the delusion is indeed almost as wonderful
as the mimicry itself; you may turn him about and over and over, but
he is mere dried grass, and nothing will induce him to acknowledge
the animal kingdom by the faintest suspicion of spontaneous movement.
All the members of this family have this power of shamming death; but
how such emaciated and juiceless skeletons should ever presume to be
alive is the real mystery. These Phasmidæ look more like ghosts than
living creatures, and so slim are they that, in trying to kill them
for the collecting-box, the strongest squeeze between finger and
thumb makes no more impression upon them than it would upon fine
steel wire, and one has to half-guillotine them against some hard
substance before any little life they have is sacrificed to science.
I examined after this many thousands of Phasmidæ, Mantidæ, and other
mimetic forms, and there is certainly in nature no more curious or
interesting study. These grass-stalk insects live exclusively among
the long grass which occurs in patches all over the forests, and
often reaches a height of eight or ten feet. During three-fourths of
the year it is dried by the sun into a straw-yellow color, and all
the insects are painted to match. Although yellow is the ground tone
of these grasses, they are variegated, and especially towards the
latter half of the year, in two ways. They are either tinged here
and there with red and brown, like the autumn colors at home, or they
are streaked and spotted with black mould or other markings, painted
by the finger of decay. All these appearances are closely imitated
by insects. To complete the deception, some have the antennæ
developed to represent blades of grass, which are often from one to
two inches in length, and stick out from the end of the body, one on
either side, like blades of grass at the end of a stalk. The
favorite attitude of these insects is to clasp a grass-stalk, as if
they were climbing a pole; then the body is compressed against the
stem and held in position by the two fore-limbs, which are extended
in front so as to form one long line with the body, and so mixed up
with the stalk as to be practically part of it. The four other legs
stand out anyhow in rigid spikes, like forks from the grass, while
the antennæ are erected at the top, like blades coming off from a
node, which the button-like head so well resembles. When one of
these insects springs to a new stalk of grass it will at once all but
vanish before your eyes. It remains there perfectly rigid, a
component part of the grass itself, its long legs crooked and
branched exactly like dried hay, the same in color, the same in
fineness, and quite defying detection. These blades, alike with
limbs and body, are variously colored according to season and
habitat. When the grasses are tinged with autumn tints they are the
same; and the colors run through many shades, from the pure bright
red, such as tips the fins of a perch, to the deeper claret colors or
the tawny gold of port. But an even more singular fact remains to be
noted. After the rainy season, when the new grasses spring up with
their vivid color, these withered-grass insects seem all to
disappear. Their color now would be no protection to them, and their
places are taken by others colored as green as the new grass.
Whether these are new insects or only the same in spring toilets I do
not know; but I should think they are a different population
altogether, the cycle of the former generation being, probably,
complete with the end of summer.
Besides the insects which imitate grass, another large class imitate
twigs, sticks, and the smaller branches of shrubs. The commonest of
these is a walking twig, three or four inches long, covered with bark
apparently, and spotted all over with mould like the genuine branch.
The imitation of bark here is one of the most perfect delusions in
nature; the delicate striation and the mould spots are reproduced
exactly, while the segmentation of the body represents node-intervals
with wonderful accuracy. On finding one of these insects I have
often cut a small branch from an adjoining tree and laid the two side
by side for comparison; and when both are partly concealed by the
hands so as to show only the part of the insect's body which is free
from limbs, it is impossible to tell the one from the other. The
very joints of the legs in these forms are knobbed to represent
nodes, and the characteristic attitudes of the insect are all such as
to sustain the deception.
A still more elaborate set of forms are those which represent leaves.
These belong mostly to the Mantis and Locust tribes, and they are
found in all forms, sizes, and colors, mimicking foliage at every
stage of growth, maturity and decay. Some have the leaf stamped on
their broadened wing-cases in vivid green, with veins and midrib
complete, and with curious expansions over the thorax and along all
the limbs to imitate smaller leaves. I have again and again matched
these forms in the forest, not only with the living leaf, but with
crumpled, discolored, and shrivelled specimens, and indeed the
imitations of the crumpled autumn-leaf are even more numerous and
impressive than those of the living form. Lichens, mosses, and fungi
are also constantly taken as models by insects, and there is probably
nothing in the vegetal kingdom, no knot, wart, nut, mould, scale,
bract, thorn, or bark, which has not its living counterpart in some
animal form. Most of the moths, beetles, weevils, and especially the
larval forms, are more or less protected mimetically; and in fact
almost the entire population of the tropics is guilty of personation
in ways known or unknown. The lichen-mimicking insects even go the
length of imitating holes, by means of mirror-like pools of black
irregularly disposed on the back, or interrupting the otherwise
dangerous symmetry of the fringed sides. The philosophy of these
coal-black markings greatly puzzled me for a time. The first I saw
was on a specimen of the singular and rare _Harpax ocellaria_, which
had been thrown on the camp fire clinging to a lichen-covered log,
and so well carried out was the illusion that even the natives were
deceived till the culprit betrayed its quality by erecting its gauzy
wings.
But it would be tedious to recount further the divisive ways of these
arch-deceivers, and I shall only refer to another mimetic form, which
for cool Pharisaism takes the palm from every creeping or flying
thing. I first saw this _menteur à triple ètaye_ on the Tanganyika
plateau. I had lain for a whole week without stirring from one
spot--a boulder in the dried-up bed of a stream, for this is the only
way to find out what really goes on in nature. A canopy of leaves
arched overhead, the home of many birds, and the granite boulders of
the dry stream-bed, and all along the banks, were marked with their
white droppings. One day I was startled to see one of these
droppings move. It was a mere white splash upon the stone, and when
I approached I saw I must be mistaken; the thing was impossible; and
now it was perfectly motionless. But I certainly saw it move, so I
bent down and touched it. It was an animal. Of course it was as
dead as a stone the moment I touched it, but one soon knows these
impostures, and I gave it a minute or two to become alive--hastily
sketching it meantime in case it should vanish through the stone, for
in that land of wonders one really never knows what will happen next.
Here was a bird-dropping suddenly become alive and moving over a
rock; and now it was a bird-dropping again; and yet, like Galileo, I
protest that it moved. It would not come to, and I almost feared I
might be mistaken after all, so I turned it over on its other side.
Now should any sceptic persist that this was a bird-dropping I leave
him to account for a bird-dropping with six legs, a head, and a
segmented body. Righting the creature, which showed no sign of life
through all this ordeal, I withdrew a few paces and watched
developments. It lay motionless on the stone, no legs, no head, no
feelers, nothing to be seen but a flat patch of white--just such a
patch as you could make on the stone in a second with a piece of
chalk. Presently it stirred, and the spot slowly sidled across the
boulder until I caught the impostor and imprisoned him for my
cabinet. I saw in all about a dozen of these insects after this.
They are about half the size of a fourpenny-piece, slightly more oval
than round, and as white as a snowflake. This whiteness is due to a
number of little tufts of delicate down growing out from minute
protuberances all over the back. It is a fringe of similar tufts
round the side that gives the irregular margin so suggestive of a
splash; and the under surface of the body has no protection at all.
The limbs are mere threads, and the motion of the insect is slow and
monotonous, with frequent pauses to impress surrounding nature with
its moribund condition. Now, unless this insect with this color and
habit were protectively colored it simply would not have a chance to
exist. It lies fearlessly exposed on the bare stones during the
brightest hours of the tropical day, a time when almost every other
animal is skulking out of sight. Lying upon all the stones round
about are the genuine droppings of birds; and when one sees the two
together it is difficult to say whether one is most struck with the
originality of the idea, or the extraordinary audacity with which the
_rôle_ is carried out.*
* It is a considerable responsibility to be the sole witness to this
comedy--though I saw it repeated a dozen times subsequently--but,
fortunately for my veracity, I have since learned from Mr. Kirby of
the British Museum that, there is an English beetle, the _Cionus
Blattaria_, the larval form of which "operates" in a precisely
similar way.
It will be apparent from these brief notes that mimicry is not merely
an occasional or exceptional phenomenon, but an integral part of the
economy of nature. It is not a chance relation between a few
objects, but a system so widely authorized that probably the whole
animal kingdom is more or less involved in it; a system, moreover,
which, in the hands of natural selection, must ever increase in
intricacy and beauty. It may also be taken for granted that a scheme
so widespread and so successful is based upon some sound utilitarian
principle. That principle, I should say, was probably its _economy_.
Nature does everything as simply as possible, and with the least
expenditure of material. Now consider the enormous saving of muscle
and nerve, of instinct and energy, secured by making an animal's
lease of life to depend on passivity rather than activity. Instead
of having to run away, the creature has simply to keep still; instead
of having to fight, it has but to hide. No armor is needed, no
powerful muscle, no expanse of wing. A few daubs of color, a little
modelling of thorax and abdomen, a deft turn of antennæ and limb, and
the thing is done.
At the first revelation of all these smart hypocrisies one is
inclined to brand the whole system as cowardly and false. And,
however much the creatures impress you by their cleverness, you never
quite get over the feeling that there is something underhand about
it; something questionable and morally unsound. The evolutionist,
also, is apt to charge mimetic species in general with neglecting the
harmonious development of their physical framework, and by a cheap
and ignoble subterfuge evading the appointed struggle for life. But
is it so? Are the æsthetic elements in nature so far below the
mechanical? Are color and form, quietness and rest, so much less
important than the specialization of single function or excellence in
the arts of war? Is it nothing that, while in some animals the
disguises tend to become more and more perfect, the faculties for
penetrating them, in other animals, must continually increase in
subtlety and power? And, after all, if the least must be said, is it
not better to be a live dog than a dead lion?
VIII.
A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH.
From the work of the various explorers who have penetrated Africa, it
is now certain that the interior of that Continent is occupied by a
vast plateau from 4000 to 5000 feet above the level of the sea. In
five separate regions--in the North-east, in Abyssinia, in the Masai
country, on the Tanganyika plateau, and in the district inland from
Benguela--this plateau attains a height of considerably over 5000
feet; while towards the coast, throughout their entire length, both
east and west, it falls with great uniformity to a lower plateau,
with an elevation of from 1000 to 2000 feet. This lower plateau is
succeeded, also with much uniformity along both coast lines, by
littoral and deltoid plains, with an average breadth from the sea of
about 150 miles.
The section which I am about to describe, entering Africa at the
Zambesi and penetrating inwards to the Tanganyika plateau, traverses
each of these regions in turn--the coast-belt, the lower fringing
table-land, the great general plateau of the country, and the third
or highest elevation of the Tanganyika table-land. To deal
thoroughly with so vast a region in the course of a single
exploration is out of the question; and I only indicate here a few of
the rough results of what was no more than a brief and hasty
reconnaissance.
The first and only geological feature to break the monotony of
mangrove-swamp and low grass plain of the coast-belt is the debris of
an ancient coral-reef, studded with sponges and other organisms.
This reef is exposed on the Qua-qua River, a little above Mogurrumba,
and about fifty miles from the sea. It is of small extent, at no
great height above the present sea-level, and, taken alone, can only
argue for a very inconsiderable elevation of the coast region. Some
twenty miles farther inland, and still only a few yards above
sea-level, an inconspicuous elevation appears, consisting of
sedimentary rocks. This belt is traceable for some distance, both
north and south, and a poor section may be found in the Zambesi
River, a few miles above the grave of Mrs. Livingstone at Shupanga.
The rocks in question, which are only visible when the Zambesi is
very low, consist of a few thin beds of red and yellow sandstones,
with intercalated marly sandstones and fine conglomerates.
Sedimentary rocks, in somewhat similar relation, are found at least
as far north as Mombassa, above Zanzibar, and as far south as the
Cape; and it seems probable that the whole of the plateau of the
interior is fringed by this narrow belt. No organic remains have
been found in this series north of Natal, but the fossils of the Cape
beds may shed some light on its horizon. Associated probably with
these rocks are the great beds of coal which are known to exist some
distance up the river in the neighborhood of Tette.
A short distance above the junction of the River Shiré with the
Zambesi the first hills of the plateau begin almost abruptly. They
occur in irregular isolated masses, mostly of the saddle-back order,
and varying in height from 100 or 200 to 2000 feet. Those I examined
consisted entirely of a very white quartzite--the only quartzite, I
may say, I ever saw in East Central Africa. At the foot of the most
prominent of those hills--that of Morumballa--a hot-spring bubbles
up, which Livingstone has already described in his "Zambesi."
Hot-springs are not uncommon in other parts of the Continent, and
several are to be found on the shores of Lake Nyassa. These are all
of the simplest type, and although the temperature is high they leave
no deposit anywhere to indicate their chemical character.
Two or three days' journey north and west of Morumballa, among the
distant hills which border the valley of the Shiré, Livingstone marks
a spot in his sketch-map where coal is to be found. After examining
the neighborhood with some care, and cross-examining the native
tribes, I conclude that Livingstone must, in this instance, have been
either mistaken or misinformed. A black rock certainly occurs at the
locality named, but after securing specimens of this as well as of
all the dark-colored rocks in the vicinity, I found them to be,
without exception, members of the igneous class. One very dark
diorite was probably the rock which, on a distant view, had been
mistaken for coal, for none of the natives along the whole length of
the lower Shiré had ever heard of "a black rock which burned." Coal,
however, as already mentioned, does certainly occur farther inland on
the Zambesi; while, farther south, the Natal and Transvaal coalfields
are now well known.
While speaking of coal I may best refer here to a small coal-bed
associated with an apparently different series of rocks, and of
special interest from its occurrence in the far interior of the
country. On the western shore of Lake Nyassa, about 10° south
latitude, coal was reported a few years ago by a solitary explorer,
who penetrated that region prospecting for gold in the wake of
Livingstone. The importance of such a discovery--a coal-seam on the
borders of one of the great inland seas of Africa--cannot be
over-estimated; and the late Mr. James Stewart, C.E., who has done
such important work for the geography of Africa, made a special
examination of the spot. From his report to the Royal Geographical
Society I extract the following reference:--
"On the 29th we marched northwards along the coast, reaching, after
three miles, the stream in which is the coal discovered by Mr.
Rhodes. The coal lies in a clay bank, tilted up at an angle of 45°,
dip west. It is laid bare over only some 30 feet, and is about 7
feet thick. It hardly looks as if it were in its original bed. The
coal is broken and thrown about as if it had been brought down by a
landslip, and traces of clay are found in the interstices. Yet the
bed is compact, and full of good coal. I traced it along the
hillside for some 200 yards, and found it cropping out on the surface
here and there. It is 500 feet above the lake-level, and about a
mile and a half from the shore. I lit a good fire with it, which
burned up strongly. The coal softened and threw out gas bubbles, but
gave no gas-jets. It caked slightly, but not so as to impede its
burning."--_Proceedings_, vol. iii. No. 5, p. 264.
I examined this section pretty carefully, and fear I must differ
slightly from Mr. Stewart in his geological and economical view of
the formation. The 7-foot seam described by Stewart is certainly a
deception, the seam being really composed of a series of thin beds of
alternately carbonaceous and argillaceous matter, few of the layers
of coal being more than an inch in thickness. With some of the most
carefully selected specimens I lit a fire, but with disappointing
results. Combustion was slow, and without flame. Although there
were what can only be called _films_ of really good coal here and
there, the mineral, on the whole, seemed of inferior quality, and
useless as a steam-coal. From the general indications of the
locality I should judge that the coal existed only in limited
quantity, while the position of the bed at the top of a rocky gorge
renders the deposit all but inaccessible. On the whole, therefore,
the Lake Nyassa coal, so far as opened up at present, can scarcely be
regarded as having any great economical importance, although the
geological interest of such a mineral in this region is considerable.
Sections of the coal have already been prepared for the microscope,
and Dr. Carruthers of the British Museum has identified the
macrospores of Lycopodaceous plants, which are identical with similar
organisms found in the coal-fields of England.
The Geology of the great African plateaux, so far as my section from
the Lower Shiré to the Tanganyika plateau is any indication of their
general structure, is of such simplicity that it may almost be
dismissed in a sentence. The whole country from the Shiré river, a
hundred miles above its junction with the Zambesi, embracing the
lower and higher central plateaux, the whole Shiré Highlands from the
river to the westward shores of Lake Shirwa, the three hundred miles
of rocky coast fringing the western shore of Lake Nyassa, the plateau
between Nyassa and Tanganyika for at least half its length--with one
unimportant interruption--consists solely of granite and gneiss. The
character and texture of this rock persist with remarkable uniformity
throughout this immense region. The granite, an ordinary gray
granite, composed of white rarely pink orthoclase felspar, the mica
of the biotitic or magnesian variety, rarely muscovite, and neither
fine nor coarse in texture; the gneiss, the same rock foliated. Of
the relation of these gneissose and granitic rocks to one another I
was unable to discover any law. Sometimes the gneiss would persist
over a large area, sometimes the granite; while frequently the two
would alternate perplexingly within a limited area. Mr. Joseph
Thomson's section, drawn inland from Zanzibar and joining mine at the
northern end of Lake Nyassa, and thence onwards by a more easterly
route towards Tanganyika, reveals a somewhat similar petrographical
structure; and, from scattered references in the journals of other
explorers, it is plain that this gneisso-granitic formation occupies
a very large area in the interior of the African Continent.
Associated minerals with these rocks, as far as a very general survey
indicated, were all but wholly wanting. At Zomba, on the Shiré
Highlands, a little tourmaline occurs, but of the precious metals I
could find no trace. Veins of any kind are also rare; and even
pegmatite I encountered in only one instance. Intrusive dykes
throughout the whole area were like-wise absent except in a single
district. This district lies towards the southern border of the
Shiré Highlands, immediately where the plateau rises from the river,
and there the dykes occur pretty numerously. They are seldom more
than a few feet in breadth, and consist of ordinary dolerite or
basalt. The black rock on the Lower Shiré, already mentioned in
connection with Livingstone's supposed discovery of coal, may
possibly be one of these dykes; but that there is any considerable
development of igneous rocks in this immediate locality I should
doubt. Farther up the Zambesi, however, coulees of basalt are met
with at more than one place, conspicuously in the neighborhood of the
Victoria Falls. The only distinct trace of volcanic action
throughout my route appeared towards the extreme northern end of Lake
Nyassa. One is warned beforehand by occasional specimens of pumice
lying about the lake shore as one travels north; but it is not till
the extreme end of the lake is reached that the source is discovered
in the series of low volcanic cones which Thomson has already
described in this locality. The development is apparently local, and
the origin of the cones probably comparatively recent.
Apart from this local development of igneous rocks at the north end
of Lake Nyassa, the only other break in the granitic series
throughout the area traversed by my line of march occurs near the
native village of Karonga, on Lake Nyassa. About a dozen miles from
the north-western lake shore on the route to Tanganyika, after
following the Rukuru river through a defile of granite rocks, I came,
to my great surprise, upon a well-marked series of stratified beds.
At a bend in the river a fine section is exposed. They lie throw
against the granitic rocks, which here show signs of disturbance, and
consist of thin beds of very fine light-gray sandstone, and blue and
gray shales, with an occasional band of gray limestone. By camping
at the spot for some days, and working patiently, I was rewarded with
the discovery of fossils. This is, of course, the main interest of
these beds,--for these are, I believe, the only fossils that have
ever been found in Central Africa. The shale, naturally, yielded the
most productive results, one layer especially being one mass of small
_Lamellibranchiata_. Though so numerous, these fossils are confined
to a single species of the _Tellinidæ_, a family abundantly
represented in tropical seas at the present time, and dating back as
far as the Oolite. Vegetable remains are feebly represented by a few
reeds and grasses. Fish-scales abound; but I was only able, and that
after much labor, to unearth two two or three imperfect specimens of
the fishes themselves. These have been put into the accomplished
hands of Dr. Traquair of Edinburgh, who has been kind enough to
furnish the following account of them:--
EDINBURGH, 23d April, 1888.
DEAR PROFESSOR DRUMMOND--I have carefully examined the six specimens
of fossil fish-remains from Central Africa, which you submitted to
me, and though I certainly would have wished them to have been less
fragmentary, I shall do my best to give an opinion upon them.
No. 1, the largest, is the hinder portion of a fish of moderate size,
showing not only scales, but also the remains of the dorsal, anal,
and caudal fins. The caudal is strongly heterocercal, and was
probably deeply bifurcated, but the rays of the lower lobe are very
badly preserved: only the posterior parts of the dorsal and anal are
seen, nearly opposite each other, and composed of fine, closely
placed, and closely articulated rays. The scales, displaced and
jumbled up, are osseous, thick, and rhomboidal, with a strong blunt
carina on the attached surface, while the exposed part of the
external surface is covered with ganoine, and ornamented with rather
sparsely scattered pits and punctures.
Belonging to the Order Ganoidei, this fish is with equal certainty
referable to the family Palæoniscidæ, but its _genus_ is more a
matter of doubt owing to the fragmentary nature of the specimen.
Judging from the form and thickness of the scales, I should be
inclined to refer it to _Acrolepis_, were it not that the dorsal and
anal fins seem so close to the tail, and so nearly opposite each
other; here, however, it may be remarked that the disturbed state of
the scales affords room for the possibility that the original
relations of the parts may not be perfectly preserved. I have,
however, no doubt that, as a _species_, it is new; and as you have
been the first to bring fossil fishes from those regions of Central
Africa, you will perhaps allow me to name it _Acrolepis_ (?)
_Drummondi_.
No. 2 is a piece of cream-colored limestone, with numerous minute,
scattered, rhombic, striated, ganoid scales, which I cannot venture
to name, though I believe them to be palæoniscid. Associated with
these is a small portion of the margin of a jaw, with numerous minute
sharp conical teeth. But also lying among these minuter relics is a
scale of a much larger size, and clearly belonging to another fish.
It measures 1-4 inch in height by the same in breadth; its shape is
rhomboidal, having an extensive anterior covered area, and a strong
articular spine projecting from the upper margin. The free surface
is brilliantly ganoid, and marked with furrows separating feeble
ridges, which pass rather obliquely downwards and backwards across
the scale, and terminate in eight sharp denticulations of the hinder
margin. A little way off is the impression of the attached surface
of a similar scale, and there are also two interspinous bones,
probably belonging to the same fish.
This is probably also a palæoniscid scale, resembling in shape those
of _Acrolepis_, but it is rather thinner than is usually the case in
this genus. It has also considerable resemblance to some of those
scales from the European Trias, named by Agassiz _Gyrolepis_. Though
it may be rather venturesome to name a species from such slender
material, nevertheless we may, provisionally at least, recognize the
scale as _Acrolepis (?) Africanus_.
Nos. 3 and 4 are small pieces of the same limestone, covered with the
minute striated palæoniscid scales referred to above.
No. 5 is a piece of gray micaceous shale, with scales of yet a fourth
species of palæoniscid fish. One conspicuous scale unfortunately,
like all the rest, seen only from the attached surface, is 1-4 inch
in height by nearly 1-6 in breadth; it is tolerably rectangular in
shape, having a well-developed articular spine and fossette. Part of
the scale is broken away at the anterior margin, the impression
brought into view showing that the covered area is narrow, and
indicating that the free surface is striated with rather sharp ridges
passing obliquely across the scale. The posterior margin is finely
denticulated.
Though this scale is in my opinion specifically, and possibly
generically, distinct from those previously named, the outer surface
not being properly displayed renders it impossible to give a
sufficient diagnosis.
No. 6 is a piece of the same shale, having the clavicle of a small
palaeoniscid fish, which it is, however, impossible to name.--I am,
yours faithfully,
R. H. TRAQUAIR.
These fossiliferous beds seem to occupy a comparatively limited area,
and have a very high dip in a south-easterly direction. At the spot
where my observations were taken they did not extend over more than
half a mile of country, but it is possible that the formation may
persist for a long distance in other directions. Indeed, I traced it
for some miles in the direction in which, some fifty or sixty miles
off, lay the coal already described, and to which it may possibly be
related.
With one or two general remarks upon surface geology and physical
geography I bring this note to a close. First, regarding the Lakes
Nyassa and Shirwa,--there is distinct evidence, and especially in the
case of the latter, that they have formerly occupied a considerably
larger area than at present. Shirwa is an extremely shallow lake;
though the eastern and southern shores are mountainous, it is
suggestive rather of an immense bog than of a deep inland sea. For
many miles before reaching the shore there are signs that one is
traversing the site of a former and larger Shirwa, which may possibly
at one time have been actually connected with the lower extremity of
Lake Nyassa. To substantiate this conclusion, however, will require
more detailed examination of the Shiré Highlands than I was able to
give. The peculiarity of Shirwa is that the water is brackish to the
taste, while that of Nyassa and of the other Central African lakes,
with the exception of Lake Leopold, is fresh. The shallowness of
Shirwa, and the precariousness of its outlet through Lake Cheuta to
the Lujenda, amply account for this difference; for the narrow waters
of Nyassa and Tanganyika are thoroughly drained and profoundly deep.
That Lake Nyassa is also slowly drying up is evident from the most
superficial examination of its southern end. There it has already
left behind a smaller lake--Lake Pomalombé--a considerable expanse of
water, through which the Shiré passes a few miles after emerging from
Lake Nyassa, but already so shallow that nowhere in the dry season
does the depth exceed three fathoms. If the silting up of this lake
continues for a few years it will render this sheet of water, which
commands the entrance to Lake Nyassa, totally unnavigable, and thus
close the magnificent water-highway at present open, with a portage
of seventy miles, from the top of Lake Nyassa to the Indian Ocean at
the mouth of the Zambesi.
Regarding the interesting question of the origin of Lake Nyassa and
its great sister-lakes in the heart of Africa--the Victoria and
Albert Nyanza and Tanganyika--I do not presume to speak. No follower
of Ramsay in his theory of the glacial origin of lakes could desire a
more perfect example of a rock-basin than that of Lake Nyassa. It is
a gigantic trough of granite and gneiss, three hundred miles in
length, nowhere over fifty miles in breadth, and sixteen hundred feet
above the level of the sea, the mountains rising all around it, and
sometimes almost sheer above it, to a farther height of one, two, and
three thousand feet. The high Tanganyika plateau borders it on the
northern shore, and the greatest depth is precisely where the glacial
theory would demand, namely, towards the upper portion of the lake.
On the other hand, the physical geology of the country in which these
other lakes are situated, as well as several features connected with
Lake Nyassa itself, lend no countenance to such a view; and probably
the suggestion of Murchison and other geologists is correct, that all
these lakes, colossal though they still are, are the remnants of a
much vaster expanse of water which once stretched over Central Africa.
The only other point to which I need allude is the subject of
glaciation itself. And I refer to this pointedly, because I have
lately encountered allusions, and in quarters entitling them to
respect, to the presence of glacial phenomena in the Central Lake
district of Africa. I confess that my observations have failed to
confirm these suggestions. It has been my lot to have had perhaps
exceptional opportunities of studying the phenomena of glaciation in
Europe and Northern America, and I have been unable to detect
anywhere in the interior of Africa a solitary indication of glacial
action. In Kaffirland, far to the south, there are features which
one would almost unhesitatingly refer to glaciation; but in East
Central Africa not a vestige of boulder-clay, nor moraine matter, nor
striæ, nor glaciated surface, nor outline, is anywhere traceable.
One would be curious to know to what extent the flora and fauna of
the inland plateau confirm or contradict this negative evidence
against the glaciation of this region.
Finally, the thing about the geology of Africa that strikes one as
especially significant is that throughout this vast area, just
opening up to science, there is nothing new--no unknown force at
work; no rock strange to the petrographer; no pause in denudation; no
formation, texture, or structure to put the law of continuity to
confusion. Rapid radiation, certainly, replaces the effects of frost
in northern lands--and the enormous denudation due to this cause is a
most striking feature of tropical geology. The labors of the worm,
again, in transporting soil in temperate climates are undertaken by
the termite; but here, as elsewhere, every fresh investigation tends
to establish more and more the oneness and simplicity of Nature.
IX.
A POLITICAL WARNING.
When I reached the coast to embark for England after my wanderings in
the interior, the Portuguese authorities at Quilimane presented me
with various official documents, which I was told I must acknowledge
with signatures and money before being permitted to leave Africa.
Having already had to pay certain moneys to Portugal to get into this
country, it was a shock to find that I had also to pay to get out;
but, as no tax could be considered excessive that would facilitate
one's leaving even the least of the Portuguese East African colonies,
I cheerfully counted out the price of my release. Before completing
the conveyance, however, my eye fell on six words prominently
endorsed on one of the documents, which instantly tightened my
purse-strings. The words were, "TAX FOR RESIDING IN THE
INTERIOR"--so much. Now a day or two spent in waiting for a steamer
could scarcely be construed into residence, nor could a strip of
coast-line with propriety be termed the interior, so I ventured to
point out the irrelevancy to the Portuguese official. Waiving the
merely philological question of residence, he went at once to the
root of the matter by informing me that the Portuguese definition of
the word Interior differed materially from that of England. The
Interior, he said, comprised the whole of Africa inland from the
coast-province of Mozambique, and included, among other and larger
possessions, the trifling territories of the Upper Shiré Highlands,
Lake Shirwa, and Lake Nyassa. These last, he assured me, belonged to
Portugal, and it became me, having therein shared the protection of
that ancient flag, to acknowledge the obligation to the extent of so
many hundred Reis.
Though not unprepared for this assumption, the idea of enforcing it
by demanding tribute was so great a novelty that, before discharging
my supposed liabilities, I humbly asked information on the following
points:--1. Did the region described really belong to Portugal? 2.
When and where was this claim recognized by England directly or
indirectly? 3. Where in the Interior, as thus defined, was the
Portuguese flag to be found? And 4. What protection had it ever
given to me or to any other European? The replies to these queries
being evasive, I took it upon myself to correct the history, the
geography, and the politics of the throng of Government officials who
now joined the sederunt by the following statement of facts:--1. The
region described did not belong to Portugal. 2. Its sovereignty had
never been in any way acknowledged by England. 3. The Portuguese
flag was nowhere to be found there, and never had been there. 4. Not
one solitary Portuguese up to that time had ever even set foot in the
country--except one man who was brought in for a few weeks under
English auspices; so that no protection had ever been given, or could
possibly be given, to me or to any one else. These statements were
received in silence, and after much running to and fro among the
officials the representative of John Bull, instead of being dragged
to prison, and his rifle--his only real escort through
Nyassa-land--poinded to pay for his imaginary protection, found
himself bowed off the premises with a discharge in full of his debt
to Portugal, and the unpaid tax-paper still in his pocket.
I recall this incident to introduce in all seriousness the question
interesting so many at the present moment as to the title-deeds of
Equatorial Africa. Why Africa should not belong to the Africans I
have never quite been able to see, but since this Continent is being
rapidly partitioned out among the various European States, it is
well, even in the African interest, to inquire into the nature and
validity of these claims. The two political maps which will be found
at the end of this volume will enable those interested to see the
present situation at a glance, and I shall only further emphasize one
or two points of immediate practical importance.
[Transcriber's note: The two maps mentioned above were missing from
the source book.]
The connection of Portugal with Africa is an old, and--at least it
was at first--an honorable one. The voyages of the Portuguese were
the first to enrich geography with a knowledge of the African coasts,
and so early as 1497 they took possession of the eastern shore by
founding the colony of Mozambique. This rule, however, though
nominally extending from Delagoa Bay to as far north as Cape Delgado,
was confined to two or three isolated points, and nowhere, except on
the Zambesi, affected more than the mere fringe of land bordering the
Indian Ocean. On the Zambesi the Portuguese established stations at
Senna, Tette, and Zumbo, which were used, though on the most limited
scale, as missionary and trading centres; but these are at present
all but abandoned and in the last stages of decrepitude. The right
of Portugal to the lower regions of the Zambesi, notwithstanding its
entire failure to colonize in and govern the country, can never be
disputed by any European Power, though the Landeens, or Zulus, who
occupy the southern bank, not only refuse to acknowledge the claim,
but exact an annual tribute from the Portuguese for their occupation
of the district.
No one has ever attempted to define how far inland the Portuguese
claim, founded on coast-possession, is to be considered good; but
that it cannot include the regions north of the Zambesi--the Shiré
Highlands and Lake Nyassa--is self-evident. These regions were
discovered and explored by Livingstone. They have been occupied
since his time exclusively by British subjects, and colonized
exclusively with British capital. The claim of England,
therefore--though nothing but a moral claim has ever been made--is
founded on the double right of discovery and occupation; and if it
were a question of treaty with the natives, it might possibly be
found on private inquiry that a precaution so obvious had not been
forgotten by those most nearly interested. On the other hand, no
treaties exist with Portugal; there is not a single Portuguese in the
country, and until the other day no Portuguese had even seen it. The
Portuguese boundary-line has always stopped at the confluence with
the Shiré of the river Ruo, and the political barrier erected there
by Chipitula and the river Chiefs has been maintained so rigidly that
no subject of Portugal was ever allowed to pass it from the south.
Instead, therefore, of possessing the Shiré Highlands, that is the
region of all others from which the Portuguese have been most
carefully excluded.
The reason for this enforced exclusion is not far to seek. At first
the Portuguese had too much to do in keeping their always precarious
foothold on the banks of the Zambesi to think of the country that lay
beyond; and when their eyes were at last turned towards it by the
successes of the English, the detestation in which they were by this
time held by the natives--the inevitable result of long years of
tyranny and mismanagement--made it impossible for them to extend an
influence which was known to be disastrous to every native right.
Had the Portuguese done well by the piece of Africa of which they
already assumed the stewardship, no one now would dispute their claim
to as much of the country as they could wisely use. But when even
the natives have had to rise and by force of arms prevent their
expansion, it is impossible that they should be allowed to overflow
into the Highland country--much less to claim it--now that England,
by pacific colonization and missionary work, holds the key to the
hearts and hands of its peoples. By every moral consideration the
Portuguese have themselves forfeited the permission to trespass
farther in Equatorial Africa. They have done nothing for the people
since the day they set foot in it. They have never discouraged, but
rather connived at, the slave-trade; Livingstone himself took the
servant of the Governor of Tette red-handed at the head of a large
slave-gang. They have been at perpetual feud with the native tribes.
They have taught them to drink. Their missions have failed. Their
colonization is not even a name. With such a record in the past, no
pressure surely can be required to make the Government of England
stand firm in its repudiation of a claim which, were it acknowledged,
would destroy the last hope for East Central Africa.
England's stake in this country is immeasurably greater than any
statistics can represent, but a rough estimate of the tangible
English interest will show the necessity of the British Government
doing its utmost at least to conserve what is already there.
The Established Church of Scotland has three ordained missionaries in
the Shiré Highlands, one medical man, a male and a female teacher, a
carpenter, a gardener, and other European and many native agents.
The Free Church of Scotland on Lake Nyassa has four ordained
missionaries--three of whom are doctors--several teachers and
artizans, and many native catechists. The Universities Mission
possesses a steamer on Lake Nyassa, and several missionary agents;
while the African Lakes Company, as already mentioned, has steamers
both on the Shiré and Lake Nyassa, with twelve trading stations
established at intervals throughout the country, and manned by
twenty-five European agents. All these various agencies, and that of
the brothers Buchanan at Zomba, are well equipped with buildings,
implements, roads, plantations, and gardens; and the whole represents
a capital expenditure of not less than £180,000. The well-known
editor of Livingstone's Journals, the Rev. Horace Waller, thus sums
up his account of these English enterprises in his _Title-Deeds to
Nyassa-Land_: "Dotted here and there, from the mangrove swamps at the
Kongoné mouth of the Zambesi to the farthest extremity of Lake
Nyassa, we pass the graves of naval officers, of brave ladies, of a
missionary bishop, of clergymen, Foreign Office representatives,
doctors, scientific men, engineers, and mechanics. All these were
our countrymen: they lie in glorious graves; their careers have been
foundation-stones, and already the edifice rises. British mission
stations are working at high pressure on the Shiré Highlands, and
under various auspices, not only upon the shores of Lake Nyassa, but
on its islands also, and, by desperate choice as it were, in the
towns of the devastating hordes who live on the plateaux on either
side of the lake. Numbers of native Christians owe their knowledge
of the common faith to these efforts; scores of future chiefs are
being instructed in the schools, spread over hundreds of miles;
plantations are being mapped out; commerce is developing by sure and
steady steps; a vigorous company is showing to tribes and nations
that there are more valuable commodities in their land than their
sons and daughters." This is the vision which Livingstone saw, when,
in the last years of his life, he pleaded with his fellow-countrymen
to follow him into Africa. "I have opened the door," he said, "I
leave it to you to see that no one closes it after me."
The urgency of the question of Portuguese as against British
supremacy in Equatorial Africa must not blind us, however, to another
and scarcely less important point--the general European, and
especially the recent German, invasion of Africa. The Germans are
good, though impecunious colonists, but it cannot be said that they
or any of the other European nations are as alive to the moral
responsibilities of administration among native tribes as England
would desire. And though they are all freely entitled to whatever
lands in Africa they may legitimately secure, it is advisable for all
concerned that these acquisitions should be clearly defined and
established in international law, in order that the various Powers,
the various trading-companies, and the various missions, may know
exactly where they stand. The almost hopeless entanglement of the
Foreign Powers in Africa at present may be seen from the following
political "section," which represents the order of occupation along
the Atlantic seaboard from opposite Gibraltar to the Cape:--
POLITICAL "SECTION" OF WESTERN AFRICA.
Spain . . . Morocco.
France . . . "
Spain . . . Opposite the Canaries.
France . . . French Senegambia.
Britain . . . British Senegambia
France . . . French "
Britain . . . British "
Portugal . . . Portuguese "
France . . .
Britain . . . Sierra Leone.
Liberia . . . Republic of Liberia.
France . . . Gold Coast.
England . . . Gold Coast.
France . . . Dahomey.
Unappropriated . . . "
England . . . Niger.
Germany . . . Cameroons.
French . . . French Congo.
Portuguese . . . Portuguese Congo.
International . . Congo.
Portuguese . . . Angola.
Portuguese . . . Benguela.
Germany . . . Angra Pequena.
England . . . Walvisch Bay.
Germany . . . Orange River.
England . . . Cape of Good Hope.
These several possessions on the western coast have at least the
advantage of being to some extent defined, but those on the east, and
especially as regards their inland limits, are in a complete state of
chaos. It seems hopeless to propose it, but what is really required
is an International Conference to overhaul title-deeds, adjust
boundary-lines, delimit territories, mark off states, protectorates,
lands held by companies, and spheres of influence. England's
interest in this must be largely a moral one. Her ambitions in the
matter of new territories are long ago satisfied. But there will be
certain conflict some day if the portioning of Africa is not more
closely watched than it is at present.
As an example of the complacent way in which vast tracts in Africa
are being appropriated, glance for a moment at the recent inroads of
the Germans. On the faith of private treaties, and of an agreement
with Portugal, Germany has recently staked off a region in East
Central Africa stretching from the boundaries of the Congo Free State
to the Indian Ocean, and embracing an area considerably larger than
the German Empire. To a portion only of this region--the boundaries
of which, contrasted with that arbitrarily claimed in addition, will
be apparent from a comparison of the maps--have the Germans procured
a title; and the steps by which this has been attained afford an
admirable illustration of modern methods of land-transfer in Africa.
What happened was this:--
Four or five years ago Dr. Karl Peters concluded treaties with the
native chiefs of Useguha, Ukami, Nguru and Usagara, by which he
acquired these territories from the Society for German Colonization.
The late Sultan of Zanzibar attempted to remonstrate, but meantime an
imperial "Schutzbrief" had been secured from Berlin, and a German
fleet arrived at Zanzibar prepared to enforce it. Britain appealed
to Germany on the subject, and a Delimitation Commission was
appointed, which met in London. An agreement was come to, signed by
Lord Iddesleigh on 29th October, 1886, and duly given effect to. The
terms of this Anglo-German Convention have been recently made public
in a well-informed article by Mr. A. Silva White (_Scottish
Geographical Magazine_, March, 1888), to which I am indebted for some
of the above facts, and the abstract may be given here intact, as
political knowledge of Africa is not only deficient, but materials
for improving it are all but inaccessible. In view, moreover, of the
spirit of acquisitiveness which is abroad among the nations of
Europe, and of recent attempts on the part of Germany to claim more
than her title allows, the exact terms of this contract ought to be
widely known:--
I. Both Powers recognize the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar
over the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, Lamu and Mafia, as also over
those small islands lying within a circuit of twelve nautical miles
of Zanzibar. Both Powers also recognize as the Sultan's possessions
on the mainland an uninterrupted coast-line from the mouth of the
Miningani River at the entrance of the bay of Tunghi (south of Cape
Delgado) as far as Kipini (south of Wito). This line encloses a
coast of ten nautical miles inland for the whole distance. The
northern boundary includes Kau; north of Kipini, both Powers
recognize as belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar the stations of
Kisimayu, Brava, Merka, and Makdishu (Magadoxo), each with a land
circuit of ten nautical miles, and Warsheikli with a land circuit of
five nautical miles.
II. Great Britain engages herself to support those negotiations of
Germany with the Sultan which have for their object the farming out
(_Verpachtung_) of the customs in the harbors of Dar-es-Salaam and
Pangani to the German East African Association, on the payment by the
Association to the Sultan of an annual guaranteed sum of money.
III. Both Powers agree to undertake a delimitation of their
respective spheres of influence in this portion of the East African
Continent. This territory shall be considered as bounded on the
south by the Rovuma River, and on the north by a line, commencing
from the mouth of the Tana River, following the course of this river
or its tributaries, to the intersection of the Equator with the 38th
degree of east longitude, and from thence continued in a straight
line to the intersection of the 1st degree of north latitude with the
37th degree of east longitude. The line of demarcation shall start
from the mouth of the river Wanga, or Umbe, and follow a straight
course to Lake Jipe (south-east of Kilimanjaro), along the eastern
shore and round the northern shore of the lake, across the river
Lumi, passing between the territories of Taveta and Chagga, and then
along the northern slope of the Kilimanjaro range and continued in a
straight line to the point on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria
Nyanza which is intersected by the 1st degree of south latitude.
Great Britain engages herself to make no territorial acquisitions, to
accept no Protectorates, and not to compete with the spread of German
influence to the south of this line, whilst Germany engages herself
to observe a similar abstinence in the territories to the north of
this line.
IV. Great Britain will use her influence to promote the conclusion of
a friendly agreement concerning the existing claims of the Sultan of
Zanzibar and the German East African Association, on the Kilimanjaro
territory.
V. Both Powers recognize as belonging to Wito the coast stretching
from the north of Kipini to the north end of Man da Bay.
VI. Great Britain and Germany will conjointly call upon the Sultan of
Zanzibar to recognize the General Act of the Berlin Conference, save
and except the existing rights of His Highness as laid down in Art.
I. of the Act.
VII. Germany binds herself to become a party to the Note signed by
Great Britain and France on 10th March, 1862, in regard to the
recognition of the independence of Zanzibar.
This is the only document which can have any validity, and such
German claims--outside the limit here assigned--as are represented on
the newer German maps, are to be treated as mere chartographical
flourishes. Encouraged, however, by this success in securing
territory in Africa, and without stopping to use or even to proclaim
their protectorate over more than a fraction of the petty states
comprised within it, the Germans instantly despatched expedition
after expedition to secure further conquest in the remoter and
unappropriated districts. Dr. Karl Peters himself led one large
expedition; Dr. Jühlke negotiated agreements with the tribes on the
distant Somal coast; and other explorers brought back rare and heavy
spoil--on paper--to Berlin. So the swallowing up of Africa goes on.
The slices cut are daily becoming bigger, and in a few years more not
a crumb of the loaf will remain for those who own it now. The poor
Sultan of Zanzibar, who used to boast himself lord of the whole
interior, woke up, after the London Convention, to find that his
African kingdom consisted of a ten-mile-wide strip of coast-line,
extending from Kipini to the Miningani River. Even this has already
been sold or leased to the English and Germans, and nothing now
remains to His Highness but a few small islands.
Since turning her attention towards Africa, Germany has not only
looked well after new territory, but seized the opportunity to
inspect and readjust the title-deeds to her other African property.
We find a new treaty concluded in 1885 between her and the British
Protectorate in the Niger regarding the Cameroons; another towards
the close of the same year with France on the same subject, and
securing rights to Malimba and Great Batonga; and a third with
Portugal in 1887, defining, in the interest of the latter, the
boundaries of Angola, and ceding to Germany, as a _quid-pro-quo_, an
acknowledgment of the claim of the Germans--which, of course, England
repudiates--to East Central Africa from the coast to the south end of
Tanganyika and Lake Nyassa, as far as the latitude of the Rovuma.
These facts prove the genuine political activity of at least one
great European power, and offer a precedent to England, which, in one
respect at least, she would do well to copy. Her title-deeds, and
those of certain districts in which she is concerned, are not in such
perfect order as to justify the apathy which exists at present, and
her interests in the country are now too serious to be the prey of
unchallenged ambitions, or left at the mercy of any casual turn of
the wheel of politics.
Thanks, partly, to the recent seizure by Portugal of the little
Zambesi steamer belonging to the African Lakes company--on the plea
that vessels trading on Portuguese waters must be owned by Portuguese
subjects, and fly the Portuguese flag--and to influential deputations
to head-quarters on the part of the various Missions, the Foreign
Office is beginning to be alive to the state of affairs in East
Central Africa. The annexation of Matabeleland will be a chief item
on the programme with which it is hoped the Government will shortly
surprise us; but, what is of greater significance, it will probably
include a declaration of the Zambesi as an open river, and the
abolition or serious restriction of the present customs tariff.
Important as these things are, however, they affect but slightly the
two supreme English interests in East Central Africa--the suppression
of the slave-trade and the various missionary and industrial
enterprises. The most eager among the supporters of these higher
interests have never ventured to press upon Government anything so
pronounced as that England should declare a Protectorate over the
Upper Shiré and Nyassa districts; but they do contend, and with every
reason, for the delimitation of part of this region as a "Sphere of
British Influence."
Granting even that the shadowy claims of Germany and Portugal to the
eastern shore of Lake Nyassa are to be respected, there remain the
whole western coast of the Lake, and the regions of the Upper Shiré
which are reached directly from the waters of the Zambesi without
trespassing on the soil of any nation. These regions are not even
claimed at present by any one, while by every right of discovery and
occupation--by every right, in fact, except that of formal
acknowledgment--they are already British. It will be an oversight
most culpable and inexcusable if this great theatre of British
missionary and trading activity should be allowed to be picked up by
any passing traveller, or become the property of whatever European
power had sufficient effrontery at this late day to wave its flag
over it. The thriving settlements, the schools and churches, the
roads and trading-stations, of Western Nyassa-land are English. And
yet it is neither asked that they should be claimed by England,
annexed by England, nor protected by England. Those whose
inspirations and whose lives have created this oasis in the desert,
plead only that no intruder now should be allowed to undo their labor
or idly reap its fruits. Here is one spot, at least, on the Dark
Continent, which is being kept pure and clean. It is now within the
power of the English Government to mark it off before the world as
henceforth sacred ground. To-morrow, it may be too late.
X.
A METEOROLOGICAL NOTE.
The Lake Nyassa region of Africa knows only two seasons--the rainy
and the dry. The former begins with great regularity on the opening
days of December, and closes towards the end of April; while during
the dry season, which follows for the next six months, the sun is
almost never darkened with a cloud. At Blantyre, on the Shiré
Highlands, the rainfall averages fifty inches; at Bandawé, on Lake
Nyassa, a register of eighty-six inches is counted a somewhat dryish
season.
The barometer in tropical countries is much more conservative of
change than in northern latitudes, and the annual variation at Lake
Nyassa is only about half an inch--or from 28.20 inches in November
to 28.70 inches in June. The diurnal variation, according to Mr.
Stewart, is rarely more than twenty-hundredths of an inch.
The average temperature for the year at Blantyre, where the elevation
is about three thousand feet above sea-level, is 50° Fahr., but the
mercury has been known to stand ten degrees lower, and on one
exceptional occasion it fell 2° below freezing point. At Lake
Nyassa, half the height of Blantyre, 85° Fahr. is a common figure for
mid-day in the hottest month (November) in the year, while the
average night-temperature of the coldest month (May) is about 60°.
The lowest registered temperature on the Lake has been 54°, and the
highest--though this is extremely rare--100° Fahr. When the
Livingstonia Mission occupied the promontory of Cape Maclear, at the
southern end of Nyassa, in 1880, one of the then staff, Mr. Harkess,
had the energy to keep a systematic record of the temperature, and I
am indebted to his notebook for the following table. The figures
represent observations taken at 6 A.M., 12 noon, and 6 P.M. A dash
indicates that the observation was omitted for the hour
corresponding. The wet bulb reads on an average 10 degrees lower.
TABLE OF TEMPERATURES AT LAKE NYASSA.
May June July Aug. Sept.
1 70 62 64 67 68
80 75 73 74 79
75 76 74 73 75
2 -- 60 64 68 69
77 78 74 -- 79
-- 73 -- 74 75
3 67 65 62 65 66
76 78 74 -- 75
76 74 70 -- 74
4 68½ 64 -- 62 71
79 71 73 -- 77
78 70 -- -- 79
5 68 64 63 76 --
79 74 -- -- --
76 74 71 -- --
6 -- 64 64 70 65
75½ 77 72 77 81
75 76 74 -- 77
7 66 67 64 61 72
79 78 71 79 80
75 75 71 -- 77
8 65 66 64 -- 70
74 74 -- -- 80
74 74 71 -- 81
9 -- 68 65 62 70
77 76 75 79 81
-- 73 73 -- 77
10 67 68 66 61 --
75 75 -- 81 80
74 73 71 -- 77
11 69 66 -- 62 70
75 76 76 79 79
-- 75 73 -- 79
12 -- 66 69 65 --
75 75 77 81 --
71 72 -- 76 --
13 65 -- 70 72
76 73 80 79
74 -- 77 78
14 67 63 68 71
73 74 77 81
71 -- 75 78
15 68 64 -- 66 72
76 74 -- -- 75
75 72 76 -- 77
16 71 64 68 67 --
77 74 79 75 79
75 70 78 73 77
17 68 64 65 -- --
78 74 77 -- --
77 72 -- 76 76
18 72 71 68 68 73
80 74 75 75 78
78 72 76 72 77
19 65 64 69 -- --
74 -- 77 75 --
76 77 79 74 --
20 63 -- 67 68 75
74 76 76 -- 82
76 74 74 75 80
21 67 65 64 64 71
75 72 75 -- 85
75 68 75 75 78
22 70 63 67 -- 72
75 66 75 78 81
-- 65 76 75 79
23 58 65 -- 70
67 77 79 82
70 74 77 78
24 -- 62 64 68 73
76 -- 76 69 82
76 -- 74 66 81
25 67 61 66 63 74
77 -- 74 75 --
75 -- 75 71 78
26 67 63 67 64 --
75 75 79 72 --
75 -- 76 73 --
27 69 -- 65 65 73
77 72 74 77 84
74 -- 71 77 82
28 70 -- 65 70 73
78 72 76 79 81
77 -- 74 78 79
29 68 63 65 -- 68
80 71 72 76 82
77 72 75 -- 80
30 -- 64 63 67 74
75 74 78 79 82
76 -- 75 77 80
31 67 65 66
74 76 79
74 76 83