To carry war into Africa has been a proverb ever since Rome vowed the
destruction of Carthage. But the Carthagenian invasion was a modern
episode in Africa's experiences of that nature. On one of the earlier
monuments of Egypt there is figured a slave-hunter's raid upon an
Ethiopian village, the horrid details of which are said by travelers
to be an accurate picture of a slave raid of to-day. The same
murderous work has been going on incessantly for at least 4,000 years:
how much longer there is no telling. For all these ages the African
borders have known war and war only, and of the most destructive and
barbarizing nature.
Recently, under the influence of Sir Samuel Baker, Colonel Gordon, and
the civilized world in general, the Khedive of Egypt has carried war
into the interior in the interests of peace: a conquest in a measure
justified by the suppression of inter-tribal war for the filling of
slave pens, and the abolition of the slave trade down the Nile. A
similar reform has been effected on the east coast by the pressure of
English power on the Sultan of Zanzibar. And the immediate effect of
these two movements has been to prevent the butchery or enslavement of
not less than half a million negroes annually.
A still more promising invasion of Africa has just been decided upon
in the International Geographical Conference in Brussels: an invasion
wholly in the interests of peace and civilization. At the meeting,
a year ago, it was declared advisable to establish, by international
effort, a line of permanent commercial stations from Bagomoyo, on the
coast of Zanzibar, to St. Paul de Loanda, on the opposite Atlantic
coast; the first stations to be at Ujiji, where Stanley found
Livingstone, on the eastern shore of lake Tanganyika; at Nyangwe,
Livingstone's furthest point northward on the Lualaba; and at some
point further west on the route of Cameron, to be fixed in the
dominions of Muata Yamvo, one of the most powerful chiefs of Central
Africa. At the second conference, which ended June 24, arrangements
were made for sending out the first expedition toward Tanganyika.
The object of the proposed stations is the development of civilization
by commerce, not by religious propaganda. Primarily they will serve
as bases of operation for explorers of the interior, a sort of
_entrepots_, where the explorer may supply himself with provisions,
instruments, and goods, and thus save the cost and embarrassment of
an army of porters from the coast. They will also serve as places of
refuge for explorers in times of sickness and other reverses, which
have hitherto so terribly hampered explorers. The heads of these
pioneer establishments are to be men of scientific training and proved
executive ability; and each will be aided by a physician-naturalist
and a few skilled artisans. The points thus far chosen are on a line
regularly traveled by the caravans of Arab traders, carrying coffee,
tea, sugar, arms, and woven goods to permanent Arab residences and
trading stations in the interior. An agent of the London Missionary
Society has already begun the survey of a route for ox teams as far
as lake Tanganyika; and Cameron has expressed the opinion that a light
narrow-gauge railway could be constructed from the coast to the lake
at a cost not exceeding four thousand dollars a mile. The traffic
along such a road, he thinks, would soon pay interest on the outlay.
The unexplored region thus to be opened up to civilization and
commerce (other than in human beings) is larger than the United
States east of the Mississippi. Around it is a still larger region of
partially explored country of unequalled fertility, abounding in great
lakes and navigable rivers, and for the most part so high above
the sea that the products of the tropics mingle with those of
the temperate zone. The cereals, durah, maize, rice, sugar cane,
starch-yielding roots and tubers, cotton, coffee, tobacco, spices,
gums and caoutchouc, dye-stuffs and medicinal plants, the banana,
fig, date, orange, and the vine are among the known products of this
region; and all are capable of becoming important staples of foreign
commerce. The country is not less rich in coal, iron, copper, gold,
and other valuable minerals. The climate, though moist from abundant
rain, is less debilitating than India or Brazil; and everywhere, away
from the miasmatic coast regions and the marshes of the lower river
courses, European explorers have found small cause for complaining of
excessive heat or unhealthiness. On the elevated plateaus which cover
so large a part of Central Africa, the climate is like that of the
sanitariums of India; while among the mountains the finest climates of
the world are fairly rivalled. Stanley found in the mountainous region
between the great lakes and within a degree of the equator every
climatic condition and every element of landscape beauty that could
attract and delight a white colony. It was a perfect alpine country,
with mountains rising from twelve to fifteen thousand feet, yet free
from alpine cold and snow. Countless torrents from the hills watered
ever-verdant valleys as beautiful as those of Tyrol, lying under a
brilliant equatorial sun, yet with a climate as cool and equable as
any European might desire. Further south, among the mountains about
Lake Nyassa, the same features are presented on a grander scale:
a country aptly described as a second Switzerland of gigantic
proportions.
There can be no question of the ability of Europeans to sustain
themselves in the greater part of the interior-certainly on all the
higher plateaus-nor of the possibility of building up in Central
Africa a great civilized empire. Nature offers every facility, and the
native population seem to be well fitted for productive industry. In
every respect they are physically and morally superior to the negroes
of the coast, and only need protection and the encouragement of
legitimate commerce to weld them into a great nation. Already
they stand on the borders of civilization. They are intelligent,
industrious, and not unskillful in the manufacture of iron and copper
ornaments, utensils, and weapons. The arts of tanning, spinning,
weaving, dyeing, mat-making, etc., are widely diffused among them, and
many of their products are remarkable for their fineness and
strength. They carry on agriculture with considerable success;
and, notwithstanding the chronic state of insecurity incident to
slave-hunting, their wealth in cattle is very great. As soon as the
disturbing and impoverishing influence of the slave traffic is abated,
and a market provided for the products of peace, the advancement of
the people in civilization is likely to go on with great rapidity.
As the source of raw materials which we need, and as a market for the
surplus manufactures of Europe and America, the country offers, to say
the least, many attractions; and it will not be surprising if, within
fifty years, thriving commercial stations will be founded on all
its great lakes and rivers, and connected with the outer world by
telegraphy, railways, and steamship lines.
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