East Africa

“ The monotony of green that clothes the soil is relieved in places by dwarf earth-cliffs and scaurs of rufous hue—East Africa is mostly a red land—and behind the foreground of littoral or alluvial plain, at a distance varying from three to five miles, rises a blue line of higher level, conspicuous even from Zanzibar Island, the sandy raised beach now the frontier of the wild men. ”

“ After eating, the East African invariably indulges in a long fit of torpidity, from which he awakes to pass the afternoon as he did the forenoon, chatting, playing, smoking, and chewing “sweet-earth.” Towards sunset all issue forth to enjoy the coolness: the men sit outside the Iwánzá, whilst the women and the girls, after fetching water for household wants from the well, collecting in a group upon their little stools, indulge in the pleasures of gossipred and the pipe. ”

“ The Congo Free State and the western watershed of the basin of the Upper Nile form the western boundary line.
Now that England has come into possession of so much East African territory, we may expect to receive much interesting information about the natives, as their land becomes open to civilization and commerce. A large part of East Africa must now become known to the world, and many improvements are to be looked for. A railway of six hundred and fifty-seven miles in length has at this early date been planned from Mombassa to Lake Nyanza. ”

“ Uganda is a black man's country; East Africa is fitted to be a white man's country, and is rapidly becoming one. As explained, this Protectorate rises gradually from the sea into a plateau varying from 5,000 to 10,000 feet in height, excluding peaks which attain an altitude of nearly 19,000 feet. This plateau is cleft down the middle by a depression known as the Great Rift Valley, which, though some thousand feet lower than the surrounding heights, shares their temperate climate. ”

“ BRITISH EAST AFRICA, a term, in its widest sense, including all the territory under British influence on the eastern side of Africa between German East Africa on the south and Abyssinia and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on the north. It comprises the protectorates of Zanzibar, Uganda and East Africa. Apart from a narrow belt of coastland, the continental area belongs almost entirely to the great plateau of East Africa, rarely falling below an elevation of 2000 ft., while extensive sections rise to a height of 6000 to 8000 ft. ”

“ The object of the present work being to draw attention to East Africa as a rich field for commercial enterprise, geographical and historical disquisitions are studiously avoided, as they have been deemed unsuitable to the general reader, whose attention to this neglected portion of the globe it is my earnest endeavour to attract. ”

“ The Northern frontier of British East Africa was defined by the Jub River and the conterminous boundary of the Italian sphere of influence in Galla-land and Abyssinia up to the confines of Egypt; in the west, by the Congo State and the Congo-Nile watershed. (4.) Germany withdrew, in favor of Britain, her Protectorate over Vitu and her claims to all territories on the mainland to the north of the River Tana, as also over the islands of Patta and Manda. ”

“ If our victory is great enough, we can hope to unite under our hand the whole of Central Africa with our old colony South-west Africa; Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Dahomey, well-populated Nigeria with the port of Lagos, Kamerun, the rich islands of San Thomé and Principe with their splendid ports, the Katanga ore district, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Mozambique, and Delagoa Bay, Madagascar, German East Africa, Zanzibar, and Uganda ”

“ On the other side of the continent, just south of the Equator, lies German East Africa, almost twice the size of the mother country and the largest and richest of the Kaiser's transmarine possessions. The combined area of these four colonies is equal to that of all the States east of the Mississippi put together; certainly a substantial foundation on which to begin the erection of an empire, especially when it is remembered that French Africa, which now [Pg 176] comprises forty-five per cent of the continent, is for the most part the work of but a single generation. ”

“ It was only during the construction of this railway that people became alive to the fact that the road to Uganda was more valuable than Uganda itself.
The peculiarity of the East Africa Protectorate is that, though it is equatorial, large parts of it possess a temperate climate which has been shown, by an experience now amounting to about fifteen years, to be suitable to Europeans. Not only can they reside continuously in the country, but they can rear children there. ”

“ It thus affects our two most important interests in the Continent In Northern Africa we have chosen Egypt and the east as our sphere rather than Morocco and the west. Now, the main factor in the prosperity and safety of Egypt is the Nile, and by the possession of Uganda we control the whole course of this river from its double source in Lakes Victoria and Albert to its mouth in the Mediterranean. ”

“ The Roman Catholics—French and German—have several stations in East Africa. The French have three stations on or near Lake Victoria Nyanza, the most important of which is the one in Uganda under Pere Lourdel; two at Lake Tanganyika; one at Bagamoya, west of Zanzibar, and one or two others. The Jesuits have also a few stations, and the German Catholics have one at Dar-es-Salam. These are all the societies at work in East Africa. As we look at their achievements, to human ken they do not appear commensurate with what they have cost. ”

“ Politically the East Africa Protectorate is less important than Uganda—that is to say, it does not contain many points which are of strategic value or affect the neighbouring lands. But it offers a series of excellent harbours along the coast, and since ships could be supplied with practically unlimited quantities of meat and European vegetables, it might be valuable as a provisioning station in time of war. ”

“ Most of us think that Eastern Equatorial Africa, considered as a field for colonization, is as much virgin soil as Togo, Kamerun and German South-West Africa, or the greater part of our possessions in the South Seas. ”

“ It is not needful, for the purposes of this story, to go over in detail the possessions, and their boundaries, of the various white nations in Africa. The French have a huge area in the north-west, reaching right down from Algeria to a junction with the Congo River. The Belgian Congo lies between that French area and British Rhodesia, which joins the other British colonies farther south. Great Britain has Nigeria on the west coast and British East Africa on the east. ”

“ The third division of the higher region of Africa is formed by the Abyssinian highlands, a rugged mass of mountains forming the largest continuous area of its altitude in the whole continent, little of its surface falling below 5000 ft., while the summits reach heights of 15,000 to 16,000 ft. This block of country lies just west of the line of the great East African trough, the northern continuation of which passes along its eastern escarpment as it runs up to join the Red Sea. ”

“ Finally, to those Southerners who cherish the wild delusion, that, with a retention of great numbers of the inferior race in their midst, a sentiment, backed by laws against intermarriage, is sufficient protection against miscegenation, the illustration afforded by East Africa may be pointed to. East Africa lies just south of the oldest civilization we know of, and has been invaded in the past by horde after horde of whites. ”

“ The greatest hindrance has been the Arab slave trade, which, driven from the west coast had established itself on the east coast. The unwise course of the Germans who established a commercial enterprise there in 1889 has led to Arab hostilities719 that appear disastrous in the extreme to missionary work for the present, especially among the Ugandas.
LARI AND MADI NATIVES.
There are very extensive missionary interests in East Africa. No less than thirteen societies are at work on the coast or in the interior. ”

“ In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the East African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little veneration—the negro [336] race is ever irreverent—and, though his cranium rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being firm. ”

“ Leaving out of sight the still unsettled problem of the mineral wealth of these territories, they are in other respects one of the most promising parts of South Africa. I have remarked that as regards pasture and agriculture they are superior to the inland parts of Cape Colony. They are in these points also superior to the Transvaal, and still more plainly superior to the neighbouring possessions of Germany and Portugal. Portuguese East Africa is fever-stricken. German East Africa is in many places barren and almost everywhere malarious. ”

“ But a European colonisation of Abyssinia, possible as it might be climatically, is out of the question in view of the relatively abundant and warlike population indigenous to the Ethiopian Empire. ... {4} "Then comes Central Africa, which may be taken to range from the northern limits of the Congo basin and the Great Lakes on the north to the Cunenc River and the Zambesi on the south. British East Africa and Uganda offer probably the largest continuous area of white man’s country in the central section of the continent. ”

“ With an Introduction by H. M. Stanley, M.P. With 100 Illustrations and 5 Maps. Demy 8vo. 21s.
Few Europeans have had the same opportunity of studying the barbarous parts of Africa as Mr. Decle. Starting from the Cape, he visited in succession Bechuanaland, the Zambesi, Matabeleland and Mashonaland, the Portuguese settlement on the Zambesi, Nyasaland, Ujiji, the headquarters of the Arabs, German East Africa, Uganda (where he saw fighting in company with the late Major ‘Roddy’ Owen) , and British East Africa. ”

“ The Eastern Coast of Africa has long been neglected, and never but little known, even to the ancients; but has ever been our choice part of the Continent. Bounded by the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean, it presents the greatest facilities for an immense trade, with China, Japan, Siam, Hindoostan, in short, all the East Indies—of any other country in the world. With a settlement of enlightened freemen, who with the immense facilities, must soon grow into a powerful nation. ”

“ The ancient metropolis of a once mighty race, the only permanent settlement in Eastern Africa, the reported seat of Moslem learning, a walled city of stone houses, possessing its independent chief, its peculiar population, its unknown language, and its own coinage, the emporium of the coffee trade, the head-quarters of slavery, the birth-place of the Kat plant, [9] and the great manufactory of cotton-cloths, amply, it appeared, deserved the trouble of exploration. ”

“ East Africa is a part of the world and Christ’s command surely includes the taking of such almost impregnable fortresses as frown upon his soldiers in that dark region. Then, too, the time has been short; great results may follow in the future the work that has already been done. ”

“ We only claim to have barred for a time the periodic flights of these interesting features of Africa, from 10° north latitude to as far as 20° south latitude, and from east to west Africa, and to have located with reasonable precision the grand old Mountains of the Moon, and the Albertine and Victorine sources of the Nile. And for a time only! For “what profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. ”

“ Four territories are, so to speak, in the melting pot of political speculation—British Gambia, French Congo, Belgian Congo, and the Portuguese colonies of East and West Africa. None of the Powers in control of these territories desire to add another foot of tropical Africa to the burden they carry already. Great Britain has a full share of responsibilities in the African continent. France, Belgium and Portugal, even if they desired to enlarge their tropical dependencies, have not yet established a case for expansion. ”

“ Just as with regard to the alleged want of appetite experienced by Europeans in the tropics, we ought to see that the general public is more correctly informed as to the supposed fertility of Equatorial Africa, and so saved from forming extravagant notions of the brilliant future in store for our colonies. ”

“ We have mentioned the respective regions held by other European nations in Africa, France surpassing Great Britain in colonial area though not in population. Among the French African possessions are included the great island of Madagascar, lying off the east coast of the continent. Mention should be made here of the extensive and promising Congo Free State, under the suzerainty of Belgium. Covering eight hundred thousand square miles, it comprises the populous and richly agricultural center of Africa, its vast extension of navigable waters yielding communication through its every part. ”

“ In form Africa consists of two parts, a northern ellipsoid, with an east and west longitudinal axis, comprising the Sahara-Sudan region, and a southern triangular limb attached to the southern side of the eastern half of the northern portion, and consisting of the Congo region and the South African highlands. Somewhat north of the middle point of the eastern side of the continent, a massive triangular projection, the Somali Peninsula, extends almost 1000 miles toward the Indian Peninsula of Asia. ”

“ The Ethiopian Subregion comprises the whole of Africa and Madagascar, except the Barbary States, but including Arabia; in the north-east the subregion melts into the Palaearctic between its limits still farther to the eastwards, through Beluchistan and even beyond the Indus. ”