Equatorial Africa

“ They know that in equatorial Africa there are more than 100,000,000 people wanting every thing, even clothes.
The whole coast of Africa on the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans from the Red Sea to the Isthmus of Suez, is claimed by European nations, with the exception of two or three small inhospitable and barren strips of coast. England occupies Egypt, and will hold it for an indefinite period. France has its colonies in Tripoli, Algiers, and Morocco, and on the Atlantic coast its factories in Senegambia. ”

“ Nothing in West Africa is more striking than the attitude adopted by the several colonizing Powers towards commerce. At present, Germany is easily in the front rank; her policy towards business men is the most enlightened of any Power, and it is therefore to be the more regretted that her treatment of the natives is not equally far-sighted. Were it so, all students of African questions could view with equanimity her gradual absorption of the whole of Equatorial Africa. ”

“ 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 immensely cooler, therefore, in the interior than at the coast; and the equatorial zone all over the world possesses a climate in every way superior to that of the borders of the temperate region. At night, in Equatorial Africa, it is really cold, and one seldom lies down in his tent with less than a couple of blankets and a warm quilt. The heat of New York is often greater than that of Central Africa ”

“ 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. ”

“ The reason for the continued secret existence of domestic slavery in the district of the lower Ogowe, is to be looked for in the food conditions of the interior. It is the disastrous lot of Equatorial Africa never to have had at any time either fruit-bearing plants or fruit-bearing trees. The banana stocks, the manioc, the yam, the potato, and the oil palm were introduced from their West Indian islands by the Portuguese, who were the great benefactors of Equatorial Africa. ”

“ The Nile, Niger and Congo rivers have their origin on the interior slopes of the highlands, and therefore discharge into the Atlantic Ocean, while the Zambezi drainage basin, lying largely on the outer slopes, falls off toward the Indian Ocean. The longest river system is that of the Nile, which rises in the lake region of Equatorial Africa and flows northward through the mountainous divide to the plateau region of eastern Sudan, where it receives an important affluent from the west in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. ”

“ The uniformity of climate in equatorial Africa contributes very much to extend the range of particular species of plants. To this may be added the absence of those mountain systems which elsewhere, as in Asia, traverse the continent in all directions. Without let or hindrance the trade-winds exert their influence over the entire breadth of this region. ”

“ The second thought is that, considering what we know of the conditions under which the native races of Equatorial Africa have been developed during an unrecorded series of ages, and of the subsequent conditions during several generations of slavery, the surprising thing is that the differences should not be far greater than they are. ”

“ We were now beginning to relieve ourselves of the ammunition, to carry the sick refugees from the Equatorial Province.
On the 11th we passed out of Karagwé territory, and because of the complimentary introductions from Ndagara we were welcomed in Ihangiro, and were escorted from village to village until we halted at Kavari. But here was the end of the free living. Every grain and banana would have to be purchased henceforward. From the Albert Nyanza to this first important district in Ihangiro, nearly 600 miles, the Expedition had been supplied gratuitously and abundantly. ”

“ This surprising fact seems most improbable to those who are not acquainted with the Protectorate, but it must be remembered that temperature and climate depend on elevation as much as on geographical position. The best-known equatorial countries—such as West Africa, Brazil, and the Malay Archipelago—are comparatively low and flat. It is only rarely, as in Bolivia and East Africa, that we find the much rarer combination of equatorial position and considerable altitude. ”

“ Historic man believes in a Divinity; the tribes of Central Africa know no God. Are they of our Adamite race? The equatorial portion of Africa at the Nile sources has an average altitude above the sea-level of about 4,000 feet; this elevated plateau forms the base of a range of mountains, that I imagine extends, like the vertebrae of an animal, from east to west, shedding a drainage to the north and south. ”

“ Therefore the descent from the equatorial plateau of Africa down to the Atlantic littoral means a drop in culture also, because the various elements of civilization which for ages have uninterruptedly filtered into Sudan from the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, have rarely penetrated to the western rim of the highland, and hence never reached the coast. Moreover, this steaming lowland, from the Senegal River to the Kamerun Mountains, has been a last asylum for dislodged tribes who have been driven out by expanding peoples of the plateau. ”

“ The thing you must always bear in mind when observing institutions and so on from Sierra Leone down to Lagos, is that the fertile belt between the salt sea of the Bight of Benin and the sand sea of Sahara is but a narrow band of forest and fertile country, while, when you get below Lagos—Lagos itself is a tongue of the Western Soudan coming down to the sea—you are in the true heart of Africa, the Equatorial Forest Belt ”

“ West Africa has a much greater rainfall than the eastern half of the continent. There is, however, a somewhat well-marked rainy equatorial belt, which extends from the Victoria Nyanza on the east to the Gambia River on the west, and expands over a good deal of the basin of the Congo, the lower and the upper Niger. ”

“ In the former land everything of the kind requires constant care to keep it going at all, and protect it from the terrific local circumstances. It is no use saying to animal or vegetable, “there is room for all in Africa”—for Africa, that is Africa properly so called—Equatorial West Africa, is full up with its own stuff now, crowded and fighting an internecine battle with the most marvellous adaptations to its environment. ”

“ It will now suffice to say generally that the evidence appears to lie open before us of there being a series of unestablished and imperfectly developed nations which, although they are now in their decline, extend from ocean to ocean across the entire equatorial zone of Africa. ”

“ Those who have some regard for righteous justice may find some comfort in the reflection that until civilization in its true and real form be introduced into Equatoria, the aborigines shall now have some peace and rest, and that whatever aspects its semblance bare, excepting a few orange and lime trees, can be replaced within a month, under higher, better, and more enduring auspices. ”

“ Swampy districts of limited extent are found along the upper Guinea shore and on the east coast about the mouths of the Zambezi River, and a lowland borders the south side of the Somali Peninsula. The mean elevation of Africa, obtained by a reduction of all irregularities of the surface, has been estimated to be about 2100 feet, which is about equal to that of South America and somewhat less than that of North America, while it is greatly exceeded by the mean elevation of the Eurasiatic continent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, however, not impossible, that in the centre of Africa, there may be lofty table lands like those of Quito, or valleys like that of Cashmeer, where, as in those happy regions, spring holds a perpetual reign. ”

“ It is not, however, these tropical lowlands which are the most valuable and characteristic feature of East Africa, but the temperate highlands, which are not merely a planter's country, but suited to the permanent residence of Europeans. ”

“ Introduction—The African Association—Ledyard—Lucas—First information respecting the Niger, or Quorra, and the Gambia—Timbuctoo heard of—Thompson and Jobson’s voyage up the Gambia—Major Haughton’s expedition and death.
When the fathers of the present generation were young men, and George the Third ruled the land, they imagined that the whole interior of Africa was one howling wilderness of burning sand, roamed over by brown tribes in the north and south, and by black tribes—if human beings there were—on either side of the equator, and along the west coast. ”

“ We soon passed on, the little island disappeared, and once more our bark seemed to be alone on the mighty ocean. After a week or so we sighted the mainland of that great and wonderful continent Africa—wonderful, I say, because it has been left as if it were unknown for centuries, while countries not nearly its equal in any way have had millions spent upon them. Our first land fall was a port of Liberia. Liberia, I must tell you, is part of the western continent with a seaboard of some miles. ”

“ For ages upon ages, Africa has refused to reveal its secrets to civilized man, and, though explorers have penetrated it from every side, it remains to-day the dark continent. This isolation of Africa is due to its position and formation. It is a vast, ill-formed triangle, with few good harbors, without navigable rivers for ocean-vessels, lying mainly in the torrid zone. A fringe of low scorched land, reeking with malaria, extends in unbroken monotony all along the coast, threatening death to the adventurous explorer. ”

“ The spirit of enterprise has carried our mariners to the arctic seas, braving the most appalling dangers in the solution of a great geographical problem; by the same power, civilization has been carried into the primeval forests of the American continent, and cities have arisen in the very heart of the Andes. The interior of Africa, however, notwithstanding its navigable rivers, has been hitherto almost a sealed chapter in the history of the globe. ”

“ The "Dark Continent" is entirely destitute of the great estuaries and broad arteries giving access in the New World from the Atlantic seaboard almost to the foot of the Andes. The comparative absence of navigable waters, of islands and good harbours, combined with the great extent of desert wastes, has mainly contributed to exclude Africa from the general life of the commercial world.
All the great rivers — Nile, Congo, and Niger — are interrupted by cataracts and rapids, which cut off from outward intercourse populous regions whose fluvial systems ramify over many hundred millions of acres. ”

“ Between this region and Africa south of the equator there are no serious physical obstructions of any kind, whereas farther west the Hamitic Saharan nomads were everywhere barred access to the south by the broad, thickly-peopled plateaux of the Sudanese Black Zone. ”

“ Sir Samuel Baker here describes twelve months' exploration, during which he examined the rivers that are tributary to the Nile from Abyssinia, including the Atbara, Settite, Royan, Salaam, Angrab, Rahad, Dinder, and the Blue Nile, The interest attached to these portions of Africa differs entirely from that of the White Nile regions, as the whole of Upper Egypt and Abyssinia is capable of development, and is inhabited by races having some degree of civilization; while Central Africa is peopled by a race of savages, whose future is more problematical. ”

“ Africans are continually going to and fro between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. I have met in Liberia and in its eastern frontiers, Mohammedan Negroes born in Mecca, the holy city of Arabia, who thought they were telling of nothing extraordinary when they were detailing the incidents of their journey, and of the journey of their friends, from the banks of the Niger—from the neighborhood of Sierra Leone and Liberia—across the continent to Egypt, Arabia and Jerusalem. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The source of the Congo is at a height of 6,000 feet; of the Nile at 4,500; and of the Niger at 3,000; while that of the Amazon is not more than 700 feet, and the Mississippi only about 2,000 feet. It has been said that Africa has been less travelled than any other part of the world. It is there that are found, more than anywhere else, huge mountains, such as Kilima-Njaro, Kenya, etc., which rise suddenly from the level surface of great plains; vast lakes of uncertain outlines, which seem at one time to be drying up and at another to be making new inroads on the land ”