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:—