The last epoch-marking work carried through by an individual was accomplished by a Scottish explorer, whose achievements almost rivalled those of Livingstone. Joseph Thomson, a native of Dumfriesshire, succeeded in 1879 to the command of an exploring party which sought to open up the country around the lakes of Nyassa and Tanganyika. Four years later, on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society, he undertook to examine the country behind Mombasa which was little better known than when Vasco da Gama first touched there. In this journey Thomson discovered two snow-capped mountains, Kilimanjaro and Kenia, and made known the resources of the country as far inland as the Victoria Nyanza. Considering the small resources he had at hand, and the cruel and warlike character of the Masai people through whom he journeyed, this journey was by far the most remarkable and important in the annals of exploration during the eighties. Thomson afterwards undertook to open a way from the Benuë, the great eastern affluent of the Niger, to Lake Chad and the White Nile. Here again he succeeded beyond all expectation, while his tactful management of the natives led to political results of the highest importance, as will shortly appear.
These explorations and those of French, German, and Portuguese travellers served to bring nearly the whole of Africa within the ken of the civilised world, and revealed the fact that nearly all parts of tropical Africa had a distinct commercial value.
This discovery, we may point out, is the necessary preliminary to any great and sustained work of colonisation and annexation. Three conditions may be looked on as essential to such an effort. First, that new lands should be known to be worth the labour of exploitation or settlement; second, that the older nations should possess enough vitality to pour settlers and treasure into them; and thirdly, that mechanical appliances should be available for the overcoming of natural obstacles.
Now, a brief glance at the great eras of exploring and colonising activity will show that in all these three directions the last thirty years have presented advantages which are unique in the history of the world. A few words will suffice to make good this assertion. The wars which constantly devastated the ancient world, and the feeble resources in regard to navigation wielded by adventurous captains, such as Hanno the Carthaginian, grievously hampered all the efforts of explorers by sea, while mechanical appliances were so weak as to cripple man's efforts at penetrating the interior. The same is true of the mediaeval voyagers and travellers. Only the very princes among men, Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Cabot, Cabral, Gilbert, and Raleigh, could have done what they did with ships that were mere playthings. Science had to do her work of long and patient research before man could hopefully face the mighty forces and malignant influences of the tropics. Nor was the advance of knowledge and invention sufficient by itself to equip man for successful war against the ocean, the desert, the forest, and the swamp. The political and social development of the older countries was equally necessary. In order that thousands of settlers should be able and ready to press in where the one great leader had shown the way, Europe had to gain something like peace and stability. Only thus, when the natural surplus of the white races could devote itself to the task of peacefully subduing the earth rather than to the hideous work of mutual slaughter, could the life-blood of Europe be poured forth in fertilising streams into the waste places of the other continents.
The latter half of the eighteenth century promised for a brief space to inaugurate such a period of expansive life. The close of the Seven Years' War seemed to be the starting point for a peaceful campaign against the unknown; but the efforts of Cook, d'Entrecasteaux, and others then had little practical result, owing to the American War of Independence, and the great cycle of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. These in their turn left Europe too exhausted to accomplish much in the way of colonial expansion until the middle of the nineteenth century. Even then, when the steamship and the locomotive were at hand to multiply man's powers, there was, as yet, no general wish, except on the part of the more fortunate English-speaking peoples, to enter into man's new heritage. The problems of Europe had to be settled before the age of expansive activity could dawn in its full radiance. As has been previously shown, Europe was in an introspective mood up to the years 1870-1878.
Our foregoing studies have shown that the years following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, brought about a state of political equilibrium which made for peace and stagnation in Europe; and the natural forces of the Continent, cramped by the opposition of equal and powerful forces, took the line of least resistance--away from Europe. For Russia, the line of least resistance was in Central Asia. For all other European States it was the sea, and the new lands beyond.
Furthermore, in that momentous decade the steamship and locomotive were constantly gaining in efficiency; electricity was entering the arena as a new and mighty force; by this time medical science had so far advanced as to screen man from many of the ills of which the tropics are profuse; and the repeating rifle multiplied the power of the white man in his conflicts with savage peoples. When all the advantages of the present generation are weighed in the balance against the meagre equipment of the earlier discoverers, the nineteenth century has scant claim for boasting over the fifteenth. In truth, its great achievements in this sphere have been practical and political. It has only fulfilled the rich promise of the age of the great navigators. Where they could but wonderingly skirt the fringes of a new world, the moderns have won their way to the heart of things and found many an Eldorado potentially richer than that which tempted the cupidity of Cortes and Pizarro.
In one respect the European statesmen of the recent past tower above their predecessors of the centuries before. In the eighteenth century the "mercantilist" craze for seizing new markets and shutting out all possible rivals brought about most of the wars that desolated Europe. In the years 1880-1890 the great Powers put forth sustained and successful efforts to avert the like calamity, and to cloak with the mantle of diplomacy the eager scrambles for the unclaimed lands of the world.
For various reasons the attention of statesmen turned almost solely on Africa. Central and South America were divided among States that were nominally civilised and enjoyed the protection of the Monroe Doctrine put forward by the United States. Australia was wholly British. In Asia the weakness of China was but dimly surmised; and Siam and Cochin China alone offered any field for settlement or conquest by European peoples from the sea. In Polynesia several groups of islands were still unclaimed; but these could not appease the land-hunger of Europe. Africa alone provided void spaces proportionate to the needs and ambitions of the white man. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 served to bring the east coast of that continent within easy reach of Europe; and the discoveries on the Upper Nile, Congo, and Niger opened a way into other large parts. Thus, by the year 1880, everything favoured the "partition of Africa."