This would be Africa in a general sense. But in view of the importance of this opening continent, we must get a fuller view of it. The Africa of antiquity and of the Middle Ages extended from the Red Sea to the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean to the land of the Berbers, and other strange, if not mythical peoples. It embraced Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia on the east. On the north it was skirted by the Barbary States. But its great, appalling feature was the great desert of Sahara, forbidden to Greek or Roman, Persian or Egyptian, till the Arab came on his camel, and with the flaming sword of Mohammed in hand, to pierce its waste places and make traffic possible amid its sandy wastes.
South of the Western Sahara is a fairly defined section extending from Timbuctoo to the Gulf of Guinea, or in other words nearly to the Equator. It is divided by the Kong chain of mountains, and embraces the water systems of the Senegal and Niger Rivers. This was the part of Africa which first drew European enterprise after Portugal and Spain became the world’s sailors, and began to feel their way toward the Cape of Good Hope. Three hundred years ago it was what Central Africa is to-day, a wonderland full of venturesome travelers, a source of national jealousy, a factor in European politics, a starting point for a thousand theories respecting colonization and of as many enterprises having for their object the introduction of commerce, the arts and Christianity among the natives, who were by no means as peaceably inclined as in the present day. As other natives came to find out something of the commercial
value of the Senegal and Niger countries, they stepped in to get their share of the honor and profit of possession, and so this part of Africa was partitioned, till we find on the Atlantic, south of the Niger, the British colony of Sierra Leone, the kingdoms of Ashantee and Dahomey, the republic of Liberia, the coast towns of the Bight of Benin, and the strong French possessions lying just north of the Congo and extending indefinitely inland.
Back of this section, and extending south of the Sahara, to the head-waters of the Nile, is the great central basin whose waters converge in the vast estuary known as Lake Tchad. It may be somewhat vaguely termed the Soudan region, which is divided into Northern and Equatorial Soudan, the former being the seat of the recent uprising of the Mahdi, and the latter the center of the kingdom which Emin Pasha sought to wrest from Mohammedan grasp. Along the Indian Ocean coast, from Cape Guardafui to Mozambique, is a lowland stretch from two to three hundred miles wide, watered by small, sluggish rivers which find their way into the Indian Sea.
Passing down the eastern side of the continent, we come to the immense basin of the Zambezi, second only in extent to that of the Congo, stretching almost to the Atlantic coast, seat of mighty tribes like the Macololos, teeming with commercial possibilities, and even now a source of such envy between England and Portugal as to raise a question of war. South of the Zambezi comes the great Kalahari desert as a balance to the northern Sahara, and then that fringe of civilization embraced in Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Cape Colony, and so around till the Portuguese kingdoms of Benguela and Angola are reached, all of whose waters run by short courses to the sea. These great natural divisions comprise the entire area of the African continent except that vast equatorial basin drained by the Congo.
This mighty region, the Central Africa of to-day, is now largely embraced in the new Congo Free State. To the south of the mouth of the Congo is the State of Angola, and to the north, the State of Congo, claimed by the French. The great river was originally called the Zaire, and by some the Livingstone. Its first, or ocean, section extends from Banana Point to Boma, a distance of 70 miles, and is in fact an arm of the sea. Thence, upward to Vivi, a distance of 40
miles, there is a deep, broad channel, with a moderate current. Vivi is the head of the lower river navigation, being at the foot of the cataracts, which extend for over 200 miles through a system of cañons, with more than fifty falls of various heights. They are known as Livingstone Falls, and have stretches of navigable water between them. After the cataracts are passed, Stanley Pool is reached, where are the towns of Leopoldville, Kinshassa and others, founded recently as trading or missionary stations. The vertical descent of the river from the broad, tranquil expanse of Stanley Pool to the level at Vivi, is about 1,000 feet, and from thence to the sea fully 250 feet more. Stanley Pool, or basin, is about 20 miles long and nearly 10 broad, and is filled with low wooded islands, natural homes for hippopotami, crocodiles, elephants, and all tropical animals. From Leopoldville to Stanley Falls there is uninterrupted navigation, and the distance is 1,068 miles, with a comparatively straight course and a vertical descent of four inches to the mile. Stanley Falls 1,511 feet above the sea level. The affluents of the river below Stanley Falls present a navigable surface estimated at 4,000 miles. In the wide and elevated portion of the river above Stanley Falls it is known as the Lualaba. Its course is now nearly north, and it was this fact that deceived Livingstone into the belief that he was on the Nile. This portion, though abounding in vast lake stretches and rich in affluents, is navigable only for shallow craft. It drains a fertile country whose centre is Nyangwe, the best-known market town of Central Africa and the capital of Tippoo Tib’s dominions, the conqueror of the Manyuema, and the craftiest of all the Arab potentates in Central Africa.
To the east of the Upper Congo, or Lualaba, is a magnificent stretch of grass country, extending to Lake Tanganyika, whose waters flow into the Congo, making a descent of 1,200 feet in 200 miles. As the western shores of that lake rise fully 2,500 feet, this region becomes a sort or Switzerland in tropical Africa. North and east of Tanganyika, are the Nile sources, in Lakes Albert, Edward and Victoria Nyanza—a fertile and populous region, fitted by nature for her thriftiest and best peoples. Thus we have Africa again mapped, and her grandest portion embraced in the Congo State, with its 1,500,000 square miles, its countless population, its abundance of
navigable streams, its remarkably fertile soil, its boundless forests, all its requisites for the demands of an advanced civilization.
