The Continent of the Future.
HAMPTON, VA.:
Normal School Steam Press.
1881.
THE CONTINENT OF THE FUTURE.
AFRICA AND ITS WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENT—EXPLORATION, GOLD MINING, TRADE, MISSIONS AND ELEVATION.
The tide of modern civilization and religious development is sweeping round the globe. With the rapid advance of India, the unparalleled strides of Japan, and the steady progress of China to the new era, Africa is about to reveal its long-kept secrets and its possibilities of contributing to the elevation of its inhabitants and the welfare of the world. Commerce, capital, science, philanthropy, and religion have joined hands to penetrate the mysterious land and cast light on its gloomiest portions. Africa is very nearly everywhere regarded as the continent of the future.
Governmental.—France seems about to absorb Tunis and Tripoli, and to unite Algeria to her Senegal possessions. The Chambers have voted eight millions of francs ($1,600,000) for two railroads: (1) from Algiers to Timbuctoo, across the Sahara, and (2) from Saint Louis, Senegal, to Bamaka and Sego. Two millions of francs ($400,000) have also been appropriated for the construction of a telegraph line from Dakar to Saint Vincent, to place Senegal in telegraphic connection with Europe. A loan is proposed of forty-five millions of francs ($9,000,000) for the formation of three hundred villages and the introduction of two hundred thousand colonists into Algeria. This expanding colony is just fifty years old. In 1830, the total exports and imports did not amount to two million francs, ($400,000.) They have now reached three hundred and sixty-five million francs, ($63,100,000.)
M. Soleillet and M. Doponchel give the result of their long and thorough reconnoissance as highly favorable to the project of crossing the Sahara by steam, and they describe the desert as far more fertile than is commonly believed. The latter says: “What is being so successfully accomplished by England in India, by the United States in North America, and by Russia in Central Asia, that should we try to do in emulation of their example—seek a continent whereon to extend our beneficent influence, and find, by the employment of our idle capital, at once a new market for the products of our industries and manufactures, and a vast centre of agricultural production, able to supply us, at small cost, with the raw materials not indigenous to our soil, which we now only obtain with difficulty from foreign sources.”
The expedition under Gallieni is stated to have reached Saint Louis from Timbuctoo, having completed a survey for a railroad between those points, which is pronounced to be entirely feasible. He met with a friendly reception, and formed treaties with numerous tribes, whereby France is granted a right of way, and may establish ambassadorial or military representatives at the proposed principal stations. M. Matheis has been commissioned by the French Government to explore the country from the bend of the Niger to Lake Tchad. M. L. Vassian, an attache of the French Department for Foreign Affairs, is to reside for a time at Khartoum, to study the nature of the commercial relations to be formed with Soudan.
At a conference at Paris in relation to the territories between Sierra Leone and the Gambia, it is understood that the decision reached was that the French are to retain the Mellacouri and the English the Scarcies. The newly appointed Governor of Sierra Leone, Arthur Elibank Havelock, Esq., was one of the representatives of the British Government at the conference.