Africa

It grows wild in many parts, the home of one species being in Kaffa and

other Galla countries south of Abyssinia, and of another in Liberia. The

Abyssinian coffee is equal to the best produced in any other part of the

world. Cultivation is, however, necessary to ensure the best results, and

attention has been given to this in various European colonies. Plantations

have been established in Angola, Nyasaland, German East Africa, Cameroon,

the Congo Free State, &c.

Copra, the produce of the cocoa-nut palm, is supplied chiefly by Zanzibar

and neighbouring parts of the east coast. Groundnuts, produced by the

leguminous plant, Arachis hypogaea, are grown chiefly in West Africa, and

the largest export is from Senegal and the Gambia; while Bambarra ground-

nuts (Voandzeia subterranea) are very generally cultivated from Guinea to

Natal. Cloves are extensively grown on Zanzibar and Pemba islands, Pemba

being the chief source of the world's supply of cloves. The chief drawbacks

to the industry are the fluctuations of the yield of the trees, and the

risk of over-production in good seasons.

Cotton grows wild in many parts of tropical Africa, and is exported in

small quantities in the raw state; but the main export is from Egypt, which

comes third among the world's sources of supply of the article. It is also

cultivated in West Africa—the industry in the Guinea coast colonies having

been developed since the beginning of the 20th century—and in the Anglo-

Egyptian Sudan, whence came the plants from which Egyptian cotton is

grown. Sugar, which is the staple crop of Mauritius, and in a lesser degree

of Reunion, is also produced in Natal, Egypt, and, to a certain extent, in

Mozambique. Dates are grown in Tunisia and the Saharan oases, especially

Tafilet; maize in Egypt, South Africa and parts of the tropical zone; wheat

in Egypt, Algeria and the higher regions of Abyssinia; rice in Madagascar.

Wine is largely exported from Algeria, and in a much smaller quantity from

Cape Colony; fruit and vegetables from Algeria. Tobacco is widely grown on

a small scale, but, except perhaps from Algeria, has not become an

important article of export, though plantations have been established in

various tropical colonies. The cultivation of cocoa has proved successful

in the Gold Coast, Cameroon and other colonies, and in various districts

the tea plant is cultivated. Indigo, though not originally an African

product, has become naturalized and grows wild in many parts, while it is

also cultivated on a small scale. The main difficulty in the way of

tropical cultivation is the labour question, which has already been

referred to.

Of animal products one of the most important is ivory, the largest export

of which is from the Congo Free State. The diminution in the number of

elephants with the opening up of the remoter districts must in time cause a

falling-off in this export. Beeswax is obtained from various parts of the

interior of West Africa, and from Madagascar. Raw hides are exported in

large quantities from South Africa, as are also the wool and hair of the

merino sheep and Angora goat. Both hides and wool are also exported from

Algeria and Morocco, and hides from Abyssinia and Somaliland. Ostrich

feathers are produced chiefly by the ostrich farms of Cape Colony, but some

are also obtained from the steppes to the north of the Central Sudan. Live

stock, principally sheep, is exported from Algeria and cattle from Morocco.

The exploited minerals of Africa are confined to a few districts, the

resources of the continent in this respect being largely

Mineral Wealth.

undeveloped. Since the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, particularly in

the district known as the Rand (1885), the output has grown enormously, so

that in 1898 the output of gold from South Africa was greater than from any

other gold-field in the world. The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 lost the

Rand the leading position, but by 1905 the output—in that year over L.

20,800,000—was greater than it had ever been. The supply of gold from South

Africa is roughly 25% of the world's output. The gold-yielding formations

extend northwards through Rhodesia. The Gold Coast is so named from the

quantity of gold obtained there, and since the close of the 19th century

the industry has developed largely in the hands of Europeans. In the Galla

countries gold has long been an article of native commerce. It is also

found in various parts of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and along the western

shore of the Red Sea. Diamonds are found in large quantities in a series of

beds known as the Kimberley shales, the principal mines being at Kimberley,

Cape Colony. Diamonds are also found in Orange River Colony, while one of

the richest diamond mines in the world—the Premier—is situated in the

Transvaal near Pretoria. Some 80% of the world's production of diamonds

comes from South Africa. Copper is found in the west of Cape Colony, in

German South-West Africa, and in the Katanga country in the southern Congo

basin, where vast beds of copper ore exist. There are also extensive

deposits of copper in the Broken Hill district of Northern Rhodesia. It

also occurs in Morocco, Algeria, the Bahr-el-Ghazal, &c. Rich tin deposits

have been found in the southern Congo basin and in Northern Rhodesia. Iron

is found in Morocco, Algeria (whence there is an export trade), and is

widely diffused, and worked by the natives, in the tropical zone. But the

deposits aregenerally not rich. Coal is worked, principally for home

consumption, in Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal, Orange River Colony, and

in Rhodesia in the neighbourhood of the Zambezi. Coal deposits also exist

in the German territory north of Lake Nyasa. Phosphates are exported from

Algeria and Tunisia. Of other minerals which occur, but are little worked,

zinc, lead and antimony are found in Algeria, lead and manganese in Cape

Colony, plumbago in Sierra Leone.

The imports from foreign countries into Africa consist chiefly of

manufactured goods, varying in character according to the development of

the different countries in civilization. In Egypt, Algeria and South Africa

they include most of the necessaries and luxuries of civilized life,

manufactured cotton and woollen goods, especially the former, taking the

first place, but various food stuffs, metal goods, coal and miscellaneous

articles being also included. In tropical Africa, and generally where few

Europeans have settled, the great bulk of the imports consists as a rule of

cotton goods, articles for which there is a constant native demand.

No continent has in the past been so lacking in means of communication as

Africa, and it was only in the last decade

Development of means of communication.

of the 19th century that decided steps were taken to remedy these defects.

The African rivers, with the exception of the middle Congo and its

affluents, and the middle course of the three other chief rivers, are

generally unfavourable to navigation, and throughout the tropical region

almost the sole routes have been native footpaths, admitting the passage of

a single file of porters, on whose heads all goods have been carried from

place to place. Certain of these native trade routes are, however, much

frequented, and lead for hundreds of miles from the coast to the interior.

In the desert regions of the north transport is by caravans of camels, and

in the south ox-wagons,before the advent of railways, supplied the general

means of locomotion. The native trade routes led generally from the centres

of greatest population or production to the seaports by the nearest route,

but to this rule there was a striking exception. The dense forests of Upper

Guinea and the upper Congo proved a barrier which kept the peoples of the

Sudan from direct access to the sea, and from Timbuktu to Darfur the great

trade routes were either west to east or south to north across the Sahara.

The principal caravan routes across the desert lead from different points

in Morocco and Algeria to Timbuktu; from Tripoli to Timbuktu, Kano and

other great marts of the western and central Sudan; from Bengazi to Wadai;

and from Assiut on the Nile through the Great Oasis and the Libyan desert

to Darfur. South of the equator the principal long-established routes are

those from Loanda to the Lunda and Baluba countries; from Benguella via

Bihe to Urua and the upper Zambezi; from Mossamedes across the Kunene to

the upper Zambezi; and from Bagamoyo, opposite Zanzibar, to Tanganyika.

Many of the native routes have been superseded by the improved

communications introduced by Europeans in the utilization of waterways and

the construction of roads and railways. Steamers have been conveyed

overland in sections and launched on the interior waterways above the

obstructions to navigation. On the upper Nile and Albert Nyanza their

introduction was due to Sir S. Baker and General C. G. Gordon (1871-1876);

on the middle Congo and its affluents to Sir H.M. Stanley and the officials

of the Congo Free State, as well as to the Baptist missionaries on the

river; and on Lake Nyasa to the supporters of the Scottish mission. A small

vessel was launched on Victoria Nyanza 1896 by a British mercantile firm,

and a British government steamer made its first trip in November 1900. On

the other great lakes and on most of the navigable rivers steamers were

plying regularly before the close of the 19th century. However, the

shallowness of the water in the Niger and Zambezi renders their navigation

possible only to light-draught steamers. Roads suitable for wheeled traffic

are few. The first attempt at road-making in Central Africa on a large

scale was that of Sir T. Fowell Buxton and Mr (afterwards Sir W.)

Mackinnon, who completed the first section of a track leading into the

interior fromDar-es-Salaam (1879). A still more important undertaking was

the ``Stevenson road,'' begun in 1881 from the head of Lake Nyasa to the

south end of Tanganyika, and constructed mainly at the expense of Mr James

Stevenson, a director of theAfrican Lakes Company—a company which helped

materially in the opening up of Nyasaland. The Stevenson road forms a link

in the ``Lakes route'' into the heart of the continent. In British East

Africa a road connecting Mombasa with Victoria Nyanza was completed in

1897, but has since been in great measure superseded by the railway. Good

roads have also been made in German East Africa and Cameroon and in

Madagascar.

Railways, the chief means of affording easy access to the interior of the

continent, were for many years after their first introduction to Africa

almost entirely confined to the extreme north and south (Egypt, Algeria,

Cape Colony and Natal). Apart from short lines in Senegal, Angola and at

Lourenco Marques, the rest of the continent was in 1890 without a railway

system. In Egypt the Alexandria and Cairo railway dates from 1855, while in

1877 the lines open reached about 1100 miles, and in 1890, in addition to

the lines traversing the delta, the Nile had been ascended to Assiut. In

Algeria the construction of an inter-provincial railway was decreed in

1857, but was still incomplete twenty years later, when the total length of

the lines open hardly exceeded 300 miles. Before 1890 an extension to Tunis

had been opened, while the plateau had been crossed by the lines to Ain

Sefra in the west and Biskra in the east. In Senegal the railway from Dakar

to St Louis had been commenced and completed during the 'eighties, while

the first section of the Senegal-Niger railway, that from Kayes to

Bafulabe, was also constructed during the same decade. In Cape Colony,

where in about 1880 the railways were limited to the neighbourhood of Cape

Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, the next decade saw the completion of

the trunk-line from Cape Town to Kimberley, with a junction at De Aar with

that from Port Elizabeth. The northern frontier had, however, nowhere been

crossed. In Natal, also, the main line had not advanced beyond Ladysmith.

The settlement, c. 1890, of the main lines of the partition of the

continent was followed by many projects for the opening up of the

possessions and spheres of influence of the various powers by the building

of railways; several of these schemes being carried through in a

comparatively short time. The building of railways was undertaken by the

governments concerned, nearly all the African lines being state-owned. In

the Congo Free State a railway, which took some ten years to build,

connecting the navigable waters of the lower and middle Congo, was

completed in 1898, while in 1906 the middle and upper courses of the river

were linked by the opening of a line past Stanley Falls. Thus the vast

basin of the Congo was rendered easily accessible to commercial enterprise.

In North Africa the Algerian and Tunisian railways were largely extended,

and proposals were made for a great trunk-line from Tangier to Alexandria.

The railway from Ain Sefra was continued southward towards Tuat, the

project of a trans-Saharan line having occupied the attention of French

engineers since 1880. In French West Africa railway communication between

the upper Senegal and the upper Niger was completed in 1904; from the

Guinea coast at Konakry another line runs north-east to the upper Niger,

while from Dahomey a third line goes to the Niger at Garu. In the British

colonies on the same coast the building of railways was begun in 1896. A

line to Kumasi was completed in 1903, and the line from Lagos to the lower

Niger had reached Illorin in 1908. Thence the railway was continued to the

Niger at Jebba. From Baro, a port on the lower Niger which can be reached

by steamers all the year round, another railway, begun in 1907, goes via

Bida, Zungeru and Zaria to Kano, a total distance of 400 miles. A line from

Jebba to Zungeru affords connexion with the Lagos railway.

But the greatest development of the railway systems was in the south and

east of the continent. In British East Africa a survey for a railway from

Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza was made in 1892. The first rails were laid in

1896 and the line reached the lake in December 1901. Meanwhile, there had

been a great extension of railways in South Africa. Lines from Cape Town,

Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban and Delagoa Bay all converged on the

newly risen city of Johannesburg, the centre of the Rand gold mines. A more

ambitious project was that identified with the name of Cecil Rhodes,

namely, the extension northward of the railway from Kimberley with the

object of effecting a continuous railway connexion from Cape Town to Cairo.

The line from Kimberley reached Bulawayo in 1897. (Bulawayo is also reached

from Beira on the east coast by another line, completed in 1902, which goes

through Portuguese territory and Mashonaland.) The extension of the line

northward from Bulawayo was begun in 1899, the Zambezi being bridged,

immediately below the Victoria Falls, in 1905. From this point the railway

goes north to the Katanga district of the Congo State. In the north of the

continent a step towards the completion of the Cape to Cairo route was

taken in the opening in 1899 of the railway from Wadi Haifa to Khartum. A

line of greater economic importance than the lastnamed is the railway

(completed in 1905) from Port Sudan on the Red Sea to the Nile a little

south of Berber, thus placing the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan within easy reach of

the markets of the world. A west to east connexion across the continent by

rail and steamer, from the mouth of the Congo to Port Sudan, was arranged

in 1906 when an agreement was entered into by the Congo and Sudan

governments for the building of a railway from Lado, on the Nile, to the

Congo frontier, there to meet a railway starting from the river Congo near

Stanley Falls. A railway of considerable importance is that from Jibuti in

the Gulf of Aden to Harrar, giving access to the markets of southern

Abyssinia.

Besides the railways mentioned there are several others of less

importance. Lines run from Loanda and other ports of Angola towards the

Congo State frontier, and from Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam on the coast of

German East Africa towards the great lakes. In British Central Africa a

railway connects Lake Nyasa with the navigable waters of the Shire, and

various lines have been built by the French in Madagascar.

All the main railways in South Africa, the lines in British West Africa,

in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and in Egypt south of Luxor are of 3 ft. 6 in.

gauge. The main lines in Lower Egypt and in Algeria and Tunisia are of 4

ft. 8 1/2 in. gauge. Elsewhere as in French West and British East Africa

the lines are of metre (3.28 ft.) gauge.

The telegraphic system of Africa is on the whole older than that of the

railways, the newer European possessions having in most cases been provided

with telegraph lines before railway projects had been set on foot. In

Algeria, Egypt and Cape Colony the systems date back to the middle of the

19th century, before the end of which the lines had in each country reached

some thousands of miles. In tropical Africa the systems of French West

Africa, where the line from Dakar to St Louis was begun in 1862, were the

first to be fully developed, lines having been carried from different

points on the coast of Senegal and Guinea towards the Niger, the main line

being prolonged north-west to Timbuktu, and west and south to the coast of

Dahomey. The route for a telegraph line to connect Timbuktu with Algeria

was surveyed in 1905. The Congo region is furnished with several

telegraphic systems, the longest going from the mouth of the river to Lake

Tanganyika. From Ujiji on the east coast of that lake there is telegraphic

communication via Tabora with Dar-es-Salaam and via Nyasa and Rhodesia with

Cape Town. The last-named line is the longest link in the trans-continental

line first suggested in 1876 by Sir (then Mr) Edwin Arnold and afterwards

taken up by Cecil Rhodes. The northern link from Egypt to Khartum has been

continued southward to Uganda, while another line connects Uganda with

Mombasa. At the principal seaports the inland systems are connected with

submarine cables which place Africa in telegraphic communication with the

rest of the world.

Numerous steamship lines run from Great Britain, Germany, France and

other countries to the African seaports, the journey from any place in

western Europe to any port on the African coast occupying, by the shortest

route, not more than three weeks. (E. HE., F. R. C.)

1 Further conferences respecting the liquor traffic in Africa were held

in Brussels in 1899 and 1906. In both instances conventions were signed by

the powers, raising the minimum duty on imported spirituous liquors.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Authoritative works dealing with Africa as a whole in any

of its aspects are comparatively rare. Besides such volumes the following

list includes therefore books containing valuable information concerning

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