AFRICA 137 Sources of Supply, with Values in Here a steamer is being built by a British company, while a small Articles. Thousands of Pounds Sterling. vessel was launched on Lake Mweru in 1900. The Germans have Coffee Angola (175’1); Harrar, &c., vid Somali also a steamer on Nyasa, and in 1900 another was launched on Coast (119-2) ; Brit. Cent. Africa (23,8). Tanganyika, where a British sailing vessel had already plied for Cacao Cameroon (15'S).some years. A river steamer has been placed by the Germans Sugar Mauritius (2472 8); Egypt (557'3); Reunion on the Rufiji. A small vessel was launched on the Victoria (354'1) ; Natal1(IS^). Nyanza in 1896 by a British mercantile firm, and a larger GovernWines Algeria (5455A) ment steamer made its first trip in November 1900. On the Niger , j Cape Colony (15T). Cloves Zanzibar (143 7). and Benue, where navigation is open from the sea for a considerVanilla Reunion (275 A); Mauritius (14‘0). able distance into the interior, steamers have plied for many years, Dates Tunis (48'9). while the French have placed steamers on the navigable portion of Ground-nuts Senegal (Cir. 330'O) ; Gambia (200'3). the upper river. The middle course of the river is only just Oil seeds (sesamu m) Mozambique Coast. navigable for part of the year. A small steamer for the navigation Beans Egypt (347-5). of the Shari and Lake Chad was taken out by the Gentil expediAlmonds . Morocco (63'6). 1 tion, by way of the Congo, in 1896-97. Table fruit Algeria (156-8). Roads suitable for wheeled traffic, even of the most primitive Olive oil . Tunis (121-8). kind, are still few. The first attempt at road-making in Central Cotton Egypt (8659-8). Africa on a large scale was that of Sir F. Buxton and „oa ,s Tobacco . Algeria (manufactured, 466-1 ;a leaf, 215-7).1 Mr (afterwards Sir W.) Mackinnon, who completed the ' Cereals Algeria (813-7).1 first section of a track leading into the interior from Dar-es-Salaam Aloe fibre. Mauritius (42-7). (1879). A still more important undertaking was the road, begun Ivory Congo Free State (240"5); Zanzibar (112-9); in 1881, from the head of Lake Nyasa to the south end of TanganCameroon (29-3); Somali Coast (24A); yika, constructed mainly at the expense of Mr James Stevenson, French Congo. which forms a link in the “Lakes route” into the heart of the Ostrich feathers Cape Colony (748-6) ; Tripoli (70-0). continent. In British East Africa a road was made from Mombasa Wool and hair . Cape Colony (2444-3); Natal (602'0); to Kibwezi under the auspices of the British East Africa Company, Algeria (404-3);1 Morocco (188-1).2 and afterwards continued for the British Government by Captains Hides and skins Cape Colony (548'5) ; Morocco (281 "8) Sclater and Smith to Fort Victoria on the Victoria Nyanza. From Natal (184 "9) ; Algeria (233 "8) ;x Somali Kikuyu it descends to the great rift-valley, on the farther side of Coast (157-3). which it ascends the Mau Escarpment near the Eldoma ravine. Sponges Tripoli (72 "0). 1 The continuation, 400 miles long, was begun in 1895 and completed Wax Angola (57 "6) j 2 Morocco (31 "3).2 in about two years at a cost of some £17,000. In German East Morocco (75 "l). Eggs Africa the caravan track to Tanganyika has recently been much Gold Transvaal (15,695 "1); Gold Coast (63"8). improved and other roads made, generally with a width of 5 to 6 Diamonds. Cape Colony (4566-9). metres, while transport by means of mule carts has been initiated. Copper ore Cape Colony (262"8). In Cameroon a road has been made from Victoria northwards Iron ore, &c. Algeria (160-3).11 to Buea, and others are contemplated. In Madagascar a road 5 Phosphates Algeria (389"l). metres broad, macadamized to a width of 3 metres, was under conin 1900 between Antananarivo and the coast at AndeOn the west side there are fewer important native routes, the dense struction between which place and Tamatave communication is forests of Guinea proving a barrier to intercourse, while the Central vorante, both by a shore road and by the line of lagoons. Sudan states have in the past communicated rather with the north maintained Farther north the construction of a road from the capital to across the Sahara than with the shores of the Atlantic. In Sene- Mevetanana, gambia the most frequented routes have long been those up the begun in 1897.whence water transport is available to Majunga, was Senegal and Gambia rivers. In Upper Guinea the chief are those still occupying a low place among the continents leading north from the Gold Coast, Togoland, and Dahomey ports in Although the matter of railway communication, Africa was during the to the interior markets of Yendi, Sansanne Mangu, and Sansan of the 19th century the scene of an im- „ y Hausa on the Niger,3 and from Lagos to the Niger and Sokoto. last decade development in that direction. In 1890 ' South of the equator the principal long-established routes are portant African railways were almost entirely confined to the extreme north those from St Paul de Loanda to the Lunda and Baluba countries; and south (Egypt, Algeria, Cape Colony, and Natal); p jti n from Benguela vid Bihe to Urua and the Upper Zambezi, and from while apart from short lines in Senegal, Angola, and at os 0 lg90 Mossamedes across the Kunene to the Upper Zambezi. In South Louremjo Marques, the rest of the continent was wholly Africa the ox-waggon routes, now partially superseded, made for without a railway system. In Egypt the Alexandria and Cairo LakeNgami, the Middle Zambezi, and Matabeleland from Walfisch railway dates from 1855, while in 1877 the lines open reached Bay and the middle course of the Orange river, while others tra1100 miles, and in 1890, in addition to the lines traversing versed the Orange River Colony and Transvaal to the Limpopo about the delta, the Nile had been ascended to Assiut. In Algeria the and beyond. In the north the principal caravan routes across the construction of an inter-provincial railway was decreed in 1857, Sahara lead from different points in Morocco and Algeria to was still incomplete twenty years later, when the total length Timbuktu ; from Tripoli to Timbuktu, Kano, and other great marts but of the lines open hardly exceeded 300 miles. Before 1890 an exof the Central Sudan ; from Bengazi to Wadai: that from Siut on tension to Tunis had been opened, while the Atlas had been reached the Nile through the great oasis and the Libyan desert to Darfur, by the lines to Ain Sefra in the west and Biskra in the east. In &c., has been disused of late. Important routes also traverse the Senegal the railway from Dakar to St Louis had been commenced Sudan states from west to east, and proceed south to Adamawa and completed during the ’eighties, while the first section of the from the commercial centres of the Hausa countries. railway, that from Kayes to Bafulabe, was also conSome of these native routes are now being superseded by the Senegal-Niger during the same decade. In Angola a line from Loanda improved communications introduced by Europeans in the utiliza- structed towards the interior, bearing the ambitious title “Royal TransR ecen. at 1m m- ra ^on -Qwaygwaterways _ Steamersand have thebeen construction conveyedofoverland roads and in African Railway,” had been opened for a short distance before 1890. In Cape Colony, where in about 1880 the railways were limited ^merits sections and launched on the interior the neighbourhood of Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and East the obstructions to navigation. On waterways the Upperabove Nile to London, the next decade saw the completion of the trunk-line from and Albert Nyanza their introduction was due to Sir S. Baker and Cape Town to Kimberley, with a junction at De Aar with that General Gordon (1871-76); on the Middle Congo and e s Port Elizabeth, as well as of the lines from Port Elizabeth " its affluents to Sir H. M. Stanley and the officials of from Graaf Reinet, and from East London to Burghersdorp. The the Congo Free State, as well as to the Baptist missionaries on to frontier had, however, nowhere been crossed. In Natal, the river; and on Lake Nyasa to the supporters of the Scottish northern the main line had not advanced beyond Ladysmith. In the mission. The comparative freedom from obstruction between the also, Portuguese territory the line from Lourenco Marques sea and this lake has led to the introduction on it and on the neighbouring towards the Transvaal, commenced in 1887, had not quite reached rivers leading to it of a flotilla of steamers (including gunboats the frontier when seized by the Portuguese authorities in 1889. belonging to the British Navy) by which—apart from a short the Transvaal the railway to Pretoria was, however, under interval broken by rapids on the Shire—water communication is Within supplied from the sea to the north end of the lake, beyond which construction. railway development was inaugurated by the scheme for the Stevenson road affords easy communication with Tanganyika. theRecent Congo railway, connecting the navigable portions of the upper and lower river, operations on which had been begun pecent 1 before 1890, but which was not opened throughout until (jevei0p. 2 In 1897. Exclusive of export from Mogador. July 1898. A little later the Angola railway was ments. 3 The former trade centres, Kong, Salaga, and Say, have lately lost opened as far as Ambaca, while its extension to Malanje their importance. has been decided upon. In East Equatorial Africa a beginning S. I. — 18 communications]
