at Kabul and murder of Cavagnari, the English Resident; the punitive expedition under Roberts ; the establishment, by British assistance, of Abd-ur-Rahman as Ameer, and the constantly recurring alarms as to encroachments on the part of Russia. The yearly pension granted the Ameer by the Indian Government was raised to 18 lacs of rupees. Moreover, the Indian Government yielded all its claims on Kafaristan, The result of this was that, in 1895, the Ameer's troops thoroughly devastated the land of these brave mountaineers. Abd-ur-Rahman, by means of his shrewd policy and decisive measures, succeeded in suppressing all insurrections and strengthening his power. In regard to the insurrection that broke out between the tribes of the Afridi and the Orakzai, on the Indian-Afghanistan frontier, he remained neutral.
Abd-ur-Rahman died Oct. 1, 1901, and was succeeded by Habib-Ullah Khan. The treaty with Great Britain was renewed, and by a compact drawn up in 1907 the latter country acknowledged Afghanistan's independence. In 1910 it was agreed that all disputes between Afghanistan and the Indian Government should be left to a joint commission. Relations were not cordial, however, and in 1919, after Habib-Ullah had been assassinated while sleeping in his tent, war broke out between the Afghans and the British. It was, however, of short duration, although some of the fighting was severe, and resulted in a triumph for the British arms. A treaty of peace was signed Aug. 8, 1919, one of the provisions of which was that Afghanistan should have entire freedom in its foreign relations. This was taken advantage of shortly afterward by the Afghans, who sent an embassy to the Soviet Russian Government at Moscow, where it was received with great consideration and met with an offer of alliance. Despite the peace treaty with the British, two Afghan tribes, the Waziris and Mahsuds, continued outpost actions on the frontier and at the beginning of 1920 had not been entirely subdued. The present Ameer is Amanullah Khan, the third son of Habib-Ullah Khan, whom he succeeded in 1919.
AFRICA, the name given to the continent lying S. of the Mediterranean; probably derived from the Punic Afrygah, a colony, with reference to Carthage, a Phœnician colony. Excepting Asia, Africa is the largest grand division of the world, being three times as large as Europe, and containing one-fifth of all the dry land on the globe. On the N. it is bounded by the Mediterranean, which separates it from Europe; on the S., by the Southern Ocean; on the E., by the Isthmus of Suez, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean; and on the W. by the Atlantic.
Physical Features.—Its greatest length is nearly 5,000 miles; its breath, about 4,700 miles, and its area about 11,500,000 square miles. Since 1869, by the construction of the Suez canal, Africa has been an island.
Its coast line is reckoned at more than 20,000 miles, and is marked by few indentations, and is generally characterized by narrow strips of lowlands. The surface is fairly well defined, as consisting of two divisions, the northern table lands of the Sahara, part of which is below sea-level, and the central and southern plateaus, broken only by the valley of the Zambezi, beginning in north Abyssinia and extending S. as far as Cape Colony, with an average height of 4,000 feet. In Abyssinia is the main mass of mountains, reaching a maximum height of 15,000 feet. South of the equator are the extinct volcanoes Kilimanjaro (nearly 20,000 feet), and Kenia (18,500 feet), and the Drakenberg mountains of sub-tropical Africa (11,000). Other ranges of moutains are the Atlas, in Barbary, and the Kameruns, both reaching a maximum of 12,000 feet in height. On the borders of the Kongo Free State and the British and German spheres of influence, there is a line of active volcanoes, one of which, Mfumbiro, reaches 10,000 feet. In the southern plateaus arc a number of fresh water lakes, Victoria Nyanza, Tanganyika, Bangweolo, and Nyassa. The first of these, which has an area of 30,000 square miles, is the source of the Nile. Lake Tanganyika, with an area of 16,000 square miles, is the source of the Kongo. Lake Tchad receives the waters of a basin in the central Sudan. Near Tajara, on the Red Sea, is Assal, a salt lake, 750 feet below sea-level. The Nile is the largest river of Africa (3,766 miles long), but the Kongo, 3,000 miles in length drains the larger area of 1,200,000 square miles. Other important rivers are the Niger; the Zambezi, with its great falls; the Shari, emptying into Lake Tchad, and the Limpopo. The Nile, the Kongo, and the Niger are great navigable rivers in most of their lower courses. The Zambezi and Limpopo, together with the Rovuma, Juba, and a few other coast streams, flow to the Indian Ocean; all the others, together with the Cunene, Koanza, Ogoway, Volta, Gambia, Tensift, Muluya, and Mejerdah, to the Atlantic, either directly or through
