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. 812 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.)
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 large or typical sections of the continent:—
§ I. General Descriptions— (a) Ancient and Medieval.
- Herodotus, ed. G. Rawlinson, 4 vols.[1] (1880);
- Ptolemy’s Geographia, ed. C. Müller, vol. i. (Paris, 1883–1901);
- Ibn Haukal, “Description de l’Afrique (transl. McG. de Slane), Nouv. Journal asiatique, 1842;
- Edrisi, “Géographie” (transl. Jaubert), Réc. de voyages . . . Soc. de Géogr. vol. v. (Paris, 1836);
- Abulfeda, Géographie (transl. Reinaud and Guyard, Paris, 1848–1883);
- M. A. P. d’Avezac, Description de l’Afrique ancienne (Paris, 1845);
- L. de Marmol, Description general de Africa (Granada, 1573);
- L. Sanuto, Geografia dell’ Africa (Venice, 1588);
- F. Pigafetta, A Report of the Kingdom of Congo, &c. (1597);
- Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa (transl. J. Pory, ed. R. Brown), 3 vols. (1896);
- O. Dapper, Naukeurige beschrijvinge der afrikaensche gewesten, &c. (Amsterdam, 1668) (also English version by Ogilvy, 1670, and French version, Amsterdam, 1686);
- B. Tellez, “Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia,” A New Collection of Voyages, vol. vii. (1710);
- G. A. Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, Istorica Descrittione de tre Regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola (Milan, 1690) (account of the labours of the Capuchin missionaries and their observations on the country and people);
- J. Barbot, “Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea and of Ethiopia Inferior,” Churchill’s Voyages, vol. v. (1707);
- W. Bosman, A New . . . Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, &c., 2nd ed. (1721);
- J. B. Labat, Nouvelle relation de l’Afrique occidentale, 5 vols. (Paris, 1728);
- Idem, Relation historique de l’Éthiopie occidentale, 5 vols. (Paris, 1732).
(b) Modern.
- B. d’Anville, Mémoire conc. les rivières de l’intérieur de l’Afrique (Paris, n.d.);
- M. Vollkommer, Die Quellen B. d’Anville’s für seine kritische Karte von Afrika (Munich, 1904);
- C. Ritter, Die Erdkunde, i. Theil, 1. Buch, “Afrika” (Berlin, 1822);
- J. M‘Queen, Geographical and Commercial View of Northern and Central Africa (Edinburgh, 1821);
- Idem, Geographical Survey of Africa (1840);
- W. D. Cooley, Inner Africa laid open (1852);
- E. Reclus, Nouvelle géographie universelle, vols. x.-xiii. (1885–1888);
- A. H. Keane, Africa (in Stanford’s Compendium), 2 vols., 2nd ed. (1904–1907);
- F. Hahn and W. Sievers, Afrika, 2. Aufl. (Leipzig, 1901);
- M. Fallex and A. Mairey, L’Afrique au début du XXᵉ siècle (Paris, 1906);
- Sir C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, vols. iii. and iv. (Oxford, 1894, 1904);
- F. D. and A. J. Herbertson, Descriptive Geographies from Original Sources: Africa (1902);
- British Africa (The British Empire Series, vol. ii., 1899);
- Journal of the African Society;
- Comité de l’Afrique française, Bulletin, Paris; Mitteilungen der afrikan. Gesellschaft in Deutschland (Berlin, 1879–1889);
- Mitteilungen . . . aus den deutschen Schutzegebieten (Berlin);
- H. Schirmer, Le Sahara (Paris, 1893);
- Mary H. Kingsley, West African Studies, 2nd ed. (1901);
- J. Bryce, Impressions of South Africa (1897);
- Sir Harry Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate, 2 vols. (1902) (vol ii. is devoted to anthropology);
- E. D. Morel, Affairs of West Africa (1902).
§ II. Geography (Physical), Geology, Climate, Flora and Fauna.— (For Descriptive Geogr. see § I.)
- G. Gürich, “Überblick über den geolog. Bau des afr. Kontinents,” Peterm. Mitt., 1887;
- A. Knox, Notes on the Geology of the Continent of Africa (1906) (includes a bibliography);
- L. von Höhnel, A. Rosiwal, F. Toula and E. Suess, Beiträge zur geologischen Kenntniss des östlichen Afrika (Vienna, 1891);
- E. Stromer, Die Geologie der deutschen Schutzgebieten in Afrika (Munich, 1896);
- J. Chavanne, Afrika im Lichte unserer Tage: Bodengestalt, &c. (Vienna, 1881);
- F. Heidrich, “Die mittlere Höhe Afrikas,” Peterm. Mitt., 1888;
- J. W. Gregory, The Great Rift-Valley (1896);
- H. G. Lyons, The Physiography of the River Nile and its Basin (Cairo, 1906);
- S. Passarage, Die Kalahari: Versuch einer physischgeogr. Darstellung . . . des sudafr. Beckens (Berlin, 1904);
- Idem, “Inselberglandschaften im tropischen Afrika,” Naturw. Wochenschrift, 1904. 654-665;
- J. E. S. Moore, The Tanganyika Problem (1903);
- W. H. Hudleston, “On the Origin of the Marine (Halolimnic) Fauna of Lake Tanganyika,” Journ. of Trans. Victoria Inst., 1904, 300-351 (discusses the whole question of the geological history of equatorial Africa);
- E. Stromer, “Ist der Tanganyika ein Relikten-See?” Peterm. Mitt., 1901, 275-278;
- E. Köhlschütter, “Die . . . Arbeiten der Pendelexpedition . . . in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika,” Verh. Deuts. Geographentages Breslau, 1901, 133-153;
- J. Cornet, “La géologie du bassin du Congo,” Bull. Soc. Belge géol., 1898;
- E. G. Ravenstein, “The Climatology of Africa” (ten reports), Reports Brit. Association, 1892–1901;
- Idem, “Climatological Observations . . . I. Tropical Africa” (1904);
- H. G. Lyons, “On the Relations between Variations of Atmospheric Pressure . . . and the Nile Flood,” Proc. Roy. Soc., Ser. A, vol. lxxvi., 1905;
- P. Reichard, “Zur Frage der Austrocknung Afrikas,” Geogr. Zeitschrift, 1895;
- J. Hoffmann, “Die tiefsten Temperaturen auf den Hochländern,” &c., Peterm. Mitt., 1905;
- G. Fraunberger, “Studien über die jährlichen Niederschlagsmengen des afrik. Kontinents,” Peterm. Mitt., 1906;
- D. Oliver and Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Flora of Tropical Africa, 10 vols. (1888–1906);
- K. Oschatz, Anordnung der Vegetation in Afrika (Erlangen, 1900);
- A. Engler, Hochgebirgs-flora des tropischen Afrika (Berlin, 1892);
- Idem, Die Pflanzenwelt Ostaftikras und der Nachbargebiete, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1895);
- Idem, Beiträge zur Flora von Afrika (Engler’s Botan. Jahrbücher, 14 vols. &c.);
- W. P. Hiern, Catalogue of the African Plants Collected by Dr Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853–1861, 2 vols. (1896–1901);
- R. Schlechter, Westafrikanische Kautschuk-Expedition (Berlin, 1903);
- H. Baum, Kunene-Sambesi-Expedition (Berlin, 1903) (largely concerned with botany);
- W. L. Sclater, “Geography of Mammals, No. iv. The Ethiopian Region,” Geog. Journal, March 1896;
- H. A. Bryden and others, Great and Small Game of Africa (1899);
- F. C. Selous, African Nature Notes and Reminiscence (1908);
- E. N. Buxton, Two African Trips: with Notes and Suggestions on Big-Game Preservation in Africa (1902) (contains photographs of living animals);
- G.Schillings, With Flash-light and Rifle in Equatorial East Africa (1906);
- Idem, In Wildest Africa (1907) (striking collection of photographs of living wild animals);
- Exploration scientifique de l’Algérie: Histoire naturelle, 14 vols. and 4 atlases, Paris (1846–1850);
- Annales du Musée du Congo: Botanique, Zoologie (Brussels, 1898, &c.). The latest results of geographical research and a bibliography of current literature are given in the Geographical Journal, published monthly by the Royal Geographical Society.
§ III. Ethnology.—
- H. Hartmann, Die Völker Afrikas (Leipzig, 1879);
- B. Ankermann, “Kulturkreise in Afrika,” Zeit. f. Eth. vol. xxxvii. p. 34;
- Idem, “Über den gegenwärtigen Stand der Ethnographie der Südhälfte Afrikas,” Arch. f. Anth. n.f. iv. p. 24; G. Ser. i.
- ↑ Where no place of publication is given, London is to be understood.
