STANLEY'S DISCOVERIES AND TEE FUTURE OF AFRICA. 413 



fines the central basins, and therefore cannot give 

 access to them. Moreover, they are but narrow 

 streams, little fitted even for steamers of the 

 smallest size. The Juba has a long course, but 

 it does not come from the central equatorial re- 

 gions. 



Two rivers of equatorial origin remain that 

 require a fuller description, namely, the Niger and 

 the Nile. The course of the former is such as to 

 give it but little commercial value, as has been 

 proved only too clearly by the slender results of 

 very considerable efforts to utilize it. It does not 

 flow from the interior, but rises so near the west 

 coast that its sources are only some 250 miles 

 from Sierra Leone ; it then makes a vast semicir- 

 cular arc, cutting a huge slice out of the Sahara, 

 and returns to the west coast in a not very differ- 

 ent latitude from that in which it started. The 

 Bea-coast running almost east and west, and form- 

 ing the lower side of the great western protuber- 

 ance of Africa, which is known by the name of the 

 Gold Coast, is the diameter of a circle of which 

 the great arc of the Niger forms the northern 

 semicircumference. On the uppermost convexity 

 of the Niger is situated Timbuctoo, whose name 

 is well known, though it has no commercial im- 

 portance beyond that of being the emporium of 

 the desert Sahara ; consequently, the main stream 

 of the Niger does not pass through productive 

 lands, neither does it drain any considerable por- 

 tion of the central equatorial districts. Moreover, 

 above the confluence of its little-known affluent, 

 the Benue, its water-way is impeded by rapids. 

 The Nile, and that river alone, affords, in some 

 sense, a direct means of access to the interior. By 

 waiting for the season of its flood, and by tugging 

 and hauling up seething waters and amid rocks, 

 a small sea-going ship of strong build could, by a 

 tour de force, be transferred from the Mediter- 

 ranean to the waters of the Albert Nyanza. But 

 this long navigation of upward of two thousand 

 miles, interrupted by six rapids between Assouan 

 and Khartum, and by another serious one above 

 Gondokoro, and impeded by the difficulty of forc- 

 ing a passage through the rafts of floating papyrus 

 that choke the upper White Nile, cannot be a 

 useful commercial water-way. It requires the 

 assistance of railways, such as that now contem- 

 plated in the Soudan, by which its cataracts may 

 be avoided. So far as physical difficulties are 

 concerned, and without reference to political ones, 

 the easiest line from the Albert Nyanza to the 

 ocean would not be by the Nile, but overland to 

 the coast opposite the island of Zanzibar. 



The difficulties that beset the approach to the 



interior of Equatorial Africa by means of its 

 rivers, contrast most remarkably with the ease 

 with which the almost equally large equatorial 

 regions of South America are reached by the 

 Amazon and the Orinoco. The natural internal 

 navigation of that continent is magnificent, and 

 such as is to be met with in no other part of the 

 world. South America may be traversed almost 

 to the Andes and in all other directions by a sys- 

 tem of rivers, whose main streams are capable of 

 bearing large sea-going vessels for hundreds of 

 miles from their mouths. 



The interior of the several equatorial lands 

 that are dispersed in fragments elsewhere over 

 the globe, is necessarily more accessible, so far 

 as physical difficulties of distance are alone con- 

 cerned, on account of their small size. They lie 

 on the ocean highways, and whatever produce 

 they may yield that is worth exporting can be 

 easily made into an article of commerce. But 

 Africa is comparatively self-contained and se- 

 cluded ; a vast population may thrive in its in- 

 terior upon the produce of its soil; the means 

 they have of internal communication by lake and 

 river are excellent, but they are to an unusual 

 degree shut out from foreign trade. The easiest 

 of all forms of communication with the outside 

 world is denied them by the physical structure 

 of their continent ; they are geographically doomed 

 to commercial isolation as regards the more bulky 

 articles of traffic. 



What does the interior of Africa produce that 

 would make it worth the trader's while to fetch 

 from so great a distance ? A long list of equa- 

 torial products has often been suggested as the 

 subjects of a future commerce ; but the objection 

 against most of them is, that the same products 

 can be grown with equal ease in other countries 

 much easier of access, or on the seaboard of 

 Africa itself. There is far more equatorial land 

 in the world than suffices for the commercial 

 wants of non-equatorial countries. We have so 

 great a glut of it that an enormously large pro- 

 portion of the long-known parts remains unutil- 

 ized. The new discovery of an additional amount 

 of similar country in Africa is of no importance 

 to us as regards the products of which we have 

 just been speaking. It is, of course, impossible 

 to say but that further exploration may discover 

 articles of commerce that Africa alone can afford, 

 and of which we have as yet no knowledge. We 

 have seen that its elevated basins under an equa- 

 torial sun are a peculiar geographical feature ; 

 therefore we may indulge in such hopes, though 

 we do not venture to build upon them. 



