PORTUGAL. 



PRESBYTERIANS. 



697 



colonial authorities in suppressing opium-smug- 

 gling, great excitement was produced in Sep- 

 tember by the conduct of the Governor in dis- 

 solving the Senadoor municipal council, owing 

 to a difference of opinion between himself and 

 its members. This body has existed for three 

 hundred years, managing all the internal af- 

 fairs of the colony, regulating trade, adminis- 

 tering finances, and performing all duties of an 

 adminstration except the control of troops. The 

 Portuguese Government notified to the powers 

 in 1888 the abandonment of the protectorate 

 that it assumed over the Kingdom of Dahomey 

 in August, 1885, being unwilling to bear the 

 international responsibility for the actions of 

 the Sultan. On the African coast farther 

 south the Government has made extraordinary 

 efforts to extend and consolidate its authority. 

 The Governor of the Congo territory, in Feb- 

 ruary, 1888, took peaceable possession of Am- 

 brizette. New export duties for the Portu- 

 guese Congo, copied from those of the Congo 

 Free State, went into force on March 1. The 

 Portuguese occupation interfered in no way 

 with trade, though the natives complained of 

 having to pay duties to the native chief in ad- 

 dition to the new import duties imposed by the 

 Portuguese authorities. Kinsembo was also 

 occupied, but not without a struggle. The 

 Portuguese military posts have been advanced 

 into the interior, and Portuguese emissaries 

 and traders have penetrated toward Kassai 

 river and into the Congo Free State. In East 

 Africa the colonial authorities have been active 

 in extending Portuguese influence, though with 

 less success. The cause of this unusual activity 

 is the desire to preserve the regions where Por- 

 tugal has her colonies and the belt extending 

 through the interior from shore to shore, a< a 

 field for colonization and a commercial outlet 

 for Portuguese manufactures. Portugal ob- 

 tained from France, in her treaty of May 12, 

 1886, an acknowledgement that the territories 

 between Angola and Mozambique were within 

 her sphere of influence. Germany, in the treaty 

 signed on December 30 of the same year, like*- 

 wise promised not to encroach upon this terri- 

 tory. Great Britain, however, made no such 

 agreement, but in 1888, in order more espe- 

 cially to hem in the Transvaal Boers, announced 

 that the country of Lobengula and all the ter- 

 ritory west of the Portuguese possessions and 

 south of the Zambesi river, would henceforth 

 be regarded as within the sphere of British in- 

 fluence. This includes Mashonaland, where 

 the most important of the gold-fields are situ- 

 ated. An English company having obtained 

 from Lobengula the exclusive right to mine for 

 gold in Mashonaland, the Portuguese consul at 

 Cape Town, in the name of his Government, re- 

 pudiated the pretended rights of Lobengula to 

 Maahonaland and the adjacent territories, over 

 which Portugal claims sovereignty. A project 

 for a transcontinental railroad has been adopted, 

 and the first section of two hundred miles from 

 the west coast has been begun. In order to 



link the two colonies together, a line of steam- 

 ers between Loango and Mozambique has been 

 established, while the Portuguese subsidy has 

 been withdrawn from the British line running 

 between Mozambique and Bombay, which is 

 the chief outlet for the products of the Portu- 

 guese possessions on the east coast. Portugal 

 has undertaken to preserve peace and order on 

 the shores of Lake Nyassa, where English mis- 

 sionaries and traders are established, having 

 abolished the transit-dues for goods passing to 

 Lake Xyassa in 1884, thus making a financial 

 sacrifice in order to obviate any claim of Great 

 Britain to interfere in that region. 



PRESBITERIAXS. I. Presbyterian Church in the 

 United States of America. The following is the 

 General Summary of the statistics of this 

 Church, as they are published with the "Jour- 

 nal " of the General Assembly for 1888. The 

 statistics for 1874, 1880, and 1887 are also 

 given for comparison, and to show the growth 

 of the Church daring the past fifteen years : 



* To be known hereafter as Sunday-school work. 

 t Includes part of Centenary fund. 



The receipts of the Board of Home Missions 

 for the year had been $783,627, the largest ever 

 returned, and also the largest, it was claimed, 

 that had ever been contributed to this cause in 

 a single year by any evangelical denomination 

 in America. Fourteen hundred and eighty-six 

 missionaries had been employed, in all but six 

 States, in the Union ; under whose labors 170 

 churches had been organized, 371 Sabbath- 

 schools established, 119 houses of worship 

 built, and 10,182 church-members added on 

 profession of faith. The Woman's Board had 

 maintained 29 schools, with 115 teachers, 

 among the Indians; 24 schools, with 48 teach- 



