AFRICA. 



3 



which seem inseparable from all oriental gov- 

 ernments, existed here also; and contractors 

 were continually robbing the government. The 

 worst feature in the administration of Said 

 Pasha was his neglect and partial suppression 

 of the schools of the viceroyalty, established 

 with so much labor by his grandfather Mehemet 

 Ali. His successor, Ismail Pasha, who is a 

 warm advocate of education, will unquestion- 

 ably remedy this great defect of his adminis- 

 tration. In 1862 Said Pasha was obliged to 

 resort to another loan of 8 millions of dollars, 

 which was negotiated at 82^ per cent, for 7 per 

 cent, thirty years' bonds. The present debt of 

 the viceroyalty is $33,250,000, of which about 

 $17,000.000 is for bonds issued to the Company 

 of the Canal of Suez. The imports of the 

 country for 1861 were $13,396,308, and its ex- 

 ports $17,155.491, from the port of Alexandria 

 alone, to which is to be added a small sum 

 from other p*orts. In October, 1861, Egypt was 

 visited by a terrible flood ; the Nile breaking 

 through the levees or dikes, which confined it 

 in Upper Egypt, laid almost the whole of Lower 

 Egypt under water, destroying the crops of 

 maize and millet, and greatly injuring the cot- 

 ton and sugar crops. The railroads and tele- 

 graph lines were also undermined and torn up, 

 and a vast number of dwellings and animals 

 destroyed. To the great joy of the people the 

 flood subsided rapidly, and despite its destruc- 

 tiveness of property, greatly enhanced the yield 

 and value of the crop of 1862. 



The ship canal, intended to unite the Medi- 

 terranean and the Red Sea, by cutting through 

 the Isthmus of Suez from Port Said to Suez, 

 projected by M. Ferdinand Lesseps, and carried 

 forward by the French, Egyptian, and Turkish 

 Governments, is approaching completion. At 

 the annual meeting of the canal company in 

 May, 1862, M. Lesseps stated that it would un- 

 doubtedly be opened to canal-boat navigation 

 by May, 1863, and to ships by the spring of 

 1866. The work has been one of great dif- 

 ficulty ; it was found necessary to construct a 

 fresh-water canal to connect with the Xile, as 

 well as the ship canal, and to build piers, jet- 

 ties, and breakwaters to protect shipping enter- 

 ing the canal from either sea ; and in order to 

 secure the opening of one of the ancient canals, 

 the company were under the necessity of pur- 

 chasing the entire estate of Waday, the property 

 of El-Hamy Pasha, at a cost of about $400,000. 

 The total expenditure to May. 1862, had been 

 about $42,000,000, and nearly $30,000,000 

 would probably be required to complete it. 

 Twenty-six thousand men were employed on 

 the work, and M. Lesseps hoped to have 35,000 

 to 40,000 employed during the next year. 



In Abyssinia, Theodore, " King of the Kings 

 of Ethiopia" (see XEW AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA, 

 vol. xv. art. THEODORCS), has completely sub- 

 dued Tigre. the most important of the Abys- 

 sinian States opposed to him, and having cut off 

 the right hand and right foot of Negoussreh. its 

 king, that chiet survived the mutilation but 



three days. Theodore is now, without dis- 

 pute, master of the whole of Abyssinia, and 

 seems disposed to cultivate friendly relations 

 and to introduce civilization and educa- 

 tion into his domains. 



Proceeding down the eastern coast of Africa, 

 we find the next point of interest in the island of 

 Madagascar. Ranavalona, Queen of the Hovas, 

 the most considerable native tribe of the island, 

 and a most bitter and ferocious persecutor of 

 the Christian missionaries and native converts 

 among the Hovas, died on the 16th of August, 

 1861, at her capital, Tananarive. Her only 

 son, on her decease, ascended the throne, with 

 the title of Radama II, king of Madagascar. 

 He had been, during his mother's lifetime, 

 friendly to the missionaries and the native 

 Christians, and was regarded as himself a con- 

 vert. On his accession to the throne he as- 

 sured the delegations of the English and French 

 Governments of his determination to maintain 

 religious liberty, and the extension of com- 

 merce, agriculture, and the arts and sciences 

 among his people. He caused the productions 

 of Madagascar to be represented in the Inter- 

 national Exhibition of 1862 in London, and has 

 adopted as his intimate friend and counsellor 

 M. Lambert, a French gentleman, with whom 

 he had been on terms of friendship before his 

 accession to the throne. Great jealousy is mani- 

 fested by the French and English Governments 

 of the influence exerted by one or the other 

 over the young king, partly from the effect 

 which the preponderating sway of one or the 

 other might have on the colonies which each 

 government possesses in the Indian Ocean, and 

 partly from the fact that the one is the champion 

 of Protestantism and the other of Catholicism 

 in the East. At the latest accounts the French 

 seemed to be gaining the advantage. Radama 

 II was crowned in August, 1862. 



South of Mozambique, in the northern part 

 of the Zulu country and extending in the in- 

 terior toward the Zambezi river, a series of 

 German missionary colonies have been planted 

 by the exertions of Pastor Harms of Hermanns- 

 burg in Hanover. The work was commenced 

 in 1*54. About 200 colonists have gone out, 

 and they have ten or twelve stations, and have 

 collected very considerable bodies of natives, 

 who have become partially civilized. The 

 movement is one of great promise. 



Passing around the Cape of Good Hope and 

 skirting the coast of Lower Guinea, where 

 there have been no occurrences of political 

 or social interest to call for notice, the Bight 

 of Benin is worthy of attention, where, in 

 August. 1861, the English Government took 

 possession of the kingdom of Lagos, and in 

 1862 established themselves at Whydah, the 

 two most important centres of the slave trade. 

 This occupation not only promises to accom- 

 plish more than any previous measure for the 

 overthrow of the slave trade, but opens a ready 

 route of communication with Abbeokuta and 

 the Yoruba country in the interior, a region 



