204 SOUTH AFRICA. 



trading posts, mostly dependent on the ivory 

 trade, which, however, must be considered, from 

 its very nature, to be rapidly advancing towards 

 a vanishing point. 



Should success become the eventuality of the 

 efforts of the Chartered Company, the results 

 will in all probability be more far-reaching and 

 important, both financially and politically, with 

 the advantage too of an unprecedented rapidity 

 of consummation, than any yet recorded in 

 Colonial annals. 



As a base of action commanding the route 

 through Africa to the Nile sources, with a view 

 to the speedy substitution of legitimate commerce 

 for the interior slave trade so long carried on 

 with impunity by the Arabs and natives in their 

 employ, Rhodesia is invaluable, connected as it 

 soon will be with the Blantyre settlements on 

 Nyassa by a chain of military posts, whence a 

 junction with forces to be organised in Uganda 

 will ensure the prosperity of the greater part of 

 Central Africa in as far as peace can do so. The 

 distances between the Chartered Company and 

 the Nile sources are certainly "magnificent," but 

 so also are the promised results, if indeed England 



