AFRICA 



The people have a particularly stalwart ap- 

 pearance, but d- fact and despite the 

 -.H! climate, they have little 

 endurance, and fall an easy prey to disease. 



There are no fewer than ninety-eight rivers 

 in the con: 



In some places, notably in Kabul, deep snow 

 lies on the ground for two or three months, 

 and the people make little or no attempt to 

 leave their homes. 



The carpets woven by the nomads about 



76 AFRICA 



Herat are beautiful, and are often sold abroad 

 as Persian car] 



In certain parts of the country the staple 

 foodstuff is flour made from dried mulberries. 



The fruits of Afghanistan are specially 

 famous, and in the dried form are exported in 

 large quantities. 



With the exception of Turkey, Afghanistan 

 is the strongest Mohammedan country on the 

 globe. E.D.F. 



Consult Hamilton's Afghanistan. 



FRICA, the second largest land 

 on the globe, the "Dark Continent" of a 

 generation ago, which is still, despite explora- 

 tion and enterprise, shut off from civilization 

 throughout many of its regions. In reality it 

 is a great peninsula of Europe-Asia, though 

 through all historic times there has been no 

 land connection with Europe, and that with 

 Asia is limited to the Isthmus of Suez. Its 

 area of 11,500,000 square miles is greater than 

 that of any other continent except Asia, sur- 

 passing that of North America by over 3,000,000 

 square miles. In length it is 4,960 miles, its 

 greatest breadth is about 4,500; so that a 

 rectangle drawn to include it would be almost 

 a square. At very near its central north and 

 south point the equator crosses it, and thus it 

 stretches from about the latitude of Richmond, 

 Va., to that of Buenos Aires. The Pacific 

 ocean nowhere touches this vast continent, 

 which has the Atlantic Ocean on the west and 

 south, the Indian Ocean and Red Sea on the 

 east, and the Mediterranean on the north. 



Form and Coast Line. In general, Africa 

 resembles North and South America in its 

 shape that is, it is roughly triangular, with 

 idest part to the north; but it does not 

 -harply toward the south, as do the others 

 named. In school it is usually the first conti- 

 nent assigned for drawing, because it is the 

 easiest of all. This is due to the fact that 

 its coast line is very regular, with none of the 

 deep gulfs and bays and sharply projecting 

 peninsulas which mark the northern coast of 

 North America, for example, or that of Nor- 

 way. There are two interesting facts con- 



nected with this; Africa has the shortest coast 

 line in proportion to its area of any continent, 

 and it has almost no good harbors. The first 

 of these facts is strikingly apparent if we con- 

 sider that this second greatest of the conti- 

 nents has a coastline of only 19,000 miles, while 

 little Norway, if all its indentations are fol- 

 lowed, has a coast line of 12,000 miles. Just 

 what effect the absence of harbors has had on 

 the history of Africa it is impossible to say, 

 but undoubtedly, taken in connection with the 

 difficulty of navigating the rivers, it helped 

 largely to keep the interior of the continent 

 for centuries an unknown land. 



Nor has Africa at any point the fringe of 

 islands, large or small, which make picturesque 

 the coast of Chili, of Canada or of Norway. 

 One island, Madagascar, the fourth largest in 

 the world, lies 250 miles to the east, but the 

 channel which separates the two is so deep 

 that Madagascar seems less closely connected 

 with Africa than Africa does with Asia and 

 Europe. The other islands, for the most part 

 small and of no great importance to Africa, 

 include the Madeira, Canary and Cape Verde 

 islands, in the Atlantic, and Reunion, Mauritius 

 and Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean. To-day the 

 products which these islands export are taken 

 mostly to Europe, but some day, with the 

 greater development of Africa, a closer connec- 

 tion will doubtless be established with the 

 mainland. 



Surface. It is not only in its coastline that 

 Africa lacks variety; a sameness is to be 

 observed also in its surface structure. This 

 does not mean that it is actually monotonous; 



