AFRICA 



Animal Life. As the climate and rainfall 

 govern the vegetation, so the latter determines 

 'ribution of animal life. It may be said 

 in general, however, that Africa is the home 

 of the largest members of the animal kingdom, 

 some of which live there exclusively ; and that, 

 for the most part, all regions south of the Sa- 

 hara, whatever their latitude, have about the 

 same forms of animal life if their plant life is 

 similar. 



Northern Africa has much the same animals 

 as Southern Europe, but south of the Sahara 

 distinctive characters appear. Over the grassy 

 savannas, which with their scattered forest 

 areas afford shelter for such animals as feed 

 upon the grass of the prairies, range the buf- 

 falo, the rhinoceros, the gnu, the zebra, almost 

 100 kinds of antelope, and the giraffe, which is 

 peculiar to Africa. Where these grass-eating 

 animals are to be found, there also are the 

 flesh-eating animals which prey upon them 

 the lion, the panther, the leopard, the hyena 

 and the jackal. Bears, foxes and wolves are 

 found nowhere in Africa. Formerly elephants 

 were very common in all parts of the continent, 

 but they have been so persistently hunted for 

 the ivory of their tusks that there is danger of 

 their complete extinction. In the swamp and 

 river regions are to be found crocodiles in large 

 numbers, as well as the hippopotami, which 

 live nowhere but in Africa. 



It might seem that the great forests near 

 the equator would furnish just the sort of 

 homes that animals might desire, but one 

 of the outstanding features of the life 'of the 

 continent is the scarcity of life in these regions. 

 Even the largest animals find the plant growth 

 too dense, so these great tracts are given 

 almost exclusively to reptiles, insects and the 

 great monkeys, the chimpanzee and the gorilla, 

 which are peculiar to Africa. Numerous other 

 species of monkeys live in the less dense forests 

 farther south, and on the southern savannas 

 dwells the ostrich, which is to be found native 

 nowhere outside of Africa. The reptile and 

 bird life is abundant, many of the birds being 

 characterized by their brilliant feathers. Song 

 birds are not as common a^ they are in North 

 America, and most of the gorgeous birds have 

 but indifferent voices. 



With the exception of the great journeys of 

 exploration, discussed below under the subhead 

 History, the most famous of African expedi- 

 tions was that undertaken by Theodore Roose- 

 velt in 1909-1910. It was purely scientific in 

 its object and sent back to the Smithsonian 



80 AFRICA 



Institution (which see) a larger number of big 

 game specimens than wnv ever before secured 

 by any other single expedition. 



More destructive by far than the great ani- 

 mals of Africa and far more important as a 

 cause of the backwardness of the continent are 

 the insects, which swarm everywhere. The 

 white ants ruin frame buildings by hollowing 

 out the timbers ; the locusts make farmers poor 

 by devouring the crops, and the tsetse fly has 

 a bite which is fatal to dogs, horses and cattle, 

 and which in some instances is believed to 

 transmit sleeping sickness (see TSETSE FLY ; 

 SLEEPING SICKNESS). But perhaps the greatest 

 pest of all is the mosquito, which spreads by 

 its bite the tropical fever, and so makes large 

 parts of the continent uninhabitable. 



Mineral Wealth. When the mineral re- 

 sources of Africa are referred to, diamonds and 

 gold are at once brought to mind, and these are 

 indeed the most valuable. The center of pro- 

 duction for both lies within the Union of South 

 Africa, the Transvaal ranking next to Australia 

 and the United States in the production of 

 gold, and Kimberley exporting nine-tenths of 

 the world's supply of diamonds. See DIAMOND ; 

 GOLD; KIMBERLEY; SOUTH AFRICA, UNION OF; 

 TRANSVAAL. 



South Africa also bids fair to produce a large 

 amount of coal when its resources are further 

 developed ; great deposits of tin have been dis- 

 covered in Nigeria, and the Belgian Congo has 

 opened copper mines which seem practically 

 inexhaustible. Thus it may be predicted that 

 when the "Dark Continent" is more thoroughly 

 known it will prove to be one of the world's 

 richest treasure houses of minerals. 



The People. Broadly speaking, Africa's pop- 

 ulation, estimated at about 140,000,000, is made 

 up of two races, the white and the black. It 

 is not, therefore, strictly correct to use the 

 term African as meaning the same as negro, as 

 is so often done. But to eyes accustomed to 

 looking upon the Caucasians of Europe and 

 North America, the white men of Africa would 

 not look white, for they have been burned by 

 century after century of tropic sun. Indeed, 

 the division between the two races is made 

 ording to the shape of head and features, 

 and language, rather than according to color. 

 North and east of the Sahara the white race is 

 to be found; south of that barrier the black; 

 and, as is natural, on the borderland between 

 the two is a mixed race. 



Just south of the white man's country, in a 

 broad strip called the Sudan, are the most 



