174 



NA TURE 



[December 23, i.'<97 



NYASA-LAND} 



SIR HARRY JOHNSTON has had a unique oppor- 

 tunity, and he has made the most of it. Most areas 

 in Africa over which European protectorates have been 

 estabhshed during the past twenty years are vast in size, 

 varied in population, as a rule unhealthy in climate, and 

 commercially unprofitable. In the Congo Free State, 

 Rhodesia, British East Africa, Damaraland, German 

 East Africa and Erithrea, all the best efforts of the 

 administration have been necessarily devoted to a 

 struggle against almost insuperable difficulties. In these 

 cases the leaven of European yeast is so small in 

 proportion to the vast bulk of African meal, that one 

 part of the mass has begun to putrefy before the rest has 

 lightened. 



It fell, however, to Sir H. H. Johnston's lot to ad- 

 minister a district of exceptional promise, in which a 

 group of Scotch planters and missionaries had been 

 settled for many years. He found a number of men 

 willing to help, and already possessing a considerable 

 knowledge of the country and people. The protectorate 

 s comparatively small and compact ; and yet it includes 



Fig, I. — Captain Sclater's road to Katunga in process of making. 



a varied series of soils and climates. Most of the district 

 is— for tropical Africa— fairly healthy. The natives are 

 all Bantu. The Administrator was well backed financially, 

 and had the implicit confidence of the Foreign Office 

 officials. Hence he had an opportunity for developing 

 the country on experimental lines that might make it a 

 model for the larger and more chaotic European pro- 

 tectorates. How far Sir H. H. Johnston has succeeded 

 in this task is shown in the magnificent work which he has 

 published at the end of his term of office in Nyasaland. 

 That is, however, a political question, which need not 

 therefore be considered here, and we may at once pass 

 to the consideration of the section of the work of 

 scientific interest. For Sir Harry Johnston is fortunately 

 a man of culture and scientific tastes, which his 

 position gave him opportunity to satisfy. Hence at 

 the end of his term of office in Nyasaland he has 



1 " British Central Africa. An Attempt to give some Account of a 

 Portion of the Territories under British Influence North of the Zambesi." 

 By Harry H. Johnston, K.C.B., F.Z.S.. &c. 8vo. Pp. xix -f- 544, with 

 6 maps and 220 illustrations. (London : Methuen and Co., 1897.) 



NO. 1469. VOL. 57] 



been able to publish a monograph upon the country^ 

 describing its history, its climate, its people, fauna and 

 flora. The Germans have made great progress with an 

 elaborate monograph upon German East Africa ; but 

 that is the work of a large staff of officers, whereas Sir 

 Harry Johnston's is a one-man book, based on the 

 studies carried out by a busy official during the intervals 

 of administrative worries. 



The title of the work, " British Central Africa," is some- 

 what confusing, as the author uses the name in two dif- 

 ferent senses : on the title-page and maps it includes alJ 

 the British territories between the Zambesi on the south, 

 and German East Africa and the Congo Free State on 

 the north. It was in this sense that the term was origin- 

 ally proposed, at a time when it was hoped that the 

 Blantyre Highlands would have been the administrative 

 centre for a vast British territory, which would have con- 

 nected British East Africa with the British dominions 

 south of the Zambesi. Sometimes in the book the name 

 British Central Africa is used in its original sense, and 

 sometimes only as a synonym of Nyasaland Protectorate ; 

 excluding the western five-sixths of the country, which 

 in 1894 were transferred to 

 the administration of the 

 British South Africa Com- 

 pany. Thus on pp. 152-154 

 there is a summary of " the 

 present method of adminis- 

 tration of British Central 

 Africa," in which only the 

 Nyasaland Protectorate is 

 considered. Any one who 

 failed to recognise the double 

 sense in which the author 

 uses his title, might infer that 

 no progress has been made 

 in the administration of the 

 vast territory to the west of 

 Nyasaland. It would, per- 

 haps, have been as well to 

 have entitled the book the 

 " Nyasaland Protectorate," 

 for the monographic treat- 

 ment, which is its main merit, 

 is entirely limited to that 

 area. The great western 

 territories are often referred 

 to ; but so scanty is the treat- 

 ment they receive, that the 

 name of that hardworking 

 administrator Major Forbes 

 is not even mentioned. 



The book opens with a 

 series of graphic descriptions 

 of the various types of country included in British 

 Central Africa, using the term in its wider sense. The 

 author vividly depicts the beauties of the jungle-bordered 

 rivers, of the scrub-covered fodt hills, of the cypress 

 forests near the mountain summits, of the meadowland 

 on the high plateau, of the rough, craggy, granite kopjes, 

 and of the squall-tossed lake. Included among the 

 word pictures of these beautiful scenes is a graphic 

 sketch of the death-bed of a mining prospector, which 

 would not be out of place in a religious tract. 



The second chapter gives a short account of the 

 physical geography of the country, accompanied by 

 three admirable maps and a series of excellent illustra- 

 tions. The political history follows. There is a brief 

 summary from prehistoric times up to 1889. One 

 interesting suggestion here advancefl is that the ancestors 

 of the existing Bantu inhabitants of Southern Africa first 

 invaded the region south of Lake Chad about 2000 years 

 ago — a conclusion based on the wide distribution of the 

 native name for fowl. After 1889 the history naturally 

 becomes more detailed, for then began Sir H. H, 



