566 IMPORTANCE OF INLAND WATER-WAYS. 



We venture to call attention to these precedents, 

 because many of the same questions that met the 

 British in North America 150 years ago seem to be 

 cropping up again to-day : thus the command of the sea 

 and also of the great internal channels of water 

 communication are for instance sure to exercise a 

 high degree of importance in the opening up of the 

 great continent of Africa, through the central portion 

 of which the wild, inhospitable nature of the country 

 and the density of its wide expanse of equatorial 

 forests, places a practical bar upon all other means 

 of communication. So again under the influence of 

 British engineering skill and capital, there can be 

 little doubt that in Egypt a navigable waterway for 

 boats of considerable size will in time be constructed 

 from the Mediterranean to the great Central African 

 Lakes. We have every hope that this will one day be 

 carried into effect, via the River Nile, by our engineers. 



END OF VOLUME II. 



