What is to bfxome of this Country ? 273 



same amount of gold which it yields at the surface, 

 then the mine ^\dll be one of some value. But 

 looking to the general character of the other reefs 

 in this district I have little expectation that this 

 will be the case. If these general conclusions of 

 mine are correct, and I fear they may be, the 

 question presents itself, and is found to be almost 

 unanswerable, What is to be done with this country? 

 Agriculture on a large scale, cattle-ranching or 

 sheep-farming, except for the feeding of a large 

 mining population, would be a wild and ruinous 

 enterprise. The climate seems to be altogether 

 adverse to colonization and settlement by small 

 emigrants. Moreover, if this region of Africa so 

 exceptionally favoured in some ways by nature is 

 found to be of little value, how infinitely worthless 

 for all European pur^Doses must be the great district 

 of the Central Lakes, the wide possessions of the 

 East African Company, and the much-vaunted 

 Congo State ! Sometimes when thinking of Africa 

 as a whole, of Egypt, Tunis, and ]\Iorocco, of the 

 Soudan, and of Abyssinia, of the Congo and of the 

 Zambesi, of the many fruitless attempts made by 

 many nations to discover, conquer, and civilize, of 

 the many hopes which have been raised and 

 dashed, of the many expectations which have been 

 formed and falsified, it occurs to me that there 

 must be upon this great continent some awful curse, 

 some witherino; bli2:ht, and that to delude and to 

 mock at the explorer, the gold-hunter, the 

 merchant, the speculator, and even at ministers 

 and monarchs, is its dark fortune and its desperate 



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