THE OCEAN AS THE RESERVOIR OF HEALTH 33 



the vast areas of fresh water known as the Caspian 

 Sea and Lakes Orel, Balkash, and Baikal remain in 

 lonely grandeur unused, and apparently, until Russia 

 is regenerated, unusable. A very different future 

 obviously awaits the great lakes of Eastern Africa, 

 and it requires no vivid exercise of the imagination to 

 picture them bearing an immense commerce, distribut- 

 ing the amazing wealth of their fecund shores among 

 the busy population. This prospect, which is daily in 

 process of becoming realized, is made possible only by 

 the fact that here in Southern and Equatorial Africa 

 we have no vast mountain chain intercepting the 

 lower wind strata from the ocean on either side, and in 

 consequence these health- and wealth-bearing ministers 

 can and do range in comparative freedom over the vast 

 African land, making it habitable and comparatively 

 healthful for Europeans. And this it is which makes 

 the British possessions in South Africa so immensely 

 valuable, apart altogether from their amazing mineral 

 wealth the fact that they are eminently fitted to be 

 the home, not merely the temporary abiding-place, 

 of Europeans, who may thus by their continuity of 

 domicile build up a mighty nation, if only they set 

 about it in a right way. 



Strangely enough, however, this does not apply to 

 that magnificent African island Madagascar, now be- 

 longing to the French, and, unhappily for them, 

 sharing the evil reputation of all their other colonial 

 possessions. Its position is an almost ideal one, enjoy- 

 ing as it does the impact of the ocean breezes on all its 

 shores. It is long and narrow, comparatively, and 

 lying almost north and south, it invites the complete 

 aeration of the ocean winds. But, except upon the 



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