TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 737 



I am afraid that I have frequently travelled beyond the sphere of geography. 

 My object has been to draw attention to the supreme importance to this country 

 of the science of commercial geography. That science is not confined to a know- 

 ledge of the localities in which those products of the earth which have a commercial 

 value are to be found, and of the markets in which they can be sold with the 

 greatest profit. Its higher aims are to divine, by a combination of historical retro- 

 spect and scientific foresight, the channels through which commerce will flow in 

 the future, and the points at which new centres of trade must arise in obedience to 

 known laws. A precise knowledge of the form, size, and geological structure of the 

 globe ; of its physical features ; of the topographical distribution of its mineral and 

 vegetable products, and of the varied forms of animal life, including man, that it 

 sustains ; of the influence of geographical environment on man and the lower animals ; 

 and of the climatic conditions of the various regions of the earth, is absolutely essential 

 to a successful solution of the many problems before us. If England is to maintain 

 her commanding position in the world of commerce she must approach these pro- 

 blems in the spirit of Prince Henry the Navigator, and by high scientific training fit 

 her sons to play their part like men in the coming struggle for commercial supre- 

 macy. The struggle will be keen, and victory will rest with those who have most 

 fully realised the truth of the maxim that ' knowledge is power.' 



I may add that if there is one point clearer than another in the history of 

 commerce it is this: — that when a state cannot effectually protect its carrying 

 trade in time of war, that trade passes from it and does not return. If England is 

 ever found wanting in the power to defend her carrying trade, her fate will only 

 too surely, and I might almost say justly, be that of Venice, Spain, Portugal, and 

 Holland. 



I will now ask you to turn your attention for a few moments to another 

 subject — Africa. In 1864 Sir Eoderick Murchison alluded to the great continent 

 in the following terms : ' Looking at the most recent maps of Africa, see what 

 enormous lacunm have to be filled in, and what vast portions of it the foot of the 

 white man has never trodden.' It was then impossible to give a general sketch 

 even of the geography of Equatorial Africa. Tanganyika and Nyassa had been 

 discovered, and Speke and Grant had touched at a few points on the southern, 

 western, and northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza ; but we were still in igno- 

 rance of the drainage and form of the immense tract of country between the 

 Tanganyika Lake and the Zambesi ; and the heart of Africa, through which the 

 mighty Congo roUs, was as much unknown to us as the centre of America was to 

 our ancestors in the middle of the ."sixteenth century. There are now few school- 

 boys who could not give a fairly accurate sketch of the geography of Central 

 Africa ; and a comparison of the maps published respectively in 1864 and 1888 

 will show how rapidly the lacunee of which Sir Roderick complained are being 

 filled in. There is stDl much to be done, and it is precisely in one of the few 

 blank spots left on our maps that the man who may well be called the Columbus of 

 Africa has so mysteriously disappeared. The discovery of the course of the Congo 

 by Stanley has been followed by results not unlike those which attended the 

 discovery of America by Columbus. In the latter part of the nineteenth century 

 Africa has become to Europe what America was in the sixteenth century. Events 

 march more rapidly now than they did then, and the efibrts of the maritime 

 nations of Europe to secure to themselves some portion of African territory and 

 some channel through which they can pour their products into Central Africa are 

 rapidly changing the condition of the Dark Continent. 



The roads over which the land trade of Equatorial Africa now passes from the 

 coast to the interior are mere footpaths, described by Professor Drummond in his 

 charming book ' Tropical Africa ' as being ' never over a foot in breadth, beaten 

 as hard as adamant, and rutted beneath the level of the forest bed by centuries of 

 native traffic. As a rule these footpaths are marvellously direct. Like the roads 

 of the old Romans, they run straight on through everything, ridge and mountain 

 and yaUey, never shying at obstacles, nor anywhere turning aside to breathe. Yet 

 within this general straightforwardness there is a singular eccentricity and in- 

 directness in detail. Although the African footpath is on the whole a bee-line, no 



1888. 3 b 



