Slow Progress of the dark Continent. * 17 
to the thick woods of the interior, the Bushmen and the Hotten- 
tots to the extreme southern lands of Africa. 
Cape Colony, in the southern part of Africa, in a mountainous 
region with salubrious climate and considerable fertile soil, was 
settled by the Dutch in 1652, only thirty years subsequent to 
_. the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. For over one hun- 
dred years the English have held it, but the population today 
is only 1,530,000, of whom but 370,000 are whites and 1,160,000 
Africans. Itshould have been a fit home for the white race, but 
they have not flourished there. 
Contrast Cape Colony with the Argentine republic, on the 
same parallel of latitude and with a similar climate. The 
immigration into that state within the last ten years has been 
over 1,200,000; in 1869 the population was 1,877,000; in 1891, 
5,200,000. 
Natal, formally occupied by a small number of boers, was 
seized by the British in 1843, when it had only a few inhabitants. 
It possesses great advantages of soil, a semi-tropical but agreeable 
and healthful climate; the land rising in plateaus from the coast 
affords several varieties of temperature. Emigrants at different 
times have poured into the Colony, yet although fifty years have 
elapsed since its settlement by the British, Natal has only 46,000 
Europeans out of a population of over 540,000. Great numbers 
of Negroes, refugees from the neighboring Zulu country, have 
settled in Natal, attracted by the good government of the English. 
Algeria, in the north temperate zone, has a climate like that of 
Spain, Italy, and Greece. It was conquered by the French and 
has been held by them for over sixty years. France has sent 
many colonists to Algeria, but the increase in the Kuropean 
population has been very slow, and for a long time the deaths 
exceeded the births. The population in 1893 was estimated at 
4,124,000, including about 267,000 French and 215,000 other 
Europeans. The French have had little better success in northern 
Africa than the English in the south. 
Within the last fifteen years the nations of Europe have made 
a few settlements in different parts of Africa, the results of which 
cannot be foretold. 
America. 
The physical geography of America is essentially different 
from that of the old world, very largely by reason of the fact 
that in the one the mountains run north and south, in the other 
3—Nat. Grog. Maa., von. VI, 1894, 
