106 National Geographic Magazine. 



surplus population to emigrate to America. These countries 

 realize the necessity of creating new markets, if they are to 

 continue to advance. In Africa the colonies must depend upon 

 the home country, and open new fields for manufactures and 

 commerce. They know that in equatorial Africa there are more 

 than 100,000,000 people wanting every thing, even clothes. 



The whole coast of Africa on the Mediterranean Sea, the 

 Atlantic and Indian Oceans from the Red Sea to the Isthmus of 

 Suez, is claimed by European nations, with the exception of two 

 or three small inhospitable and barren strips of coast, England 

 occupies Egypt, and will hold it for an indefinite period. France 

 has its colonies in Tripoli, Algiers, and Morocco, and on the At- 

 lantic coast its factories in Senegambia. It seeks a route from 

 Algiers across the desert to Lake Chad, and from Senegambia up 

 the Senegal by steamer, thence across the country by rail to the 

 head of navigation on the Niger, and down that river to Tim- 

 buctu. 



England occupies Sierra Leone, the Gold and Slave Coasts, the 

 delta and valley of the Niger, and its branch the Benue. It has 

 factories on these rivers, and small steamers plying on them, and 

 seeks Timbuctu by the river Niger. It controls almost the entire 

 region where the palm-oil is produced. 



Timbuctu, long before Africa was known to Europe, was the 

 centre of a large trade in European and Asiatic goods. Cara- 

 vans crossed the Desert of Sahara from Timbuctu north to the 

 Mediterranean, and east to Gondokoro, carrying out slaves, gold 

 and ivory and bringing back European and Asiatic goods. 



Sandwiched between the English possessions, Liberia struggles 

 for existence, its inhabitants fast degenerating into barbarism. 



Joining the English possessions on the Gold Coast, two degrees 

 north of the equator, are the German possessions of Kamerun, 

 with high mountains and invigorating breezes ; but the land at 

 the foot is no more favorable to the European than the Guinea 

 coast. One or two hundred miles in the interior of this part of 

 the continent, the land rapidly rises to the tableland of equato- 

 rial Africa, rich and fertile, resembling the valley of the Kongo, 

 possibly habitable by Europeans. 



Next, the French occupy the Ogowe, its branches, and the 

 coast, to the Kongo, and claim the country inland to the posses- 

 sions of the Kongo Free State. Under M. Brazza, they have 

 thoroughly explored the country to the river Kongo, and have 

 established factories at Franceville and other places. 



