HENRY V. PELTON. 23 



for a larger amount of food and thus there is nothing to 

 tempt them to further exertions. 



This hasty review of Africa, as it is, while it presents 

 some discouraging and dismal facts, certainly shows us 

 conditions which are not without promise for the future 

 of this great continent. Africa needs outside help to 

 come out of barbarism into civilization but that help 

 being given she is able and ready to repay all efforts 

 on her behalf. Her great needs are two. First trade, 

 Avhich shall offer inducements to the natives to cultivate 

 crops for the markets and thus furnish them with the 

 educational influence of steady and renumerative employ- 

 ment; and second, such stability and strength of govern- 

 ment as shall maintain them in security of life and prop- 

 erty. The chief obstacle to trade has been the difficulty 

 of transport to the sea. 



Railways must be built past the cataracts to connect 

 the great internal water-ways with the ports. Stanley 

 calculates that the four great rivers, the Nile, Congo, 

 Niger and Shire would need, for this purpose but eight 

 hundred and twenty-seven miles in all, and by these 

 would be opened to the trade of the world twenty- two 

 thousand miles of banks along navigable rivers. The 

 work of supplying railway facilities of transport in 

 Africa is already begun. There are lines in South Africa 

 now running and more are projected. The Portuguese 

 are building one from Benguela into the interior. A line 

 from Mombassa, in the territory of the British East 

 Africa Co., connecting the coast with the lake system in- 

 land has been opened this fall. The railway from the 

 mouth of the Congo to its upper basin has been begun. 

 The Germans have projected one over their newly ac- 

 quired domain, commencing at Bagomoyo and a route 

 has been selected for a line to connect Algiers with Lake 

 Tchad. The natives are generally quite willing to trade, 

 and wherever Europeans have established suitable con- 



