20 AFEICA AND HER FUTURE. 



to protect the surrounding districts; and the interna- 

 tional conference held the past summer at Brussels took 

 measures against it, establishing an international office 

 at Zanzibar, organizing an administration to construct 

 roads and to arrange to have the importation of firearms 

 restricted. 



If we try to form some estimate of the future of this 

 continent, there are three characteristics of the country 

 to be considered, the climate, the soil and the people. 



The country lies mostly in the torrid zone but the 

 records as far as given do not show excessive high tem- 

 perature throughout most of the interior. In some parts 

 there are high cool plateaux with a temperate climate. 



Malaria and consequent fever shows itself in many, 

 perhaps in most parts. Along the coast, especially the 

 western, and extending two or three hundred miles in- 

 land, this is excessive, but the interior, several thousand 

 feet higher, is much more healthy. Still, even in this, 

 experience has shown that every European is attacked. 

 Some parts, as the lake shores and river basins, are worse 

 than other parts, but few seem to be wholly free from 

 this scourge. However, Mr. Stanley asserts that in open 

 positions, proper precautions will enable the European 

 to thrive in this climate as well as in any. He adds 

 "there has been remarkable improvement during the last 

 six years in the health of the Europeans who have re- 

 sided on the Congo." We are also assured, I am not sure 

 it is by Mr. Stanley, that the climate in many places is 

 better than Bengal and that there is less sickness by half 

 in the Congo basin, even in present conditions, than in 

 the bottom lands of Arkansas, and these last have doubled 

 in population in twenty-five years. Of course under 

 European occupancy and the opening of the country to 

 proper agriculture and trade, a marked improvement 

 may be expected. South Africa, especially the Cape 

 Colony, is entirely healthy. 



