FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 245 



"Penetration of Soudan. — The work undertaken 

 by General Faidherbe, with a view to civilising 

 Soudan and opening to commerce those unexplored 

 regions, has been taken up again the last few 

 years and carried on with great activity. From 

 Medina, where our French influence got no further 

 in 1878, our standard was successfully carried to 

 Bafonlabe, to Kita, and lastly this year to Bannuakow, 

 on the Niger. The caravan route is thus protected 

 by a series of posts constructed by Colonel Desbordes 

 during the three expeditions of 1 880-8 r, 1882, 

 1883. The route has been improved : at the same 

 time works of a railway were undertaken intended 

 some day to join the navigable part of the Niger to 

 that of the Senegal. The first section of this railway 

 from Khay (near Medina) to Bafonlabe, over 135 

 kilometres, has been decided on by parliament ; at 

 the end of the present expedition the traffic will 

 be open over a distance of 16 kilometres, and the 

 working of the ground prepared in a manner to 

 forward for the next expedition the laying of the 

 line." 



Nor am I without hope of the future timber in- 

 dustry in store for our Colonies, so far at all events as 

 Lagos and the Gold Coast are concerned, blessed as 

 are those Colonies — the former especially so — with 

 the inestimable advantages of nature's highways in 

 the shape of the network of inland Avater that 

 permeates the country, extending, with but a slight 



