108 THE GREAT COMPANIES 



hindrances and annoyances which the African 

 climate so successfully devises for the ruin of 

 machinery and labour-saving appliances. 



Such, briefly, is the activity now endeavouring 

 courageously to utilise the resources of a portion of 

 Africa which, until recent years, has been almost a 

 terra incognita to those whose immediate interests 

 did not lie within the mighty environment of the 

 great dark continent. And what a labour it has 

 been, and what brain-wearing difficulties have had 

 to be surmounted, only those know whose path has 

 led them to these hitherto waste places of the earth. 

 But assuredly they are giving a good account of 

 themselves, and, more important still, leaving the 

 country in a better condition than that in which 

 they found it. I doubt not that as one's knowledge 

 of how to overcome the myriad discouragements 

 and difficulties stored up in a concentrated form in 

 Africa widens ; as we learn how to overcome its 

 unhealthiness, and to make provision to counteract 

 the exasperating manner in which things so in- 

 evitably seem to get out of joint, aU these important 

 companies and zealous individuals who are now 

 struggling so hard to wrest a return from so many 

 centuries of entire unproductiveness, vdll realise a 

 reward which should be a large one, even as the 

 value of their effi)rts will have been incalculable. 



I do not think anybody who has not lived in 

 Africa can realise the annoyances which there 

 attend almost every portion of a new undertaking. 

 You order, for example, some article of machinery 

 from home, for some important purpose for which 

 it appears to be indispensable. After some months 



