miles). Above Leopoldville, the river is navigable for 1,000 miles to Stanley Falls, and a railway, 235 miles in length, has recently been built (1898) from MATADI to LEOPOLDVILLE, to join the Upper Congo (on which there are now some 18 steamers) with the Lower Congo, which has a regular steamer service with Europe. A railway is under construction from Stanleyville, on the Congo, to the Albert Nyanza. Of the numerous tributaries of the Congo, the Mobangi River is navigable to and above the Zonga Rapids, in lat. 4° N., while the Kassai-Sankuru system, on the south, includes numerous navigable waterways, the Kassaï itself being navigable by river craft for 1,800 miles. The Aruwimi flows through the dense and almost impenetrable forests which cover vast areas between the Albert Nyanza and the Congo.

The principal commercial commodities of the State are ivory, rubber, gum copal, palm-oil, ground-nuts, and coffee, but there are many other sources of wealth. The manioc, banana, and sugar-cane flourish, and tobacco, coffee (which here grows wild), cocoa, vanilla, rice, hemp, and other articles of commerce could be extensively cultivated in many parts of the Congo basin. Considerable progress has undoubtedly been made, and now that the MatadiLeopoldville Railway has been completed, and the slave trade, which was formerly rife in the Upper Congo region, is being gradually suppressed, the resources of the State will become more rapidly developed. The annual value of the trade is 3 million and a half sterling, and about 1,000 vessels enter the ports of the State every year.

The three noteworthy places on the Lower Congo are Banana, the chief port at the mouth of the river; BOMA, the seat of government, on the north bank of the river, about 50 miles from the sea; and Matadi, on the south side, at the head of navigation and the starting point of the railway to Leopoldville, on Stanley Pool, the most important of the 30 stations on the Upper Congo. Other important posts are Kwamouth, at the junction of the Kwa River, which brings down the collected waters of the Kassai-Sankuru tributaries; Coquilhat ville (Equatorville), at the junction of the Juapa with the Congo; New Antwerp, or Bangala, on the north bank of the river, 100 miles north of the Equator; Basoko, at the junction of the Aruwimi; and Stanleyville, just below the Stanley Falls. Mpala is a station on the western or Congo State side of Lake Tanganyika, on the opposite side of which is Karema, a station founded by the State, but subsequently abandoned, but now, with Ujiji and other stations on the eastern side of the Lake, within the limits of German East Africa. Αι Luluaburg, a station on the Lulua, one of the numerous tributaries of the Kass, the State has made experiments in raising flocks and herds-it is said with some success-and in rice plantations.*

The Government of the Congo State is carried on by (1) the Central Government at Brussels, directed by the King of Belgium 3 as sovereign of the State, and (2) the Local Government at Boma, under a Governor-General. The annual revenue of the State is nearly 14 millions, and the expenditure nearly 111⁄2 millions. Almost all the officials and chiefs of the 15 provinces into which the State is divided are Belgians. There is an armed force of 11,000 natives, and a few armed vessels on the Lower and Upper Congo.

1. Now that the Muata Yamvo's kingdom-ally, but by will, Aug. 2, 1889, the King bequeathed Lunda-is definitely attached to Portuguese West Africa, Luluaburg is near the southern frontier of the State, which, from the Lualaba to the Lower Congo, is formed by the parallel of 6o S. lat. 2. A. Silva White.

to Belgium all his sovereign rights in the State. On July 1, 1890, the territories of the State were declared inabenable, and a Convention of July 3. 1890, between Belgium and the Free State, reserved to the former the right of annexing the 3. "The Congo Free State was placed under the latter after a period of 10 years."-The StatesSovereignty of the King of the Belgians individu-i man's Year Fook.

ANGOLA.

(PORTUGUESE WEST AFRICA.)

Portuguese West Africa includes the maritime Province of Angola (which extends from the mouth of the Congo to the Cunene River) and the Protectorate of Lunda, and a part of the basin of the Upper Zambesi in the interior, together with the territory of Cabinda and Landana to the north of the Congo. The total area of these vast territories is fully 485,000 square miles, while the population does not exceed 31⁄2 millions.

Angola or Portuguese West Africa is thus bounded on the north and northeast by the Congo Free State, on the south-east by British Rhodesia, and on the south by German South-West Africa, from which it is divided by the Cunene and the Okavango Rivers. Angola is divided into the six Administrative districts of Congo, Loanda, Benguela, Mossamedes, Huitla, and Lunda. Formerly this naine was restricted to the maritime zone, extending from the bare and sandy coast across a littoral belt, of 60 to 90 miles in width, and thence across uplands, of 50 or 60 miles broad, to the mountains which mark the outer rim of the in terior plateau. The rainfall is small and variable-at Loanda it is sometimes only 5% inches yearly, but it occasionally reaches 22%1⁄2 inches. There is not, therefore, much vegetation, except along the banks of the rivers which descend from the serras to the sea, or flow northward to the Congo through the Quango (which may be regarded as the north-eastern boundary of Angola Proper), eastward to the Zambesi, or southward to the Okavango and Cunene. The largest river is the Coanza. It rises in the interior, on the cool plateaux of Bihe, and flows north-west, descending to the hot and unhealthy coast plain over the falls at Dondo, and entering the sea by a single channel, 45 miles south of St.

Paul de Loanda.

Angola is much more prospercus than Mozambique on the other side of the continent. The trade, which consists in the export of coffee, ground nuts, palm oil, india-rubber, ivory, gum copal, skins of wild animals, &c., and in the import of cheap spirits, guns, gunpowder, &c., centres at the seaport of LOANDA (16), which is also the seat of the General Government. Loanda contains a larger white population than any other town on the West Coast of Africa, and has a railway running 240 miles into the interior. It is beautifully situated on the shores of a fine bay (about 200 miles south of Banana at the mouth of the Congo, and 1,900 miles north of Cape Town), and is connected by a railway with Ambaca, a busy trading station in the interior. Ambriz, a small port to the north of Loanda, and the port of Benguela and Mossamedes to the south of the capital, are the centres of considerable trade. Benguela was formerly one of the great slave ports. Mossamedes can boast of a climate well suited to Europeans, as also can Bihe and other places on the cooler and moister San Salvador, in the north of Angola and not far from the Congo, is now a mere negro village of thatched huts, but it was formerly the capital of the powerful kingdom of Congo, and was then a splendid city with churches, convents, colleges, and palaces.

uplands in the interior.

The greater part of the feudal Empire of LUNDA (the Muata Yamvo's Kingdom), to the east of Loanda, is included in Portuguese West Africa, and

is regarded as a dependency of Angola.

1. The colonization of Angola, by the Portuguese, (1884 and 1891, with the Congo Free State (1884 Its present limits have with France (886), with Germany (18.6), and with

dates from the year 1560.

been fixed by a series of treaties with England England 1905).

ISLANDS OF AFRICA.

All the islands on or off the coasts of Africa belong to various European powers, either as Colonies or Protectorates. The principal of them are Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Zanzibar, and Socotra, with the Comoros and other small groups in the Indian Ocean; and Madeira, the Canaries, the Cape Verde Islands, Ascension, St. Helena and Tristan d'Acunha in the Atlantic, with Fernando Po, Prince's Island, St. Thomas, and Annobon in the Gulf of Guinea.

The islands of Ascension, St. Helena, Tristan d'Acunha in the Atlantic, and Mauritius, with the Seychelles and Amirante Islands, and Socotra in the Indian Ocean, belong to Britain, while Zanzibar and Pemba are under British Protection.

The islands of Madagascar and Réunion or Bourbon are French Colonies, and the Comoro Islands is a French Protectorate.

Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic, with Prince's Island and St. Thomas in the Gulf of Guinea, belong to Portugal.

The Canary Islands in the Atlantic, and Fernando Po and Annobon in the Gulf of Guinea, belong to Spain.

Madagascar is by far the largest of African islands, and of the rest, Mauritius is commercially the most important. The Azores are sometimes included among the islands of Africa, but they are as near to Europe as to Africa, and are in the same latitude as Portugal, to which country they belong. Both the Azores and Madeira, also a Portuguese island, are politically regarded as integral parts of the Portuguese kingdom, and have, therefore, been described under "Portugal.”

MADAGASCAR.

MADAGASCAR, the largest of African islands, and, regarding Australia as a continent, the fourth largest island in the world,' is 1,000 miles in length, and 350 miles at its greatest width, and has an area of about 230,000 square miles. This great island, which, with the exception of the extreme southern part, lies wholly within the Tropics, is separated from the eastern coast of Africa by the broad and deep Mozambique Channel, the least distance between the island and the mainland being 230 miles. Though more than 21⁄2 times the size of Great Britain, the population of Madagascar does not exceed 4 millions, divided into numerous tribes, of whom the Hovas, who occupy the plateau of Imerina in the central part of the island, are the dominant people.

Madagascar has high mountains running through it from north to south, and the whole interior forms an elevated plateau. The uplands occupy threefifths of the country, and culminate in the Tsi-afa-javona, which attains a height of 8,950 feet above the sea and rises nearly 5,000 feet above the general level of the surrounding country. This mountain, "that the mists cannot climb" (which The largest islands in the world, after Australia, are Greenland, Borneo, and New Guinea.

is the meaning of its name), is the loftiest of the numerous volcanic peaks of the Ankaratra Mountains in the interior of the island, and is not far from Antanana rivo, the Malagasy capital. Innumerable streams, fed by frequent rains, flow down the short eastern slope, which faces the Indian Ocean and the "South-East Trades;" the long western slope towards the Mozambique Channel is traversed by several large rivers, one of which, the Ikopa, which flows by Antananarivo and discharges into a magnificent natural harbour-Bembatooka Bay-is 500 miles in length, and can be ascended by steamers for nearly 90 miles. The streams on the eastern coast are obstructed at their mouths by sandbanks, and are thus set back, as it were, and form a long chain of lagoons, navigable for 300 miles south of Tamatave. The west coast rivers are not thus obstructed, and several of the estuaries and inlets, especially in the north-west, form splendid natural harbours. A belt of low land extends round the coast, and is an extremely fertile, but most unhealthy, region. The whole island possesses great fertility, and abounds in tropical and sub-tropical plants and fruits. Its mineral resources include gold and silver, with iron, lead, and flora and fauna of the island are peculiar, and "the peculiarities in plant and animal life have given rise to the supposition that the island once constituted a part of a continent1 now submerged by the Indian Ocean." None of the larger animals, such as elephants, lions, giraffes, antelopes, and apes, which are sc common on the adjacent continent, are found in the island.

copper.

The

The native inhabitants of Madagascar, called the Malagasy, are a distinct race from the Negroes and Negroids of the African mainland, and are allied to the Malay familily of mankind. The Hovas, as the tribes dwelling in its most central province are called, are estimated to number 1 million, and form the most intelligent section of the native population; the Sakalavas, in the west, also number about a million; but the Betsimi Sarakas, in the east, do not exceed half-a-million. There are many Creoles from Mauritius and Réunion, Arab traders and Negroes from the mainland, and a few Europeans in the coast towns and at the capital.

At the beginning of the century, the Malagasys were all pagans, but, chiefly through the labours of English missionaries, most of the Hovas have been converted to Christianity, which is now the State religion in the island. There is a large number of European missionaries and about a thousand native pastors and evangelists, many of them stationed among the tribes which still remair

heathen.

Agriculture and cattle-rearing are the principal industries of the Malagasy people, but silk, woollen and cotton fabrics are manufactured by primitive methods, and a fine material, beautifully coloured with native dyes, is made from the rafia palm fibre, which is also largely exported to France for tying up vines. The output of gold and copper has materially increased since the French occupation, and the island appears to be rich in valuable ores.

The trade of Madagascar, which consists in the export of cattle, india-rubber, hides, coffee, sugar, vanilla, gum copal, rice, &c., and in the import of cotton goods, spirits, metal goods, and earthenware, is carried on principally with France, being 84 per cent. of the whole trade. export and import, does not amount to two millions sterling a year, a very small amount for so large and naturally so rich a country. There were till recently neither roads nor railways, no wheeled vehicles or even beasis of

But the total trade,

turnal apes which are peculiar to the island. of a former independent continent. 1. Called Lemuria, from the lemurs or noc-1 A. R. Wallace, however, discards the supposition

burden-passengers and goods being carried by màromita or bearers. Canoes are used in the rivers and, with sailing boats and dhows, on the coast. Tamatave, on the east coast, and Mojanga, on the north-west coast, at the entrance to Bembatooka Bay, into which the Ikopa River flows, are the chief ports. Annual Imports, 1%1⁄2 millions; Exports, 1 millions. A railway is being constructed from Tamatave to Antananarivo.

ANTANANARIVO (70), the native capital, is situated on the high plateau of Imerina, near the centre of the island. The town is built on the slope of a steep hill, and is 200 miles from Tamatave, on the east coast, and 230 miles from Mojanga, on the north-west coast. A railway is building between Tamatave and the capital.

The French long claimed a right to a protectorate over the north-western portion of the island, in virtue of a treaty said to have been made many years ago with a chief of the then independent Sakalavas, but their demands being rejected by the Hova government, Tamatave was bombarded and occupied ; and ultimately, by a treaty signed in December, 1885, Madagascar became a French Protectorate, which, by the Anglo-French Agreement of 1890, was recognised by England. As the native government refused to accept the Protectorate, a French expedition was despatched in 1895, and Antananarivo was occupied after a protracted campaign, in which the French lost more heavily from fever than from actual fighting. In 1896 the island and its dependencies were declared a French colony, and, in 1897, the Queen was, with her family, deported to Réunion. The French Resident-General now rules the whole island, with the assistance of an Administrative Council, and Pesidents have been placed in various towns throughout the island.

THE COMORO ISLANDS.

Midway between the north end of Madagascar and the mainland, are the Comoro Islands, a group of four high and volcanic islands -Great Comoro and Mohilla, the nearest to the African coast, and Johanna and Mayotte nearest to that of Madagascar.

Mayotte is a flourishing French colony, exporting large quantities of sugar, rum, and vanilla. The other three islands are under the rule of the Arab Sultan of Great Comoro, and were taken under the protection of France in 1886. The bulk of the inhabitants, who number about 65,000, are Bantu negroes, and the entire group has an area of 760 square miles. The Arab and Malay traders carry on a brisk trade with Zanzibar, Mozambique, and Madagascar.

RÉUNION.

The French island of Réunion or Bourbon, which has been a French Colony since 1764, lies about 400 miles east of Madagascar, and 110 miles south-west of Mauritius.

Réunion, which is about one-third part larger than Mauritius, contains two lofty volcanoes-the Piton des Neiges (10,000 feet), covered with snow for six

1. These half-naked porters belong to a special the loads they soon learn to carry from hurting carrying tribe. "As the result of generations of them."-Dr. H. R. Mill,

this kind of work, the children are born with thick 2. Sainte Marie has been French since 1851, and pad, of skin on the shoulder blades, which prevent | Nossi Bé, since 1840.