from Delagoa Bay to the Rovuma River, and extend inland to the edge of the Manica Plateau and the shores of Lake Nyassa. This immense territory forms the Province of Mozambique, and, with its dependencies, has an area of about 293,000 square miles and a population of perhaps 3 millions, consisting of negroes of Kaffir or Zulu origin and numerous half-caste Portuguese.

Mozambique, as Portuguese East Africa is officially termed, is governed by a Governor-General, who has a colonial military force and a small navy, and is divided into the districts of Mozambique, Zambesia, and Lo-enzo Marquez, Inhambane, Gazaland and Tete. Portuguese authority is practically confined to the neighbourhood of the towns and forts, and the Home Government has to face an annual deficit. The commercial development of the region between the Zambesi and the Sabi has been entrusted by the Portuguese Government to the Mozambique Company; and the region north of the Lurio River from Lake Nyassa to the coast is administered by the Nyassa Company.

The principal places in Portuguese East Africa are MOZAMBIQUE (51⁄2), the capital, a busy seaport on a coral islet close to the shore (nearly under the 15° S. lat., and thus almost exactly opposite Mossamedes on the west coast); Chinde, the port of the only navigable mouth of the Zambes, where the river vessels meet the ocean steamers; Quilimane (Kilimane), on the most northerly of the delta mouths of the Zambesi ;1 Beira, a small port at the mouth of the Pungwe River, important as being the terminus of the railway to Mashonaland; Sofala, a port supposed to be the Ophir, whither King Solomon sent his ships for gold, &c.; Inhambane, on the coast near Cape Corrientes, the outlet for a fertile, well-wooded district; Port Amelia, on Pemba Bay; and Lorenzo Marquez, on Delagoa Bay, the terminal port of the railway to Pretoria.

On the Zambesi, the only noteworthy places are Sena, on the lower Zambesi, 140 miles from the sea; Tete, 150 miles higher up, formerly an important trading centre; and Zumbo, a Portuguese settlement near the confluence of the Loangwa with the Zambesi.

The occupation of Mashonaland, and the conquest of Matabeleland, have brought the Pungwe River and Bay, as well as the port of Beira, into prominence, and also the inland stations of Massi-Kessi (which is on the small portion of the plateau still within the Portuguese border) and Umtali, which is on British territory on the eastern border of the Manica Plateau. The impetus given by the discovery of gold, and of districts suitable for European settlement in the interior, must favourably influence the long-dormant coast region, and, with the introduction of railways, ports will spring up and harbours will be made, so that, in a few years, Portugal may no longer have to meet the annual deficits of her immense colony of Mozambique, the rich and varied resources of which she has hitherto left almost entirely undeveloped. The East Coast Railway to Mashonaland is now open from Beira, on the Pungwe River, to Salisbury, the capital of Mashonaland.

As regards Gazaland, which the Portuguese claim in virtue of a treaty with the paramount chief, Gungunhana, but which he denies ever having signed, the whole of this rich territory, between the Manica Plateau and the coast, is, according to the Anglo-Portuguese Convention of 1891, included within the

1. The most northern of them-the Quilimane River.

Portuguese sphere, in spite of the fact that Gungunhana, in 1891, sent two envoys to England to protest against the Portuguese pretensions to suzerainty over his country, and to make known his eager desire to be taken under the protection of the "Great White Queen." Gazaland, which recently has been constituted a military district, though it is virtually independent, extends along the shores of the Indian Ocean for some 600 miles, and is bounded on the north by the Zambesi for some 300 miles, on the west by Mashonaland, and on the south by Tongaland, Swaziland, and the Transvaal,

The Portuguese have, however, long held the only ports in use on the Gazalan littoral, and have thus controlled the ingress to the country from the sea. The Gaza king has a standing army of 15,000 men, and reserves of double that number; about 2,000 are armed with rifles, the rest have assegais and spears. The country is evidently rich in gold, especially the Massi-Kessi portion of the Manica Plateau, but even down in the low country, between the Busi and the Pungwe, there are old workings still rich in the precious metal.

The Anglo-Portuguese Convention of 1891, stipulated for the construction of a railway and a telegraph line between Pungwe Bay and Rhodesia, and for the leasing to British subjects, for 99 years, of land at the Chinde mouth of the Zambesi-to be used under regulations for the landing, storage, and transhipment of goods. And further, that the navigation of the Zambesi and the Shire, without excepting any of their branches and outlets, shall be entirely free for the ships of all nations; and that the transit of persons and goods of every description over the waterways of the Zambesi, the Shire, the Pungwe, the Busi, the Limpopo, the Sati, and their tributaries, and also over the landways, which supply means of communication where these rivers are not navigable, shall also be free.

The colony is administered by an Imperial Governor, and there is a military and police force of about 2,500 men. The revenue and expenditure each amount to about half-a-million sterling.

GERMAN EAST AFRICA.

GERMAN EAST AFRICA extends along the coast to the north of the Rovuma River, and stretches westwards to Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika, and northward to the Victoria Nyanza and Mount Kilimanjaro. The total area of this vast territory is estimated at 384,000 square miles (or one-third larger than Germany itself, but the population does not exceed 7 millions, with 1,870 Europeans.

Politically, the Protectorate is cunded by British East Africa on the north, the Congo State on the west, British Central Africa on the south-west, and by Portuguese East Africa on the south. Physically, its limits are marked by the

Umba River, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Victoria Nyanza, and Mount Mfumbiro on the north, Lake Tanganyika on the west, Lake Nyassa on the south-west, and the Rovuma River on the south.1

This vast territory is the largest and by far the most valuable of all the colonial possessions of Germany. It embraces 'high plateaux, lofty mountains, beautiful valleys, and strong rivers, where the rainy season unchains immense torrents.' The most fertile portions of the colony are the Highlands of Usambara, the rice district of the Rufiji delta, and the mountainous Kondeland to the north-east of Lake Nyassa, where coffee is successfully grown.

It is, in fact, a superb region, but it is haunted by deadly fevers, especially along the coast, and acclimatization, even in the interior, will always be extremely difficult. European colonization indeed, as in Northern Rhodesia, is not to be thought of, although Europeans can live here, as in India and Ceylon, for many years, but only as directors of native or imported labour on the cotton, coffee, and tobacco plantations, &c. The chief exports are ivory, copal, gum, caoutchouc, and sesame seed: the imports consist principally of cotton goods, glass beads, copper and brass wire, and, unhappily, gunpowder and gin. The chief ports are DAR ES SALAAM, which is also the seat of government, Bagamoyo, on the coast opposite Zanzibar, Saadani and Pangani, further north. The great trade-route into the interior leads from Bagamoyo through Mpwapwa and Tabora to Ujiji, an Arab trading station on the east of Lake Tanganyika. Kafuro, on the Alexandra Nile in the north-west, is another trading station, founded by the Arabs near the capital of the native State of Karagwe, nearly the whole of which is included within the German sphere of influence, as delimited by the Anglo-German Agreement of July, 1890.2 Bukoba is an important trading station on the Victoria Nyanza. A railway from Tanga on the coast is open to Korogwe, and another line is projected from Dar es Salaam.

BRITISH EAST AFRICA.

BRITISH EAST AFRICA extends along the coast from the Umba River in the south, to the Juba River on the north-a distance of 400 miles. Inland, the "British Sphere of Influence" extends westwards beyond the Victoria and Albert Nyanzas to the borders of the Congo Free State-a distance of 900 miles. On the east, the British sphere is conterminous with the Italian sphere and Abyssinia. As a result of the recent Anglo-Egyptian operations in the Sudan against the power of the Khalifa, British influence extends from the

1. The actual boundary line, as laid down by the Conventions of 1886 and 1890 with England, and that of 1886 with Portugal, runs north-west from the Umba River by the north of Kilimanjaro to the eastern shore of the Victoria Nyanza. To the west of the Nyanza it follows the prallel of 1° S. lat, to the boundary of the Congo State, making a loop, however, so as to pass south of Mount Mfumbiro, which is to remain in British territory. It then runs Southwards alung Lake Tanganyika and across the Tauganyika Nyassa platead, a short distance to the north of the Stevenson Road. It then follows Lake Nyassato 11° 30' S. lat., and strikes cast to the junction of the A Sinje River and the Rovuma, and then follows the later to the sea,

2. According to the 7imes, Dr. Carl Peters was the pioneer of the German Colonial Empire in Africa. Towards the en 1 of 1884, he and two other adven

turers slipped into the territory opposite Zanzibar, before the eyes of the unsuspicious British represen tatives, and, in a week or two after, came out with a bagful of treaties which they professed gave them rights over some thousands of square miles. In the following year, the German East Africa Company, which Peters had founded, was granted a Schutzbrief, or Charter. The coast territory, which formed part of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, was leased for 50 years (from 1888), but the high handed proceedings of inexperienced officials excited a formidable rebclion in 1839, which was, however, suppressed by for e. The Sultan's rights to the coast strip and ports were purchased in 1890, and since then the entire country, from the sea to the Great Lakes, has been regarded as an exclusively German poš

session.

great lakes uninterruptedly through the Nile Valley to the recently constituted Egyptian boundary in 22° N. lat.

The boundaries of British East Africa, as defined by the Anglo German Agreements of 1886 and 1890 and the Anglo-Italian Agreement of 1891, are as follows:-The line of demarcation between the British and German spheres runs in a north-west direction from the north bank of the mouth of the River Umba towards and round by the north of Kilimanjaro, to where the 1o N. lat. cuts the Victoria Nyanza; thence across the lake and westwards, along the same parallel, to the boundary of the Congo Free State, but deflecting south, so as to include Mount Mfumbiro and the districts covered by Stanley's treaties within the British 'Sphere.' Between the British and the Italian spheres on the east, the line follows, from the sea, the 7 halweg, or mid-channel, of the Juba River up to 6° N. lat., Kismayu, with its territory on the right bank of the river, thus remaining to England. The boundary with Abysinnia is being demarcated. Further north, as we have said, the entire region up to the Egyptian frontier is within the British Sphere of Influence, and as Egypt itselt is practically a British Protectorate, and Rhodesia is definitely declared to be British, had it not been for the unfortunate cession of the Victoria-Tanganyika uplands to Germany, one might have travelled from Cape Town to Cairo through British territory.

British East Africa has an area of some 420,000 square miles, and the rest of the British sphere of influence to the Egyptian frontier at least 950,000 square miles-a total area of over one and a third million square miles, of which, however, but a comparatively small portion in the south has been as yet effectively occupied. The population, which consists of various Negro tribes, Arabs, and Banyan or Hindu traders, for so vast a territory is small, amounting to not more than 7 millions in the southern, and to 2 millions in the northern, division of a region which measures over 1,600 miles from north to south.

The administration and development of all the territories included within the British sphere were entrusted to the Imperial British East Africa Company, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1888, the coast territory and ports, which formerly belonged to the Sultan of Zanzibar, having been conceded to the Company by the Sultan in 1887-9. The Company transferred the administration of its territories to the Imperial Government in 1895; and in 1905 the Colonial Office took over the control from the Foreign Office. The territory is now divided into the East Africa Protectorate and the Uganda Protectorate. The Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, off the coast of German East Africa, are also under British protection, though still ruled by their Arab sultan.

The EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE, which extends from the Umba to the Juba, and inland to the Protectorate of Uganda, is now divided into the provinces of Seyyidieh, Ukamba, Tana-land, Juba-land, Kenia, Naivasha, and Kisumu, and is under the control of a Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief. The area is 177,000 square miles, with a population of about 4,000,000. The two highest mountains of Africa, Kilimanjaro, 19,700 feet, and Kenia, 17,200 feet, rise above the inland plateaux, and the great rilt" valleys, which form the characteristic features of a great part of the interior. The country is being rapidly exploited, forts and trading stations have been established, and a railway is now open from Mombasa to the Victoria Nyanza, by means of which the resources of the thickly peopled districts of the interior are now opened up to trade. The railway is 572 miles in length, and cost nearly £5,000,000.

The navigable waterways of the Tava and the Juba rivers afford excellent means of communication with the populous regions through which they flow. Steamers have been already placed on the Tana, and from Mombasa there is regular steam communication with other African ports and with Europe and

India. The chief port and seat of government, MOMBASA, is situated on an island off the coast. It has a fine harbour, with piers and jetties, and a population of nearly 25,000 inhabitants. Malindi, Lamu, the capital of Tana-land, and Kismayu, the capital of Juba-land, are other important trading stations on the coast. Nairobi, in the interior, is the capital of the province of Ukamba.

The formerly independent states of Uganda and Unyoro, between the Victoria Nyanza and the Albert Nyanza, are important links in the chain of communications between the British stations on the East Coast and the rich provinces of the Upper Nile. Together with Usoga, in the east, they were formed in July, 1896, into the Protectorate of Uganda.

UGANDA.

The British Protectorate of UGANDA, formerly the largest and most powerful of the native states of Equatorial East Africa, includes the region on 'the north and north-west of the Victoria Nyanza, and, with Usoga and the vassal States on the eastern side of the Nile, has an area of 223,000 square miles, and a population of perhaps 3 millions, mostly negroes of the Bantu race. The Protectorate extends from 1° south latitude and the Victoria Nyanza to about 59 north latitude; and thence from the Congo State in the west to Lake Rudolf and the British East Africa Protectorate in the east. Gondo Koro, on the Nile, is the limit between Uganda and the Egyptian Sudan.

Uganda is a country of undulating plains, with rich and fertile valleys and well-wooded hills. The climate is hot, but not unhealthy-the country lying at an altitude of from 5,000 to 6,000 feet-and the rainfall is often heavy in spring and autumn. The Uganda people supply ivory, skins, cattle, goats, and other native products to Arab traders in exchange for fire-arms and ammunition, woven fabrics, and other goods. The chief caravan routes pass through the great market town of Mruli, on the Somerset Nile, and from the opposite shore of the Victoria Nyanza to Mombasa and Zanzibar. The railway from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza is now connected with a steamer service on the lake, and so taps the greater part of the trade of the adjoining regions.

The late King Mtesa was a powerful sovereign, and under his arbitrary rule the country became rich and, in some degree, civilised. His son, Mwanga, by a treaty (1889) with the British East Africa Company, placed his country under British protection, but, owing to severe conflicts between the Mohammedan, Catholic, and Protestant parties, and the excessive cost of perinanent occupation, the company threatened, towards the end of 1892, to withdraw their agents and abandon the country. This gave rise to such strong protests, that the Home Government delayed the evacuation, and sent out an Imperial Commissioner to report on the state of affairs and "the best means of dealing with the country." After considering Sir Gerald Portal's report, the British Government determined, in 1894, to establish a regular administration, and for that purpose declared Uganda to be under British protection. MENGO, on Murchison Bay, an inlet on the north-western coast of the Victoria Nyanza, is the royal residence, but Entebbe is the seat of administration. The Protectorate is divided into the following five provinces: Central, Rudolf, Nile, Western, and Uganda.

UNYORO, which is included in the Protectorate, lies to the west of Uganda Proper, and includes the fertile and well-watered plateau between Uganda and the Albert Nyanza and the Semliki River. The Wanyoro people are, like the Waganda, of the Bantu stock, but the chiefs and sovereigns of both States are the descendants of the Wa-huma (Galla) conquerors and founders of the great Empire of Kitwara, which was broken up into the States of Unyoro, Uganda, Karagwe, Ruanda, &c. Kabba Regga, the former king of Unyoro, was a lineal descendant of the "King of Kitwara." He opposed the British advance, but was defeated and driven out of the country in 1894, and a line of forts was then erected along the south-western shores of Lake Albert. The people are skilled metal workers, and cultivate the soil and rear large herds of cattle, which, with ivory, salt, and gums, are disposed of to Arab traders in exchange for guns and ammunition, cotton, and other goods.