THE RACE FOR AFRICA. / YvVi U#.W> Oo^'^W^veA 1 e r HAMPTON, VA.: Nonna l School Steam Press. 1883. THE RACE FOR AFRICA. There has never been a more intense and concentrated effort to open a continent than is now directed towards Africa. From Algeria, from Egypt, from Zanzibar, from the mouth of the Zambesi, from Na- tal, from Cape Colony, from Benguela via Bihe, from the Congo and the Ogowe, the Niger, the St. Paul’s, the Gambia and the Senegal, the influences of exploration, commerce, missionary and colonization endeavor are penetrating the vast interior with so much energy and success that, with whatever difficulties and obstacles, the result can- not be doubtful. A few years will give access to the immense and varied treasures of a magnificent quarter of the globe, and bring its mighty domain under the sway of Christian civilization. Governmental. At no time in the last century has every part of the Mediterranean been so involved in European diplomacy as at the present day. An uprising in Egypt summons the might of Eng- land to cease only when the horrible slave trade, which continues to devastate the upper Nile countries, shall be suppressed, and order, an upright administration of laws, and a free channel for the world’s com- merce shall be secured. France has assumed supreme control of Tunis at a great cost of blood and treasure. Leading governments have taken steps for securing more adequate protection for foreigners in Morocco. The progress of French dominion in Central Africa is noted by the return of the national expedition under Capt. Gallieni. This ex- ploration had for its main object the location of the proposed govern- ment branch line of the Sahara railway from the headwaters of the Niger to the French military colony on the Senegal, thence to con- nect by steamer with France, and to treat with the natives. In all respects the mission seems to have been successful. At the same time, France has not abandoned the scheme of building a railroad from Algeria to Timbuctoo ; and the project of flooding portions of the Great Desert is again discussed with new vigor. The bill introduced in the Chamber of Deputies by the Minister of War for the creation of an African army, provides that this effective force shall consist of fifty- eight battalions, three hundred and one companies of infantry, seventy- five squadrons of cavalry, and thirteen batteries of artillery with nine- ty guns, in addition to the engineer and transport services. 2 Explorations. The Portuguese government has decided to establish stations in its extensive African possessions for the assistance of explorers and commercial caravans, by giving such information and help as may be needed. Each station will be in the midst of an inclosure sufficiently large to admit of the necessary buildings, and enough productive land to afford self-support by cultivation. It will have at its head a mili- tary officer, whose staff is to be composed of a surgeon, chaplain, and a dozen master-workmen, such as carpenters, masons and farmers. Trading houses will have agents at the stations for traffic with the natives. Capt. Capello is to have charge of the first station, which is to be located at Bihe. The same government has signed a con- tract with the National Steam Navigation Company for a packet ser- vice between Lisbon and Portuguese ports on the West Coast of Af- rica. The extreme points of the new line will be Lisbon and Mossa- medes, the intermediate ports at which tne vessels will call being Funchal, (Madeira,) St. Vincent, and Santiago, (Cape Verde Islands,) Prince’s Island, San Thome, Rio Zaira, (Congo,) Ambris, Loando, and Benguela, The new steamers must not be over 4,000 or under 1,800 tons burthen, with minimum speed of ten and a half miles an hour, and accommodations for 60 first and second and 126 third- class passengers. The Portuguese government will grant an annual subsidy of £ 6,600 , or $33,000. The Italian government is preparing to dispatch a special messen- ger to King John of Abyssinia, with the draft of an amicable treaty and gifts of natural and artificial stones, guns for hunting elephants, bar- rel organs, and various nick-nacks. So large has become the number of vessels and men engaged, and so important the interests to be guarded, that the Admiralty will here- after appoint an admiral instead of a commodore to the command of the British squadron on the West Coast of Africa. Explorations. Among the papers of the late Capt. Wybrants, is a minute statement concerning the Sabia, which flows into the Mo- zambique. Dr. Flegel has penetrated the Sahara region. The ex- pedition of the Geographical Society of Rome, in charge of Signors Matteucci and Massari, has crossed the continent from Egypt to the Gulf of Guinea. M. Sueci, of the Italian Society of Commerce, has returned from Madagascar and the Commores, bearing an advanta- geous concession. Major Mechow has arrived at Milan from research- es in Loando. Enin Bey asserts that Beatrice gulf, supposed to be a bay of the Albert Nyanza, is a separate body of water, Three cas- cades have been discovered on the Quango. Dr. Stecker, of the German African Society, is making encouraging Explorations. 3 progress from Abyssinia to the Central lakes, after an examination of lake Tzana and its vicinity. This lake is one of the many formed by the rivers which come foaming down from the Abyssinian mount- ains, rushing over the rocks in such magnificent cascades as to earn for this region the title of the Switzerland of Africa. Several rivers of considerable size flow into it, the principal one, the Blue Nile, en- tering at the south-west, near which juts out the peninsula of Zegni, its whole mountainous surface forming one immense coffee planta- tion. The dwellings are of stone, and like the majority of those of the other villages of the lake, are distinguished from those of the interior by a remarkable degree of neatness, as well as for the hos- pitality of their inmates. Dr. Stecker estimates the area of lake Tzana as five times that of the lake of Geneva. The Royal Geographical Society of England has decided on equipping a party for the exploration of the equatorial yet snow-cap- ped mountains Kenia and Killimanjaro, and the country thence to tne eastern shores of the Victoria Nyanza ; Mr. Joseph Thomson is to be the commander. Four exploring expeditions are preparing by the International African Association, of which the King of Belgium is the zealous president. The first, under Col. YVouvermanns, will go from Daves-Salaam, south of Zanzibar, to Urango, south of the Tanganyika, whose southern shore they will explore as far as Karama, They will then journey to ascertain where the Lualaba flows into the lake c< Moero-Okata. To reach Nyangue, they will go to meet the second expedition, led by Prof. Dusief, which starts from Capstadt and fol- lows Livingstones' route up the valley of the Zambesi to Lathosi. They will penetrate the Londo to ascertain the exact source of Lake Bang- weola, and passing through Benba, will join Col. Wouvermann’s par- ty in Casembe, so that they may make the difficult journey to Nyan- gue together. The third, commanded by Col. Strauch, will explore the Congo. A number of small steamers that can be taken to pieces will be transported from the lower to the higher portion of that famous river by one thousand natives, whom Stanley has collect- ed at Vivi. The fourth expedition, under Mr. Emil Banning and Capt. Theis, will start from Khartoum for Gondokoro, by Uragga, along the western shore of the Albert Nyanza. A Spanish party is to survey the district between the bay of Cor- isco and the Albert Nyanza. The country of the Gallas is to be exam- ined by Baron Muller, and also by Count Pennazzi, the latter then proceeding to the Central lakes. The Italian travelers, Bianchi and Sicata, are preparing at Naples,' at the expense of Signor Rocco, to proceed to Abyssinia and thence into the interior, in the interest of trade for the Italian station at Assab. The Geographical Society of 4 The Congo. Milan has resolved to support Signor Benzi in an effort to cross Af- rica through the country of the Gallas, from east to west. A Russian expedition is to explore the region between Mount Cameroon, the Adamon and the Congo. The Congo. Stanley is reported to have completed stations at Vivi, Isangila, Manyenga and Stanley Pool, the latter situated just above the rapids, whence flows fifteen hundred miles of navigable wa- ters through a rich and populous country. The projected road, one hundred and ninety miles in length, to avoid the cataracts below, is in course of construction. The expenses have been heavy, and not hitherto covered by the profits of commercial operations, as had been at one time hoped. These four stations promise to become extensive trading towns. Each one is in care of an European with two white assistants. Count Savorgnan de Brazza is represented to have been in active negotiation with the tribes along his newly-discovered route connect- ing the head-waters of the Ogowe with those of the Alima, which empties into the upper Congo. He is stated to have taken possession of the countries through which he passed in the name of France and to have entered into treaty relations with chiefs at and near Stan- ley Pool, in which they acknowledge the suzerainty of the French re- public. He has also founded the station of Brazzaville, on the Congo, in the immediate neighborhood of Stanley Pool. These proceedings and the possibility of international difficulty growing out of them, has caused the unexpected return of Stanley and de Brazza to Europe. Commercial. The River Gambia Trading Company has been incorporated in London with a capital of ^'150,000, ($750,000,) in 150, 000 shares of £ 1 ($5) each, to operate on the Gambia; the directors declaring their intention to trade direct with the United States and West Indies for the purpose of importing tobacco, flour &c. A pros- pectus has appeared in the same city, of the Congo and Central Af- rican Company, capital ,£250,000 ($1,250,000,) in 50,000 sharesof ,£5 ($25) each, to trade along the southwest African coast, and especially on the Congo, using the road which Stanley is building. The Niger Company is seeking in England to increase its capital stock. The field of operation is large, and to work it effectively, more steam- ers and stations are necessary. For the fostering and development of the new settlements in Liberia, which are gradually advancing to the interior, and to facilitate traffic, it is proposed to put on the St. Paul’s a steamboat of moderate size for the accommodation of passen- gers and the conveyance of freight to and from the seaboard to various points on the river as far as the head of navigation, To carry out this Gold M lues. 5 object, a company of Liberian citizens at Monrovia has been organized and $2,500 subscribed. It is intended to obtain a suitable boat in the United States. The Liberia Interior Association is another recent organization at Monrovia, whose aim is “to’carry on and , foster trade with the interior of Africa, to suggest and provide methods of carriage and transportation, and to promote agricultural and commercial inter- ests in that direction.” The African Lakes Junction Company has commenced the construction of a carriage road between lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika, on the completion of which there will be a line of route, rivers, lakes and road, extending about two thousand miles, from Ouilimane, by the Kawaka, Zambesi, Shire and Lake Nyassa. to the northern end of the Tanganyika. The Livingstone Central African Company has opened a trading factory at Inhamissengo, at the mouth of the Zambesi. It found there two other companies for trade, one French and the other Portuguese. A company has been formed in the Transvaal, with considerable capital, to open the silver mines of Tati. Port Eliza- beth is the principal sea-port on the east coast of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and the report of its Chamber of Commerce gives the value of articles of merchandise imported during the year 1881 as ,£4,001,668, ($20,008,340.) and the value of colonial produce exported during the same period as £^2,583,727 ,($12,918,685.) The customs returns for the port of Algoa Bay during the year 1881, were ,£879,947. ($ 4 - 399 . 735 .) Railroads. Materials for the construction of a railroad by the French government from the mouth of the Senegal to Medina have been transported inland, and a corps of Chinese workmen sent to build it, the King of Foutah guaranteeing their security in passage. This door of entrance into western Soudan seems much more prac- ticable than the Trans-Saharian route from Tripoli to Timbuctoo. The railway in Algeria has been extended from Saida to Kreider. The Wassaw Light Railway Company, formed in London in the in- terest of West African gold mining companies, has dispatched an engineer to Dix Cove to make surveys and to prepare plans. Rail- roads are building from Natal toward the interior. The Orange Free State has offered to make a road to the northern border of the Natal colony to meet one from its sea-port town. A contract has been sign- ed for the construction of a railway from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria, Gold Mines. The area of gold mining on the Gold Coast of West Africa by European enterprise is extending, and the conviction is strengthening that those territories will ere long rank among the richest known. The work of extraction, reduction and stamping is 6 Diamonds. going on actively in the mines of the West African, the Gold Coast,, the Effuenta, the Akankoo, the Wassaw, the Core d’ Or d’ Afrique, the Aboso and other companies. Four companies for operating in the same district have lately been incorporated in London: the South Gold Coast, the Tacquah, the Guinea Coast and the Matasong, the shares of which were quickly taken. The Core d’ Or d’ Afrique and Aboso companies publish every two weeks in Paris a “Bulletin des Mines.” The text is in French, and it gives reports- by mining engineers on the Gold Coast gold mines. Capt. Burton and Commander Cameron, the distinguished Afri- can travelers, have returned from an examination of the West African gold fields, and in papers read by them before the Society of Arts, London, the former ‘ recapitulated” as follows: “The good news we bring home is the prodigious wealth of the land. I know nothing to equal it in California or in the Brazils. Gold dust is panned by native women from the sands by the seashore. Gold spangles glitter after showers in the streets of Axitn. Gold is yielded by the lumps of yellow swish that rivet the wattle walls of hut and hovel. Our wash- ings range from half an ounce to four ounces per ton. There, then, is the gold, and it will be our fault only if it remains there. I know no land better able to supply the measure required in England to preserve the balance of the precious metals than this old New Cali- fornia, our neglected El Dorado, the Gold Coast.” Commander Cameron stated that he and his companion were of the same opinion as to the abundance of gold, but it was his individual judgment “that immigration of labor was necessary for the whole West Coast, which would be provided best from China." Diamonds. — The gross weight of diamonds which passed through the Kimberly (South Africa) post office in 1880 was 1,440 pounds, 12 ounces avoirdupois, the estimated value being ,£3,367,897. These fig- ures compare with 1,174 pounds and £2,846,631 in 1879: 1,150 pounds and £2,672,744 in 1878; 903 pounds and £1 12,427 in 1877: and 773 pounds and $1,807,532 in 1876. The annual value of the mines in the Kimber- ly division, owned at the end of 1880 by the government and the Lon- don and South African Exploration Company is estimated as follows; Kimberly, £4,000.000: Old de Beer’s, £2,000,000; Du Joits Pan, £1,000,- 000 and Bultfontein, £1,500,000. At the end of last year 22,000 black and 1, 700 white men were employed at these mines. From the Kimberly and Old de Beer’s mines alone, diamonds to the extent of 3,200,000 carats are annually mined, while the other mines above named yielded 300,000 carats last year. Native Iron. — Algeria contains rich deposits of iron ore. At Dje- ( oal. bel and Sjer, specular iron ore is wrought, while at Mockta-el Hadid magnetic Iron ore is worked. At Melik, pig iron is made from the spathose ores of the district, native coal previously coked, being em- ployed in their reduction, The quantity and value of the iron ores imported from Algeria into Great Britain rose from the year 1863, 263 tons, value ^201 ($1,005,) to the year 1880, 82,248 tons, value ^86,884, ($434,420.) The Mockta-el Hadid Company in its annual report for 1879, states that at Bona 310,674 tons of iron ore were mined in that year, 25,000 tons more than in 1878. It is well known that the natives im- mediately in the vicinity of Liberia manufacture rude agricultural and other implements out of iron ore so pure that when heated it becomes sufficiently malleable to admit of being wrought into any shape or form without the process of smelting. A specimen piece of this ore. sent to the writer by an emigrant blacksmith from Virginia, has been an- alyzed by Dr. A. A. Hayes, State Geologist of Massachusetts, with the following certified result: “ Its chemical composition is 98.40 per cent, pure iron: and quartz grains, magnetic oxide, iron crystals and zeolite 1.60 per cent: total 100 parts.” This discovery is interesting to science and art. Native iron in large deposits is as probable as was that of native copper before the opening of the mines on lake Superior. Native cop- per had been known for ages to exist, but till the opening of those mines it had never been found in quantities to be of much commercial im- portance. Now it is found in great abundance, and some of it in masses •o immense that the miners are troubled with their vastness. Whether the native iron of Liberia exists in similar abundance can be deter- mined only by actual examination of the country. Should large quan- tities exist near gome navigable stream or port, its commercial value roust be incalculable. Coal. — Africa is an immense virgin market for the productions and industries of Europe and America. In the year 1880 Great Britain shipped 1,001,280 tons of c©al. 778 tons of cinders, and 45,666 tons of patent fuel, the latter mostly made of coal, total value ^5 1 3.- 988, ($2,569,940), to the following named points;* Place. T ripoli and Tunis ...... . Algeria Morocco West Coast of Africa British poss’ns in S. Africa East Coast of Africa Egypt ... Totals * Acknowledgment is gratefully made to Peter W. Sheafer Esq., for these statistics of coal, and those just given touching iron in Algeria ; and to the Western Christian Advo- cate of Cincinnati ; Missionary Herald of Boston, Foreign Missionary of New York, African Times of London, and L’Afrique of Geneva, for valuable information freely incorporated in this article. Tons of Coal. ...3,308 . .46,182 S' .124,474 . 168,289 . . 9,649 ■••351,953 ...649,327 . I,00I,280 Cinders. .482 .296 . 778 Patent Fuel. • 39,2x3 . . . . 230 . .2,386 26 ••1,565 • 43,420 . . 2,240 45,660 Value. Missions. S The Slave Trade. — The cause of human liberty has been advanced by the overthrow of the Mohammedan slave trade in Zanzibar and par- tially in Egypt, and the property in slaves is being abolished in the Por- tuguese possessions in southeast Africa, and in the neighboring island of Madagascar. Sir John Kirk, the British consul-general at Zanzibar, who earned his knighthood by his services in connection with the abolition of the slave traffic and the advance of civilization in East Africa, has resigned and returned to England. Col. Mills, the British political agent at Mascate. has been appointed to succeed Dr. Kirk at Zanzibar. Missions. The courage and faith of the English missionary societies in the prosecution of.their work in the lake portions of Cen- tral Africa is worthy of all commendation. The great distance from the base of supplies, making necessary a long and trying land jour- ney, and the unhealthiness of the country are serious obstacles, yet they have enlarged their operations and increased the rr. issionarv bands. The Baptist and the Livingstone Inland Mission have advanced on the Con- go to Stanley Pool. Nine laborers were added to the staff of the latter during the past year, leaving the number just what it was at the begin- ning, nine having been removed by death or other causes from the field. Some of the new members took with them an iron house for Banana, and the steam-launch Livingstone. Cardinal Lavigerie states in the Missions Catholiques that there will be four departments (provicaiato) in the mission of Rome to Cen- tral Africa — i, Nyanza ; 2, Tanganyika; 3, Northern LTpper Congo; 4, Southern Upper Congo. The last two sections have not been enter- ed. In the first two districts twenty-six missionaries, lay and clerical, are reported. The Algiers Mission of the same church has transfer- red its medical college from St. Louis, in Algeria, to Malta, where it will continue to prepare natives of Africa for medical missions among their tribes. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in ad- dition to its work among the Zulus, has planted its standard at Bihe, two hundred and fifty miles back from Benguela, and in Umzilla’s Land, near the east coast of Mozambique. In each case a manly and vigorous population has been found under the government of chiefs of rare natural ability and of impulses favorable to mission efforts- In both, pioneers have fallen on the threshold of their career. Doctors Ladd ind Snow, of the American Missionary Association, have returned from a tour of some twenty-five hundred miles up the Nile, to the mouth of the Sobat. They report the Negro-Arab leader, Mohammed Achmet, dominating the region in which the Arthirg- Colonization. 9 ton mission is proposed to be located, while the condition of Egypt gives little promise that its authority can be speedily re-established in her remote provinces in Soudan. A delay, therefore, is inevitable in the labors of the Association in this direction. The Baptist Missionary Union has felt obliged to decline the offer of Robert Arthington, Esq., to give £ 7,000 to establish a mis- sion in the Soudan country. It proposes to resume vigorous opera- tions in Liberia, and to awaken an interest in this undertaking among the colored churches of the United States. Through the munificence of Mr. Arthington, many a missionary enterprise has been begun in Africa, which might have been delayed for years. The Gaboon and Corisco Mission of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church has been reinforced, in view particularly of its new departure inland. The missionary bishop of Cape Palmas writes “that four out of seven of the white missionaries in this jurisdiction will return to America for their health this year. White men must grow fewer and fewer in proportion to the workers from among the Negro brethren, until the whole shall be turned over to the people whose home is here.” * * * “We cannot count on more than three years in this field of every four of the white missionary’s term of service, and of these three years there are large deductions to be made of the time one is sick here.” Those acquainted with the facts know that if the visible results of missionary effort appear insufficient, such insufficiency is only apparent. The wonder should not be that missionary success in Af- rica has been so limited, but that, under the circumstances, so much has been accomplished, not only directly upon missionary proteges but indirectly upon African communities ; that the indirect and un- conscious influence of missionary endeavor has been so great ; that its gains for Christianity have been so many, so real and so widely spread in various portions of that continent. Colonization. The Republic of Liberia, which occupies one of the finest regions in Western Africa, was founded by Negroes from the United States. The first colonists, consisting of eighty-eight per- sons, sailed from New York in February, 1820, and landed, after a voyage of five weeks, at the British Colony of Sierra Leone. Not satisfied with the openings there, they sailed for Sherbro, about one hundre i miles further south, where they encountered fresh difficul- ties. At length, after various trials and losses, they succeeded in get- ting a foothold on Cape Mesurado, 260 miles southeast of Sierra Le- one, in latitude 7 19 N. By gradual acquisitions of territory from the TO Liberia. native chiefs, made by treaty or purchase, they have extended from Cape Mesurado to the Sherbro river on the northwest, about ninety miles, and to the river San Pedro on the southeast, over four hun- dred miles. Up to 1847 they were festered by the American Colonization Society, which appointed their governors, in that year, feeling themselves strong enough to take charge of their own affairs, they declared themselves a free, sovereign and independent State, and made a solemn appeal to the world for recognition. Great Britain was the first to acknowledge the infant Republic, and was soon follow- ed by the other Powers of Europe, with whom the new State entered into treaty relations. Our government formally recognized the inde- pendence of Liberia in 1862, though for many years previously a Uni- ted States Commercial Agency had been established there. The Republic is divided into four counties, instead of States, named Mesurado, Bassa, Sinou and Maryland. The law-making body, called a Legislature instead of Congress, is composed of two Houses, a Senate and House of Representatives. There are two Senators from each county. The members of the House are elected on the population basis. At present, Mesurado county has four Repre- sentatives, and each of the other counties three. The Presidential term of office is two years, but there is a movement to amend the constitution so as to lengthen the term. The chief article of export is coffee, which is considered the best in the world. Ceylon and Brazil are now cultivating Liberia coffee, and thousands of plants have been introduced into those countries from Liberia. The other articles are sugar, cocoa, ginger, arrowroot, palm- oil, camwood and ivory. There is a gradual increase of the population from this country, chiefly from the southern States, assisted by the American Coloniza- tion Society. These men being chiefly farmers and mechanics, are founding settlements in the interior, pushing inward from the coast to the healthy highlands. Ten thousand such persons from this land, to continue that line of progress, would make an im- pression upon the continent that would be felt in the commercial world without, but far more upon the industrial world within. The few who are already there, with their improved methods of farming, house-build ing, road, and fence and bridge-making, are revolutionizing the ideas of the Aborigines, who are successfully imitating the better ways of their returned brethren. The Republic at present needs a gradual accession of such men, carrying into the country strong arms and progressive ideas, to awaken by direct influence and example the II A merica s Opportunity. stagnant barbarism of generations, and to bring into the productive activities of the times the millions who at present contribute hardly anything to the world’s well-being. America’s opportunity. Africa measures from north to south, 4,985 miles, while at the widest point it is 4,615 miles from east to west. It embraces an area three times as great as all Europe, and nearly four times that of the United States — without Alaska. There is every variety in the surface and in the characteristic features of the country. People think only of the black race which they have seen, and that degraded by slavery, whereas the name "African” comprises scores of races and type of men, some of which are among the noblest. Dr. Raleigh, at a recent meeting in London, said : “There is in these people a hitherto undiscovered mine of love, the develop- ment of which will be for the amazing wealth of the world * * * Greece gave us beauty, Rome gave us power ; the Anglo-Saxon race unites and mingles these ; but in the African people there is the great gushing wealth of love which will develop wonders for the world . ” The claims of long neglected Africa will be fully appreciated only when a broader knowledge shall have been attained. Her descendants have been our “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for two cen- turies, and yet not more than one-tenth of all America’s missiona- ry and philanthropic benevolence goes to the “dark continent” and its two hundred millions of inhabitants ! Direct, stated and rapid communication between the United States and West Africa is necessary' to successful, advantageous intercourse both as to commerce and emigration. The attitude of a nation of fifty millions of people needing the growing trade of tropical empire, and with thousands of colored men waiting to emigrate there so soon as steam communication can be depended on, but now at the mercy of irregular and inadequate sailing-vessel accommodations, is an anomoly too extreme to be of much longer continuance, especially in view of the fact that twenty-eight steamers from Liverpool alone fur- nish it so abundantly. A foreign market is to day the most important need of American industries. Ought not the national government to assist in the establishment of a line of steamships to Liberia and aid worthy people of color to homes in that Republic ? The 4,000 Eng- lish emigrants sent to South Africa with ,£50,000 voted for the pur- pose by Parliament, and the liberal payments to steamship compa- nies for carrying the mails along the African coasts, have powerfully strengthened British interests in the great commercial emporium of the world in the near future. Is it not time that Arctic immolations cease ? The return of 12 Third Annual Paper on Africa. these voyagers is as barren as the land they seek. The fearful price of the Jeannette expedition has been paid in order to dot the map with two or three pin-head islands, sheathed in ice. Let men of means arise, plenty of Henry Grinnells and James Gordon Bennetts, who shall equip exploring parties to western interior Africa, where, if they lay down their lives, it will be acknowledged that the sacrifice is worth the cost. Let America teach the world that “ Manki id are one in spirit, and one instinct bears along, Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right and wrong, Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity’s vast frame, Through its ocean-sundered fibres, feels the gush of joy or shame ; In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim.” [ Editorial from The Sun, of Baltimore, Xovember //, 1882. ] Third Annual Paper on Africa. — We print elsewhere an in- teresting article by Mr. William Coppinger, Secretary of the Ameri- can Colonization Society, in which he gathers up and passes under review the efforts now making by parties representing the principal countries of Europe to open up all parts of Africa to commerce and civilization. Africa, except in the sense of race, is no longer “ the Dark Continent” it was a quarter of a century ago. Repeated explora- tions undertaken and carried through by resolute men amid great hardships, and not unfrequently with the loss of valuable lives, have filled a goodly proportion of those vacant spaces which disfigured the older maps of that Continent. On the suject of later explorations, the work accomplished, and the efforts made by commercial companies and by agents acting under the auspices of their respective govern- ments to establish relations with the vast populations of that region, Mr. Coppinger’s paper is a valuable compilation of scattered facts. Tn respect to the missions established in various parts of Africa and their gradual extension into new districts, his information appears to be full. Of Liberia, in whose prosperity he has a special interest, he speaks with that hopefulness which is born of enthusiasm for the Colonization cause.