The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-04-29 00:00:00

lEUTENANT CAMERON AND THE
TURNERS' COMPANY.

In London, on Saturdell the Turners Company presented
itheivireedom and livery to Lieutenant Cameron, It N., to
!maxi their sense of the advantages likely to accrue to earn-
zation and commerce from his recent exploration of the
African Continent. The Company also paid a similar com-
pliment to Dr. W. G. Atherstone, an eminent geologist, for
his discovery of the value of the Diamond Fields in the
'soathern-Part 611114 great continent. During the ceremony,
`%e-yaluaof,- Dr. Atherstone's discoveries was exemplified by
exhibitiotkot a beautiful diamond, belonging to Professor
2ennant, and tiaid to be worth £lO 000. On the occasion a
large map of • Africa was displayed, showing Lieutenant
Cameron's route, and ako the relative proportions of the
continent draining respectively into the Mediterranean, the
Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean; also the great desert area
north of the line in which evaporation supersedes the neces-
sity for drainage.
On presenting himself to speak Lieutenant Cameron
was much cheered. A sailor's trade, he said, was not
to talk, but to try to do what he was directed to do.
The corinfry of Africa which he had traversed, and
especially to the west of Tanganyika, was one of the
richest countries in the world, and if one was only in a
position to give the climate a fair chance it would be
found to be far more healthy than that noble depen-
dency of the British Empire, India. Ivory, which had
been mentioned as one of the materials of the turners'
.:art and mystery, was there found in greater abundance
than anywhere else. At Nyangwe the Arabs,
trading among themselves, gave 351 b. of ivory or 7hlb.
of beads or 5 ilb. of cowries, and very often they were able
to buy a tusk irrespective of size, which might weigh
from 100 lb. to 1501 b., by the present of an old copper
bracelet or any wornoout useless thing which might
take the fancy of the natives. That country of
Nyangwe, he firmly believed—in fact, he was su're—
might be reached by the Congo, and hereafter he hoped
that where his steps tead been they should see a system
of English trading stations for the purchase, not only
of ivory, for the richness of the vegetable products of
the country was something beyond description. He
had walked alone for 50 or 69 yards under a grove
of nutmeg trees, with the whole ground covered with
nutmegs, and no one knew what they were worth.
Besides that, there were many other vegetable
products in abundance, many different species of
cotton and oil-producing palms. Up the valley of
the Conga to a height of 2,600 ft. above the level
of the sea the country was crowded with oil palm,
and hereafter that trade alone leaving the ques-
tion of itory altogether on one side, would well be
sufficient to repay e.ny enterprising merchants of Eng-
land wile. embarked in it. The people in many of the '
countries he passed through were very clever smiths.
They had not yet advanced to "the art and mystery of
turning," bet some of their work, turned out simply
with a rotgh hammer without a handle and with no
file to finish off with, might favourably compare with
a good deal which was shown in thiiradvanced country
of England where we had all the appliances of modern
machinery and workmanship to help us. Gold was
found at Iharigw, and he there saw an Arab who
showed hire a calabash full of small nuggets, or pieces
of quartz filed with gold. What he showed him, he
said, was fcund in one evening by his slave in cleaning
out an old watercourse to get water for his camp. The
Arab said, "What is the good of such little pieces?" And
if he had not been honest enough to tell him of their
value, he might have had the whole of them. (Laughter.)
But there was yet 'another thing which concerned
Englishmen seeing that our mastery of the position
as one of the leading nations of the world depended
in a great degree on our supplies of iron and coal last-
ing. Now, in Africa, long after our last ounce was ex-
hausted, we could find enough of both to supply the
world for untold centuries. There were several dif-
ferent descriptions of iron ore, some very like the
ore which they bring from Norway and Sweden—black
speculum ore, which he believed furnished the best iron
arid steel of commerce. Besides those he had also
found large masses of copper. Some of that copper
was occasionally brought down to Benguela by the
Portuguese traders, and he was told there that a com-
pany in LisCon, conducted by Englishmen, had been
formed to take the whole of that product, as in the
copper they found a certain portion of gold, and they
found also that extracting that gold paid them remark-
ably well. Silver was also among the products of the
country, and he had every reason to believe that
he had seen what would prove a valuable deposit of
tin. Now the country which thus furnished all
that was necessary
_for commerce, and could
also supply the world with. the articles he
had mentioned, was also -dp _ ened by two of
the most magnificent systems of water communica-
tion in the world. The river Congo had rapids at
Italia, about 160 miles above its mouth, and beyond
them the only other rapids that he knew of were some
small ones a short way below Nyangwe, near where
his route quitted -the Congo. But he thought that
river ought hereafter to be called the Livingstone, for,
after all, it was really he who discovered its sources.
In the Zambesi country there was a system of lacustrthe
rivers extending for a distance which made the Congo
one of the largest rivers in the world. Perhaps the
Amazon and the Yangtze-kiang might in volume be
larger, but certainly the Congo was entitled to take
third place among the rivers of the world. _ It had
navigable affluents that reached within 200 miles of Lake
Nyassa, where at ptesent, in memory of Livingstone,
a colony was being formed, whitah had been reached
from the Zambesi. There Lieutenant Cameron's route
passed near the sources of the Z xnubesi ; and where so
many rivers could be seen dotted on the map there
was a sandy plain, through whio.), it a canal were cut
for 20 or 30. miles across an easy country, the two
systems of the Congo and the Zambesi might be
joined, and a water communication formed between
the East and West Coasts of Africa, with numerous
navigable offsets on either aide. Of course these rivers
would be broken at times by rapids, but portages might
be found for the present, and hereafter,—though in
days far in the future, he was afraid—locks would be
formed, so that there might be uninterrupted steam
communication from the East to the West of tropical
Africa by the Congo and Zambesi systems, and we
should then tap the ivory trade completely. By large
rivers which flowed into the Congo from the north, a
short way in front of Nyangwe, we could get back into
the country of Ulega, to which traders came 3,000 miles
down the Nile to trade and from which they drew their
principal supplies of ivory. Now, by ascending the
Congo, a thousand miles would take us into that mar-
vellously rich country. Again the offsets of the
Tanganyika would also tap a great portion of the ivory
trade which was now carried on by the Arabs trading
from Zanzibar. The Zambesi, again, would form the
means of obtaining ivory if the communication were
made by joining it to the Congo, and so giving access
to its northern affluents. He passed numerous affluents
of the Zambesi, some of which take their rise on the
West Coast, and these would act as offsets to the main
system. By that river, which the audience could see
marked on the map as falling into the Congo from the
north, we should get close up to the sources of the Nile.
for we should roach the watersheds between the Nile
and the Congo systems by a very short route, instead
of by the long route from Alexandria up a river which
was far from healthy, and which was choked with
grass; while the country through which he had gone
might be considered as fairly healthy. Let him, in
conclusion, thank the company again for the great
honour they had done him.
The Lieutenant was much cheered on . retitining 109
seat.

t4argo—mkp-44.:A1ric9,.

Professor Tennant, having made some observations
appropriate to the presentation of the freedom, and
livery to Dr. Atherstone, said the .honour conferred
upon him had been greatly enhanced in his eyes by
being received in conjunction with so distinguished a
traveller as Lieutenant Cameron. It was a matter of
considerable satMaction to Professor Tennant to have
contributed, in however remote a degree, to the re-
establishment in London of the industry of diamond-
cutting. Referring to the effect of the discovery of the
diamond fields on the South African colonies, and of his
successful effort to frustrate an attempt to depreciate the
value of the discovery, he said that discovery should
not be estimated. Merely in E‘ Licht or 'a Commercial
point of view. There were far higher interests in-
volved both to Great Britain, and the colonies in South
Africa. Its effects on those colonies had been con-
siderable, in relieving many of the settlers from mort-
gages and leading to the investment of capital in new
fields of industry. It had had the effect of giving an
impetus to education, of leading to the establishment
of railways, to increased steam communication, and to
facilitating the progress of industry of all kind-4. Its
effects, too, on the nati yes of the far interior had been very
satisfactory. They came down to the diggings naked and
almost starved, and after a few months' labour went
back clothed, carrying Manchester goods and a gun to
districts as far off as those described by Lieutenant
Cameron. He believed that this was the true way of
dealing with the slave trade in the interior—namely
by introducing the idea of labour and commerce and'
the needs of civilization—and he sincerely hoped that
the means suggested by the gallant officer of establish-
ing trading stations along the course of the Congo
would be adopted.
Dr. Atherstone, who followed, described the bene-
ficial effects on South Africa of the discovery of the
diamond fields, both as regards the white settlers and
the natives, and he urged, with Lieutenant Cameron,
that the true mode of dealing with the question of
slavery was by establishing trade with the natives in
the interior through such magnificent means of com-
munication as those which that gallant officer had just
discovered.