The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-08-14 00:00:00

THE ~NORTH-WEST AFRICAN
EXPEDITION.

In London, on Thursday in last week, a deputation
waited upon Lord Carnarvon at the Foreign Office,
Downing-street, for the purpose of explaining to his
lordship the proposed scheme for facilitating intercourse
with the interior of Africa, by turning the Atlantic
into the deer. of Sahara. The deputation, which was
introduced by Mr. Evelyn Ashley, M.P. consisted of H
Major-General Sir Arthur Cotton, the on. Arthur
Kinnaird, M. P., Mr. R. N. Fowler, Captain Moriarty,
RN., and Mr. Donald Mackenzie.

Sir Arthur Cotton said the route they proposed to
open to Timbuctoo, the great central position in Africa,
was by far the nearest and best. Either they could
go there by land from the coast near the month of the
river Ouro, along the edge of the great inland indent
called El Juf (the Hollow), or they could let the sea in,
and travel by water. They would thus get to the rear
of the savage kingdoms of Dahomey and Anhantee and
have a point d'appui for civilizing operations along the
banks of the Niger.
Mr. Donald Mackenzie said this hollow was believed
to be 250 feet below the level of the Atlantic, and to be
separated frun it by a huge sand.bar about five miles
across. By cutting this sand bar by a canal and
letting in the sea a great inland lake would be formed.
By its means they would command all the interior
trade, especially of the regions south of the Atlas
Mountains. A preliminary survey must, however,
first be made by competent surveyors; the levels must
be ascertained, and the effect of communication with
the interior inquired into.

_
In answer to his Lordship, Sir Arthur Cotton said
if it was found impossible to let in the sea' they would
yet have the land route along the edge of El Juf as an
alternative.

Lord Carnarvon ssid he had great pleasure in
meeting the deputation, but he felt bound to point
cut that he had no direct connection withthis scheme;
the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office did not extend
into the central parts of Africa, and his cfficial interest
in the matter therefore was not more than that of any
one of his colleagues. Officially he was really hardly
in a position to say anything on; he subjf.ct, but
personally be might remark that it was a scheme to
which he could not help wishing good speed as a means
of opening up a large tract of Africa now excluded
from commerce. He was not aware that he could
afford any facilities to the carrying out of this plan.
The colonial jurisdiction did not extend to this part of
the world, and be would be going beyond his province
if he held out any hope that he would render any
useful assistance in the matter. From what passed
that day it was evident that the scheme at present was
in a most embryo stage. A great deal more informa-
tion was required as to levels, surveys, &c., before
anyone could be prepared either to recognise or to give
any recommendation to the proposal. Personally the
scheme had his very best wishes, and if really carried
out in the dimensions and after the manner generally
represented, it would open up a great deal of trade
now either in a suppressed condition or hardly existing
at all.

The deputation then thanked his lordship and with-
drew.

Referring to this bold project, The Times, in a leader,
writes :

The curiosity of the world has always been excited,
and always brought to bay, by the great African
enigma. From the days of Herodotus to those of
Livingstone European intelligence and enterprise have
spent their force in vain upon the impenetrable mys-
tery of that vast continent, with its stretches of sandy
desert and its trackless rivers. But the riddle of this
geographical Sphinx must be yielded up at lenuth to
the persistent questionings of civilisation, the latest
form of which, and not the least ingenious, was pressed
upon the attention of Lord Carnarvon by an enthu-
siastic deputation on Thursday last. The enthusiasm
which beset the Secretary for the Colonies orginated
in various springs of action. There was the missionary
spirit which looked forward to the conquest of vast
regions from barbarism to civilisation, the more mun-
dane ambition that would prosecute a " civilizade "
for the sake of commerce, the philanthropic zeal that
would pursue the slave trade into its remotest lurking
places, and the political uneasiness that is always ap-
prehensive lest some rival nationality should gain a
footing where we have none. Upon all these sections
of enthusiasts the scheme for opening a route by sea
into the recesses of the Sahara exercised an irresistible
attraction. The project, it must be allowed, dazzles
the imagination, yet it has a sufficiently substantial
basis to satisfy several shrewd traders interested in
African commerce, and some distinguished engineers,
of whom Sir Arthur Cotton is the best kmwn. .

Africa has ben attacked by the pioneers of civili-
zation at many points, but never, as the advocates of
the psesent project contend, in the most vulnerable
place, where the salt sands of the Sahara are only
separated from the waters Of the Atlantic by a narrow
ridge of rocky coast. The efforts to break a way open
for commerce, either from the Nile valley or from the
shores of the Mediterranean, from the Niger, from the
Gold Coast, or from Zanzibar, have been defeated or
greatly restricted by physical and moral difficulties.
Mountains and sandy wastes, jealous hordes of savages
or pestilential marshes, have intercepted the emissaries
of European trade or European thought. There is
some permanent commercial intercourse between the
countries surrounding the Sahara in the centre of the
North African Continent and the Mediterranean
States of Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis; but
Trade has to make its way in caravans across two thou-
sand miles of sterile and rugged country to Timbuctoo,
the capital city of North Central Africa. The journey
is one of months, and the risks are great, yet it is
stated that three millions' worth of British merchan-
dise finds its way every year by this route to the
Soudan with its twenty millions of inhabitants and its
abounding tropical products. If Timbuctoo were but
accessible by sea! That would be a dream for the
British merchant, missionary, or adventurer to realize,
and now the dream has at least taken the form of cer-
tain proposals, which may or may not be feasible, but
which are quite intelligible.

Timbuctoo was long ago celebrated in heroic verse
by the Poet Laureate, but Cambridge Prize Poems are
not commonly studied, and the name of this city of
the Sahara has barely got a footing in the popular
mind. But the commercial importance of the place,
situated on the are of the great northern bend of the
Niger, is considerable, and if the Sahara were once
more what it is believed to have been even within
historic times—a great inland sea—Timbuctoo might
become the Carthage of a tropical Mediterranean.
From Timbuctoo to the North-West, as far as the
Southern borders of Morocco and the spurs of the
Atlas range, the sandy desert extends, and the
level of a great part of this unexplored region
is believed to be lower than that of the Atlantic.
At the extreme North-Western corner of this vast
waste, some 800 miles in a direct line from Tim-
buctoo, the slightly elevated coast line is pierced by
the River Belta. This point is almost directly oppo-
site the Canary Isles a.nciPthe Canaries, it is well to
remember, are about seven days' -average steaming
from England. Engineers have pronounced it practi-
cable to clear the accumulated sands from the mouth
of the Belta, and to carry the opening through the
low hills behind, so that the waters of the Atlantic
may flow into the low levels of the Sahara. Thee
constitute the great depression known as El Juf, and
are said to comprise an area of 126,000 square miles,
and were at one time beyond question covered by the
waves of an inland sea. The theory of the projectors
who advc cate the scheme brought under Lord Carnar-
von's notice on Thursday is th.ct the Atlantic would
rush in impetuously and cover the whole of the barren
sands from the Valley of the Niger to the base of the
Atlas with open water, bringing commerce in a few
days from English harbours to the very gates of Tim-
buctoo, and embracing the whole of Central Africa
North of the Equator in an easy circle of civilizing
intercourse.

Of course the whole scheme reposes on an hypothesis
which, as Lord Carnarvon reminded his enthusiastic
petitioners, is open to very grave doubts. Granting
that the Sahara was originally an inland sea, the most
probable reason that can be assigned for its drying up
is an upheaval of the Earth's crust; and if this be so,
what reason is there to suppose that any great extent
of the inland desert is below the level of the Atlantic?
The promoters of the scheme do not pretend to have
actually ascertained that the level of the plain of El
Juf is at any point sufficiently depressed to be flooded
by an influx of water through the bed of the Belta ;
nor do they seem to have estmated with any approach
to accuracy the engineering difficulties of the work of
canalizing the passage for the ocean waters through
the coast near the Canaries. They ask only for assist-
ance and encouragement in a survey which is to
determine these questions; but they cast some doubt
on the earnestness of their belief by suggesting the
alternative of a new caravan route from the Atlan-
tic coast to Timbnctoo. With this latter design the
world in general is little concerned. It may open
up some new channels for trade, and, in an indirect
and unimportant way, may promote civilization; but
it has no grandeur as a geographical speculation com-
pared with the scheme for joining the Atlantic with
the upper waters of the Niger, and making Timbuetoo
a seaport on a tropical Mediterranean. We shall look
with curiosity 'for results of the survey which is to
show whether this ambitious project has any basis of
possibility or not. It may be as wild a dream as that
which would restore Australia to its primmval condi-
tion of a belt of fertile land surrounding a magnificent
salt water lake or it may be as worthy of considera-
tion and energetic ffort as the great enterprise of M.
de Lesseps. We should not forget, however, that if
we could bring back the Atlantic waters to the Sahara,
we might precipitate a climate revolution for which we
are not prepared. The temperatures of most
Earopean countries would be altered by the absence
of those hot winds which are generated in the desert,
and which create at once the fertility of Italy and the
snows of the Alps.

In London, on Sunday, the Rev. Samuel Minton
preached morning and evening at the King's Weigh-house
Chapel, Fish street-hill, which was so long the scene of the
labours of the late Rev. Thomas Binney. ['here was a,very
good attendance. The service was conducted throughout by
Mr. Minton, the Rev. W Braden, the pastor of the church,
being absent from London. After the singing of the opening
hymn the rev, gentleman, kneeling in the pulpit, offered up
an impressive extempore prayer of some length. The text
(both morning and evening) was taken from the 35th and
36th verses of the sth chapter of St. Mark's Gospel, the sub-
ject being the restoration of Jairus's daughter to life again,
as illustrating the power and efficacy of faith. The discourse
was listened to with unbroken attention.