El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-02-10
THE DARK CONTINENT.
Condition of Africa at the End
of the Century.
IT'S PARTITION AMONG THE POWERS

ENGLAND Claims mt Present 100000
Square Miles To This 100000
Protectorate Were Asserted Over
Egypt French Territory Is Esti-
mated at 100000 Square Miles.
John Bulls LeavinGs Constitute the
Portions of Other Nations Rail-
ways In Africa.
One Of the extraordinary phenomena
of the Last half of the nineteenth GEN.
Jury is the ~suddenness with which the
long impenetrable secrets of the dark
continent have been disclosed. So far
as the interior of Africa was concerned,
the maps made as late as 40 years ago
told us but very little more than j
those constructed $50 years earlier,
when the rounding of the Cape of Good
Hope by the Portuguese had been made
known to the g~eographers. With the
exception of a thin fringe on the western
and eastern coasts, the whole body of
the continent between the limits of
Cape Colony and the countries border
luz Gu6 Observation-Disclosures ~ Oh-
tirely unknown. All the immense addi-
tions that have been since made to our
knowledge of inner Africa are mainly
due to the explorations which began
with Livingstone's journey to the Zam-
bezi in 1s54-7. By August, 1884, how
ever, the basins of the Nile, Kongo.
Niger, Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, to-
gether with all the great lakes. had been
fairly we'll described, and since then ex-
ploration has been prosecuted on such a
scale that there is now but little left to
discover.
In the year last named, at the Berlin
conference, began the process of parti-
tion, the results Of which have justified
the saying that, whereas during the
eighteenth century Europeans were en-
gagged in taking Africans from Africa,
they have been employed during the
nineteenth in taking Africa from the
Africans. What may be termed unap-
propriated Africa has been reduced to
very narrow dimensions. 1t includes
the eastern portion of the Sahara south
of Fezzan, but this, with the exception
of the Tibesti highlands, is a hopeless
desert until, on it's southern border, we
reach the semicivilized Sudanese sultan
ate of Wadai. which is, at present, indie
pendent, but which ultimately, no doubt,
will be claimed by France. AS for Oar
fur. Kordofan, the Bahr-el-G hazal re-
gion and, in short, all of the territory
which once belonged to the khedive,
this will probably be recovered by Egypt
in the course of two or three years.
There is also a small disputed area in
West frioa II onncicfS of q notch no.
hind the British Gold Coast colony,
Ashanti and the German Togoland, con-
sisting mainly of the kingdom of Mossi.
Great Britain claims a part of this
patch, and. quite recently, Germany
and France came to an agreement as to
the limits of Togoland. We should add
that Liberia, the negro republic, is still
independent, though France
has cut down her territory to IA, 600
miles.
Through the jealousy of the powers
interested, Morocco remains as yet un-
annexed, and the Turkish pashalic of
Tripoli, which includes Barca and the
oasis of Fezzan, is, for a like reason,
permitted to remain Turkish territory.
In the south of the continent the Orange
Free State and the Transvaal republic
are indisputably autonomous SO far as
local self government is concerned. We
should further mention that Abyssinia
retains it's Independence, although it is
now entirely cut off from the sea. With
the exceptions here noted, the vast eX-
panse of Africa, comprising nearly 49,
900, 900 square miles, is distributed
among European powers which have
either annexed the soil or established
an avowed or virtual protectorate over
it or else set claim to ii as falling within
their spheres of influence.
Let us see how the division has been
made. For the present and until Eng
land shall assume a p~rotectorate over
Egypt France has ostensibly the larger
share. Including Madagascar, her ter
ritory is estimated at 3, 300, 900 square
miles, but almost half of this is repre-
sented by the French section of the Sa-
hara, which Lord Salisbury euphemis-
tically described as every light soil"
Algeria and Tunis of course are held by
right Of conquest, and in west Africa
France possesses a long line of coast,
from a little to the north of Cape Blanco
round to the British Gold Coast colony,
interrupted, however, by such patches
as British Gambia, Portuguese Guinea,
Liberia and Sierra Leone. The whole of
the Niger above Say is French, and
nearly all the country within the great
bend of the river is claimed by her.
France also claims the entire region
north of a line drawn from Say to Lake
Tchad, the eastern shore of which body
of water adjoins French Kongo. The
eastern boundary of French Kongo is,
ooonrlinu f0 tho Enr1ich tho divide Lo
tween the waters of the Kongo and the
Nile, but according to the French should
be pushed eastward so as to include at
n nn.4 &c &I,o PoIn ol GIo.l -.