The Cairo bulletin., 1909-03-04
FACTS ABOUT AFRICA
STRANGE COUNTRY WHERE
ROOSEVELT WILL HUNT.
British Explorer Asserts East Africa
ls No Place for Poor Man
Sleeping Sickness is on
the increase.

the Increase.
London.--One of the experts who
took part in tho British museum Ru-
wenzori expedition in central Africa
in 1905-1906, A +. r. Wollaston. has
Just published one of the best books
of African travel that has yet APP
peared: From RuwenZori to Congo
The Mountains of the Moon are
represented by a range of at least five
distinct groups OF snow peaks, of
which the highest has been deter
mined by the duke Of the AbruzZi at
slightly less than 1900 feet and some
ten miles of glaciers, between the
Lakes Albert NyanZa and Albert Ed
ward. in the country where President
Roosevelt will hunt big game.
From the settlers" says Mr.. VOL.
laston, land from many others whom |
met at Nairobi and Naivasha. ] heard
all sorts of expressions of opinion,
from the gloomiest to the most en-
thusastic, about British East Africa.
Put everybody was agreed, even the
most sanguine Of them, that it is no
place for a poor man.
"A capital of several hundred pounds
at the least was regarded as an abso-
Lutte necessity, and this at once puts
the country on a different footing from
such colonies as Canada, or Australia,
or New Zealand. People in England
are accustomed TO hear East Africa
spoken of as "a white mans country
but it can never really be a white
mans country when the smaller trades
and the labor are efficiently carried on
by the Indians and natives, while only
the officials and employers of labor
are European.
And in any case the extent of health
full upland country suitable for perma-
nent settlement by Europeans, after
allowance has been made for native
reserves. game reserves and forests,
is exceedingly limited. Africa is cursed
with a host of parasites"
And so little is known of the dis
eases of horses and cattle that one
hesitates to predict very brilliant
future for the stock breeder'-cereals,
coffee, fruit, potatoes and other Euro
pean vegetables would be at a perma-
nent DISADVANTAGE in comparison with
larger and at least equally productive
territories. On the other hand:
IF prosperity is to come to British
East Africa, the means of it will prob
cbly be the cultivation of cotton"
But yet more serious problem con-
fronts Europe In Africa-the proven
ton of the scourge known in medical
language by the formidable name OF
trypanosomiasis; by the yet more for
midable name of sleeping sickness in
the vulgar tongue. The chief things
known of it. beyond it's hideous symp-
toms, are that it is infectious; that II
ie invariably fatal; and that its geo
graphical distribution corresponds
with that of tsetse fly.
European victims have thus far been
few; their prejudice against native
nakedness no doubt amounts to de-
fchsive armor against the assaults of
the plague-laden foe. But why should
there have been such a Wholesale in
crease Of the pestilence in recent
years-why should its extent he ccas.
ing to be limited by the regular hab-
itat Of the fly?
II is a lamentable fact, but cannot
be gainsaid, that civilization must be
held responsible in no small degree
for the spread of sleeping sickness
during the last few years. In the old
days. when every tribe and almost
every village was self-suffleient. and
had no intercourse with its neighbors
except in the way of warfare. It might
very well happen that the disease be-
came localized in a few districts.
where its virulence became dimin-
ished
Nowadays, with the rapid opening
up of the country, the constant pas
sage of Europeans travelling from one
district TO another. and the suppress
sion of native warfare, il is becoming
easy for natives TO move
beyond the limits of their own coun-
tries, and by their means sleeping
sickness is spread from one end of
the country to another. And the out
look at the present time is at the best
q gloomy one