Tropical Africa

IX.

A POLITICAL WARNING.

When I reached the coast to embark for England after my wanderings in the interior, the Portuguese authorities at Quilimane presented me with various official documents, which I was told I must acknowledge with signatures and money before being permitted to leave Africa. Having already had to pay certain moneys to Portugal to get into this country, it was a shock to find that I had also to pay to get out; but, as no tax could be considered excessive that would facilitate one's leaving even the least of the Portuguese East African colonies, I cheerfully counted out the price of my release. Before completing the conveyance, however, my eye fell on six words prominently endorsed on one of the documents, which instantly tightened my purse-strings. The words were, "TAX FOR RESIDING IN THE INTERIOR"—so much. Now a day or two spent in waiting for a steamer could scarcely be construed into residence, nor could a strip of coast-line with propriety be termed the interior, so I ventured to point out the irrelevancy to the Portuguese official. Waiving the merely philological question of residence, he went at once to the root of the matter by informing me that the Portuguese definition of the word Interior differed materially from that of England. The Interior, he said, comprised the whole of Africa inland from the coast-province of Mozambique, and included, among other and larger possessions, the trifling territories of the Upper Shiré Highlands, Lake Shirwa, and Lake Nyassa. These last, he assured me, belonged to Portugal, and it became me, having therein shared the protection of that ancient flag, to acknowledge the obligation to the extent of so many hundred Reis.

Though not unprepared for this assumption, the idea of enforcing it by demanding tribute was so great a novelty that, before discharging my supposed liabilities, I humbly asked information on the following points:—1. Did the region described really belong to Portugal? 2. When and where was this claim recognized by England directly or indirectly? 3. Where in the Interior, as thus defined, was the Portuguese flag to be found? And 4. What protection had it ever given to me or to any other European? The replies to these queries being evasive, I took it upon myself to correct the history, the geography, and the politics of the throng of Government officials who now joined the sederunt by the following statement of facts:—1. The region described did not belong to Portugal. 2. Its sovereignty had never been in any way acknowledged by England. 3. The Portuguese flag was nowhere to be found there, and never had been there. 4. Not one solitary Portuguese up to that time had ever even set foot in the country—except one man who was brought in for a few weeks under English auspices; so that no protection had ever been given, or could possibly be given, to me or to any one else. These statements were received in silence, and after much running to and fro among the officials the representative of John Bull, instead of being dragged to prison, and his rifle—his only real escort through Nyassa-land—poinded to pay for his imaginary protection, found himself bowed off the premises with a discharge in full of his debt to Portugal, and the unpaid tax-paper still in his pocket.

I recall this incident to introduce in all seriousness the question interesting so many at the present moment as to the title-deeds of Equatorial Africa. Why Africa should not belong to the Africans I have never quite been able to see, but since this Continent is being rapidly partitioned out among the various European States, it is well, even in the African interest, to inquire into the nature and validity of these claims. The two political maps which will be found at the end of this volume will enable those interested to see the present situation at a glance, and I shall only further emphasize one or two points of immediate practical importance.

[Transcriber's note: The two maps mentioned above were missing from the source book.]

The connection of Portugal with Africa is an old, and—at least it was at first—an honorable one. The voyages of the Portuguese were the first to enrich geography with a knowledge of the African coasts, and so early as 1497 they took possession of the eastern shore by founding the colony of Mozambique. This rule, however, though nominally extending from Delagoa Bay to as far north as Cape Delgado, was confined to two or three isolated points, and nowhere, except on the Zambesi, affected more than the mere fringe of land bordering the Indian Ocean. On the Zambesi the Portuguese established stations at Senna, Tette, and Zumbo, which were used, though on the most limited scale, as missionary and trading centres; but these are at present all but abandoned and in the last stages of decrepitude. The right of Portugal to the lower regions of the Zambesi, notwithstanding its entire failure to colonize in and govern the country, can never be disputed by any European Power, though the Landeens, or Zulus, who occupy the southern bank, not only refuse to acknowledge the claim, but exact an annual tribute from the Portuguese for their occupation of the district.

No one has ever attempted to define how far inland the Portuguese claim, founded on coast-possession, is to be considered good; but that it cannot include the regions north of the Zambesi—the Shiré Highlands and Lake Nyassa—is self-evident. These regions were discovered and explored by Livingstone. They have been occupied since his time exclusively by British subjects, and colonized exclusively with British capital. The claim of England, therefore—though nothing but a moral claim has ever been made—is founded on the double right of discovery and occupation; and if it were a question of treaty with the natives, it might possibly be found on private inquiry that a precaution so obvious had not been forgotten by those most nearly interested. On the other hand, no treaties exist with Portugal; there is not a single Portuguese in the country, and until the other day no Portuguese had even seen it. The Portuguese boundary-line has always stopped at the confluence with the Shiré of the river Ruo, and the political barrier erected there by Chipitula and the river Chiefs has been maintained so rigidly that no subject of Portugal was ever allowed to pass it from the south. Instead, therefore, of possessing the Shiré Highlands, that is the region of all others from which the Portuguese have been most carefully excluded.

The reason for this enforced exclusion is not far to seek. At first the Portuguese had too much to do in keeping their always precarious foothold on the banks of the Zambesi to think of the country that lay beyond; and when their eyes were at last turned towards it by the successes of the English, the detestation in which they were by this time held by the natives—the inevitable result of long years of tyranny and mismanagement—made it impossible for them to extend an influence which was known to be disastrous to every native right. Had the Portuguese done well by the piece of Africa of which they already assumed the stewardship, no one now would dispute their claim to as much of the country as they could wisely use. But when even the natives have had to rise and by force of arms prevent their expansion, it is impossible that they should be allowed to overflow into the Highland country—much less to claim it—now that England, by pacific colonization and missionary work, holds the key to the hearts and hands of its peoples. By every moral consideration the Portuguese have themselves forfeited the permission to trespass farther in Equatorial Africa. They have done nothing for the people since the day they set foot in it. They have never discouraged, but rather connived at, the slave-trade; Livingstone himself took the servant of the Governor of Tette red-handed at the head of a large slave-gang. They have been at perpetual feud with the native tribes. They have taught them to drink. Their missions have failed. Their colonization is not even a name. With such a record in the past, no pressure surely can be required to make the Government of England stand firm in its repudiation of a claim which, were it acknowledged, would destroy the last hope for East Central Africa.

England's stake in this country is immeasurably greater than any statistics can represent, but a rough estimate of the tangible English interest will show the necessity of the British Government doing its utmost at least to conserve what is already there.

The Established Church of Scotland has three ordained missionaries in the Shiré Highlands, one medical man, a male and a female teacher, a carpenter, a gardener, and other European and many native agents. The Free Church of Scotland on Lake Nyassa has four ordained missionaries—three of whom are doctors—several teachers and artizans, and many native catechists. The Universities Mission possesses a steamer on Lake Nyassa, and several missionary agents; while the African Lakes Company, as already mentioned, has steamers both on the Shiré and Lake Nyassa, with twelve trading stations established at intervals throughout the country, and manned by twenty-five European agents. All these various agencies, and that of the brothers Buchanan at Zomba, are well equipped with buildings, implements, roads, plantations, and gardens; and the whole represents a capital expenditure of not less than £180,000. The well-known editor of Livingstone's Journals, the Rev. Horace Waller, thus sums up his account of these English enterprises in his Title-Deeds to Nyassa-Land: "Dotted here and there, from the mangrove swamps at the Kongoné mouth of the Zambesi to the farthest extremity of Lake Nyassa, we pass the graves of naval officers, of brave ladies, of a missionary bishop, of clergymen, Foreign Office representatives, doctors, scientific men, engineers, and mechanics. All these were our countrymen: they lie in glorious graves; their careers have been foundation-stones, and already the edifice rises. British mission stations are working at high pressure on the Shiré Highlands, and under various auspices, not only upon the shores of Lake Nyassa, but on its islands also, and, by desperate choice as it were, in the towns of the devastating hordes who live on the plateaux on either side of the lake. Numbers of native Christians owe their knowledge of the common faith to these efforts; scores of future chiefs are being instructed in the schools, spread over hundreds of miles; plantations are being mapped out; commerce is developing by sure and steady steps; a vigorous company is showing to tribes and nations that there are more valuable commodities in their land than their sons and daughters." This is the vision which Livingstone saw, when, in the last years of his life, he pleaded with his fellow-countrymen to follow him into Africa. "I have opened the door," he said, "I leave it to you to see that no one closes it after me."

The urgency of the question of Portuguese as against British supremacy in Equatorial Africa must not blind us, however, to another and scarcely less important point—the general European, and especially the recent German, invasion of Africa. The Germans are good, though impecunious colonists, but it cannot be said that they or any of the other European nations are as alive to the moral responsibilities of administration among native tribes as England would desire. And though they are all freely entitled to whatever lands in Africa they may legitimately secure, it is advisable for all concerned that these acquisitions should be clearly defined and established in international law, in order that the various Powers, the various trading-companies, and the various missions, may know exactly where they stand. The almost hopeless entanglement of the Foreign Powers in Africa at present may be seen from the following political "section," which represents the order of occupation along the Atlantic seaboard from opposite Gibraltar to the Cape:—

POLITICAL "SECTION" OF WESTERN AFRICA.

Spain . . . Morocco.
France . . . "
Spain . . . Opposite the Canaries.
France . . . French Senegambia.
Britain . . . British Senegambia
France . . . French      "
Britain . . . British      "
Portugal . . . Portuguese      "
France . . .
Britain . . . Sierra Leone.
Liberia . . . Republic of Liberia.
France . . . Gold Coast.
England . . . Gold Coast.
France . . . Dahomey.
Unappropriated . . . "
England . . . Niger.
Germany . . . Cameroons.
French . . . French Congo.
Portuguese . . . Portuguese Congo.
International . . Congo.
Portuguese . . . Angola.
Portuguese . . . Benguela.
Germany . . . Angra Pequena.
England . . . Walvisch Bay.
Germany . . . Orange River.
England . . . Cape of Good Hope.

These several possessions on the western coast have at least the advantage of being to some extent defined, but those on the east, and especially as regards their inland limits, are in a complete state of chaos. It seems hopeless to propose it, but what is really required is an International Conference to overhaul title-deeds, adjust boundary-lines, delimit territories, mark off states, protectorates, lands held by companies, and spheres of influence. England's interest in this must be largely a moral one. Her ambitions in the matter of new territories are long ago satisfied. But there will be certain conflict some day if the portioning of Africa is not more closely watched than it is at present.

As an example of the complacent way in which vast tracts in Africa are being appropriated, glance for a moment at the recent inroads of the Germans. On the faith of private treaties, and of an agreement with Portugal, Germany has recently staked off a region in East Central Africa stretching from the boundaries of the Congo Free State to the Indian Ocean, and embracing an area considerably larger than the German Empire. To a portion only of this region—the boundaries of which, contrasted with that arbitrarily claimed in addition, will be apparent from a comparison of the maps—have the Germans procured a title; and the steps by which this has been attained afford an admirable illustration of modern methods of land-transfer in Africa. What happened was this:—

Four or five years ago Dr. Karl Peters concluded treaties with the native chiefs of Useguha, Ukami, Nguru and Usagara, by which he acquired these territories from the Society for German Colonization. The late Sultan of Zanzibar attempted to remonstrate, but meantime an imperial "Schutzbrief" had been secured from Berlin, and a German fleet arrived at Zanzibar prepared to enforce it. Britain appealed to Germany on the subject, and a Delimitation Commission was appointed, which met in London. An agreement was come to, signed by Lord Iddesleigh on 29th October, 1886, and duly given effect to. The terms of this Anglo-German Convention have been recently made public in a well-informed article by Mr. A. Silva White (Scottish Geographical Magazine, March, 1888), to which I am indebted for some of the above facts, and the abstract may be given here intact, as political knowledge of Africa is not only deficient, but materials for improving it are all but inaccessible. In view, moreover, of the spirit of acquisitiveness which is abroad among the nations of Europe, and of recent attempts on the part of Germany to claim more than her title allows, the exact terms of this contract ought to be widely known:—

I. Both Powers recognize the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar over the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, Lamu and Mafia, as also over those small islands lying within a circuit of twelve nautical miles of Zanzibar. Both Powers also recognize as the Sultan's possessions on the mainland an uninterrupted coast-line from the mouth of the Miningani River at the entrance of the bay of Tunghi (south of Cape Delgado) as far as Kipini (south of Wito). This line encloses a coast of ten nautical miles inland for the whole distance. The northern boundary includes Kau; north of Kipini, both Powers recognize as belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar the stations of Kisimayu, Brava, Merka, and Makdishu (Magadoxo), each with a land circuit of ten nautical miles, and Warsheikli with a land circuit of five nautical miles.

II. Great Britain engages herself to support those negotiations of Germany with the Sultan which have for their object the farming out (Verpachtung) of the customs in the harbors of Dar-es-Salaam and Pangani to the German East African Association, on the payment by the Association to the Sultan of an annual guaranteed sum of money.

III. Both Powers agree to undertake a delimitation of their respective spheres of influence in this portion of the East African Continent. This territory shall be considered as bounded on the south by the Rovuma River, and on the north by a line, commencing from the mouth of the Tana River, following the course of this river or its tributaries, to the intersection of the Equator with the 38th degree of east longitude, and from thence continued in a straight line to the intersection of the 1st degree of north latitude with the 37th degree of east longitude. The line of demarcation shall start from the mouth of the river Wanga, or Umbe, and follow a straight course to Lake Jipe (south-east of Kilimanjaro), along the eastern shore and round the northern shore of the lake, across the river Lumi, passing between the territories of Taveta and Chagga, and then along the northern slope of the Kilimanjaro range and continued in a straight line to the point on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza which is intersected by the 1st degree of south latitude.

Great Britain engages herself to make no territorial acquisitions, to accept no Protectorates, and not to compete with the spread of German influence to the south of this line, whilst Germany engages herself to observe a similar abstinence in the territories to the north of this line.

IV. Great Britain will use her influence to promote the conclusion of a friendly agreement concerning the existing claims of the Sultan of Zanzibar and the German East African Association, on the Kilimanjaro territory.

V. Both Powers recognize as belonging to Wito the coast stretching from the north of Kipini to the north end of Man da Bay.

VI. Great Britain and Germany will conjointly call upon the Sultan of Zanzibar to recognize the General Act of the Berlin Conference, save and except the existing rights of His Highness as laid down in Art. I. of the Act.

VII. Germany binds herself to become a party to the Note signed by Great Britain and France on 10th March, 1862, in regard to the recognition of the independence of Zanzibar.

This is the only document which can have any validity, and such German claims—outside the limit here assigned—as are represented on the newer German maps, are to be treated as mere chartographical flourishes. Encouraged, however, by this success in securing territory in Africa, and without stopping to use or even to proclaim their protectorate over more than a fraction of the petty states comprised within it, the Germans instantly despatched expedition after expedition to secure further conquest in the remoter and unappropriated districts. Dr. Karl Peters himself led one large expedition; Dr. Jühlke negotiated agreements with the tribes on the distant Somal coast; and other explorers brought back rare and heavy spoil—on paper—to Berlin. So the swallowing up of Africa goes on. The slices cut are daily becoming bigger, and in a few years more not a crumb of the loaf will remain for those who own it now. The poor Sultan of Zanzibar, who used to boast himself lord of the whole interior, woke up, after the London Convention, to find that his African kingdom consisted of a ten-mile-wide strip of coast-line, extending from Kipini to the Miningani River. Even this has already been sold or leased to the English and Germans, and nothing now remains to His Highness but a few small islands.

Since turning her attention towards Africa, Germany has not only looked well after new territory, but seized the opportunity to inspect and readjust the title-deeds to her other African property. We find a new treaty concluded in 1885 between her and the British Protectorate in the Niger regarding the Cameroons; another towards the close of the same year with France on the same subject, and securing rights to Malimba and Great Batonga; and a third with Portugal in 1887, defining, in the interest of the latter, the boundaries of Angola, and ceding to Germany, as a quid-pro-quo, an acknowledgment of the claim of the Germans—which, of course, England repudiates—to East Central Africa from the coast to the south end of Tanganyika and Lake Nyassa, as far as the latitude of the Rovuma.

These facts prove the genuine political activity of at least one great European power, and offer a precedent to England, which, in one respect at least, she would do well to copy. Her title-deeds, and those of certain districts in which she is concerned, are not in such perfect order as to justify the apathy which exists at present, and her interests in the country are now too serious to be the prey of unchallenged ambitions, or left at the mercy of any casual turn of the wheel of politics.

Thanks, partly, to the recent seizure by Portugal of the little Zambesi steamer belonging to the African Lakes company—on the plea that vessels trading on Portuguese waters must be owned by Portuguese subjects, and fly the Portuguese flag—and to influential deputations to head-quarters on the part of the various Missions, the Foreign Office is beginning to be alive to the state of affairs in East Central Africa. The annexation of Matabeleland will be a chief item on the programme with which it is hoped the Government will shortly surprise us; but, what is of greater significance, it will probably include a declaration of the Zambesi as an open river, and the abolition or serious restriction of the present customs tariff. Important as these things are, however, they affect but slightly the two supreme English interests in East Central Africa—the suppression of the slave-trade and the various missionary and industrial enterprises. The most eager among the supporters of these higher interests have never ventured to press upon Government anything so pronounced as that England should declare a Protectorate over the Upper Shiré and Nyassa districts; but they do contend, and with every reason, for the delimitation of part of this region as a "Sphere of British Influence."

Granting even that the shadowy claims of Germany and Portugal to the eastern shore of Lake Nyassa are to be respected, there remain the whole western coast of the Lake, and the regions of the Upper Shiré which are reached directly from the waters of the Zambesi without trespassing on the soil of any nation. These regions are not even claimed at present by any one, while by every right of discovery and occupation—by every right, in fact, except that of formal acknowledgment—they are already British. It will be an oversight most culpable and inexcusable if this great theatre of British missionary and trading activity should be allowed to be picked up by any passing traveller, or become the property of whatever European power had sufficient effrontery at this late day to wave its flag over it. The thriving settlements, the schools and churches, the roads and trading-stations, of Western Nyassa-land are English. And yet it is neither asked that they should be claimed by England, annexed by England, nor protected by England. Those whose inspirations and whose lives have created this oasis in the desert, plead only that no intruder now should be allowed to undo their labor or idly reap its fruits. Here is one spot, at least, on the Dark Continent, which is being kept pure and clean. It is now within the power of the English Government to mark it off before the world as henceforth sacred ground. To-morrow, it may be too late.

X.

A METEOROLOGICAL NOTE.

The Lake Nyassa region of Africa knows only two seasons—the rainy and the dry. The former begins with great regularity on the opening days of December, and closes towards the end of April; while during the dry season, which follows for the next six months, the sun is almost never darkened with a cloud. At Blantyre, on the Shiré Highlands, the rainfall averages fifty inches; at Bandawé, on Lake Nyassa, a register of eighty-six inches is counted a somewhat dryish season.

The barometer in tropical countries is much more conservative of change than in northern latitudes, and the annual variation at Lake Nyassa is only about half an inch—or from 28.20 inches in November to 28.70 inches in June. The diurnal variation, according to Mr. Stewart, is rarely more than twenty-hundredths of an inch.

The average temperature for the year at Blantyre, where the elevation is about three thousand feet above sea-level, is 50° Fahr. , but the mercury has been known to stand ten degrees lower, and on one exceptional occasion it fell 2° below freezing point. At Lake Nyassa, half the height of Blantyre, 85° Fahr. is a common figure for mid-day in the hottest month (November) in the year, while the average night-temperature of the coldest month (May) is about 60°. The lowest registered temperature on the Lake has been 54°, and the highest—though this is extremely rare—100° Fahr. When the Livingstonia Mission occupied the promontory of Cape Maclear, at the southern end of Nyassa, in 1880, one of the then staff, Mr. Harkess, had the energy to keep a systematic record of the temperature, and I am indebted to his notebook for the following table. The figures represent observations taken at 6 A. M. , 12 noon, and 6 P. M. A dash indicates that the observation was omitted for the hour corresponding. The wet bulb reads on an average 10 degrees lower.

TABLE OF TEMPERATURES AT LAKE NYASSA.

    May  June  July  Aug.      Sept.      1  70   62    64    67    68      80   75    73    74    79      75   76    74    73    75    2  --   60    64    68    69      77   78    74    --    79      --   73    --    74    75    3  67   65    62    65    66      76   78    74    --    75      76   74    70    --    74    4  68½  64    --    62    71      79   71    73    --    77      78   70    --    --    79    5  68   64    63    76    --      79   74    --    --    --      76   74    71    --    --    6  --   64    64    70    65      75½  77    72    77    81      75   76    74    --    77    7  66   67    64    61    72      79   78    71    79    80      75   75    71    --    77    8  65   66    64    --    70      74   74    --    --    80      74   74    71    --    81    9  --   68    65    62    70      77   76    75    79    81      --   73    73    --    77    10  67   68   66    61    --       75   75   --    81    80       74   73   71    --    77    11  69   66   --    62    70       75   76   76    79    79       --   75   73    --    79    12  --   66   69    65    --       75   75   77    81    --       71   72   --    76    --    13  65   --         70    72       76   73         80    79       74   --         77    78    14  67   63         68    71       73   74         77    81       71   --         75    78    15  68   64   --    66    72       76   74   --    --    75       75   72   76    --    77    16  71   64   68    67    --       77   74   79    75    79       75   70   78    73    77    17  68   64   65    --    --       78   74   77    --    --       77   72   --    76    76    18  72   71   68    68    73       80   74   75    75    78       78   72   76    72    77    19  65   64   69    --    --       74   --   77    75    --       76   77   79    74    --    20  63   --   67    68    75       74   76   76    --    82       76   74   74    75    80    21  67   65   64    64    71       75   72   75    --    85       75   68   75    75    78    22  70   63   67    --    72       75   66   75    78    81       --   65   76    75    79    23       58   65    --    70            67   77    79    82            70   74    77    78    24  --   62   64    68    73       76   --   76    69    82       76   --   74    66    81    25  67   61   66    63    74       77   --   74    75    --       75   --   75    71    78    26  67   63   67    64    --       75   75   79    72    --       75   --   76    73    --    27  69   --   65    65    73       77   72   74    77    84       74   --   71    77    82    28  70   --   65    70    73       78   72   76    79    81       77   --   74    78    79    29  68   63   65    --    68       80   71   72    76    82       77   72   75    --    80    30  --   64   63    67    74       75   74   78    79    82       76   --   75    77    80    31  67        65    66       74        76    79       74        76    83