The Probert Encyclopaedia of Places of the World

AFRICA

Africa is one of the three great divisions of the Old World, and the second in extent of the five principal continents of the globe, forming a vast peninsula joined to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez. It is of a compact form, with few important projections or indentations, and having therefore a very small extent of coast-line (about 16,000 miles, or much less than that of Europe) in proportion to its area. This continent extends from 37 degrees 20 minutes North latitude to 34 degrees 50 minutes South latitude, and the extreme points, Cape Blanco and Cape Agulhas, are nearly 5000 miles apart. Erom west to east, between Cape Verde, longitude 17 degrees 34 minutes West, and Cape Guardafui, longitude 51 degrees 16 minutes East, the distance is about 4600 miles. The area is more than three times that of Europe. The islands belonging to Africa are not numerous, and, except Madagascar, none of them are large. They include Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, Fernando Po, Prince's Island, St Thomas, Ascension Island, St Helena, Mauritius, Bourbon, the Comoros, Socotra, etc.

Almost all round the interior of Africa, at no great distance from the sea, and, roughly speaking, parallel with the coast-line, we find ranges of mountains or elevated lands forming the outer edges of interior plateaux. The most striking feature of Northern Africa is the immense tract known as the Sahara or Great Desert, which is inclosed on the north by the Atlas Mountains, the plateau of Barbary and that of Barca, on the east by the mountains along the west coast of the Red Sea, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the Sudan. The Sahara is by no means the sea of sand it has sometimes been represented: it contains elevated plateaux and even mountains radiating in all directions, with habitable valleys between. A considerable nomadic population is scattered over the habitable parts, and in the more favoured regions there are settled communities.

The Sudan, which lies to the south of the Sahara, and separates it from the more elevated plateau of Southern Africa, forms a belt of pastoral country across Africa, and includes the countries on the Niger, around Lake Tchad (or Chad), and eastwards to the elevated region of Ethiopia.

Southern Africa as a whole is much more fertile and well watered than Northern Africa, though it also has a desert tract of considerable extent - the Kalahari Desert. This division of the continent consists of a table-land, or series of table-lands, of considerable elevation and great diversity of surface, exhibiting hollows filled with great lakes, and terraces over which the rivers break in falls and rapids, as they find their way to the low-lying coast tracts. The mountains which inclose Southern Africa are mostly much higher on the east than on the west, the most northerly of the former being those of Ethiopia, with heights of 10,000 to 14,000 or 16,000 feet, while the eastern edge of the Abyssinian plateau presents a steep unbroken line of 7000 feet in height for many hundred miles.

The Nile is the only great river of Africa which flows to the Mediterranean, It receives its waters primarily from the great lake Victoria Nyanza, which lies under the equator, and in its upper course is fed by tributary streams of great size, but for the last 1200 miles of its course it has not a single affluent. It drains an area of more than 1,000,000 square miles. The Indian Ocean receives numerous rivers; but the only great river of South Africa which enters that ocean is the Zambesi, the fourth in size of the continent, and having in its course the Victoria Falls, one of the greatest waterfalls in the world. In Southern Africa also, but flowing westward and entering the Atlantic, is the Congo, which takes origin from a series of lakes and marshes in the interior, is fed by great tributaries, and is the first in volume of all the African rivers, carrying to the ocean more water than the Mississippi. Unlike most of the African rivers, the mouth of the Congo forms an estuary. Of the other Atlantic rivers, the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Niger are the largest, the last being third among African streams.

With the exception of Lake Tchad there are no great lakes in the northern division of Africa, whereas in the number and magnificence of its lakes the southern division almost rivals North America. Here are the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, Lakes Tanganyika, Nyassa, Shirwa, Bangweolo, Moero, and other lakes. Of these the Victoria and Albert belong to the basin of the Nile;
Tanganyika, Bangweolo, and Moero to that of the Congo; Nyassa, by its affluent the Shire,to the Zambesi. Lake Tchad on the borders of the northern desert region, and Lake Ngami on the borders of the southern, have a remarkable resemblance in position, and in the fact that both are drained by streams that lose themselves in the sand.

The climate of Africa is mainly influenced by the fact that it lies almost entirely within the tropics. In the equatorial belt, both north and south, rain is abundant and vegetation very luxuriant, dense tropical forests prevailing for about 10 degrees on either side of the line. To the north and south of the equatorial belt the rainfall diminishes, and the forest region is succeeded by an open pastoral and agricultural country. This is followed by the rainless regions of the Sahara on the north and the Kalahari Desert on the south, extending beyond the tropics, and bordering on the agricultural and pastoral countries of the north and south coasts, which lie entirely in the temperate zone. The low coast regions of Africa are almost everywhere unhealthy, the Atlantic coast within the tropics being the most harsh region to Europeans.

Among mineral productions may be mentioned gold, which is found in the rivers of West Africa (hence the name Gold Coast), and in Southern Africa, most abundantly in the Transvaal; diamonds were found in large numbers at the end of the 19th century in the south; iron, copper, lead, tin, and coal are also found.

As regards both plants and animals, northern Africa, adjoining the Mediterranean, is distinguished from the rest of Africa in its great agreement with southern Europe. Among the most characteristic African animals are the lion, hyena, jackal, gorilla, chimpanzee, baboon, African elephant (never domesticated, and formerly yielding much ivory to trade), hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, zebra, quagga, antelopes in great variety and immense numbers. Among birds are the ostrich, the secretary-bird or snake-eater, the honey-guide cuckoo, sacred ibis, guinea-fowl. The reptiles include the crocodile, chameleon, and snakes of various kinds, some of them very venomous. Among insects are locusts, scorpions, the tsetse-fly whose bite is so fatal to cattle, and white-ants.

During the 19th century great areas in Africa were apportioned among European powers as protectorates or spheres of influence. During the 20th century these artificially created countries became independent and terrible civil wars ensued between rival tribes who had been articially forced together by European boundaries.

The name Africa was given by the Romans at first only to a small district in the immediate neighbourhood of Carthage. The Greeks called Africa Libya, and the Romans often used the same name. The first African exploring expedition on record was sent by Pharaoh Necho about the end of the seventh century B.C. to circumnavigate the continent. The navigators, who were Phoenicians, were absent three years, and according to report they accomplished their object. Fifty or a hundred years later, Hanno, a Carthaginian, made a voyage down the west coast and seems to have got as far as the Bight of Benin. The east coast was probably known to the ancients as far as Mozambique and the island of Madagascar. Of modern nations the Portuguese were the first to take in hand the exploration of Africa. In 1433 they doubled Cape Bojador, in 1441 reached Cape Blanco, in 1442 Cape Verde, in 1462 they discovered Sierra Leone. In 1484 the Portuguese Diego Cam discovered the mouth of the Congo. In 1486 Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Algoa Bay. A few years later a Portuguese traveller visited Abyssinia - now Ethipioa. In 1497 Vasco da Gama, who was commissioned to find a route by sea to India, sailed round the southern extremity as far as Zanzibar, discovering Natal on his way. The first European settlements were those of the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique, soon after 1500. In 1650 the Dutch made a settlement at the Cape. In 1770 James Bruce reached the source of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia. For the exploration of the interior of Africa, however, little was done before the close of the 18th century.

Modern African exploration maybe said to begin with Mungo Park, who reached the upper course of the Niger between 1795 and 1805. Dr. Lacerda, a Portuguese, about the same time reached the capital of the Cazembe, in the centre of South Africa, where he died. In 1802 - 1806 two Portuguese traders crossed the continent from Angola, through the Cazembe's dominions, to the Portuguese possessions on the Zambesi. In 1822 - 1824 extensive explorations were made in Northern and Western Africa by Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, who proceeded from Tripoli by Murzuk to Lake Tchad, and explored the adjacent regions; Laing, in 1826, crossed the desert from Tripoli to Timbuctoo; Caillie, leaving Senegal, made in 1827 - 1828 a journey to Timbuctoo, and thence through the desert to Morocco. In 1830 Lander traced a large part of the course of the Niger downward to its mouth, discovering its tributary the Benue. In the south David Livingstone, who was stationed as a missionary at Kolobeng, setting out from that place in 1849 discovered Lake Ngami. In 1851 he went north again, and came upon numerous rivers flowing north, affluents of the Zmbesi.

In 1848 and 1849 Krapf and Rebmann, missionaries in East Africa, discovered the mountains Kilimanjaro and Kenya. An expedition sent out by the British government started from Tripoli in 1850 to visit the Sahara and the regions around Lake Tchad, the chiefs being Richardson, Overweg, and Barth. The last alone returned in 1855, having carried his explorations over 2,000,000 sq. miles of this part of Africa, hitherto almost unknown. In 1853 - 1856 David Livingstone made an important series of explorations. He first went north-westwards, tracing part of the Upper Zambesi, and reached St Paul de Loanda on the west coast in 1854. On his return journey he followed pretty nearly the same route until he reached the Zambesi, and proceeding down the river, and visiting its falls, called by him the Victoria Falls, he arrived at Quilimane at its mouth on the 20th of May, 1856, thus crossing the continent from sea to sea. In 1858 he resumed his exploration of the Zambesi regions, and in various journeys visited Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, sailed up the Shire to the latter lake, and established the general features of the geography of this part of Africa, returning to England in 1864.

By this time the great lakes of equatorial Africa were becoming known, Tanganyika and Victoria having been discovered by Burton and Speke in 1858, and the latter having been visited by Speke and Grant in 1862 and found to give rise to the Nile, while the Albert Nyanza was discovered by Baker in 1864. In 1866 David Livingstone entered on his last great series of explorations, the main object of which was to settle the position of the water-sheds in the interior of the continent, and which he carried on until his death in 1873. His most important explorations on this occasion were west and south-west of Tanganyika, including the discovery of Lakes Bangweolo and Moero, and part of the upper course of the river Congo (here called Lualaba). For over two years he was lost to the knowledge of Europe until met with by Henry Stanley at Tanganyika in 1871.

Gerhard Rohlfs, in a succession of journeys from 1861 to 1874 traversed the Sahara in various directions, and crossed the continent entirely from Tripoli to Lagos by way of Murzuk, Bornu, etc. In 1873 - 1875 Lieutenant Cameron, who had been sent in search of David Livingstone, surveyed Lake Tanganyika, explored the country to the west of it, and then travelling to the south-west, finally reached Benguela on the Atlantic coast. In 1874 - 1777 Henry Stanley surveyed Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika and explored the intervening country, then going westward to where David Livingstone had struck the Congo he followed the river down to its mouth, thus finally settling its course and completing a remarkable and valuable series of explorations. In 1879 Serpa Pinto completed a journey across the continent from Benguela to Natal, and in 1881 - 1882 Wissman and Pogge crossed it again from St Paul de Loanda to Zanzibar. Around 1900 European knowledge of this part of Africa was rapidly increased through the efforts of travellers, missionaries, and commercial agents, and many European settlements made. By 1906 on the Upper Congo, and on Lakes Tanganyika and Nyaasa there were a number of steamers, and railways extended far into the continent.
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