Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

does to New York. It is fortunate that these great sources of power are located exactly where they will be most needed, for it is important to cross the narrow unhealthy coast region as quickly as possible and reach the healthy highlands. Slow caravans through these coast regions mean a high death-rate, but with fast trains this narrow belt can be crossed in less than six hours.

THE RICHES OF MINE AND FOREST

The wealth of British South Africa is well known and will therefore be passed over.

this vast plateau and some are being worked, especially along the British frontier. The copper deposits are simply enormous; the natives have been working copper in a primitive way for ages, with only the outcroppings to draw on. Hematite and magnetic iron ore occur in perhaps greater quantity in Central Africa than in any other area of the same size in the world. These, too, have been worked by the natives from time immemorial. Copper, iron, and coal are of course much more valuable to the industries of any country than silver and gold.

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

A ROYAL RETINUE

The arrival at Luebo of His Majesty Zappo, King of the Zappo-Zap tribe, an ally of the Belgians

The resources of the great central table-land are mainly minerals, timber, rubber, ivory, and agricultural products.

It is far too early to speak definitely of Central Africa's mineral deposits, but it is well to remember that the Boers plowed for a long time over the gold and diamonds of the Cape. Deposits of diamonds, gold, and silver have already been located in various parts of

From recent personal exploration in the Congo-Zambesi region, I am convinced that it has a coal-field of nearly 700,000 square miles in area. The coal, iron, and copper regions are also either coterminous, or identical. Limestone measures run through the Chrystal Range, while granite and sandstone are of course elements in the structure of all the hills and mountains. The mineral de

[graphic][merged small]

posits are not confined to isolated areas but are scattered pretty evenly over the whole country, and this will favor the development of industries in each geographical unit. For example, on my place in the Kasai Valley, I made my packing boxes of mahogany, fastened them with iron nails made from native ore, bound them with copper from a similar source, calked them with rubber from the woods, glued them with a gum from a tree nearby, varnished them with copal, and marked them with wild indigo. Within a few years one can live a civilized life there without draw

in less than a year's time with the aid of two hundred native employees, without the use of mule or steam. He was convinced that the timber resources of the country were of untold value. As the forests usually line the rivers, this timber is easily handled, while the value of teak, mahogany, and ebony gives a wide margin for operating expenses. Of course, there are quantities of other varieties of timber, some of it not yet fully known and all of it doubtless useful. There is a hard little heath tree, for instance, occurring in untold quantities over nearly all of this region.

[graphic][merged small]

Their sons are learning to pilot steamboats, handle locomotives, and sink mining shafts

ing on the outside world for anything but newspapers. Indeed, the American Mission at Luebo, on the Kasai, fifteen miles from the nearest point on the coast, has begun to print a monthly, with African compositors. I understand that some of the natives are corresponding with each other across country by means of this paper. Yet twenty years ago the first white man had just arrived.

Some of the African timber has already reached America. On my way home I made the acquaintance of a young Kentuckian who had gotten out several shiploads of mahogany

[ocr errors]

On my last expedition I made a varied collection of plants for Dr. Trelease, of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, so that we may have a chance to study them. The African palms alone are of great economic value, as New York imports shiploads of oil from Africa via Liverpool every week. An Elæis palm will produce thirty pounds or more of oil annually, without injury to the tree, as the oil comes from its fruit. The tree lives to a great age, bearing continuously, and I have seen as many as 600 growing to the acre. The oil is good. as a food, as a lubricant, and as a base for soap;

[graphic][subsumed]

the kernels of the fruit also have a commercial

[graphic]

value, though not yet clearly defined.

RUBBER, IVORY, CORN, AND COTTON

The rubber industry is of enough importance to have created several international "incidents" already. The area which we are considering produces now about $8,000,000 worth of rubber a year, while it is probably capable of producing, from the wild sources alone, five times as much; and from plantations, when developed, as much as the demand will warrant. The best of this African rubber is superior to the best from South America, and the average price runs between eighty cents and one dollar a pound. As raw rubber is admitted free into the United States, there is a big opportunity for the right men to do good work in it, without the outlay of much cash capital. While there are various trees producing rubber in Africa, the chief source is a vine, the Landolphia owariensis, a mature specimen of which will yield about five pounds a year. About five hundred vines can be planted to the acre; these can be raised from the seed. The gathering of the rubber is a simple process; an incision under the bark in the afternoon produces a lump of hard rubber by morning. This is one case where money grows on a vine.

Ivory of course is an article which may diminish. But the Europeans are trying to protect the elephants, and lately some efforts to domesticate the African elephant are reported as successful. There is no reason why they cannot be bred and raised as in India.

When we come to the possibilities of agriculture, we might as well stop at the beginning. There are millions of virgin acres as rich as any in the Mississippi valley, waiting for the plow. In most of this region three crops of corn may be raised in a year, and it is said that cotton can be grown at the rate of 300 pounds of lint to the acre over a vast section. All the tropical agricultural crops can be raised, and most of those found in the temperate zone.

CLIMATE NOT NECESSARILY BAD

All this sounds roseate enough, but what mean these pale, emaciated figures which emerge from time to time at the coast? Of what use is all that when the climate is so deadly? But is the climate deadly? The writer has been out of Africa a month, and no one could well have had a more trying time; but he is now in better condition than nine-tenths of the

A CONGO PYGMY AND HIS PLAYMATES Ota Benga, of the Bachichi tribe, and two young chimpanzees, now in this country

men in New York, and works ten hours a day without feeling it. The reason is that he has at last learned how to live in Africa. The climate of this table-land is not as bad as that of a third of the United States. The heat is tempered by the elevation, and the writer has marched thirty-five miles a day for many days on a stretch, not even resting at midday. Dr. R. H. Nassau, the veteran missionary of the Gaboon, has lived fifty years in that country and is still at his post. The writer met many men on this last trip who had been out for several years without a single attack of fever.

The ills the white man suffers from are not mainly climatic, but social. There are three predisposing conditions-the high nervous tension, the lack of social restraint, and indiscretion in diet.

It may not seem possible, but the average African pioneer lives on a tension of activity as high as any man in London or New York.

« AnteriorContinuar »