Africa

German East Africa towards the great lakes. In British Central Africa a

railway connects Lake Nyasa with the navigable waters of the Shire, and

various lines have been built by the French in Madagascar.

All the main railways in South Africa, the lines in British West Africa,

in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and in Egypt south of Luxor are of 3 ft. 6 in.

gauge. The main lines in Lower Egypt and in Algeria and Tunisia are of 4

ft. 8 1/2 in. gauge. Elsewhere as in French West and British East Africa

the lines are of metre (3.28 ft.) gauge.

The telegraphic system of Africa is on the whole older than that of the

railways, the newer European possessions having in most cases been provided

with telegraph lines before railway projects had been set on foot. In

Algeria, Egypt and Cape Colony the systems date back to the middle of the

19th century, before the end of which the lines had in each country reached

some thousands of miles. In tropical Africa the systems of French West

Africa, where the line from Dakar to St Louis was begun in 1862, were the

first to be fully developed, lines having been carried from different

points on the coast of Senegal and Guinea towards the Niger, the main line

being prolonged north-west to Timbuktu, and west and south to the coast of

Dahomey. The route for a telegraph line to connect Timbuktu with Algeria

was surveyed in 1905. The Congo region is furnished with several

telegraphic systems, the longest going from the mouth of the river to Lake

Tanganyika. From Ujiji on the east coast of that lake there is telegraphic

communication via Tabora with Dar-es-Salaam and via Nyasa and Rhodesia with

Cape Town. The last-named line is the longest link in the trans-continental

line first suggested in 1876 by Sir (then Mr) Edwin Arnold and afterwards

taken up by Cecil Rhodes. The northern link from Egypt to Khartum has been

continued southward to Uganda, while another line connects Uganda with

Mombasa. At the principal seaports the inland systems are connected with

submarine cables which place Africa in telegraphic communication with the

rest of the world.

Numerous steamship lines run from Great Britain, Germany, France and

other countries to the African seaports, the journey from any place in

western Europe to any port on the African coast occupying, by the shortest

route, not more than three weeks. (E. HE., F. R. C.)

1 Further conferences respecting the liquor traffic in Africa were held

in Brussels in 1899 and 1906. In both instances conventions were signed by

the powers, raising the minimum duty on imported spirituous liquors.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Authoritative works dealing with Africa as a whole in any

of its aspects are comparatively rare. Besides such volumes the following

list includes therefore books containing valuable information concerning

large or typical sections of the continent:—

sec. I. General Descriptions.—(a) Ancient and Medieval. Herodotus, ed. G.

Rawlinson, 4 vols.1 (1880); Ptolemy's Geographia, ed. C. Muller, vol. i.

(Paris, 1883-1901); Ibn Haukal, ``Description de l'Afrique (transl. McG. de

Slane), Nouv. Journal asiatique, 1842; Edrisi, ``Geographie'' (transl.

Jaubert), Rec. de voyages . . . Soc. De Geogr. vol. v. (Paris, 1836);

Abulfeda, Geographie (transl. Reinaud and Guyard, Paris, 1848-1883); M. A.

P.d'Avezac, Description de l'Afrique ancienne (Paris, 1845); L. de Marmol,

Description general de Africa (Granada, 1573); L. Sanuto, Geografia dell'

Africa (Venice, 1588); F. Pigafetta, A Report of the Kingdom of Congo, &c.

(1597); Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa (transl. J.

Pory, ed. R. Brown), 3 vols. (1896); O. Dapper, Naukeurige beschrijvinge

der afrikaensche gewesten, &c. (Amsterdam, 1668) (also English version by

Ogilvy, 1670, and French version, Amsterdam, 1686); B. Tellez, ``Travels of

the Jesuits in Ethiopia,'' A New Collection of Voyages, vol. vii. (1710);

G. A. Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, Istorica Descrittione de tre Regni Congo,

Matamba, et Angola (Milan, 1690) (account of the labours of the Capuchin

missionaries and their observations on the country and people); J. Barbot,

``Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea and of Ethiopia

Inferior,', Churchill's Voyages, vol. v. (1707); W. Bosman, A New . . .

Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, &c., 2nd ed. (1721);

J. B. Labat, Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique occidentale, 5 vols. (Paris,

1728); Idem, Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale, 5 vols. (Paris,

1732). (b) Modern. B. d'Anville, Memoire conc. les rivieres de l'interieur

de l'Afrique (Paris, n.d.); M. Vollkommer, Die Quellen B. d'Anville's fur

seine kritische Karte von Afrika Munich, 1904); C. Ritter, Die Erdkunde, i.

Theil, 1. Buch, ``Afrika'' (Berlin, 1822); l. M`Queen, Geographical and

Commercial View of Northern and Central Africa (Edinburgh, 1821 ); Idem,

Geographical Survey of Africa ( 1840); W. D. Cooley, Inner Africa laid open

(1852); E. Reclus, Nouvelle geographie universelle, vols. x.-xiii. (1885-

1888); A. H. Keane, Africa (in Stanford's Compendium), 2 vols., 2nd ed.

(1904-1907); F. Hahn and W. Sievers, Afrika, 2. Aufl. (Leipzig, 1901); M.

Fallex and A.Mairey, L'Afrique au debut du XXe siecle (Paris, 1906); Sir C.

P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, vols. iii. and iv.

(Oxford, 1894, 1904); F. D. and A. J. Herbertson, Descriptive Geographies

from Original Sources: Africa (1902); British Africa (The British Empire

Series, vol. ii., 1899); Journal of the African Society; Comite de

l'Afrique francaise, Bulletin, Paris; Mutteilungen der afrikan.

Gesellschaft in Deutschland (Berlin, 1879-1889); Mitteilungen . . . aus den

deutschen Schutzegebieten (Berlin); H. Schirmer, Le Sahara (Paris, 1893);

Mary H.Kingsley, West African Studies, 2nd ed. (1901); J. Bryce,

Impressions of South Africa (1897); Sir Harry Johnston, The Uganda

Protectorate, 2 vols. (1902) (vol ii. is devoted to anthropology); E. D.

Morel, Affairs of West Africa (1902).

sec. II. Geography (Physical), Geology, Climate, Flora and Fauna. — (For

Descriptive Geogr. see sec. I.)—G. Gurich, ``Uberblick uber den geolog. Bau

des afr. Kontinents,'' Peterm. Mitt., 1887; A. Knox, Notes on the Geology

of the Continent of Africa (1906) (includes a bibliography); L. von Hohnel,

A. Rosiwal, F. Toula and E. Suess, B eitrage zur geologischen Kenntniss des

omstlichcn Afrika (Vienna, 1891);

E. Stromer, Die Geologie der deutschen Schutzgebieten in Afrika (Munich,

1896); J. Chavanne, Afrika im Lichte uniserer Tage: Bodengestalt, &c.

(Vienna, 1881); F.Heidrich, ``Die mittlere Hohe Afrikas,'' Peterm. Mitt.,

1888; J. W. Gregory, The Great Rift-Valley (1896); H. G.Lyons, The

Physiography of the River Nile and its Basin (Cairo, 1906); S. Passarage,

Die Kalahari: Versuch einer physischgeogr. Darstellung . . . des sudafr.

Beckens (Berlin, 1904); Idem, ``Inselberglandschaften im tropischen

Afrika,'' Naturw. Wochenschrift, 1904. 654-665; J. E. S. Moore, The

Tanganyika, Problem (1903); W. H. Hudleston, ``On the Origin of the Marine

(Halolimnic) Fauna of Lake Tanganyika,'' Journ. Of Trans. Victoria Inst.,

1904, 300-351 (discusses the whole question of the geological history of

equatorial Africa); E.Stromer, ``Ist der Tanganyika ein Rellikten-See?''

Peterm. Mitt., 1901, 275-278; E. Kohlschutter, ``Die . . . Arbeiten der

Pendelexpedition . . . in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika,'' Verh. Deuts.

Geographentages Breslau, 1901, 133-153; J. Cornet, ``La geologie du bassin

du Congo,'' Bull. Soc. Beige geol., 1898; E. G. Ravenstein, ``The

Climatology of Africa'' (ten reports), Reports Brit. Association, 1892-

1901; Idem, ``Climatological Observations . . . I. Tropical Africa''

(1904); H. G. Lyons, ``On the Relations between Variations of Atmospheric

Pressure . . . and the Nile Flood,'' Proc. Roy. Soc., Ser. A, vol. lxxvi.,

1905; P. Reichard, ``Zur Frage der Austrocknung Afrikas,'' Geogr.

Zeitschrift, 1895; J. Hoffmann, ``Die tiefsten Temperaturen auf den

Hochlandern,'' &c., Peterm. Mitt., 1905; G. Fraunberger, ``Studien uber die

jahrlichen Niederschlagsmengen des afrik. Kontinents,'' Peterm. Mitt.,

1906; D. Oliver and Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Flora of) Tropical Africa, 10

vols. (1888-1906); K. Oschatz, Anordnung der Vegetation in Afrika

(Erlangen, 1900); A. Engler, Hochgebirgs-flora des tropischen Afrika

(Berlin, 1892); Idem, Die Pflanzenwelt Ostaftikras und der Nachbargebiete,

3 vols. (Berlin, 1895); Idem, Beitrage zur Flora von Afrika (Engler's

Botan. Jahrbucher, 14 vols. &c.); W. P. Hiern, Catalogue of the African

Plants Collected by Dr Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-1861, 2 vols. (1896-

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