icial of his
native country, Germany. Captain Lugard had investigated the region
between the three Lakes Nyanza, and secured it for Great Britain.
In South Africa British claims were successfully and successively
advanced to Bechuana-land, Mashona-land, and Matabele-land, and,
under the leadership of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, a railway and telegraph
were rapidly pushed forward towards the north. Owing to the enterprise
of Mr. (now Sir H. H.) Johnstone, the British possessions were in
1891 pushed up as far as Nyassa-land. By that date, as we have
seen, various treaties with Germany and Portugal had definitely
fixed the contour lines of the different possessions of the three
countries in South Africa. By 1891 the interior of Africa, which
had up to 1880 been practically a blank, could be mapped out almost
with as much accuracy as, at any rate, South America. Europe had
taken possession of Africa.

One of the chief results of this, and formally one of its main
motives, was the abolition of the slave trade. North Africa has
been Mohammedan since the eighth century, and Islam has always
recognised slavery, consequently the Arabs of the north have continued
to make raids upon the negroes of Central Africa, to supply the
Mohammedan countries of West Asia and North Africa with slaves.
The Mahdist rebellion was in part at least a reaction against the
abolition of slavery by Egypt, and the interest of the next few
years will consist in the last stand of the slave merchants in
the Soudan, in Darfur, and in Wadai, east of Lake Chad, where the
only powerful independent Mohammedan Sultanate still exists. England
is closely pressing upon the revolted provinces, along the upper
course of the Nile; while France is attempting, by expeditions
from the French Congo and through Abyssinia, to take possession
of the Upper Nile before England conquers it. The race for the
Upper Nile is at present one of the sources of danger of European
war.

While exploration and conquest have either gone hand in hand, or
succeeded one another very closely, there has been a third motive
that has often led to interesting discoveries, to be followed by
annexation. The mighty hunters of Africa have often brought back,
not alone ivory and skins, but also interesting information of
the interior. The gorgeous narratives of Gordon Cumming in the
"fifties" were one of the causes which led to an interest in African
exploration. Many a lad has had his imagination fired and