The African Lakes Trading Corporation (as it is now called) was founded mainly by the energies of the brothers John and Frederick Moir (sons of an Edinburgh doctor) about 1878, as an adjunct to the missionary enterprise in the Shire Highlands. In course of time they established trading stations on Lake Nyasa, and cut a track or rough road over mountains and forest from the north-west corner of Lake Nyasa to the south end of Tanganyika, conveying over this “Stevenson Road” (so called because a Mr James Stevenson, a director of the Company, provided the cost of this undertaking) a little steamer in sections for the London Missionary Society. This steamer, the _Good News_, was the first to navigate the waters of Tanganyika. The African Lakes Company, being established at the north end of Lake Nyasa, inevitably came into contact with the slave-trading Arabs who had settled there about ten years before. In 1887 the agents of the Company intervened to protect natives from being raided by the Arabs. The Arabs retorted by attacking the white men. Volunteers hastened to their relief from several quarters. Amongst these were two men afterwards to become famous as African governors—Sir Frederick Lugard and Sir Alfred Sharpe. But the Arab question was not definitely settled until the Protectorate had been established for four years (1895). The African Lakes Corporation certainly did the pioneer work of British trade in South Central Africa. Footnote 160: The cession of Cape Colony from Holland to Britain took place on August 13, 1814. Footnote 161: The franchise is limited to men of European race and descent only; while women are not granted the parliamentary vote, as is the case in Australia; New Zealand; California, Colorado, Wyoming, and three other states of the American Union; the Isle of Man; Finland; and Norway. In these points, the framers of the Act of Union have shown the unprogressive spirit characteristic of the S. African Dutch. Footnote 162: He reached England in 1811 but was treated there with a neglect and ingratitude by the British Government which will long remain a scandal in our Imperial History, and for which as yet no public reparation has been made. His only descendant is Prof. Flinders-Petrie, the Egyptologist. CHAPTER XII GREAT EXPLORERS