The Kongo River is the outlet of the state, and to facilitate the transportation of the products, railways have been built, or are under construction, around the rapids. This region is about the only remaining source of elephant ivory, but most of the supply consists of the tusks of animals long since dead. A fleet of steamboats carries the commercial products to the coast. _Stanley Pool_, at the head of the rapids, is the chief depot for collection. Ocean steamships ascend the river to a point above _Boma_, the place of administration. Nigeria and Ashanti are British possessions on the Guinea coast,[81] having a trading company organization. Sierra Leone is an organized colony, a product of which is the kola-nut. British East Africa is important for strategic purposes, inasmuch as it includes the upper Nile basin, a territory sometimes known as the Egyptian Sudan. _Akra_ is the trading port of Nigeria, and _Khartum_ of the upper Nile Valley. _Zanzibar_ is the metropolis of the east coast. The French possessions include a large territory at the mouth of the Kongo, the western part of the Sahara, and the islands of Madagascar and Reunion. In German East Africa the commercial development has been substantial, and large plantations for the cultivation of tropical products are in operation. A railway from the coast to the lake-district is under construction. _Mombasa_ is its commercial outlet. The Italians have nominal possession of a territory facing the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and also of the peninsula of Guardafui. Their actual possession, however, is restricted to the island and trading-post of _Massawa_. Their attempts to conquer Abyssinia have been unsuccessful. =Cape of Good Hope and the South African Colonies.=--Up to the time of the Suez Canal, Cape of Good Hope was a sort of half-way house between British ports and India, and this position made it commercially important. Even at the present time more than fifteen hundred vessels, many of them in the Indian Ocean trade, call at the chief port of the colony every year. Agriculture is the chief industry of these colonies, though not the one yielding the greatest returns. Enough wheat, maize (or "mealies"), and fruit are grown for home consumption, but the climate is too arid for any excess of bread-stuffs. The aridity is a resource, however, in the matter of wool, the superior quality of which is due largely to the deficient rainfall. As a matter of fact the whole country is a great grazing veldt; wool, a very fine quality of Angora mohair, hides, and cattle products are exports. From December to March the fruits ripen, and these, especially the grapes, are carried in cold-storage vessels to British and other European ports. The wine is likewise of excellent quality and is becoming an export of great value. Both the fruit and the wine are similar to those of Australia and California.