which are entirely in the interior, without ocean frontage; next, Portuguese Africa, and west of this the great territory known as 'Rhodesia'; then German Africa, which extends almost to the equator; north of these, British East Africa, fronting on the Indian Ocean, and merging northwardly with the Egyptian Sudan, which was recently recovered from the Mahdi by the joint operation of British and Egyptian troops, and the British flag placed side by side with that of Egypt; next north, upon the coast, Italian territory and a small tract opposite the entrance to the Red Sea controlled by England; and a few hundred miles west of the entrance to the Red Sea, the independent Kingdom of Abyssinia. This division of African territory, nearly all of it made within the memory of the present generation, forms the present political map of Africa. With England and France controlling an area equal in each case to that of the United States; Germany, a territory one-third the size of the United States; Portugal, with an area somewhat less; the Kongo Free State in the great equatorial basin, but having a frontage upon the Atlantic with an area nearly one-third that of the United States; Italy and Spain, each with a comparatively small area of territory; Egypt, with relations quite as much British as Turkish; Tripoli, Turkish, and the five independent States of Morocco, Liberia, Abyssinia, and the two Boer Republics—nothing remains unclaimed, even in the desert wastes, while in the high altitudes and subtropical climate of southeast Africa civilization and progress are making rapid advancement." _United States Bureau of Statistics, Monthly Summary, August, 1899._