Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations and map. See 55553-h.htm or 55553-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55553/55553-h/55553-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55553/55553-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/lastfrontierwhi00powe Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). THE LAST FRONTIER * * * * * * _BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL_ THE LAST FRONTIER GENTLEMEN ROVERS THE END OF THE TRAIL FIGHTING IN FLANDERS THE ROAD TO GLORY VIVE LA FRANCE! ITALY AT WAR _CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS_ * * * * * * [Illustration: A SANDSTORM PASSING OVER KHARTOUM. “It approached at the speed of a galloping horse—a great fleecy, yellowish-brown cloud which looked for all the world like the smoke of some gigantic conflagration.”] THE LAST FRONTIER The White Man's War for Civilisation in Africa by E. ALEXANDER POWELL, F.R.G.S. Late of the American Consular Service in Egypt With Sixteen Full-Page Illustrations and Map New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1919 Copyright, 1912, by Charles Scribner's Sons [Illustration: Publisher's Logo] To MY CHEERFUL, UNCOMPLAINING AND COURAGEOUS COMRADE ON THE LONG AFRICAN TRAIL MY WIFE FOREWORD The unknown lands are almost all discovered. The work of the explorer and the pioneer is nearly finished, and ere long their stern and hardy figures will have passed from the world's stage, never to return. In the Argentine, in Mexico, and in Alaska store clothes and stiff hats are replacing corduroys and sombreros; the pack-mule is giving way to the motor-car. The earth has but one more great prize with which to lure the avaricious and the adventurous: Africa—mysterious, opulent, alluring—beckons and calls. The conditions which exist in Africa to-day closely parallel those which were to be found, within the memory of many of us, beyond the Mississippi. In North Africa the French are pushing their railways across the desert in the face of Arab opposition, just as we pushed our railways across the desert in the face of Indian opposition forty years ago. As an El Dorado the Transvaal has taken the place held by Australia, and California, and the Yukon, in their turn. The grazing lands of Morocco and the grain lands of Rhodesia will prove formidable rivals to those of our own West in a much-nearer future than most of us suppose. French and British well-drillers are giving modern versions of the miracle of Moses in the Sahara and the Sudan and converting worthless deserts into rich domains thereby.