The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 2, April, 1889Various
History
The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 2, April, 1889
Various
Geography -- Periodicals
Aroused by these reports, and influenced by these views, Cardinal
Lavigerie, for twenty years Bishop of Algiers and now Primate of
Africa, last summer started a new crusade in Belgium and Germany
against slavery and the slave-trade. The cardinal has organized
societies, and is raising a large fund to equip two armed steamships
for Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyassa, the headquarters of the
slave-trade, and offers, if necessary, to head the band himself. The
Pope has engaged in the work, has contributed liberally to this fund,
and sent three hundred Catholic missionaries to Central Africa. The
slave-trade is carried on with arms and ammunition furnished by
European traders. Without these arms, the slave-trade could not be
successfully carried on, for the Negroes could defend themselves
against slave-traders armed like themselves. While the demand for
slaves continues, the slave-trade will exist, and will not cease until
the factories of European nations are planted in the interior of
Africa.
MINERAL WEALTH OF AFRICA.
We are told in Phillips's "Ore Deposits" that the precious metals do
not appear to be very generally distributed in Africa. More thorough
research may show that this view is incorrect, and that there are large
deposits of iron, copper, gold, and other metals in many parts of the
continent. Gold is found on the Gold Coast, in the Transvaal, in the
Sudan, and in Central Africa, but is only worked in surface diggings,
excepting in the Transvaal; but near all these washings, gold nuggets
of large size, and the quartz rock, have been discovered. In Transvaal
the mines were worked a long time ago, probably by the Portuguese, then
abandoned and forgotten. Recently they have been rediscovered, and
worked by the English. In the Kaap gold-field in the Transvaal, three
years ago, the lion and zebra, elephant and tiger, roamed undisturbed
in the mountain solitudes, where there is now a population of 8,000,
with 80 gold-mining companies, having a capital of $18,500,000,
one-third of which is paid up. Barberstown, the chief mining-town, has
two exchanges, a theatre, two music-halls, canteens innumerable,
several churches and hotels, four banks, and a hospital. A railroad was
opened in December, 1887, from the Indian Ocean towards these mines, 52
miles, and is being rapidly constructed 100 miles farther to
Barberstown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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