While exploration and conquest have either gone hand in hand, or succeeded one another very closely, there has been a third motive that has often led to interesting discoveries, to be followed by annexation. The mighty hunters of Africa have often brought back, not alone ivory and skins, but also interesting information of the interior. The gorgeous narratives of Gordon Cumming in the "fifties" were one of the causes which led to an interest in African exploration. Many a lad has had his imagination fired and his career determined by the exploits of Gordon Cumming, which are now, however, almost forgotten. Mr. F. C. Selous has in our time surpassed even Gordon Cumming's exploits, and has besides done excellent work as guide for the successive expeditions into South Africa. Thus, practically within our own time, the interior of Africa, where once geographers, as the poet Butler puts it, "placed elephants instead of towns," has become known, in its main outlines, by successive series of intrepid explorers, who have often had to be warriors as well as scientific men. Whatever the motives that have led the white man into the centre of the Dark Continent--love of adventure, scientific curiosity, big game, or patriotism--the result has been that the continent has become known instead of merely its coast-line. On the whole, English exploration has been the main means by which our knowledge of the interior of Africa has been obtained, and England has been richly rewarded by coming into possession of the most promising parts of the continent--the Nile valley and temperate South Africa. But France has also gained a huge extent of country covering almost the whole of North-West Africa. While much of this is merely desert, there are caravan routes which tap the basin of the Niger and conduct its products to Algeria, conquered by France early in the century, and to Tunis, more recently appropriated. The West African provinces of France have, at any rate, this advantage, that they are nearer to the mother-country than any other colony of a European power; and the result may be that African soldiers may one of these days fight for France on European soil, just as the Indian soldiers were imported to Cyprus by Lord Beaconsfield in 1876. Meanwhile, the result of all this international ambition has been that Africa in its entirety is now known and accessible to European civilisation. [_Authorities:_ Kiepert, _Beiträge zur Entdeckungsgeschichte Afrikas_, 1873; Brown, _The Story of Africa_, 4 vols., 1894; Scott Keltie, _The Partition of Africa_, 1896.] CHAPTER XII THE POLES--FRANKLIN--ROSS--NORDENSKIOLD--NANSEN