How the European could reign in Africa is a simple problem. The real difficulty is as to who in Europe will do it. Africa is claimed by everybody, and it belongs to nobody. So far as the Nyassa region is concerned, while the Portuguese assert their right to the south and west, scarcely one of them has ever set foot in it: and while the Germans claim the north and east, their pretension is based neither upon right of discovery, right of treaty, right of purchase, right of conquest, nor right of possession, but on the cool audacity of some chartographer in Berlin, who, in delineating a tract of country recognized as German by the London Convention of 1886, allowed his paint-brush to color some tens of thousands of square miles beyond the latitude assigned. To England it is a small matter politically who gets Africa. But it is of moment that those who secure the glory of annexation should not evade the duty of administration. The present condition of Africa is too critical to permit so wholesale a system of absentee landlordism; and it is the duty of England, so far at least as the Nyassa region is concerned, to insist on the various claimants either being true to their assumed responsibilities or abandoning a nominal sovereignty. It is well known,--it is certain,--that neither Portugal nor Germany will ever administer this region. If they would, the problem would be solved, and England would gladly welcome the release; the release, for, although England has never aided this country with a force of arms, she has for some time known that in some way, direct or indirect, she ought to do it. This country is, in a special sense, the _protégé_ of England. Since Livingstone's death the burden of it has never really left her conscience. The past relation of England to Nyassa-land, and her duty now, will be apparent from the following simple facts:--