Africa Author:Keith Johnston, Augustus Henry Keane, Friedrich Von Hellwald Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE CONGO FREE STATE General Survey : Formation of the Free State—Progress of geographical research—Boundaries, extent, population — Physical f... more »eatures—The Congo basin—The Livingstone Falls and Congo estuary—The M iddle Congo and its affluents—The Upper Congo, its lakes and tributaries— Lake Tanganyika and the Lualaba—Climate of the Congo basin— Flora and fanna — Inhabitants and native States — Garenganze, Katanga—Lnnda, the Mnata Yamvo'a kingdom—The U-Eua State— Manyuema and the Arabs of the Lualaba—The Ba-Lolo, Ba-Ngala, and Ba-Yansi nations—The Ba-Luba and Tu-Shilange territories— The Va-Chibokwe and Kwango Ba-Ngalas—Table of the Congo tribes and nations—Bantu and Negro contrasted—Mission of the Congo Free State—Railway projects—Trade and free-trade area—Administration. G-eneral Survey—Formation of the Free State The creation of the Congo Free State will in future ages probably be regarded as one of the most memorable events in the social history of the human race. It is of too recent occurrence for the present generation to grasp its full significance; nevertheless even casual observers cannot fail to perceive that it ranks with the emancipation of the plantation slaves by the British Government as one of the two philanthropic measures which reflect most credit on the civilisation of the nineteenth century. The Emancipation Act directly affected the African populations transported beyond the seas. The formationof the Free State, inspired rather by humanitarian than political motives, is intended to affect the African populations in their native land. The former measure has not realised all the hopes of its generous promoters; the latter enterprise may also possibly be doomed to partial failure. But even so both will always stand out as the noblest effort...« less