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Show JOHN BULL IN Ai-ruwv. The Crafty Old Gentleman Now Owm A bout 1,400,000 Square Miles. The latest acquisition of African ter ritory frives Great Britain an unbroken line across the length of Africa from the Mediterranean and the Nile to the extreme point of the continent In all, this territory, held in various ways, from Cape Colony up to the "occupation" "occupa-tion" of Egypt, is in extent abont 1,400, 000 square miles and has a population of 30, 000, 000. In the Nile valley it includes in-cludes incomparably the best of norti Africa. In Uganda it holds the key to the lakes of central Africa, nearly a9 large as our own lake system. The new treaty gives it the high land west of Lake Tanganyika, considerably higher and healihier than the eastern, in German Ger-man hands. The new conquests of the British South Africa company add tho great tablelands ta-blelands cf the interior of subtropical Africa, in much of which white men liva Lastly, there is Cape Colony, the only vital European settlement in all Africa. As it stands this great highway high-way holds two-thirds of all of Africa in which Europeans can live and carry on efficient administration. It has the most fertile tract in the continent in Egypt its healthiest in Cape Town, its greatest gold mines and the only region from which tropical Africa can be controlled. con-trolled. Still more important is its relation to African water courses. A steamer can start at Alexandria and run, when the mahdi's successor is cleared away, to a point on Albert Edward Nyanza, 12C miles from Lake Tanganyika. This runs to within 70 miles of Lake Nyassa.From this lake the Shire river, broken at Murchison falls, descends to the Zam besi and the Indian ocean. From a navigable nav-igable point on the Congo is less than 100 miles to Lake Tanganyika. Tho Aruwini runs as near the Nila It ia possible to start at the mouth of the Zambezi Zam-bezi and reach the mouth of the Kongo or Nile with less tha& 200 miles of land travel, and the key and center to thia rreat system is now in English hands. Omaha Bee. |