Abstract
MR. H. H. JOHNSTONE opened the session of the Royal Geographical Society on Monday evening with a paper on British Central Africa, of which he is administrator. He contrasted the condition of the country ten years ago with what it is now, explaining how the Mission schools, the Scottish planters, and the Sikh police had produced changes in the manners, productions, and means of transport of the whole region, and had succeeded in effectually repressing the slave trade. A survey of the Protectorate has been in progress for the last three years, and the map is beginning to acquire some firmness of outline. The great advantage of the Protectorate over the surrounding districts lies in the greater proportion of high land over low swampy country. Roughly speaking, about four-fifths of its land-surface is 3000 feet and upwards above the level of the sea, and about one-fifth is between 5000 and 10,000 feet. The immediate result of this elevation of the land is the prevalence of a much cooler climate kthan is usually found in Central Africa so near the equator. There are portions of British Central Africa where the heat is never oppressive, even in the hot season, and where in the cold season bitter frosts prevail. Unfortunately, it is impossible to reach this delectable land from the coast without traversing the hot and unhealthy valleys of the Zambezi and Shire.
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The British Central Africa Protectorate. Nature 51, 66–67 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/051066a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051066a0