to the colonization of Africa by the nations of
Europe.

In 1884 the great German statesman, Prince Bismarck, set up the German
flag in Damaraland, the coast district to the north of the Orange
River; and soon after a German colony was set up in the lands between
the Portuguese settlements and the Equator. This was simply called
German East Africa. At the same time the other nations of Europe
suddenly realized that if they meant to have part of Africa they must
join in the scramble at once. There were soon a British East Africa, a
Portuguese East Africa, a Portuguese West Africa, a German South-west
Africa, and so on. All these are names which might have been given in
a hurry, and in them we seem to read the haste of the European
nations to seize on the only lands in the world which were still
available. They are very different from the descriptive names which
the early Portuguese adventurers had strewn along the coast, like
_Sierra Leone_, or "the lion mountain;" _Cape Verde_, or "the green
cape," so called from its green grass.

Still, romance was not dead even yet. There is one district of South
Africa which takes its name in the old way from that of a person.
_Rhodesia_, the name given to Mashonaland and Matabeleland, was so
called after Mr. Cecil Rhodes, a young British emigrant, who went out
from England in very weak health and became perfectly strong, at the
same time winning a fortune for himself in the diamond fields of
Kimberley. He devoted himself heart and soul to the strengthening of
British power in South Africa, and it is fitting that this province
should by its name keep his memory fresh.

The story of the struggle in South Africa between Boer and Briton can
be partly read in its place-names; and the story of the struggle
between old and new settlers in Canada can be similarly read in the
place-names of that land.

The first settlers in Canada were the French, and the descendants of
these first settlers form a large proportion of the Canadian
population. Many places in Canada still have, of course, the names
which the first French settlers gave them.

The Italian, John Cabot, had sailed to Canada a few years after
Columbus discovered America, sent by the English king, Henry VII., but
no settlements were made. Thirty-seven years later the French sailor,
Jacques Cartier, was sent by the French king, Francis I., to explore
there. Cartier sailed up the Gulf of St. Lawrence as far as the spot
where Mo