frica is considerable, and the greater
part converges at _Tripoli_, to which not far from ten thousand
camel-loads of merchandise are brought annually. This trade is carried
on mainly by the Arabs, who cover the region from _Timbuctu_ to Lake
Chad. They bring ivory, ostrich feathers, gold, goat-skins, and slaves.
In return they carry cloth, fire-arms, ammunition, and various
commodities to the negro villages of the Sudan. The district is a
possession of Turkey. Its chief exports are esparto grass, sponges, and
dye-stuffs.

=Central Africa.=--Central Africa is divided among the chief European
powers. Great Britain and Germany divide the lake-region and the
Zanzibar coast. On the Guinea coast the French are an additional factor.
The trade of these regions consists of an exchange of tropical
products--palm-oil, rubber, ebony, camwood, ivory, and hides--for cloth,
tobacco, fire-arms, beads and trinkets, and preserved foods. Most of
this trade is carried on by companies holding royal charters.

The Kongo State is a semi-official corporation of this character, the
King of the Belgians being its chief executive officer. The active
administration is carried on by agents of the company. The chief of each
tribe or village is required, under penalty, to furnish a certain quota
of crude rubber and other products; and between the agent and the Arab
slave-driver the natives have little to choose.

The Kongo River is the outlet of the state, and to facilitate the
transportation of the products, railways have been built, or are under
construction, around the rapids. This region is about the only
remaining source of elephant ivory, but most of the supply consists of
the tusks of animals long since dead. A fleet of steamboats carries the
commercial products to the coast. _Stanley Pool_, at the head of the
rapids, is the chief depot for collection. Ocean steamships ascend the
river to a point above _Boma_, the place of administration.

Nigeria and Ashanti are British possessions on the Guinea coast,[81]
having a trading company organization. Sierra Leone is an organized
colony, a product of which is the kola-nut. British East Africa is
important for strategic purposes, inasmuch as it includes the upper Nile
basin, a territory sometimes known as the Egyptian Sudan. _Akra_ is the
trading port of Nigeria, and _Khartum_ of the upper Nile Valley.
_Zanzibar_ is the metropolis of the east coast.

The French possessions include a large terri