Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/389

 also the right of buying or "otherwise acquiring mines, quarries, forests, fisheries, and manufactures, of cultivating the land and erecting structures on it. The company is moreover the political ruler of "all the territories ceded to it by the kings, the chiefs, and peoples in the Niger basin," and in return undertakes to treat with justice "the nations in its territories," to respect their religions, their laws, and properties. Nevertheless the company is bound to treat with the natives for the gradual abolition of slavery, on this condition obtaining a royal charter which places it under the control of the Secretary of State. Thus has been constituted a second East India Company, which enters at once on the possession

of a territory with a coast-line of no less than 600 miles, and at least double that distance along the inland stream.

Towards its source the Benue basin is separated from that of the Tsad by a scarcely perceptible water-parting; but towards the north the divide between its affluents and the Kaduna river is formed by plateaux dominated by some of the loftiest mountains in North Africa. These highlands are separated by intervening