Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/491

 terrace dominated by the Bouet and Baudin hills to the north. Although containing no more than fifteen hundred inhabitants — French and other whites, Senegalese, Kroomen, and Mpongwes — Libreville is scattered over a space of about four miles along the roadstead. Here is a Catholic establishment, where over a hundred children are taught various trades, and also cultivate extensive cocoa-nut, oil-palm, and other plantations, serving as a sort of nursery for the whole region between the Niger and Congo mouths. At the opposite extremity of Libreville lies the American missionary station of Baraka, where instruction has now to be given in French, the official language of the colony. Near it are the factories of Glass, mostly belonging to foreigners, and much more important than the French

houses. Notwithstanding its great political value since the acquisition of the Ogoway basin and the foundation of the Congo Free State, Libreville is far from being a source of profit to France, the revenue derived from a few taxes and import dues scarcely representing one-fourth of the annual outlay.

But notwithstanding its present restricted commerce, there can be no doubt that Libreville must sooner or later become a great centre of international trade. Not only is it the natural emporium for all the produce of the Komo and Romboe basins, but through the latter river it also commands the route to the Ogoway. Ass soon as a railway or even a carriage road is opened, all the traffic of this basin above the Ngunie confluence must flow to the Gaboon estuary. But meantime