Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/407

 southern shores of Lake Chad. With the insight into African geographical problems so characteristic of him, de Brazza saw the Sanga river was more likely to afford a route to the central Soudan from the Congo than the apparently more important M'ubungi. Camfurel was the first man sent to trace the course of the Sanga, and he and his expedition were annihilated. Furneaux was then sent and succeeded in getting several days' journey above the rapids of the Sanga when he fell in with war, and got one white and seventeen black men of his party killed. Then he returned to de Brazza, who went up the river himself as far as the rapids and established a station there that black traders now frequent. He sent a lieutenant and fifty-five men on, and this good man got right through to Yola on the Niger and then returned to de Brazza safely. On his way I may remark, as proof that he had struck an interior trade-route, he met traders who had passports from Algeria on the Mediterranean, and these he countersigned. Some of these people accompanied him, and when he returned to Brazzaville, horses from the Soudan were photographed alongside a steamer on the Congo.

He reported that as soon as you got out of the Ogowé forests to the north, the country became extremely healthy and none of the expedition suffered from sickness, and that this country abounds with cattle and horses. The lieutenant must have been traversing high land, for a part of the time while between the Ogowé and the Niger; but that the country is healthy for white men I expect is only because there are no white men there for it to kill and make a death-rate. I do not believe that any part of Africa between the Zambesi and the Sahara is healthy for white men.

There is in course of construction a railroad which is to open up the route from Congo Français to Lake Chad, following the course of the Sanga; and this when completed will form a line of markets that must be of great importance from the richness of the country they will drain. It should be the trade-route for the whole north central African ivory and other trades; and there is no doubt de Brazza is manifesting his usual far-sightedness in turning his attention to the expansion of Congo Français to the north-cast, and