the Victoria Nyanza.  Considering the small resources he had at hand, and the cruel and warlike character of the Masai people through whom he journeyed, this journey was by far the most remarkable and important in the annals of exploration during the eighties.  Thomson afterwards undertook to open a way from the Benue, the great eastern affluent of the Niger, to Lake Chad and the White Nile.  Here again he succeeded beyond all expectation, while his tactful management of the natives led to political results of the highest importance, as will shortly appear.

These explorations and those of French, German, and Portuguese travellers served to bring nearly the whole of Africa within the ken of the civilised world, and revealed the fact that nearly all parts of tropical Africa had a distinct commercial value.

This discovery, we may point out, is the necessary preliminary to any great and sustained work of colonisation and annexation.  Three conditions may be looked on as essential to such an effort.  First, that new lands should be known to be worth the labour of exploitation or settlement; second, that the older nations should possess enough vitality to pour settlers and treasure into them; and thirdly, that mechanical appliances should be available for the overcoming of natural obstacles.

Now, a brief glance at the great eras of exploring and colonising activity will show that in all these three directions the last thirty years have presented advantages which are unique in the history of the world.  A few words will suffice to make good this assertion.  The wars which constantly devastated the ancient world, and the feeble resources in regard to navigation wielded by adventurous captains, such as Hanno the Carthaginian, grievously hampered all the efforts of explorers by sea, while mechanical appliances were so weak as to cripple man’s efforts at penetrating the interior.  The same is true of the mediaeval voyagers and travellers.  Only the very princes among men, Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Cabot, Cabral, Gilbert, and Raleigh, could have done what they did with ships that were mere playthings.  Science had to do her work of long and patient research before man could hopefully face the mighty forces and malignant influences of the tropics.  Nor was the advance of knowledge and invention sufficient by itself to equip man for successful war against the ocean, the desert, the forest, and the swamp.  The political and social development of the older countries was equally necessary.  In order that thousands of settlers should be able and ready to press in where the one great leader had shown the way, Europe had to gain something like peace and stability.  Only thus, when the natural surplus of the white races could devote itself to the task of peacefully subduing the earth rather than to the hideous work of mutual slaughter, could the life-blood of Europe be poured forth in fertilising streams into the waste places of the other continents.