The animal products in the list for French North Africa indicate that sheep are the most important animals, as is natural in a dry, mountain ous region. Among the forest products timber seems to be unexpectedly important until one remembers that the high mountains are covered with forests among which cedars like those of Lebanon are especially interesting. Cork is produced here for the same climatic reasons which make it a great product of Spain and Portugal. The production of minerals is in accord with the dryness of the climate and the moun tainous character of the country, which cause ores to be easily found and often make them abundant. A region which has phosphates for fertilizer, as well as metals, is fortunate.
Here, and in all parts of Africa, the imports are almost entirely manufactured goods, except for a certain amount of coal, lumber, tea, coffee and minor products. Among manufactured goods cotton cloth, cl machinery, and other metal work usually hold the highest place. The variety in the imports from region to region is much than in the exports.
Now compare the products of Egypt and the Union of South Africa with those of the French provinces. Egypt with its preponderance of cotton and cereals illustrates the effect of irrigation and intensive agri culture in a country with deep level soil, great aridity, high temperature, few trees, and a dense population. Egypt has the disadvantage of having only one important cash crop. Irrigation, to be sure, makes the yield of cotton quite steady from year to year and also very large per acre, but that does not prevent great fluctuations in price such as occurred (hiring the Great War, or such as occur when the American crop is unusually large or small. South Africa is no better off, for its exports are negligible in three of the six classes that are represented in Algeria and Tunis as well as in manufactures, while the enormous preponderance of gold and diamonds does not tend toward permanent progress. The South African list shows the effects of aridity, mountains, recent settlement, and the absence of opportunities for agriculture.
The Business of the Inactive Part of Africa.—The rest of Africa may be divided into four main sections. First, areas in the north and smaller ones in the southeast are deserts. These are places where business is almost absent, for there are neither people nor agricultural resources. Next comes a band of steppes which border the Sahara on the south in the Sudan, swing around into the peninsula of Eritrea and Somaliland on the east, and reappear surrounding the Kalahari Desert. Here the people are largely nomadic keepers of cattle who do little except supply their own simple needs.
South of the Sudan and along the plateaus of the eastern part, of central and southern Africa lies a more important zone of grassland or savanna studded often with trees and in many places cultivated or else supporting a considerable number of cattle. Here live the most active and progressive of the Negro races of Africa. Here, too, the cool ness of the high plateaus holds out some hope that the white man may ultimately be able to live permanently. Nevertheless, among the chief products only gold and gums come from this region. Full data lacking, however, and the table on the preceding page accounts for less than half the exports of the various colonies, no data being available for the rest without an unreasonable amount of search. The savanna regions with their abundant grass, their scattered thickets and groves, and their so-called gallery forests lining the water courses are the home of many of the animals of Africa—the lion, leopard, hyena, and jackal; the elephant, hippopotamus, and giraffe; and most numerous of all, the many kinds of antelopes.
Finally along the equator in the western part of Africa a zone of dense tropical forest represents what most people think of as typically tropical. It is a region where the white man hesitates to live for any length of time for fear of fever, and where the black man is most idle and inefficient. Nevertheless, it yields the two main products of the vast backward portion of Africa, namely, palm nuts and cocoa, for the gold comes almost wholly from Rhodesia close to the South African gold mines.
The Great Business Problems of little study of the exports of Africa shows that they practically all come from within less than 400 miles of the seacoast. This is true of every thing listed above under French North Africa, Egypt, and South Africa. In the rest of Africa the greatest of all products is the palm nuts which grow along the coasts in equatorial regions. The cocoa and other products of trees and bushes also come almost wholly from the coast and from the outlying islands such as Zanzibar, Madagascar, and Saint Thomas. The difficulty and cost of transportation prevent much trade with the interior. Some railroads have indeed been built but progress is slow. It does not pay to build railways across vast deserts, through deadly forests, and up the side of a lofty plateau unless there is a great demand for the products that the railroads can carry. That is one reason why the completion of the Cape to Cairo railroad is still delayed.