The Portuguese were the first people to settle in southern Africa. The map shows that they still have a colony near the southern point of the continent. The Dutch and the English also settled there. South Africa is now a large English colony, but many of the people are still Dutch.
411. Recent the last fifty years, there have been great changes in Africa. Nearly all of the con tinent has been explored by white men, who now know how to take better care of themselves in the hot countries. We have stopped taking the natives as slaves, because we feel that it isn't fair. A good Scout wouldn't do such a thing. We have also found that we want to trade with the people of Africa. We want their rubber, ivory, palm nuts, and peanuts. They want many of our things, such as cotton cloth, knives, axes, guns, brass wire, and beads.
412. Railroads and steam number of rail roads have recently been built in Africa by white men, with the help of the black men who live there. People and freight can now go by train around the rapids and falls of the rivers, and thus reach the upper parts that are so quiet and deep that on them steamboats can their country. The other independent country of Africa is Liberia, in the forests along the west coast. This country is under the protection of the United States.
It was set apart a hundred years ago as a place to which negroes from the United States might go and have their own free country. The climate is so hot that the people there do not feel much like working, and they are not so well educated as are their relatives who stayed in the United States.
safely go far into the interior. White men are now running steamboats on the four largest rivers of Africa. There are also steamboats. on the three big lakes of East Central Africa.
413. European soon as African trade began to be profitable, the European countries hurried to grab land in Africa. In a few years the different countries of Europe took possession of most of Africa, as the political map (Fig. 404) shows. At the capital of each of these colonies, there is a European gov ernor. In many of the colonies, however, there are natives who never saw a white man, because they live far back in the forest where there are no roads. These people have always lived in little villages and have ruled themselves.
414. Independent are only two independent countries in Africa. One of these is Abyssinia, near the Red Sea. It is a high plateau, where a cool climate seems to have made men so strong and brave that they have driven out all Europeans who have ever tried to rule in