Part 12

After having been subjugated by Alexander the Great, the country of the Afghans fell successively under the sway, actual or nominal, of Parthians, Seleucidae, Persians, and Arabs. Djinghiz Khan conquered Afghanistan in the twelfth century and Timur in the fourteenth. In 1504 Sultan Baber took Cabul and founded the Mogul dynasty in India; Afghanistan thus formed part of the great empire of Delhi. In 1738 the country was conquered by the Persians under Nadir Shah. On his death in 1747 Ahmed Shah, one of his generals, obtained the sovereignty of Afghanistan, and became the founder of a dynasty which lasted about eighty years. At the end of that time Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Cabul, had acquired a preponderating influence in the country. On account of his dealings with the Russians the British resolved to dethrone him and restore Shah Shuja, a former ruler. In April, 1839, a British army under Sir John Keane entered Afghanistan, occupied Cabul, and placed Shah Shuja on the throne, a force of 8000 being left to support the new sovereign. Sir W. Macnaghten remained as envoy at Cabul, with Sir Alexander Burnes as assistant envoy. The Afghans soon organized a widespread insurrection, which came to a head on 2nd Nov., 1841, when Burnes and a number of British officers, besides women and children, were murdered, Macnaghten being murdered not long after. The other British leaders now made a treaty with the Afghans, at whose head was Akbar, son of Dost Mohammed, agreeing to withdraw the forces from the country, while the Afghans were to furnish them with provisions and escort them on their way. On 6th Jan., 1842, the British left Cabul and began their most disastrous retreat. The cold was intense, they had almost no food--for the treacherous Afghans did not fulfil their promises--and day after day they were assailed by bodies of the enemy. By the 13th 26,000 persons, including camp-followers, women and children, were destroyed. Some were kept as prisoners, but only one man, Dr. Brydon, reached Jelalabad, which, as well as Kandahar, was still held by British troops. In a few months General Pollock, with a fresh army from India, retook Cabul and soon finished the war. Shah Shuja having been assassinated, Dost Mohammed again obtained the throne of Cabul, and acquired extensive power in Afghanistan. He joined with the Sikhs against the British, but afterwards made an offensive and defensive alliance with the latter. He died in 1863, having nominated his son Shere Ali his successor. Shere Ali entered into friendly relations with the British, but in 1878, having repulsed a British envoy and refused to receive a British mission (a Russian mission being meantime at his Court), war was declared against him, and the British troops entered Afghanistan. They met with comparatively little resistance; the Ameer fled to Turkestan, where he soon after died; and his son Yakoob Khan having succeeded him concluded a treaty with the British (at Gandamak, May, 1879), in which a certain extension of the British frontier, the control by Britain of the foreign policy of Afghanistan, and the residence of a British envoy in Cabul, were the chief stipulations. Not long after this settlement, the British resident at Cabul, Sir Louis P. Cavagnari, and the other members of the mission were treacherously attacked and slain by the Afghans, and troops had again to be sent into the country. Cabul was again occupied, and Kandahar and Ghazni were also relieved; while Yakoob Khan was sent to imprisonment in India. In 1880 Abdur-Rahman, a grandson of Dost Mohammed, was recognized by Britain as ameer of the country. He was on friendly terms with the British during his reign, which ended with his death in 1901, his son Habibullah being his successor. He had adopted the title of Sirajul-Millat wa ud-din, 'Lamp of the Nation and Religion'. In a treaty signed on 21st March, 1905, the Ameer recognized the engagements which his father had entered into with the British Government. Encroachments by the Russians on territory claimed by Afghanistan almost brought about a rupture between Britain and Russia in 1885, and led to the delimitation of the frontier of Afghanistan on the side next Russia. On 31st Aug., 1907, an Anglo-Russian Convention relating to Afghanistan was signed. The Russian Government recognized Afghanistan as outside the Russian sphere of influence, whilst Great Britain undertook neither to annex nor occupy any portion of Afghanistan. In spite of German intrigues, the Ameer refused, in 1915, the inducements held out to him to abandon his British ally. He was assassinated on 20th Feb., 1919, and was succeeded by his third son Amanullah. The new Ameer sought to gain popularity with his subjects by embarking on an unprovoked war of aggression upon India. Hostilities broke out in May, 1919, and ended with a peace treaty signed at Rawalpindi on 8th Aug., 1919. In 1922 the first Afghan minister was appointed to London (instead of to Delhi).--BIBLIOGRAPHY: MacGregor, _Gazetteer of Afghanistan_; Malleson, _History of Afghanistan_; Forbes, _The Afghan Wars_; Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, _Forty-one Years in India_; J. G. Lyons, _Afghanistan: the Buffer State_.

AFIUM-KARA-HISSAR ('opium-black-castle'), a city of Asia Minor, 170 miles E.S.E. of Constantinople, with manufactures of woollen goods, and a trade in opium (_afium_), &c. Pop. about 20,000.

AFRAG'OLA, a town of Italy, about 6 miles N.N.E. of Naples. Pop. 23,155.

AFRA'NIUS, Lucius, a Roman comic dramatist who flourished about the beginning of the first century B.C., and of whose writings only fragments remain.

[Illustration]

AF'RICA, one of the three great divisions of the Old World, and the second in extent of the five principal continents of the globe, forming a vast peninsula joined to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez. It is of a compact form, with few important projections or indentations, and having therefore a very small extent of coast-line (about 16,000 miles, or much less than that of Europe) in proportion to its area. This continent extends from 37deg 21' N. lat. to 34deg 51' S. lat., and the extreme points, Cape Blanco and Cape Agulhas, are nearly 5000 miles apart. From west to east, between Cape Verde, lon. 17deg 34' W., and Cape Guardafui, lon. 51deg 16' E., the distance is about 4600 miles. The area is estimated at 11,500,000 sq. miles, or more than three times that of Europe. The islands belonging to Africa are not numerous, and, except Madagascar, none of them are large. They include Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, Fernando Po, Principe, Sao Thome, Ascension, St. Helena, Mauritius, Reunion, the Comoros, Socotra, &c.

The interior of Africa is as yet imperfectly known, but we know enough of the continent as a whole to be able to point to some general features that characterize it. One of these is that almost all round it at no great distance from the sea, and, roughly speaking, parallel with the coast-line, we find ranges of mountains or elevated lands forming the outer edges of interior plateaux. The most striking feature of Northern Africa is the immense tract known as the Sahara or Great Desert, which is enclosed on the north by the Atlas Mountains (greatest height, 12,000 to 15,000 feet), the plateau of Barbary and that of Barqa, on the east by the mountains along the west coast of the Red Sea, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the Sudan. The Sahara is by no means the sea of sand it has sometimes been represented: it contains elevated plateaux and even mountains radiating in all directions, with habitable valleys between. A considerable nomadic population is scattered over the habitable parts, and in the more favoured regions there are settled communities. The Sudan, which lies to the south of the Sahara, and separates it from the more elevated plateau of Southern Africa, forms a belt of pastoral country across Africa, and includes the countries on the Niger, around Lake Tchad (or Chad), and eastwards to the elevated region of Abyssinia. Southern Africa as a whole is much more fertile and well watered than Northern Africa, though it also has a desert tract of considerable extent (the Kalahari Desert). This division of the continent consists of a tableland, or series of tablelands, of considerable elevation and great diversity of surface, exhibiting hollows filled with great lakes, and terraces over which the rivers break in falls and rapids, as they find their way to the low-lying coast tracts. The mountains which enclose Southern Africa are mostly much higher on the east than on the west, the most northerly of the former being those of Abyssinia, with heights of 10,000 to 14,000 or 16,000 feet, while the eastern edge of the Abyssinian plateau presents a steep unbroken line of 7000 feet in height for many hundred miles. Farther south, and between the great lakes and the Indian Ocean, we find Mounts Kenya and Kilimanjaro (19,500 feet), the loftiest in Africa, covered with perpetual snow. Of the continuation of this mountain boundary we shall only mention the Drakenberg Mountains, which stretch to the southern extremity of the continent, reaching, in Cathkin Peak, Natal, the height of over 10,000 feet. Of the mountains that form the western border the highest are the Cameroon Mountains, which rise to a height of 13,000 feet at the inner angle of the Gulf of Guinea. The average elevation of the southern plateau is from 3000 to 4000 feet.

The Nile is the only great river of Africa which flows into the Mediterranean. It receives its waters primarily from the great lake Victoria Nyanza, which lies under the equator, and in its upper course is fed by tributary streams of great size, but for the last 1200 miles of its course it has not a single affluent. It drains an area of more than 1,000,000 sq. miles. The Indian Ocean receives numerous rivers; but the only great river of South Africa which enters that ocean is the Zambezi, the fourth in size of the continent, and having in its course the Victoria Falls, one of the greatest waterfalls in the world. In Southern Africa also, but flowing westward and entering the Atlantic, is the Congo, which takes its origin from a series of lakes and marshes in the interior, is fed by great tributaries, and is the first in volume of all the African rivers, carrying to the ocean more water than the Mississippi. Unlike most of the African rivers, the mouth of the Congo forms an estuary. Of the other Atlantic rivers, the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Niger are the largest, the last being third among African streams.

With the exception of Lake Tchad there are no great lakes in the northern division of Africa, whereas in the number and magnificence of its lakes the southern division almost rivals North America. Here are the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, Lakes Tanganyika, Nyasa, Shirwa, Bangweulu, Moero, and other lakes. Of these the Victoria and Albert belong to the basin of the Nile; Tanganyika, Bangweulu, and Moero to that of the Congo; Nyasa, by its affluent the Shire, to the Zambezi. Lake Tchad on the borders of the northern desert region is now known to be much smaller than was formerly believed, but varies in area according to the season. Lake Ngami in the far south is now a mere swamp.

The climate of Africa is mainly influenced by the fact that it lies almost entirely within the tropics. In the equatorial belt, both north and south, rain is abundant and vegetation very luxuriant, dense tropical forests prevailing for about 10deg on either side of the line. To the north and south of the equatorial belt the rainfall diminishes, and the forest region is succeeded by an open pastoral and agricultural country. This is followed by the rainless regions of the Sahara on the north and the Kalahari Desert on the south, extending beyond the tropics, and bordering on the agricultural and pastoral countries of the north and south coasts, which lie entirely in the temperate zone. The low coast regions of Africa are almost everywhere unhealthy, the Atlantic coast within the tropics being the most fatal region to Europeans.

Among mineral productions may be mentioned gold, which is found in the rivers of West Africa (hence the name Gold Coast), and in Southern Africa, most abundantly in the Transvaal; diamonds have been found in large numbers in recent years in the south; iron, copper, lead, tin, and coal are also found.--Among plants are the baobab, the date-palm (important as a food plant in the north), the doum-palm, the oil-palm, the wax-palm, the shea-butter tree, trees yielding caoutchouc, the papyrus, the castor-oil plant, indigo, the coffee-plant, heaths with beautiful flowers, aloes, &c. Among cultivated plants are wheat, maize, millet, and other grains, cotton, coffee, cassava, ground-nut, yam, banana, tobacco, various fruits, &c. As regards both plants and animals, Northern Africa, adjoining the Mediterranean, is distinguished from the rest of Africa in its great agreement with Southern Europe.--Among the most characteristic African animals are the lion, hyena, jackal, gorilla, chimpanzee, baboon, African elephant (never domesticated, yielding much ivory to trade), hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, zebra, quagga, antelopes in great variety and immense numbers.--Among birds are the ostrich, the secretary-bird or serpent-eater, the honey-guide cuckoo, sacred ibis, guinea fowl.--The reptiles include the crocodile, chameleon, and serpents of various kinds, some of them very venomous. Among insects are locusts, scorpions, the tsetse-fly whose bite is so fatal to cattle, and white-ants.

The great races of which the population of Africa mainly consists are the Eastern Hamites (who are not a distinct race but a blend), the Semites, the Negroes, and the Bantus. To the Semitic stock belong the Arabs, who form a considerable portion of the population in Egypt and along the north coast, while a portion of the inhabitants of Abyssinia is of the same race. The Hamites are represented, according to Sergi, by the Copts of Egypt, the Berbers, Kabyles, &c., of Northern Africa, and the Somali, Danakil, &c., of East Africa. The Negro races occupy a vast territory in the Sudan and Central Africa, while the Bantus occupy the greater part of Southern Africa from a short distance north of the equator, and include the Kaffirs, Bechuanas, Swahili, and allied races. In the extreme south-west are the Hottentots and Bushmen (the latter a dwarfish race), distinct from the other races as well as, probably, from each other. In Madagascar there is a large Malay element. To these may be added the Fulahs on the Niger and the Nubians on the Nile and elsewhere, who are of a brownish colour, and are often regarded as distinct from the other races, though sometimes classed with the Negroes. In religion a great proportion of the inhabitants are heathens of the lowest type; Mohammedanism numbers a large number of adherents in North Africa, and is rapidly spreading in the Sudan; Christianity prevails only among the Copts, the Abyssinians, and the natives of Madagascar, the last-named having been converted in recent times. Elsewhere the missionaries seem to have made but little progress. Over a great part of the continent civilization is at a low ebb, yet in some parts the natives have shown considerable skill in agriculture and various mechanical arts, as in weaving and metal working. Of African trade two features are the caravans that traverse great distances, and the trade in slaves that still widely prevails, though it has been greatly restricted in recent years. Among articles exported from Africa are palm-oil, diamonds, ivory, ostrich feathers, wool, cotton, gold, esparto, caoutchouc, &c. The population is estimated at 180,000,000. Of these a small number are of European origin--French in Algeria and Morocco, British and Dutch at the southern extremity.

Great areas in Africa have been apportioned among European Powers as protectorates or spheres of influence. Among native States still more or less independent are Egypt, Abyssinia, Waday, Bagirmi, Liberia. To Britain belong the Cape Province, Natal, the Orange Free State and Transvaal, with Rhodesia, &c., farther north, a region in Eastern Africa extending from the sea to Lake Victoria and the headwaters of the Nile, Nigeria, Gold Coast, and other tracts on the west, with Mauritius, &c.; to France belong Algeria and Tunis, Senegambia, Zone of Morocco, territory north of the Lower Congo, Madagascar, &c.; the Portuguese possess Angola on the west coast and Mozambique on the east; Italy has a territory on the Red Sea, and part of Somaliland; Spain has a part of the coast of the Sahara; the Congo State is a colony of Belgium; Zanzibar is merged in Kenya Colony. Germany was deprived of her possessions in Africa during the European War, and the Peace Conference of 1919 appointed Great Britain, France, and Belgium to act as mandatories of the League of Nations.

The name Africa was given by the Romans at first only to a small district in the immediate neighbourhood of Carthage. The Greeks called Africa Libya, and the Romans often used the same name. The first African exploring expedition on record was sent by Pharaoh Necho about the end of the seventh century B.C. to circumnavigate the continent. The navigators, who were Phoenicians, were absent three years, and according to report they accomplished their object. Fifty or a hundred years later, Hanno, a Carthaginian, made a voyage down the west coast and seems to have got as far as the Bight of Benin. The east coast was probably known to the ancients as far as Mozambique and the island of Madagascar. Of modern nations the Portuguese were the first to take in hand the exploration of Africa. In 1433 they doubled Cape Bojador, in 1441 reached Cape Blanco, in 1442 Cape Verde, in 1462 they discovered Sierra Leone. In 1484 the Portuguese Diego Cam discovered the mouth of the Congo. In 1486 Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Algoa Bay. A few years later a Portuguese traveller visited Abyssinia. In 1497 Vasco da Gama, who was commissioned to find a route by sea to India, sailed round the southern extremity as far as Zanzibar, discovering Natal on his way. The first European settlements were those of the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique, soon after 1500. In 1650 the Dutch made a settlement at the Cape. In 1770 James Bruce reached the source of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia. For the exploration of the interior of Africa, however, little was done before the close of the eighteenth century.

Modern African exploration may be said to begin with Mungo Park, who reached the upper course of the Niger (1795-1805). Dr. Lacerda, a Portuguese, about the same time reached the capital of the Cazembe, in the centre of South Africa, where he died. During 1802-6 two Portuguese traders crossed the continent from Angola, through the Cazembe's dominions, to the Portuguese possessions on the Zambezi. During 1822-4 extensive explorations were made in Northern and Western Africa by Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, who proceeded from Tripoli by Murzuq to Lake Tchad, and explored the adjacent regions; Laing, in 1826, crossed the desert from Tripoli to Timbuktu; Caillie, leaving Senegal, made in 1827-8 a journey to Timbuktu, and thence through the desert to Morocco. In 1830 Lander traced a large part of the course of the Niger downward to its mouth, discovering its tributary the Benue. In the south Livingstone, who was stationed as a missionary at Kolobeng, setting out from that place in 1849 discovered Lake Ngami. In 1851 he went north again, and came upon numerous rivers flowing north, affluents of the Zambezi. In 1848 and 1849 Krapf and Rebmann, missionaries in East Africa, discovered the mountains Kilimanjaro and Kenya. An expedition sent out by the British Government started from Tripoli in 1850 to visit the Sahara and the regions around Lake Tchad, the chiefs being Richardson, Overweg, and Barth. The last alone returned in 1855, having carried his explorations over 2,000,000 sq. miles of this part of Africa, hitherto almost unknown. During 1853-6 Livingstone made an important series of explorations. He first went north-westwards, tracing part of the Upper Zambezi, and reached St. Paul de Loanda on the west coast in 1854. On his return journey he followed pretty nearly the same route till he reached the Zambezi, and proceeding down the river, and visiting its falls, called by him the Victoria Falls, he arrived at Quelimane at its mouth on 20th May, 1856, thus crossing the continent from sea to sea. In 1858 he resumed his exploration of the Zambezi regions, and in various journeys visited Lakes Shirwa and Nyasa, sailed up the Shire to the latter lake, and established the general features of the geography of this part of Africa, returning to England in 1864. By this time the great lakes of equatorial Africa were becoming known, Tanganyika and Victoria having been discovered by Burton and Speke in 1858, and the latter having been visited by Speke and Grant in 1862 and found to give rise to the Nile, while the Albert Nyanza was discovered by Baker in 1864. In 1866 Livingstone entered on his last great series of explorations, the main object of which was to settle the position of the watersheds in the interior of the continent, and which he carried on till his death in 1873. His most important explorations on this occasion were west and south-west of Tanganyika, including the discovery of Lakes Bangweulu and Moero, and part of the upper course of the River Congo (here called Lualaba). For over two years he was lost to the knowledge of Europe till met with by H. M. Stanley at Tanganyika in 1871. Gerhard Rohlfs, in a succession of journeys from 1861 to 1874, traversed the Sahara in different directions, and also crossed the continent entirely from Tripoli to Lagos by way of Murzuq, Bornu, &c. During 1873-5 Lieutenant Cameron, who had been sent in search of Livingstone, surveyed Lake Tanganyika, explored the country to the west of it, and then travelling to the south-west, finally reached Benguella on the Atlantic coast. During 1874-7 Stanley surveyed Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika and explored the intervening country; then going westward to where Livingstone had struck the Congo he followed the river down to its mouth, thus finally settling its course and completing a remarkable and valuable series of explorations. In 1879 Serpa Pinto completed a journey across the continent from Benguella to Natal, and in 1881-2 Wissman and Pogge crossed it again from St. Paul de Loanda to Zanzibar. In recent years our knowledge of all parts of Africa has been greatly increased, thanks to the efforts of travellers, missionaries, and commercial agents. Steamers now ply on the Congo, and on Lakes Tanganyika, Nyasa, and Victoria, and numerous railways ('Cape to Cairo', &c.) extend far into the continent.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mungo Park, _Travels_; D. Livingstone, _Missionary Travels_; Sir H. M. Stanley, _In Darkest Africa_; Sir H. H. Johnston, _Africa_.

AFRIDIS ([.a]-fr[=e]'diz), a tribe or clan on the north-west frontier of India, about the Khyber Pass, who have at various times given trouble to the British, and are included in a new (1922) scheme of Khassadars (irregulars). In 1897-8 a campaign ('the Tirah campaign') had to be undertaken against them, costly both in men and money, before British authority was asserted. In 1905 the Afridis of the force called the Khyber Rifles formed an escort for the Prince and Princess of Wales on their visit to the famous pass, which was long in their charge.--Cf. Holdich, _The Indian Borderland_.

AFRIKANDER BUND, an association dating from 1880 and founded for the purpose of consolidating Afrikander influence in South Africa. For a time it supported the policy of Cecil Rhodes, but after 1895 separated itself from him. After the war in 1902 the Bund was reorganized, and identified with the South African party whose policy is to further the federation of the South African colonies under the British crown.