Education in British Central and South Africa

Abstract

The Protectorates of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia are in the tropics, the Northernmost point of Nyasaland being 700 miles south of the equator. Nyasaland is a narrow strip 520 miles long and 50 to 100 miles wide adjoining Northern Rhodesia to the West. The trough of the Great Rift Valley runs through it, covered at its deepest part by the waters of Lake Nyasa. Along the lake shore and its outlet, the altitude falls to 120 feet above sea level, but most of the country is uplands and hills where the altitude reaches 8,000 to 10,000 feet. The country is agricultural and there is no mining industry. The main export crops are tobacco and cotton grown by African farmers and tea from European estates in the South. Cattle are kept in the North and an African dairy industry produces ghee. Most of Northern Rhodesia is on the central African plateau with an average elevation of 4,000 feet falling to 1,000 in the Zambezi and Luangwa valleys. Nearly the whole territory is covered with bush and scrub and soil fertility is low. Maize, tobacco, wheat and mixed vegetables are grown. There are tracts of sand, desert and marshland and over large areas tsetse fly prevents the keeping of cattle. The wealth of the country is in the copper mines. Southern Rhodesia lies on the plateau to the South of the Zambezi river. It is a country with a settled European farming population. Maize is the main crop grown by Africans. There is mineral wealth including gold and coal. Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland are inset in the Union of South Africa. Bechuanaland is in the high central basin of the Zambezi and Limpopo river systems, the average altitude being over 3,000 feet. To the East there are some hills but the rest of the territory is an undulating plain with great waterless areas save where bore holes and dams have been established. The livestock industry is the mainstay of the economic life of the country. Basutoland is a mountainous, well-watered territory with altitudes from 5,000 to 11,000 feet, and a climate with extremes of heat and cold. Cattle and sheep are raised and horses and donkeys are used for transport. The most important exports are wool, wheat, mohair and cattle. Swaziland is a hilly territory with altitudes ranging from 5,000 to 300 feet. About 75 per cent is used for grazing. An African dairy industry is developing. South West Africa is bordered by Bechuanaland to the East. Land on this plateau ranges from grazing and arable tracts to desert and bush. To; the West, the boundary is the Atlantic Ocean and along the shore there is. a belt of desert. There are some mining developments. Africans keep stock and practice a subsistence economy.