Excerpt from Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1890, Vol. 6 When the Royal Scottish Geographical Society recently did me the honour of inviting me to give their Anniversary Address, my first impulse was to express gratification at their generous thought, but respectfully to decline an office for which I felt myself to be in many respects ill qualified. When, however, I was reminded that the subject selected by your Council was that of Africa, and that the accidents of my service under Government had. Brought me into many direct and indirect relations with the East Coast of that continent, I reflected that, although I had no pretensions to figure as a geographer before so cultivated and scientific an audience as that which I should have to encounter in the great centres of Scottish life, yet I might perhaps be able to put together some facts bearing on the present position of British interests in Africa, which, being in the nature of geography applied to practical purposes, would present an ensemble such as might enable students to correlate and lend some semblance of unity to the variety of disconnected African allusions and narratives with which the press at the present time daily teems. Nor was I quite Without hope that remarks published from this hall might prove of some practical utility to those earnest workers, philanthropic societies, and politico-commercial companies who are expending such vast sums of money and such strenuous endeavours with the object of Spreading light, liberty, civilisation, and Christianity among the hitherto suffering descendants of Ham. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.