Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/220

178 WEST AFKIOA. name of Kantora, recalling the market of Kantor, of which the early Portuguese writers speak as a centre of traffic rivalling Timbuktu itself. At that time the whole region of the Gambia was called by them the kingdom of Kantor or Kontor. At the time of Gouldsbury's visit in 1879, not a village remained in the district, which had been laid waste by the combined forces of the Bundu and Labe Fulahs, and most of the inhabitants carried into bondage. Above the Barra-kunda rapids, traders generally follow the land route towards Bondu and Bambuk, although the two large villages of Jalla-Kota ond Badi have their poits on the river. AdMI X ISTR ATION . Gambia has been under the direct administration of Great Britain only since 1821, before which year the factories were managed by a chartered company. The revenue, derived almost exclusively from customs, averages £25,000, and in 1886 there was not only no public debt, but a balance in hand equal to a year's income. The cost of Gouldsbury's important expedition was defrayed out of a surplus of revenue. Since 1870 no military forces are maintained in the settlement, and the police, 111 men, commanded by a European, are nearly all natives of Sierra-Leone. The volunteer corps charged with the defence of the territory has not yet had occasion to be called out. When a tribal war arises, the Government declares itself neutral, but the belligerents bear In mind that the English factories and river craft must be respected by both sides. All the schools are denominational — Protestant, Catholic, or Mohammedan — and as such independent of the civil power. N^evertheless most of the children attend regularly, except in the trading season, when they accompany their parents to the factories. Casamaxza Basin. The Casamanza, so named from the manza (mansa) or sovereign of the Casa (Cassa) people, is on the whole much more of an estuary than a river. Its sources, at the foot of the Khabu terraces, have not yet been visited, but they certainly do not lie more than 180 miles inland, as the bird flies, for the district farther east, traversed by Gouldsbiiry in 1881, already belongs to the Gambia basin. Confined north and south between the two parallel depressions of the Gambia and RIo-Cacheo valleys, the Casamanza basin has an area of probably not more than 6,000 square miles, with a population roughly estimated at 100,000. Since the middle of the sixteenth century the Portuguese have traded in this region. They were even early acquainted with inland trade routes, leading across the creeks and portages to the Salum, and some Portuguese terms surviving in the local dialects attest their former influence. But their chief trade being in slaves, they could scarcely venture much beyond the enclosures of their fortified