Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/776

582 General History of Europe himself as the ruler of the vast territories of the company. The conduct of this company illustrates the way in which the Euro- pean invaders were tempted to force the natives to work. The savage natives, accustomed to a free life in the jungle, did not relish driving spikes on railways or draining swamps for Belgian capi- talists. The government, therefore, required native chiefs to furnish a certain number of workmen, and on their failure to supply the demand their villages were often burned. The gov- ernment also required the natives to furnish a certain quantity of rubber each year ; failure to comply with these demands was cruelly punished. Protests in Europe and America led the Belgian ministry, in 1908, to assume complete ownership of the Free State, which then took the name of the Belgian Congo. 1062. The Position of Egypt. South Africa, as has already been explained BRIDGE ACROSS THE ZAMBESI RIVER, NEAR VICTORIA FALLS Built in 1905 on the "Cape to Cairo" railway, this bridge crosses the great canyon in which for forty miles the river runs below the falls. The falls are twice the height of Niagara and over a mile wide. They occur about midway in the two-thousand-mile course of the river (992), has fallen to the English. They also hold important territories on the east coast running inland to the great lakes of Africa. But more important, in some ways, is their control over Egypt. That ancient seat of civilization had, as we have seen (305), been conquered by the Arabs in the seventh