While much of this is merely desert, there are caravan routes which tap the basin of the Niger and conduct its products to Algeria, conquered by France early in the century, and to Tunis, more recently appropriated.

The West African provinces of France have, at any rate, this advantage, that they are nearer to the mother-country than any other colony of a European power; and the result may be that African soldiers may one of these days fight for France on European soil, just as the Indian soldiers were imported to Cyprus by Lord Beaconsfield in 1876.

Meanwhile, the result of all this international ambition has been that Africa in its entirety is now known and accessible to European civilisation.
[_Authorities:_ Kiepert, _Beitraege zur Entdeckungsgeschichte Afrikas_, 1873; Brown, _The Story of Africa_, 4 vols., 1894; Scott Keltie, _The Partition of Africa_, 1896.].