January, 1890
Britain threatens Portugal with an Ultimatum
Abandon south-east Africa or face a naval
bombardment of Lisbon.
Three centuries earlier, the poet Lu s de Cam es described the region at issue --
Behold the lake which is the Nile's source.
And the green Zambezi, too, begins its course.
Further upstream, the river becomes serpentine, twisting itself into a vast swamp, known to Europeans as Elephant Marsh, choked with papyrus, monstrous baobabs, and marabou storks like coffins. Every mud bank has a gang of crocodiles, the air thick with mosquitoes and the nearest horizon a tousled fringe of swamp palms ...
could the European Powers go to War
over such a Wilderness?
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