NYASSALAND

NYASSALAND, a name applied to the regions immediately south, west, and north-west of Lake Nyassa, but without conveying any precise limitation of boundaries, practically means the region in which the African Lakes Company of Glasgow has carried on its operations since its foundation in 1878; it works hand in hand with the missionaries of the Established and the Free Church of Scotland, whose principal stations are at Blantyre, some distance to the south of the lake, and Bandawe, half-way up its western side. Both the commercial company and the mission stations were founded for the express purpose of counteracting the slave-dealings of the Arab marauders, and they have had much trouble owing to the hostility of these people. Nyassaland (or Nyasaland) was the nucleus of what was in 1891 constituted British Central Africa Protectorate, under an Imperial Commissioner, with an area of 500,000 sq. m., and (1896) 237 European inhabitants. Lying on the western and southern shores of Lake Nyassa, it forms the eastern portion of British Central Africa, which stretches towards the interior and the Zambesi. The western portion is mainly administered, since 1894, by the South Africa Company. In the portion more immediately under the Commissioner are thriving plantations of coffee, cinchona, sugar, and tobacco. See ZAMBESIA, and Sir H. H. Johnston's Central Africa (1897).