>>64016647
>As for the boats the exception proves the rule. There are massive rivers throughout subsaharan Africa. Why didn’t they traverse them?

>In Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (1863)

“The rivers and streams feeding into Lake Victoria are traversed daily by numerous canoes and boats, ferried by native boatmen who know well the currents and shallows. These ferries are indispensable for the transport of goods and for communication between the scattered villages along the water’s edge. The White Nile too is crossed by similar boats, which carry traders and travelers safely over its broad and sometimes turbulent waters.

Also the swahli coast had all of these things

>His pioneer tactics were steel spears and flanking maneuvers. In the 1800s. They’re two millennia behind the civilized world.

The natives of these countries are no strangers to the use of firearms; they not only import them but frequently manufacture muskets and powder themselves, adapting the European designs with skill.”
— Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, 1799, Vol. 1, p. 248

2. From Richard F. Burton’s The Lake Regions of Central Africa (1860)
“Among the peoples of these regions, the art of gunmaking and powder preparation has been adopted and refined, with local smiths often fabricating parts and repairing muskets to suit the necessities of war and hunting.”
— Richard F. Burton, The Lake Regions of Central Africa, 1860, p. 319