The Earth and its Inhabitants/Africa/Volume 1/Chapter 1
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THE EARTH AND ITS INHABITANTS.
NORTH-EAST AFRICA.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL SURVEY.
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As now surveyed around its entire seaboard, Africa stands out as the best-defined division of the Old World—a vast island, attached only by a narrow isthmus, 90 miles broad, to the Asiatic mainland. Even this isthmus itself is an old marine and fluvial basin—Mediterranean alluvium in the north, a deposit of the Red Sea in the south; between these two marine zones an ancient Nilotic delta, which, to judge from the allied faunas, probably at one time communicated with the Jordan. But although the Isthmus of Suez had no existence in Tertiary times, there were other stretches of land connecting Egypt with Cyprus and Syria; for nowhere else in the periphery of the globe are there found contiguous marine inlets presenting such differences in their fauna as do those of Suez and Gaza.
But if the waters of the Indian Ocean have remained completely distinct from those of the Mediterranean since the Eocene epoch, with the exception perhaps of a shallow channel flooded in Quaternary times, the intervening barrier has at last been removed by the hand of man. Thanks to his industry, the two seas henceforth mingle their waters in the inland basin of Lake Timsah, and the circumnavigation of Africa is open to the largest vessels afloat. Compared with this southern continent, whose contour is so clearly defined, the two other divisions of the Old World seem to merge in one continental mass. Certainly the depression skirting the Ural range from the Gulf of Ob to the Caspian, and the Manich isthmus between the Caspian and Euxine, cannot be regarded as such sharp geographical parting lines as the marine channel now flowing between Suez and Port Said.
But however clearly severed at present from the rest of the Eastern hemisphere, Africa is not so entirely distinct from Europe and Asia as might at first sight be supposed. Parts of its seaboard were even formerly connected directly with the regions beyond the Mediterranean, and there was a time when the Atlas Mountains effected a junction across the present Strait of Gibraltar with the parallel Sierra Nevada range. Even down to the close of the Pliocene epoch, Tunisia was still united with Sicily and Italy through a broad zone, of which the only surviving fragments are the little Maltese group of islets. Greece also merged southwards in boundless plains watered by streams whose banks were frequented by the elephant and hippopotamus.[1]
Although now detached from Spain and Italy, North-west Africa is still in its geology, natural history, and climate essentially a Mediterranean land, forming with the opposite European seaboard a distinct physical region. Along both coasts the same fossils occur on the old rocks, while similar floras and faunas are now in possession of the soil. The Mauritanian coastlands differ far more from Nigretia, from which they are separated by the Sahara, than they do from Provence, and as already remarked by Sallust, North Africa is physically a part of Europe. Eastwards also the Ethiopian shore of the Red Sea belongs to the same formations as the opposite coast of Arabia, and a general resemblance characterises the climate, natural productions, and inhabitants on either side of Bab-el-Mandeb.
In its massive outlines Africa presents the same monotonous appearance as the two other southern divisions of the globe—South America and Australia. It is even less indented than the corresponding section of the New World; nor is it supplemented, like Australia, by a vast region of archipelagoes and islands, scattered over the northern and eastern seas. Its very size, estimated at nearly 12,000,000 square miles, or over three times that of Europe and four times that of Australia, contributes to its heavy uniform aspect. Notwithstanding its greater bulk, its coastline is considerably less than that of Europe. Exclusive of a thousand smaller inlets, such as the Scandinavian fjords and the firths of Scotland, the latter has a periphery of about 19,000 miles, the former not more than 15,000, much of which is unbroken by a single creek or bay. Its general form is that of an ellipsoid, disposed in the direction from north to south, and bulging out westwards in a still less varied semi-elliptical mass between Cape Bon and the Gulf of Guinea. The prevailing uniformity is modified on the east side chiefly by the sharp peninsida terminating at Cape Gardafui, on the west by the retreating curve of the coastline, by which the Atlantic basin is suddenly doubled in width. The eastern projection, which is separated by the Gulf of Aden from Hadramaut, follows the direction of the south-eastern extremity of Arabia, a region which in its climate and other respects forms a land of transition between the two continents.
Mountains.
From its regular contour, Africa might seem to be built on a generally uniform and simple plan. But such is not the case. Europe, notwithstanding its countless
indentations, may be compared to an organism furnished with a backbone and members; Asia also groups its boundless plains and peninsulas around a culminating nucleus, the Great Pamir, or "Roof of the World;" while both Americas have their western Cordilleras, and in the east vast alluvial plains and river basins separated one from the other by scarcely perceptible parting lines. But Africa is comparatively speaking an almost shapeless mass, with a rudimentary organisation destitute alike of central uplands and regular watersheds. Nevertheless the eastern
coast ranges, running parallel with the Indian Ocean, may in some respects be regarded as forming, if not a backbone, at least the border chain of one great continental highland system. Spite of the broad gaps pierced by the Limpopo, Zambezi, and Juba rivers, the broken fragments of a vast Cordillera may be recognised in the uplands stretching interruptedly from the Cape northwards to the Abyssinian highlands. In this zone of border ranges occur the culminating points of the continent, the extinct Kilima-njaro and Kenia volcanoes, perhaps the summits known to the ancients as the "Mountains of the Moon." West of these
peaks the plateau is intersected by a parallel chain of other volcanoes, some of which are said still to emit smoke; while beyond Victoria Nyanza a third range,
dominated by Mfumbiro and Gambaragara, would seem to form a western border system or water-parting between the Upper Nile and Congo basins. Here the plateau expands to a breadth of 550 miles, terminating northwards in the Abyssinian highlands, a rocky citadel whose base exceeds those of all the other continental orographic systems. These Ethiopian heights stand over against those of Yemen,
and like them are a remnant of the border range sweeping round the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn, and forming a vast
semicircle of 24,000 miles, equal to the circumference of the globe.
Although not yet thoroughly explored, Africa is already sufficiently known at least in the main features of its general relief. More compact and less indented than the other divisions of the globe, it also remains less accessible through the
Fig. 1.—Highlands and Plateaux of Central Africa.
Scale 1 : 20,000,000.
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300 Miles.
work of erosion. Its mean elevation exceeds that of Europe and Asia, although
there are scarcely any mountains equal to the Alps and Caucasus, none comparable to the Himalayas. Considered as a solid mass with vertical scarps and horizontal surface, its altitude, according to Chevanne, is at least 1,900, possibly 2,200, feet. An oblique line drawn from Loanda on the Atlantic to a point on the Red Sea between Suakin and Massawah marks off a region which forms an almost continuous tableland, intersected by mountain ranges resting on foundations of from 3,000 to 4,500 feet. The Congo and Nile basins confine on the north and west this region of plateaux, which comprises about a third of the whole continent. On the other sides the border ranges are considerably less elevated and much more divided than those of South and East Africa. They are nowhere continuous, but rise in scattered fragments between the Congo and Niger, between the Nile and Lake Tsad, in the heart of the Sahara, which is broken by the two isolated masses of Tibesti and Ahaggar, in the
extreme west, where the scarps of the plateaux run parallel with the coasts of Upper Guinea and Senegambia; lastly in Mauritania, where the Atlas range constitutes a distinct orographic system, formerly connected with those of South Europe. South
Fig. 2. — Hydrography or Africa according to Medieval Geographers.
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of this system the continent may be roughly described as a vast plane inclined in a north-westerly direction.
Rivers.
The rudimentary character of its general relief is also reflected in its hydrographic system. The African rivers, still to a great part entangled in the intricacies of the plateau, have a somewhat irregular and unfinished course, often forcing their way through narrow rocky gorges, and obstructed by numerous falls and rapids. Even the more copious streams are relatively less accessible to navigation than those of the other continents. In this respect the contrast is specially striking between Africa and South America, the two divisions of the globe which are more frequently compared with each other. The "Dark Continent" is entirely destitute of the great estuaries and broad arteries giving access in the New World from the Atlantic seaboard almost to the foot of the Andes. The comparative absence of navigable waters, of islands and good harbours, combined with the great extent of desert wastes, has mainly contributed to exclude Africa from the general life of the commercial world.
All the great rivers—Nile, Congo, and Niger—are interrupted by cataracts and rapids, which cut off from outward intercourse populous regions whose fluvial systems ramify over many hundred millions of acres. The Nile and Congo rising amid the higher plateaux, where the slope is still undecided, traverse in their upper courses many great lakes, which according to a vague tradition once constituted a single lacustrine basin of enormous extent. In the sixteenth century the Portuguese explorers had some idea of this hydrographic system. But in tracing the outlines of the great equatorial lakes they seem to have rather copied older maps than relied on positive information. But, however this be, they appear to have believed in the existence of a single source for the Nile, Congo, and even the Zambesi. But the streams were also supposed to traverse extensive underground regions, and an Italian map engraved in the middle of the fifteenth century represents a Nile with three heads, separated by a vast space from the emissaries of the chief fountain. This Nile is moreover made to flow in the direction from north to south, a small Egyptian delta corresponding to a much larger delta in South Africa.
The first modern explorers of the same region were also influenced by these traditional ideas. Even Speke traced the course of four rivers issuing from various parts of Lake Nyanza to form the Nile, while Stanley made Tanganyka the source of two effluents, one flowing northwards to the Nile, the other westwards to the Congo. But although these great arteries do not rise in a common source, the water-parting between them is in some places so low and undecided that a slight disturbance of the surface would suffice to change the direction of many affluents. It is even possible that on the dividing line of some basins there may exist lakes or swamps draining in both directions.
The unfinished aspect of the central rivers, the cataracts interrupting their course, the lacustrine reservoirs scattered over the plateaux, produce a certain resemblance between equatorial Africa and the Scandinavian peninsula. But in the northern region, still under ice within a comparatively recent geological epoch, the rivers have scarcely commenced their work of erosion. The climatic conditions are of course entirely different, and although the existence of an old glacial period may be suspected even in the torrid zone, the long ages that have elapsed since that remote epoch must have effaced nearly all trace of glaciers and moraines. Hence the rudimentary character of these fluvial basins is probably due to a different cause. The climate, which was formerly much more humid in the Sahara, may possibly have been correspondingly drier in the south-eastern region of the Nyanza plateau. In the absence of a copious rainfall the rocks would remain uneroded, and the now flooded cavities unfilled by the alluvia of running waters. During its long geological life the earth has witnessed many shiftings of the climatic zones. If the rains are more abundant in some places than formerly, in others they are more rare, and the Igharghar basin, for instance, in North-west Africa, belongs to one of these dried-up regions.
East of the Nile and of the great lakes there is no space between the plateaux and the coast for the development of large streams. From the Egyptian uplands the Red Sea receives nothing but intermittent wadies, and along a seaboard of about 2,400 miles southwards to Mozambique the Indian Ocean is fed only by such _pg_23.jpg)
THE NILE VIEW TAKEN FROM THE ISLAND OF PHILÆ.
Fig. 3.—Outflow of Lake Nyanza, according to Speke.
Scale 1 : 1,000,000.
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180 Miles.
the gorges of its upper course. The Kunene and Koanza, which follow from south to north, although more copious, have still but a slight volume compared with their respective areas of drainage. The same may be said of the Ogowé, which rises in the peninsular tract formed by the great bend of the Congo east of equatorial Guinea.
The Niger, or "Nile of the Blacks," forms with the Nile, Congo, and Zambezi, one of the four great arteries of Africa. Even down to the beginning of this century many geographers still supposed that the Nile and the Niger mingled their waters across the continent. Some old maps represent the latter as rising in the same lake as the eastern Nile, whereas its main source lies, not in the centre of Africa, but at Mount Loma, on the slope of the Rokelle Mountains, in the vicinity of the west coast. A space of at least 2,700 miles thus intervenes between the farthest headstreams of both rivers, while the nearest affluents are still separated by a distance of some 720 miles. The Niger in fact belongs to a region wholly different from that of the Nile in the form and disposition of its plateaux. On the other side of the hills where it takes its rise, the Congo, Rio Grande, Gambia, and several other streams flow to independent estuaries on the west coast, while farther north the Senegal, rising on the same slope as the Niger, sweeps round the hills, forcing its way to the Atlantic through a series of rocky gorges and rapids.
North of the Senegal no large river reaches the coast, and for a space of 4,800 miles from the bar of Saint Louis to the Nile delta nothing is met except a few wadies or small streams, such as the Draa, in the south of Morocco, the Moluya, Shelif, Mejerda, flowing to the Mediterranean. The Congo alone probably discharges as much water as all the other African rivers together. Next to it rank the Niger and Zambezi, the Nile in this respect taking only the fourth place.
Of the inland basins either constantly or intermittently closed, the most important are Lakes Tsad in the north, and Makarakara-Ngami in the south, both lying at nearly equal distance from the middle Congo, and thus presenting a symmetrical disposition on either side of the equator. Tsad, much the largest of the two, is also situated in the northern or largest section of the continent, the extent of both thus corresponding with that of the surrounding regions draining to the oceans. But here all further analogy ceases, at least if it be true that Tsad has always been a closed basin; for the Ngami reservoirs certainly communicated at some former geological epoch with the Limpopo and Zambezi.
Besides these central depressions, each section of the continent has its deserts, strewn with secondary basins and oases, whose waters lose themselves in the surrounding sands. Altogether the area of inland drainage is estimated by Chavanne at nearly 3,000,000 square miles, of which 560,000, or less than a fifth, lie south of the equator.[2] Amongst the northern tracts without any outflow there are some depressions which at present lie below sea-level. These are probably the remains of straits and inlets formerly belonging to the Mediterranean and Red Sea. The largest are those which seem to form a continuation of the Tunisian Gulf of Cabes (Syrtis Minor), south of Algeria, which formerly received the discharge of the now dried up Igharghar, a river 780 miles long, and consequently longer than the Limpopo. Other cavities below sea-level follow in succession between the Great Syrtia and the Nile south of the plateau of Cyrenaica. At the foot of the Abysinian highlands on the Red Sea coast are also found deep troughs, the surface waters of which have sunk to a level far below that of the neighbouring inlets. In the southern section of the continent such maritime depressions do not occur.
Islands.
Africa is as poorly furnished with a complement of islands aa it is with large inlets and orographic systems. In their submarine relief those in the Mediterranean belong rather to Europe than to this continent. Crete is connected with Asia Minor and with Greece; Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia with Italy; the Balearic group by a submarine bank with the coast of Valentia; Jerba alone and a few islets in the Gulf of Cabes and along the Mauritanian shores form parts of the northern seaboard. On the Atlantic side little occurs beyond some rocks and low-lying banks, such as the Bissagos or Bishlas Archipelago, which a slight alluvial deposit or upheaval of the land would suffice to connect with the continent. The more distant groups of Madeira and Porto Santo, the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands, are of volcanic origin, and separated from the mainland by abysses over 3,000 feet in depth. Of igneous formation are also the islets in the Gulf of Guinea, Annabom, Saint Thomas, Prince, Fernando-Po, which form a chain of volcanoes all more recent than the neighbouring mainland.
The small groups in the Red Sea are mere coral reefs dominated here and there by a few volcanic peaks. Even in the Indian Ocean the only real African island is Socotra, the "spear-head" of the peninsula at present terminating at Cape Gardafui, and farther south Pemba, Zanzibar, and Mafia, disposed parallel with the coast. The Comoro Group is of volcanic origin, and Madagascar too far removed from Mozambique to be regarded as a dependency of the continent. Its nearest headland is 180 miles distant, and even this space is doubled for ordinary craft by the velocity of the intervening marine currents. Its flora and fauna also show that this great island belongs to a distinct geological domain. Geoffrey de Saint-Hilaire looked on it as a world apart, and most subsequent zoologists have regarded it as a fragment of "Lemuria," a vanished continent, which also embraced the granite groups of the Seychelles and Rodriguez as well as Ceylon and the Maldives, and may have even reached as far as Celebes in the Eastern Archipelago.
Climate.
Above all the great divisions of the globe, Africa is distinguished by the general regularity of its climatic phenomena, a circumstance due to its massive form and to its equatorial position. In the region approaching nearest to the northern or southern lines of the equinoxes, rain falls throughout the year, thanks to the opposing trade winds, which by neutralising each other often preserve the stillness of the atmosphere, and enable the local vapours to condense and precipitate themselves on the spot. In the northern hemisphere a zone of two wet seasons stretches
from the equator to the fifteenth degree of latitude. In summer, copious rains are caused by the moisture-bearing south-west winds; in winter, those blowing from the north-west become in their turn the bearers of heavy rain-charged clouds to the southern hemisphere. But on both sides of the torrid zone, which comprises about seven-tenths of the whole continent, the difference in the disposition of the winds
Fig. 4.—Isothermal Lines of Africa.
Scale 1 : 75,000,000.
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1,200 Miles.
causes a corresponding contrast in the rainfall. Here the trade winds maintain
their normal direction constanttly, or with but slight temporary deviations; blowing from the north-east in the northern, from the south-east in the southern hemisphere,
they divert to the equator most of the vapours crossing their path, leaving elsewhere clear skies and arid lands. Thus it happens that Africa has two almost completely barren zones of rocks, gravels, marls, clay and sand—the Sahara and Libyan desert in the north, Kalahari and other wastes in the south. This symmetrical disposition of the climates is completed by the regular alternation of winds and rains in the zones of Mauritania and the Cape of Good Hope, both belonging to the region of sub-tropical ruins, which fall in the respective winters of each hemisphere. Africa is thus disposed from north to south in successive grey
and more or less intensely green belts, presenting to the inhabitants of the other
Fig. 5.—Distribution of the Rainfall in Africa.
Scale 1 : 7,500,000.
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1,300 Miles.
planets an aspect perhaps analogous to that offered to our gaze by the parallel cloudy zones round about Jupiter.
These different zones of moisture, whose limits coincide in several places with the isothermal lines, are developed across the continent with sufficient regularity to enable M. Chavanne to map them out. Africa is more sharply distributed in distinct regions by its deserts than it could have been by broad arms of the sea, and the distribution of its inhabitants has also been determined almost exclusively by the climatic conditions, depending everywhere on the abundance of rain and vegetation.
Flora and Fauna.
In its flora and fauna, as well as its climate and geology, North Africa belongs to the zone of transition between Europe and Asia. The apparent unity imparted to the continent by its compact form is not realised when we examine in detail the phenomena of life. Cyrenaica and the whole Mauritanian seaboard on the slope of the Atlas range belong to the vegetable domain of the Mediterranean, in which are also comprised Spain, Provence, Italy, the Balkan peninsula, the shores of Asia Minor, and Syria. The zone of the Sahara, which stretches under the Tropic of Cancer across the continent, is continued in Arabia to the Persian Gulf, and even through some of their rarer species embraces the Baluchistan coast, Thar, the Rann, and the Kathyawar peninsula in India. Lastly, the floras of Yemen and Hadramaut resemble those of Sudan, the narrow Red Sea having been easily traversed by African species.
For the whole continent, the characteristic vegetable zone is that of Sudan and the equatorial regions, which stretches from sea to sea, and from desert to desert, between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, between the Sahara and Kalahari. Speaking broadly, it is much poorer in distinct species than the other tropical regions, such as India and the Sunda Islands, and even than some sub-tropical lands, such as Asia Minor. Nevertheless certain central districts in Africa possess a remarkable variety of plants, as for instance, the territory watered by the Diûr, not far from the dividing line between the Nile and Congo basins. Here Schweinfurth collected in five months nearly seven hundred flowering species, which it would be impossible to do in the richest European lands.
Most of the African tropical domain is exposed to the periodical rains, with long intervening periods of dryness. Hence arborescent vegetation nowhere displays greater exuberance and vigour than on the plains between the Congo and Nile, where the streams often disappear amid dense masses of foliage, and in the neighbourhood of the Bight of Benin, which enjoys far more humidity than the interior. A large extent of the zone of the Sudan is occupied by prairies, although some tracts are so overgrown with graminaceous and other herbs that animals refuse to penetrate into them. In the Nile marsh lands, certain andropogonous varieties have non-woody stalks over twenty feet high, affording to the giraffe cover from the hunter. The various graminaceous plants of Central Africa are not intermingled like those of the European fields, and tracts several hundred square miles in extent are sometimes occupied by a single species.
Thorny plants arc relatively very abundant in the forests of the Sudan, and after clearances the trees appear not to spring up so rapidly in this zone as in South America. Varieties of the palm family are ten times more numerous in Asia and America than in Africa, which has consequently a wider range for its prevailing species. The equatorial regions of other continents have scarcely any cocoa-nut forests except on the Malabar coast, in Ceylon, and around the Caribbean seaboard, whereas in North Africa the dûm palm (hyphæne thebaica) and the deleb (borassus flabelliformis), as well as the date (phænix dactylifera) cover extensive tracts in the oases of the northern Sahara. Compared with the number of its species, the Nigretian flora possesses many trees with an abnormal development of stem, leaf, and fruits. The baobab is noted for the enormous size of its trunk, while the kigelia and some other bignoniaceæ have fruits two feet long, and the eusete, a variety of the musaceæ, displays the largest foliage in the entire vegetable kingdom.
The Kalahari flora, south of the tropical domain, resembles that of the Sahara, except that it forms no oases, nor are the few watered tracts anywhere shaded by palms. This flora is distinguished by its thorny acacias and mimosas, and, like that of Northern Nigretia, it abounds in graminaceous species. On its northern margin some almost rainless districts grow the welwitschia, a remarkable plant, so flush with the ground as often to escape the notice of travellers. Burrowing downwards in the form of a reversed cone, it displays above ground nothing but a rough surface over a yard long, throwing off right and left two cotyledons of a leathery appearance, and occasionally exceeding 16 feet in length after a growth of one hundred years.
On the east coast of Africa, the transition between the vegetable zones is more gradual than on the opposite side, where the tropical domain is abruptly limited by the Kalahari desert. Along the Indian Ocean the change takes place imperceptibly from north to south through the Limpopo basin and Natal. On this seaboard, which is skirted by the warm Mozambique stream, the southern limit of the palm lies 16 degrees lower down than on the Atlantic coast. But on the whole the vegetation south of the Orange River is clearly distinguished from that of the rest of the continent. Although the rainfall is limited and the geological formations far from varied, the Cape flora, consisting chiefly of grasses, shrubs, and bushes, is altogether unique for the multitude of its intermingled species. In this respect it is unrivalled even by the richest European countries. Nowhere else do the mountain slopes present more vegetable forms disposed in belts sharply separated from each other by the several zones of altitude. It may be asked whether this Cape flora is not a survival from far more extensive lands engulfed in the sea, most of whose vegetation has found a refuge in the relatively limited tract bounded northwards by the basin of the Orange River. In the same way the island of Madagascar appears to have preserved a great part of the flora of the vanished "Lemurian" continent. It still possesses over forty vegetable families peculiar to itself.
The appearance of Europeans and Semites has been accompanied by the introduction of many new species, which in several districts have displaced and even exterminated the indigenous forms. Elsewhere the range of certain plants appears to have been modified even without the intervention of man. Thus the papyrus, which three thousand years ago was characteristic of the Egyptian Nile, is now, according to Schweiufurth, found only on the Upper Nile near the equator. The pink lotus also (nelumbium speciosum), whose flower symbolised the fertilising stream, the sun, and the sun-god, no longer flourishes on the Egyptian waters. On the mummies of the tombs in Upper Egypt are found floral wreaths containing
Fig. 6.—Vegetable Zones of Africa.
Scale 1 : 75,000,000.
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1,200 Miles.
numerous species, such as the centaurea depressa, which have" since disappeared from the local flora, or at least no longer grow spontaneously.
The zones of the African fauna are less clearly defined than those of the vegetable kingdom. Migrating more easily than the plants, the animals have crossed many frontiers within which the plants have been confined by the climatic conditions. Hence the same animal types prevail throughout Nigretia and the region north of Cape Colony. Numerous species of mammals and birds are met from the southern extremity of the continent to the banks of the Senegal; nor are the plateaux and highlands anywhere lofty enough to prevent the migrations of animals, which in Africa are kept apart rather by the broad desert wastes than by mountain barriers.
The Mascarenhas, and especially Madagascar, are centres of independent life, the latter containing over one hundred animal species not found elsewhere. But the immigrations of Arabs and Europeans have added several species to the African fauna, in exchange for those they have contributed to extirpate. The camel, without which it seems impossible for caravans to cross the Sahara in its present arid state, is nevertheless a comparatively recent arrival, its image occurring nowhere either on the old Egyptian monuments or on the "inscribed stones" of the ancient Berbers. Hence it is evident that the Sahara was not always a desert; and valuable inscriptions, confirming the text of Herodotus, prove that the ox and the zebu were the first pack animals of the Garamantes on the route between Fezzan and Sudan. Now man has been followed by his ordinary companions, such as the horse and dog, at least wherever they have been able to adapt themselves to the climate. When the American Chaillé-Long appeared on horseback at the court of the King of Uganda, north of the Victoria Nyanza, the natives fancied, like the Mexicans at the first appearance of the Spanish cavalry, that horse and man formed one animal, and when the stranger dismounted they ran off terror-stricken at the sight of this centaur dividing itself into two distinct beings.
The greatest obstacle to the development of Africa is caused by the tsetse (glossina morsitants), a simple fly, whose bite is fatal to horses, camels, oxen, and dogs, although harmless to man, the calf, goat, and wild beasts. This destructive insect, which is supposed, rightly or wrongly, to infuse anthrax virus into its victims, is very common in certain districts of South and Central Africa, but does not extend farther north than the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Senaar, and is unknown in the north-west. The donderobo, another two-winged pest obscrvetl to the south of the Kilima Njaro, spares cattle, but attacks the ass, goat, and sheep.
Africa is the home of the largest living quadrupeds, such as the elephant, various species of the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, giraffe, ond other herbiferous animals. At the same time the African elephant is smaller, less vigorous, and more difficult to tame than its Indian congener, from which it differs in its convex frontal bone, large ears, and some other physical characteristics. The attempts made by Gordon to domesticate this animal and employ it in warfare were not successful, and in this respect Europeans have still to discover the secrets known not only to the Hindus, but even to the ancients, and, according to Duveyrier, to the tribes south of Mauritania, and to the Wakorays of the western Sahara.
The lion of the Atlas highlands is fiercer than the Babylonian species; the gorilla is the strongest and most formidable of the ape family; of all hoofed animals the zebra is the most indomitable; neither the American caiman nor the Indian gavial approach the dimensions of the African crocodile, and of all running birds the African ostrich is the most powerful. This continent excels not only in the number and size of its animal species, but also in the multitude of individuals. Thus on the central plateaux travellers have observed vast plains covered by countless herds of ruminants, and Livingstone tells us that he had to force his way through the dense troops of antelopes. But since then wide gaps have already been made amongst these teeming multitudes by destructive hunting expeditions in the Nile basin and in the southern plains. It is calculated that the 15,600 cwts. of ivory yearly imported into Europe cost the lives of 50,000 elephants. Whole species are threatening to disappear, as the small Mauritanian elephant and certain animal forms in the Mascarenhas Islands have already vanished. The range of the rhinoceros formerly comprised south-west Morocco, where it has not been seen in historic times.
Inhabitants.
During the first half of the present century European geographers, still unacquainted with the interior, were naturally inclined to exaggerate the extent of the desert regions, and readily regarded as solitudes all spaces left blank on the maps. The continent was supposed to contain some fifty or sixty, or at the utmost a hundred, million inhabitants. Since that time more accurate statistics have been taken in some of the European colonies or possessions on the coast; rough estimates have also approximately determined, the population of some districts near the maritime ports, and travellers, yearly increasing in numbers, have brought from the interior at least sufficient data to enable us to classify the inland regions according to the greater or less density of their populations. In some of these districts the people are as closely packed as in Belgium, while elsewhere village succeeds village for several leagues together. The basins of Lake Tsad and the Joliba (Niger), as well as most of Nigritia south of the Sahara, are thickly peopled, as are also the region of the great lakes, the Nile delta, the White Nile in the Shilluk territory, and the lands watered by the Congo and its chief affluents. The population of the whole continent cannot be estimated at less than two hundred millions, or seven times more than the calculations of Pinkerton and Volney nearly a century ago. More recently Balbi fixed the number at sixty millions, which was long accepted as the most probable. The hypothetical element in all these rough estimates will doubtless be gradually diminished by the systematic work of modern explorers.[3]
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The Mediterranean seaboard differs from the rest of the continent as much in its inhabitants as it does in its geological history, its physical features, its animal and vegetable species. The bulk of the Mauritanian population consists of the so-called Berbers (Imazighen, Imohagh), who approach the European type more closely than the other African races. Amongst them are met several tribes in which blue eyes and fair or light chestnut hair are so common that they have often been wrongly regarded as of European descent. These Berber peoples seem to be allied to the ancient Egyptians. The whole of North Africa and Southern Europe may have even been peopled from one ethnical source in prehistoric times, the populations, like the animal and vegetable species, thus radiating from a common centre. The oases and upland valleys in the Sahara have also been occupied by the Berbers, some of whose tribes, designated by the name of "Moors," dwell even south of the desert along the right bank of the Senegal.
Some of the Berber communities, such as the Imohaghs or Tuaregs of Ahaggar, and the Imazighen or Kabyles, that is, "Tribes," and especially those of Morocco, appear to be of pure stock. But in the plains, and still more in the towns, endless crossings have modified the type in a thousand ways, and given rise to half-caste populations bearing a great variety of names. As in Europe "Moorish" blood still flows in the veins of Andalusians, Murcians, Valentians, and Algarves, so in Africa Phœnicians, Romans, Vandals, Spaniards, Provençals, Italians, Greeks, and Frenchmen have left some traces of their presence, either as slaves or conquerors.
On the other hand, the dark aborigines of the Sahara and the Negroes imported from the south into every part of Barbary have become diversely intermingled with the Berber tribes, while fresh elements have been introduced from the east by the Arabs. Under this term "Arab" were moreover comprised Syrians and Easterns of all kinds, and it has even been extended to a large part of the Mauritanian population, Arabs only in speech, traditions of conquest, religion and some doubtful genealogies.
In the Nile basin great mixture has also taken place, but in this intermingling the European and Turkish elements are but slightly represented, whereas the Arabs and other Semites have had a preponderating influence in the formation of many communities in North-east Africa. Historians have often attempted to draw an absolute line between the Egyptians and the Nilotic peoples above the cataracts. They considered that the inhabitants of the three Egyptian provinces should be grouped either with the Semites or Aryans, or else regarded as a distinct race. The Retu (Rotu), that is, the ancient inhabitants of the Lower Nile, have thus been affiliated to a so-called "Proto-Semite" stock, whence the Arabs also were supposed to be descended. Although arguments based on the element of speech have but a relative value, it is generally admitted that the "Hamitic" linguistic family, comprising Old Egyptian, Galla, and Berber, presents in its structure a remote affinity to the Semitic idioms. But Old Egyptian and its modern representative, the Coptic, is much more clearly related to the Berber dialects. The Retu type itself, surviving in that of the modern Fellahin in spite of countless crossings and modifications, is by no means Semitic. Nor is it akin to that of the Negroes of the interior. Doubtless many Egyptians, as has been remarked by Champollion the younger, resemble the Barabra of Nubia, who themselves differ little from the Beja. Travellers ascending the Nile assure us that the type of the northern Fellahin merges by insensible transitions in that of the southern populations. But this phenomenon is the inevitable result of racial interminglings. The original type has been modified in a thousand ways by crossings, migrations, conquests, the introduction of slaves, diet, and other social conditions. Thus have been developed numerous mixed races, and the most varied contrasts in figure, colour, habits, speech and political institutions between neighbouring populations.
In the region of the great lakes and of the western affluents of the Upper Nile, the Negro nations, properly so-called, are represented by the Fung, the Shilluks, the Bari, Denka, and other dark communities. But the majority of these Negroes are far from being characterised by the black and shining skin, the pouting lips, the projecting jaws, flat features, broad nose, and woolly hair which are usually supposed to be characteristic of all Africans. Even the Monbuttu, a nation dwelling to the south of the Niam-niam, between the Congo and Upper Nile basins, are distinguished by an almost light complexion, a tolerably full beard, a straight or aquiline nose, and amongst them are frequently met persons with hair of an ashy blonde colour. Schweinfurth estimates these "fair negroes" at over a twentieth of the whole Monbuttu nation. Possibly their carnivorous diet, comprising even human flesh, may contribute to some extent to give a relatively light complexion to these aborigines. At least the observations of M. Antoine d'Abbadie on the Ethiopian tribes, observations confirmed by several other travellers, tend to show that flesh-eating peoples, even those of hot lowlands, have a much fairer complexion than those living on a vegetarian diet, even when the latter dwell at a higher elevation on lofty plateaux and mountain slopes. The Negroes _pg_41.jpg)
GROUP OF NUBIAN WOMEN.
According to physiologists, the blood of the Negro is thicker and less red than that of the whites. It coagulates more rapidly and flows more sluggishly. The Negro, like the yellow Asiastic Mongol, is of a less sensitive temperament than the European. He suffers less under surgical operations, and runs less danger from their consequences; his nervous life is less intense, his pulsation less active, than that of Europeans. Several of the maladies common in Europe are unknown, or at least very rare, in Africa. Cancer, croup, dental caries, typhoid and marsh fevers, seldom attack the Negro, who on the other hand suffers more from bilious and cutaneous disorders. Tetanus also is much dreaded by them, and the least change of climate exposes them to pulmonary affections. Where the whites and blacks live side by side on the same plantations, the former fall victims to yellow fever, the latter to cholera. Home-sickness is also one of the most fatal affections of the African race.
The portion of Africa lying in the southern hemisphere is mainly occupied by the Bantus, whose various communities present a somewhat analogous type, and speak languages derived from a common stock, as had already been observed by Lichtenstein at the beginning of the century. The Kafirs of Natal and Cape Colony are amongst the finest of this noble Bantu race, which rivals the Barabra of the Nile in its proud carriage and graceful attitudes. But in direct contact with these superb Africans are found other aborigines presenting a totally different and far less noble type. These are the Koikoin, or Hottentots, characterised by a yellowish complexion, low stature, and slightly developed muscular system. These communities, as distinct from the Bantus as are the Chinese from the Aryans, may perhaps represent a vanquished race driven by the invaders gradually to the southernmost limits of the continent. But such a hypothesis seems much more justified in respect of certain "pigmy peoples" scattered over a great part of Africa. Such are the San, or Bosjesmen, that is "Bushmen," of South Africa, the Dokos of Kaffa, the Akka or Tikki-tikki of the Welle River, the Obongo of the Ogowé basin. In connection with these dwarfish populations, and especially the Bushmen, anthropologists have observed that if Africa is the continent of the great anthropoid apes, such as the gorilla and chimpanzee, it is also the home of the most ape-like human races. In this region of the globe, they tell us, the two orders of primates approach nearest to each other. One is tempted to regard these pigmies as a remnant of the aboriginal element deprived of their lands by stronger intruding races.
The inhabitants of Madagascar are only partly connected with those of the neighbouring continent, for a portion of the population is certainly of Malay origin. Like the local plants and animals, it bears witness to the geographical independence of the island. But in the adjacent Comoro group the prevailing speech is African.
National prejudice, for which historians fail to make due allowance, has given rise to the widespread impression that the Africans have, so to say, taken no part in the general work of civilisation. The first example which presents itself to the mind is that of the king of Dahomey, celebrating the "great custom" by a general massacre and the flooding of a lake with human blood; or else we conjure up the image of those armed Monbuttu hordes which rush to battle grinding their teeth and shouting "Meat! Meat!" But these frightful pictures are not an epitome of the history of Africa. On the contrary, we are irresistibly attracted by the study of our own social evolution to the Nile basin in North-East Africa. Looking back through the long perspective of the past, far beyond the heroic times of Greece, where was cradled our distinctly European culture, we ascend from century to century to the remote ages when the Pyramids were raised, when the first ploughshare turned up the rich soil of the Nile delta. In Egypt are found the very oldest documents of authentic history. So well established was its claim to the foremost place in the development of civilisation, that the Greeks themselves regarded the Nilotic region as the common cradle of mankind. Whatever be the constituent ethnical elements of the nation to which we trace the germs of our intellectual life, it is certain that their civilisation was of African origin. It had its earliest seat in the narrow and fertile valley of the Nile, between the arid rock and the still more arid sands of the wilderness. Through this mysterious stream, flowing from the depths of the continent, were first established mutual intercourse and civilising influences amongst the various regions of the old world. The north African lands lying farther west were almost entirely excluded from any share in this movement, at least before the introduction of the camel into the Dark Continent, for till then they remained separated by the vast intervening desert from the thickly peopled regions of Sudan.
From the remotest antiquity the Africans, even beyond Egypt, took part in the triumphs of mankind over nature. They were either stockbreeders or tillers of the land, and to them we are indebted for many valuable plants and domestic animals. From the African continent comes the variety of sorgho which, under the name of durra, is cultivated from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the southern ocean, and which is rivalled only by wheat and rice in its economic importance to mankind. From Africa we have also received the date, for the Berbers and Sudanese were probably the first to study the habit of this palm, which grew spontaneously in their forests. According to Schweinfurth, the wild stock of the Ethiopian banana, known to botanists by the name of musa ensete, gave rise to the hundred varieties of the cultivated banana, whose fruit serves as a staple of food in many American lands. To these three important vegetable species must also be added the kaffa shrub, or coffee plant, so highly prized by a third of mankind for the stimulating properties and delicious aroma of its berry.
The civilised world is also indebted to the natives of Africa for several domestic animals. Certain varieties of the dog, the cat, the pig of Senaar, and the ferret, have been tamed by them; the ass also is certainly of African origin, and to the same source should perhaps be traced the goat, the sheep, and the ox. In recent times the guinea-fowl was, so to say, rediscovered by the Portuguese in this continent, whence it had been originally obtained by the Greeks and Romans, but had again disappeared during mcdiicval times.
Even in the sphere of industries, Africa has contributed a certain share to the common inheritance of mankind. The monuments of Egypt, her highways, canals,
Fig. 7.—Languages of Africa.
Scale 1 : 75,000,000.
_pg_45.jpg)
300 Miles.
embankments, her costly fabrics, gems, and furniture, her carved woods and wrought metals—in a word, the thousand objects found in her burial-grounds—cannot all have been the work of the Retu alone. Amongst the products of the
old Egyptian industry ore frequently recognised certain forms also recurring in Nubia, in Abyssinia, and even in Sudan. The smelting and working of iron, most useful of all metallurgic discoveries, has been attributed to the Negroes as well as to the Chalybes of Asia Minor; and the Bongos of the White Nile, as well as some other African tribes, have constructed furnaces of a very ingenious type. Their smelters and forgers are, for the most part, satisfied with rude and primitive implements, in the use of which they, however, display marvellous skill. The Fans of the Ogowe basin produce excellent iron, whose quality is scarcely equalled by Europeans themselves. In most of the native tribes the smiths constitute a special caste, much respected and even dreaded for their reputed knowledge of the magic arts. In Abyssinia and Senaar they are accused of changing themselves at night into hyajnas and other wild beasts, which prowl about the villages and disinter the bodies of the dead.
In agriculture and industry the Africans so far co-operated in the development of human culture. But their direct influence in the trade of the world was felt only through Egypt and Mauritania along the Mediterranean seaboard. Commercial intercourse was doubtless carried on throughout the whole continent, but very slowly, and through a thousand intermediary tribes. The produce of Central Africa reached Europe long after all trace of its source had disappeared. In the same way the riverain populations along the banks of the Niger received their Manchester cottons and hardware from Birmingham without suspecting that their river flowed into the sea, or that there are other great divisions of the globe beyond the Dark Continent. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that for thousands of years an active trade has been carried on with the interior. Down to a recent epoch caravans were regarded as sacred, passing fearlessly through contending armies and across disturbed regions. The spirit of traffic prevails amongst numerous tribes in Mauritania, the Upper Nile, and Sudan, as amongst the Jews and Armenians elsewhere, and their dealers display all the shrewdness, tenacity, and inexhaustible obsequiousness everywhere characteristic of the mercantile classes.
From time immemorial the cowries of the Maldive Islands (cypræa moneta), gradually replacing other small objects, such as grains of durra and various seeds, have penetrated as a symbol of exchange as far as West Africa. Through the Calcutta, London, or Zanzibar routes, they are still imported to the Bight of Benin, whence they are forwarded to the markets of Lake Tsad.[4] But the natives now use them chiefly as ornaments. European travellers find that the Turkish piastres and Maria Theresa crowns have already preceded them in most of the unknown regions of the interior. The Bongo tribe was even acquainted with the art of minting, and current coins are also the bits of iron four inches long which are in common use amongst the Ogowé Fans.
But in maritime commerce the Africans scarcely take any part. With the exception of Alexandria, which, thanks to its position on the route between Europe and India is an essentially international point, Carthage was the only continental city that rose to power by its trade. But Carthage was itself a Phœnician colony, founded on a headland projecting into the Mediterranean in the direction of _pg_47.jpg)
BISHARI GUM-DEALERS AT KOROSKO.
Religion.
Since the fall of Carthage and the decadence of Egyptian culture, the most important event in African history has been the Moslem invasion. In the Dark Continent the zealous missionaries of Islam have reaped the richest harvests. The simplicity of the Mussulman creed, which limits itself to proclaiming the unity, omnipotence, and goodness of God; the clearness of its precepts, recommending above all prayer, and cleanliness as the outward symbol of purity; the zeal of its preachers, the prestige of its victories over the "infidel," all combined to seduce the Egyptians, the Berbers, and Negroes. From age to age the Mohammedan domain has grown in extent, until it now comprises nearly half of the continent, from the Isthmus of Suez to the sources of the Niger, and even to the Gulf of Guinea. During the first period of its triumphs, Islam, heir to the sciences received from the Byzantine world, infused new life, as it were, into Egypt and Mauritania, endowed them with a fresh civilization, and through the caravan trade with Morocco, already the emporium of Mussulman Spain, raised Timbuctu, on the Niger, into a great centre of commercial and intellectual movement.
In Nigretia the propagation of Islam also coincides with important political and social changes. Large states were founded in regions hitherto a prey to a hundred mutually hostile and savage tribes. Manners were thus softened, and a sentiment of solidarity sprang up between communities formerly engaged in everlasting warfare. Mohammedanism thus enjoys more material cohesion in Africa than in Europe and Asia, where the faithful, scattered amid populations worshipping at other altars, are often separated from each other by extensive wastes and arms of the sea. In the Dark Continent they occupy a compact domain as large as all Europe, stretching uninterruptedly from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, and here their common belief tends everywhere to diffuse the social ideas, the habits, usages, and speech of the dominant Arab race.
In recent times Christianity has attempted to dispute the field with its Mohammedan rival. Protestant missionaries have even obtained some little success, especially in South Africa. But compared with the apostles of Islam they stand at a great disadvantage, for they are unable, except in a figurative sense, to announce themselves as the brethren of their black proselytes. The "messenger of the good tidings" cannot give his daughter in marriage to his Christian Negro convert. Colour keeps them apart, and both remain men of different race and caste.
Having become the inheritance of the faithful by the triumph of Islam, Africa has witnessed the birth of prophets powerful enough to declare the "holy war." During the invasion of Egypt by the French under Buonaparte at the close of the last century, a mahdi—that is, a "spiritual guide" foretold by old prophecies—summoned his followers to exterminate the stranger. Recently other mahdis have stirred up the tribes in the "West against the French of Senegambia, in the East against the Turks and English in Egypt. In the North, also, fanatics are
Fig. 8.—Religions of Africa.
Scale 1 : 75,000,000.
_pg_50.jpg)
1,200 Miles.
preparing emissaries in Algeria, Tripoli, and Senusiya, and sending them from mosque to mosque in order to excite the congregations against the infidel. In Mecca the most zealous pilgrims, that is, those subject to the most frequent fits of religious frenzy, are the Takrur or Takrarir, a term usually applied collectively to the West African Negroes, but in a more special sense to those of Wadai and Bornu, and to the inhabitants of Metammeh, in the north-west of Abyssinia. Notwithstanding the difficulties of the journey, thousands of these Tukrurs undertake the pilgrimage every year.
In West Africa the propagators of Islam, although using the language of the Prophet, are not Arabs, but Negroes of various tribes. As traders or artisans, they visit the populations along the banks of the Gambia, and penetrate even as far as Ashantiand Dahomey, on the Gold Coast and Bight of Benin. In East Africa the propaganda is also very active on the shores of the Indian Ocean, although here the Arab or Swahili dealers take no interest in the conversion of their wretched victims. On the contrary, they prefer to keep them pagan, in order to retain the right of persecuting and plundering them. Once converted, even by the mere initial rite of circumcision, the natives, of whatever race and colour, acquire the privilege of common fellowship with the rest of the faithful. Nor is there lack of honest Mohammedans, who zealously labour in the spirit of the precepts of the Koran for the emancipation of their slaves. In the province of Bahr-el-Ghazal Felkin met the son of a slave-dealer, who finding himself by his father's death the owner of several hundred Negroes, immediately liberated all of them.
Slavery.
But like their Christian rivals, the Arab traders dealt till recently for the most part in human flesh rather than in elephants' tusks, cotton, ground-nuts, or palm oil. Unfortunately for themselves, the Negroes are the most docile and devoted of servants. Anthropologists have remarked on their essentially feminine type as compared with that of the whites. They are generally noted for their soft voice, scant beard, delicate articulation, pink nails, velvety skin, and rounded muscles.[5] However physically strong, in manners and demeanour they also approach the general type of woman. They are timid and inquisitive, jealous and coquettish, great gossips and scandal-mongers, quick to love, as quick to fall out and make up their quarrels again. Like so many women, they also delight in abject submission, even sacrificing themselves for those who despise and oppress them.
Hence from the remotest times the blacks were most highly esteemed os slaves, and of the tributes or presents forwarded to the Asiatic and European sovereigns, those were most acceptable which were accompanied by African captives. In Africa itself almost every community has its slaves, and amongst many tribes one half of the population is enslaved to the other. Prisoners of war, considered as so much merchandise, are bartered or sold to the highest bidder, destined either to till the lands of their owner or to increase the number of retainers attached to some powerful chief; or else, in some districts, to be immolated in honour of the gods or ancestors of some obscure potentate; or lastly, as amongst the Monbuttu, to be roasted and served up at the great feasts. Nevertheless, the position of the slave is not generally one of great hardship. He often himself accepts this lot to escape from starvation in times of distress, and if badly treated by his owner be enjoys the prescriptive right of transferring his services elsewhere. By renouncing his personal freedom he enters a new family, and the offspring of the free woman whom he marries are free like their mother.
It must be confessed that the condition of the African slave has been aggravated mainly through the influence of European civilisation. Even long before the discovery of the Coast of Guinea by the white navigators, and before the foundation of European colonies in the New World, slave markets were held in Seville and Lisbon. But when Portugal had taken possession of the seaboard, and the Spaniards, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch required robust hands to replace the exterminated natives on their remote western plantations, then a large part of Africa was transformed to a vast hunting-ground for human quarry, and the name of "white" became synonymous with "cannibal," as it still is in the Galla language. All round the coast stations sprang up as outports for this new merchandise. The Portuguese forwarded to Brazil the Negroes captured in Angola; Jamaica, Barbadoes, and Virginia received their supplies from the Cape Coast; Louisiana and the French Antilles from Senegal and the Slave Coast ; New Amsterdam from Elraina. Every American settlement thus had its corresponding emporium in Guinea. The horrors of the "middle passage" exceeded all description. To save space the living freight was packed in the smallest compass on board ship, where large numbers were swept away by typhus, heat, thirst, and suicide. It would be impossible even roughly to estimate the multitude of human beings sacrificed by the slave-trade, through the wars it fomented around the African seaboard, the epidemics it propagated, the revolts and massacres of which it was the consequence.
Although the Africans removed to the New "World must be reckoned by many millions, the coloured population, consisting almost exclusively of men, increased very slowly on the plantations. In the present century, however, the equilibrium of the sexes has at least been established amongst the exiled race. At present the number of pure or half-caste Negroes in America exceeds twenty-five millions, and amongst them there are still about one million five hundred thousand im emancipated. But since the sanguinary civil war waged in the United States for the liberation of the blacks, this ancient form of servitude is finally condemned, and the number of slaves is daily diminishing in its last strongholds, Cuba and Brazil.
In Africa itself, the institution has received a fatal blow by the closing of the maritime outports, and whatever may at times be said to the contrary, very few of the Arab and other craft engaged in. the traffic succeed in forcing the blockade along the shores of the Indian Ocean.[6] Many however still cross the Red Sea, in defiance of the English at Aden, of the French at Obock, and of the Italians at Assab, while tens of thousands continue to fall victims to the Arab and other kidnappers in the interior of the continent. During the heyday of the slave-traders the traffic cost the lives of at least half a million Negroes every year. Compared with that already remote epoch, the present must be regarded as an age of progress. The outports on the coast are no longer crowded with captives, and, as in the New World, the wars stirred up by the dealers in human flesh involve the ultimate ruin of their infamous traffic.
Exploration.
Henceforth supported by other produce than that of slaves, the commerce of Africa already finds the interior more accessible to its agents, and the continent thus becomes daily more closely connected with the rest of the world. Large numbers of explorers starting from various points round the coast are continually invading new or little-known regions, and amongst them are many brave volunteers ever ready to sacrifice their lives in the sole interest of science and humanity. It is one of the glories of our age to have produced so many heroes, some who have achieved fame, others whose very names are already forgotten, but all alike devoting themselves merely to fill up the blank spaces on the map of the Dark Continent. A "necrological" Map of Africa has been prepared by M. Henri Duveyrier, showing the names of the chief European explorers who, between the years 1800 and 1874, have either been murdered by fanatical Mohammedans or fallen victims to the deadly climate and the hardships undergone in their efforts to advance geographical knowledge. Since then the list has been considerably augmented, and the names of Flatters and his associates—of Schuver, Sacconi, Keith Johnston and many others—have been enrolled amongst the martyrs of
science.
In the history of African discovery, as in that of all other human conquests, progress has not always been continuous. Until recently the work of exploration has rather been aurried on interruptedly, and at times even discontinued for long intervals. Between the first voyage of circumnavigation, mentioned by Herodotus as having been accomplished under Pharaoh Necho, and that of Vasco de Gama, there was an interval of twenty-one centuries, during which numerous discoveries already made had been forgotten. The geographers of the fifteenth century were acquainted with the results of the older explorations only through Ptolemy's inaccurate statements, which were made still more confusing by the carelessness of copyists and the imagination of commentators. The coasts already known to the Phoenicians had to be rediscovered, for Hanno's voyage to the south of the Senegal River, accomplished nineteen hundred years before the Portuguese, had long ceased to be remembered. Even after Gama's "periplus," and the occupation of a large portion of the coast by the Portuguese, our knowledge of the regions already visited was more than once obscured, thanks mainly to the jealousy of rival nations anxious to keep for themselves the secret of their expeditions.
At present learned writers are patriotically engaged in vindicating for their respective countries the honour of having been the first to explore many since-forgotten regions. It seems certain that long before the Portuguese, Italian navigators had surveyed most of the north-west seaboard, and even the islands and archipelagoes lying off the coast. A sketch by the Venetian Marco Pizzigani, dated 1367, and preserved in the library of Parma, lays down the Afncan coast as far as Cape Bojador, in a way generally in conformity with the results of the most careful modern surveys. The people of Dieppe on their part claim for their ancestors the glory of having founded a "Little Dieppe" on the Guinea Coast in 1364, and of having in 1402 colonised the Canaries under the orders of Jean de Bethencourt.[7] The Portuguese also, whose navigators claimed to be the first to
Fig. 9.—Chief Routes of Explorers in the Interior of Africa.
Scale 1 : 75,000,000.
_pg_54.jpg)
The courses of rivers and outlines of
lakes are not shown on this map
Well known countries of which accurate maps
have already been made are shaded in grey.
1,200 Miles.
sail into the waters of the "Impenetrable Sea" and open up the "Dark Ocean," regard their missionaries of the sixteenth century as the pioneers in the chief discoveries made in the interior of the continent. Yet long after the time of these missionaries, the maps of Africa continued to be disfigured by the names of pepples described as the "Tongueless," the "Noseless," the "Opistodactyles," with fingers grown backward, or of "Pygmies fighting the cranes for their food."
In our days geographical results are no carefully recorded that there can be no doubt as to the routes followed by travellers in the interior, and we are enabled, at least roughly, to truce the network of the itineraries by which our knowledge of the continent bus been enlarged. During the lust hundred years—that is, since the foundation in 1788 of the English Society for the exploration of Africa whose first heroes and victims were Mungo Park and Homemann—the whole continent has been sevcml times crossed from sea to sea. Livingstone, Cameron, Stanley, Serpa Pinto, Massari, Wissmann, Buonfanti, have all performed this exploit, while scores of other less distinguished explorers have penetrated in some directions thousands of miles from the seaboard. Nor is mere distance always a measure of the importance of these expeditions, and many trips of short duration deserve to find a place in the records of African discovery. Sufficient data have already been obtained to prepare complete maps of certain coastlands, such as the Cape, the Nile Delta, Tunis, Algeria, while the list of positions astronomically determined comprises several thousand names, and is daily increasing. Scarcely a week passes without bringing the news of some fresh geographical conquest. The routes of explorers are so interlaced, and overlap each other at so many points, that few blank spaces of great extent remain to be filled up; and even in the unexplored regions enough is known of the general trend of rivers, valleys, and mountain ranges to at least facilitate the work of future expeditions.
At present the greatest extent of terra incognita lies parallel with the equator north of the Ogowé and Congo, stretching from the Crystal Mountains and those of Mfumbiro and Gambaragara, between the Nile and Congo basins. It comprises an area of at least 400,000 square miles, or about the thirtieth part of the whole continent. But it is already being approached from several points around its periphery, and so recently as December, 1883, the last link was completed of the permanent stations reaching by the Congo route from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. The continent is now traversed from shore to shore by a continuous line of exploration.
The whole of Africa might perhaps have already been discovered had all the white explorers made the way easy for their successors by considerate treatment of the natives. By their humane conduct men like Speke, Livingstone, Barth, Piaggia, Gessi, Schweinfurth, Emin-Bey, ward off dangers from those following in their footsteps; but, on the other hand, many needless obstacles have been created by the threats and violence of less sympathetic pioneers. At the same time it must be confessed that whatever policy they may adopt, all alike are mistrusted by the aborigines, who have too often good reason for regarding them as forerunners of warlike expeditions. Thus even the best of Europeans are in some respects necessarily considered as hostile, their very success inviting the presence of less scrupulous followers. How often must the humane explorer, while accepting the hospitality of some native chief, reflect with feelings akin to remorse on the future which he is preparing for his generous hosts! However unintentionally, he loads the way for the trader and the soldier, thereby insuring the ruin of his friendly entertainers. To justify himself in his own eyes, he is fain to reflect that wars and conquests and violent annexations are the inevitable preliminaries of universal peace and brotherhood.
Most of the African seaboard has already been seized by various European states, and every fresh discovery in the interior enables their officials, troops, and collectors to penetrate farther inland. Trade also expands from year to year, and the foreign exchanges of Egypt alone now exceed those of the whole continent during the last generation, which in 1860 were estimated at about £38,000,000. Highways are being constructed from the coasts towards the inland plateaux, whereby future expeditions must be greatly facilitated. Lines of railway have even begun to wind their way from a few seaports along the neighbouring valleys, here and there scaling the escarpments, and slowly moving towards the centre of the continent, where they must one day converge. To these first links, starting from the coasts of Egypt, Tunis, Algeria, Senegambia, the Cape, and Natal, others will soon be added, resembling the trenches cut by a besieging force round the ramparts of some formidable stronghold. The whole of Africa may thus be compared to a vast citadel, whose disunited garrison of some two hundred million men, acting without unity or concert, must sooner or later open their gates and capitulate to their European conquerors or patrons. For the possession of the interior must inevitably fall ultimately to the masters of the sea and surrounding coastlands. Even were any of the central states temporarily to acquire command of the seaboard, they would be compelled to treat with some maritime European power, and thus prepare the way for the invasion of their territories. Thus, although not yet completely discovered, Africa is none the less, from the political standpoint, already a mere dependence of Europe. By the opening of the Suez Canal it has been doubly severed from Asia. To the European States thus belongs the exclusive privilege of introducing a new civilisation into the Dark Continent, and restoring to the inhabitants, under another form, the very culture which Europe herself received from the people of the Nile Valley.
_pg_56.jpg)
- ↑ Ramsay; Zittal; Neumayr.
- ↑
Closed hydrographic basins of the African continent:— North Africa.
Sq. Miles. Basin of the Tsad, including Ihe Fedé 730,000 ""Igharghar 330,000 Other basins and waterless spaces 1,345,000 South Africa.
Basin of Lake Ngami 314,000 Other basins and waterless spaces 257,000 - ↑ Approximate estimate of the population of Africa by Behm and Wagner in 1882, 205,825,000.
- ↑ John E. Hertz, "Proceedings of the Hamburg Geographical Society," 1880-81.
- ↑ Winwood Reade; G. d'Eichthal.
- ↑ Slavers captured and condemned on the east coast of Africa, 1876-7, 27 with 438 slaves; 1877-8, 16 with 60 slaves.
- ↑ D'Avezac, "Esquisse générale de l'Afrique."