STANLEY'S DISCOVERIES AND TEE FUTURE OF AFRICA. 415 



nothing can seem more absurd than the serious 

 proposal to carry so modern and refined an appli- 

 ance of European civilization as the electric tele- 

 graph through the heart of so savage a region as 

 that which intervenes between Gondokoro and 

 the Transvaal. But the subject has been much 

 discussed by African experts, and the more it is 

 considered the more feasible does it appear. 

 Much experience already exists in respect to the 

 establishment of telegraph-wires through savage 

 or lawless countries, and the result is entirely 

 favorable to the possibility of their maintenance 

 in Africa. Savages do not appear to take alarm 

 at the first sight of the pole and wires, and they 

 become both accustomed to their presence, and 

 to comprehend and appreciate their object as the 

 line is progressively laid down. The savage 

 soon learns that any injury to the line is at once 

 found out, and its locality known, in a way that 

 is mysterious to him, so that he acquires a super- 

 stitious respect for the wire. Again, as small 

 subsidies are given to the chiefs through whose 

 territories it passes, to insure its security, its pres- 

 ence is acceptable to them, and felt to be advan- 

 tageous ; moreover, it is often of local service be- 

 tween neighboring stations. We can have little 

 doubt that the establishment of a line of tele- 

 graphic depots, with their European residents, 

 from north to south in Africa, would have con- 

 siderable effect in maintaining order among the 

 tribes through which it passed. 



Africa is destitue of capitalized wealth. No 

 rich and luxurious civilization has existed in its 

 equatorial regions, like that of Peru or of India, 

 to tempt commercial adventurers. Excepting in 

 the Arab kingdoms to the north, it is a land 

 of hovels, or, at the best, of thatched houses, and 

 of a hand-to-mouth existence. The negro has no 

 instinct to build solidly and for perpetuity ; he 

 therefore wants the most important of the ele- 

 ments that conduce to civilization, for without a 

 material nucleus of solid buildings no respectable 

 civilization can exist. 



All the circumstances we have adduced point 

 to the general conclusion that the existing prod- 

 uce of Equatorial Africa is insufficient to form the 

 basis of a really large commercial traffic. We 

 must not allow ourselves to be over-sanguine, and 

 fall into the often-repeated error of those who 

 have interested themselves philanthropically in 

 Africa, by yielding to an unjustifiable enthusiasm, 

 and placing too much confidence in the speedy 

 development of a great commerce with that con- 

 tinent. 



How does the negro rank as a laborer ? There 



is great diversity witnessed in Africa, partly de- 

 pendent on race and partly on the temporary na- 

 tional mood, which may at one time be inclined 

 to peaceful pursuits and at another time to war, 

 and which also may be inspired by a hopeful 

 sense of success in life, or by that of desponden- 

 cy. It will, however, be of much use to us, in 

 endeavoring to answer the question as fairly as 

 possible, to consider the opinions formed of the 

 negro when he is working side by side with men 

 of other races. Very useful testimony upon this 

 is given in the " Report on the Treatment of Im- 

 migrants in British Guiana," where Africans, East 

 Indians, and Chinese, are all to be found as cool- 

 ies, and where their respective national character- 

 istics have been the subject of direct inquiry. 

 They work in gangs ; the negro gang has almost 

 always a negro for a driver, though sometimes the 

 driver is a Portuguese ; the East Indian coolie 

 has commonly a negro driver, and the Chinaman 

 has always a Chinese. The African can do the best 

 day's work at field-labor of all, and he despises the 

 East Indian for his want of strength. The East 

 Indian cannot earn half as much as the African in 

 the same number of hours, but he despises him for 

 his uncivilized ways. The Chinese is the most 

 intelligent of the three, and is more independent 

 than the East Indian, but he is always ready to 

 leave field-work for any other occupation. If 

 there were no compulsion, the negro would have 

 idled more than the other two, his tale of work 

 would probably have fallen below theirs, and he 

 would have become a sturdy pauper. Such, for 

 the most part, is the condition of the free negro 

 in Africa. 



The African is much inferior to the European, 

 and especially to the East Indian, in his handi- 

 craft ; the only manual work in which negroes 

 show fair dexterity in their native land being that 

 of blacksmiths. Their forge and tools are curi- 

 ously rude, but as their iron is pure owing to the 

 use of charcoal-fuel, and as they take much pleas- 

 ure in working it, the results are very creditable. 

 Their spear-heads are frequently shaped with ele- 

 gance, and they are light and strong — indeed 

 they are such as a second-rate country blacksmith 

 in England would find difficulty in rivaling. 



The negro, taken generally, is idle and clumsy, 

 but we must not allow ourselves to speak of him 

 in terms of universal dispraise. The fact is, that 

 while his average pleasure in work and his aver- 

 age manual dexterity are low when measured by 

 a European standard, it is by no means so low as 

 to make it impossible for a few exceptional in- 

 dividuals and even communities to rise to an 



