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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



equality with average Europeans. By picking and 

 choosing the best individuals out of a multitude 

 of negroes, we could obtain a very decent body 

 of laborers and artisans ; but if we took the same 

 number of them just as they came, without any 

 process of selection, their productive power, 

 whether as regards the results of toilsome labor 

 or of manual dexterity, would be very small. 



The indolence of the African is partly consti- 

 tutional and partly due to the paucity of his 

 wants, which can be satisfied in his own country 

 with so little effort that the stimulus to exertion 

 is wanting. Leaving for the moment out of con- 

 sideration the combative, marauding, cruel, and 

 superstitious parts of bis nature, and all that is 

 connected with the satisfaction of his grosser 

 bodily needs, his supreme happiness consists in 

 idling and in gossip, in palavers and in petty mar- 

 kets. He has no high aspirations. Nothing that 

 the produce of his labor can purchase for him, in 

 addition to the supply of primary necessaries, 

 equals in his estimation those pleasures of idle- 

 ness that he must perforce forego by the very act 

 of laboring. His natural instincts are such, that 

 the practice of hard daily labor is really bad po- 

 litical economy on his part. He loses more of 

 that which is of value to him in consequence of 

 his labor than he gains by what his labor pro- 

 duces. He has little care for those objects of 

 luxury or for that aesthetic life which men of a more 

 highly-endowed race labor hard to attain. His 

 coarse pleasure, vigorous physique, and indolent 

 moods, as compared with those of Europeans, 

 bear some analogy to the corresponding qualities 

 in the African buffalo, long since acclimatized in 

 Italy, as compared with those of the cattle of Eu- 

 rope. Most of us have observed in the Campa- 

 gna of Rome the ways of that ferocious, powerful, 

 and yet indolent brute. We may have seen him 

 plunged stationary for hours in mud and marsh, 

 in gross contentment under a blazing sun ; at 

 other times we may have noticed some outbreak 

 of stupid, stubborn ferocity ; at others we may 

 have seen him firmly yoked to the rudest of carts, 

 doing powerful service under the persistent goad 

 of his driver. The buffalo is of value for coarse, 

 heavy, and occasional work, being of strong con- 

 stitution, and thriving on the rankest herbage; 

 else he would not still be preserved and bred in 

 Italy. But he must be treated in a determined 

 sort of way, by herdsmen who understand his 

 disposition, or no work will be got out of him ; 

 and besides that, he is ferocious and sufficiently 

 powerful to do a great deal of mischief. 



The capacity of the negro to form kingdoms is 



an important factor in our estimate of the future 

 development of Africa, the numerous tribes by 

 which a great part of the continent is at present 

 occupied being a great hinderance to the mainte- 

 nance of safe thoroughfares and to the inexpen- 

 sive transit of produce. As a matter of fact, con- 

 siderable kingdoms do exist in Equatorial Africa, 

 though a notable proportion of them are ruled by 

 sovereigns who are not of pure negro blood. It 

 is well worth while to collate the accounts written 

 by various travelers on the social and political life 

 in the more typical of these kingdoms. Thus the 

 following extracts relating to Kano and Uganda 

 will show, the first the effect of Arab culture and 

 a Hausa race, and the second will show the much 

 lower civilization under the influence of Galla 

 sovereigns, which nevertheless is less coarse than 

 that of Dahomey or Cazembe. 



The annexed extract is from Dr. Barth. It 

 gives an interesting picture of the every-day life 

 in Kano, the great commercial centre of north- 

 ern Equatorial Africa : 



"It was the most animated picture of a little 

 world in itself, so different in external form from 

 all that is seen in European towns, yet so similar 

 in its internal principles. Here a row of shops 

 filled with articles of native and foreign produce, 

 with buyers and sellers in every variety of figure, 

 complexion, and dress, yet, all intent upon their 

 little gain, endeavoring to cheat each other; there 

 a large shed, like a hurdle, full of half-naked, 

 half-starved slaves torn from their native homes, 

 from their wives or husbands, from their children 

 or parents, arranged in rows like cattle, and star- 

 ing desperately upon the buyers, anxiously 'watch- 

 ing into whose hands it should be their destiny to 

 fall. In another part were to be seen all the neces- 

 saries of life ; the wealthy buying the most pala- 

 table things for their table, the poor stopping and 

 looking eagerly upon a handful of grain ; here a 

 rich governor dressed in silk and gaudy clothes, 

 mounted upon a spirited and richly-caparisoned 

 horse, and followed by a host of idle, insolent 

 slaves ; there a poor blind man groping his way 

 through the multitude, and fearing at every step 

 to be trodden down ; here a yard neatly fenced 

 with mats of reed, and provided with all the com- 

 forts which the country affords — a clean, snug- 

 looking cottage, the clay walls nicely polished, a 

 shutter of reeds placed against the low, well- 

 rounded door, and forbidding intrusion on the 

 privacy of life, a cool shed for the daily household 

 work, a fine, spreading alleluba-trec affording a 

 pleasant shade during the hottest hours of the 

 day, or a beautiful gonda or papaya unfolding its 

 large, feather-like leaves above a slender, smooth, 

 and undivided stem, or the tall date-tree waving 

 over the whole scene ; the matron in a clean black 



