INTRODUCTION 



In the early days of African exploration the interest of the 

 geographical problems was so absorbing that but little attention 

 was paid to those of other branches of natural science. This 

 restricted range of interest was originally due to the fascination 

 of the problems of the sources of the Nile and the course 

 of the Congo, the exploration of the great lakes, and the 

 discovery of the equatorial snow-capped mountains. It sur- 

 vived, however, owing to the once prevalent belief that Tropical 

 Africa would never yield its fair share of help in the ad- 

 vancement of science. It was thought that all we had to 

 expect from the exploration of this region was the record of 

 new topographical facts and the removal of the blank spaces 

 from our maps. Some of the problems its natural histor}^ 

 presented to us were regarded as too complex to be solved 

 with the available methods of inquiry. For example, the 

 extent to which the tribes have intermarried and intermingled, 

 have acquired new languages and lost all knowledge of their 

 own, has so confused the race characteristics, that many 

 authorities have sadly confessed it to be absolutely impossible 

 to place African anthropology on a scientific basis. The 

 evidence of this region on the remaining subjects was, on the 

 other hand, regarded as too simple and monotonous to affect 

 the development of scientific principles. Thus, when it was 

 reported that from whatever side approached, in whatever 

 direction traversed, the whole interior of the continent consisted 

 of one vast expanse of gneiss and schist, geologists were ready, 

 with Sir Roderick Murchison, to dismiss Africa south of the 

 Sahara as a continent without a history. 



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