394 Discoveries in Africa. QOct. 



magnificent discovery. It is observable, that the discovery originated in 

 no striking improvement of either ships or seamanship at the time. The 

 European ships and sailors had been for centuries as good as those which 

 first touched at America. But if the discovery had been made under 

 the Roman empire, it would have been probably neglected by a people 

 who were engrossed with war, and who despised commerce, and hated 

 the sea. If in the dark ages, it would have probably been equally neglected 

 among the furious feuds of the little European powers, too little to bear 

 the expense of remote expeditions, living from day to day on the plunder 

 of friend and enemy, distracted by perpetual change, and generally 

 perishing as soon as they rose. The only use which they would have 

 made of America, would be as a place of refuge to some defeated chief- 

 tain and his half savage followers. But a time came, when the Crusades 

 had relieved the European cities of the weight of baronial tyranny, 

 when the sudden opulence of Venice, arising from its eastern intercourse, 

 awoke mankind to the value of commerce, and when the leading sove- 

 reign of Europe, Ferdinand, the ruler of the most chivalric and daring 

 nation of the fifteenth century, had just flung off the tremendous pressure 

 of the IMoorish wars. And then, and at that moment, was divided 

 before the Spanish keel the mighty barrier, which had shut out America 

 from the eye of mankind since the creation. 



If Africa, so long known, and so close to the most civilized and 

 inquiring regions of the world, should have remained to this day scarcely 

 less shut out than America, we may well ask, how could we expect to 

 have the treasures of this land given to us, while Europe was guilty of 

 the slave-trade, while, if we could have penetrated the hidden glories 

 of this fourth of the creation, it would have been only to spread more 

 misery, to shed more blood, to fill it with the moral contagion of the most 

 corrupting of all traffic, to inflame more savages to fury and massacre by 

 our temptations, and finally to drag more human beings from their 

 country, to perish thousands of miles from their home. The time has cer- 

 tainly arrived when this trade, which it is no violence of language to call 

 Satanic, has received its death-blow, at least in England, and the time 

 may not be remote when we shall be summoned to apply the national 

 vigour to open up the treasures of Africa. '' It is not unreasonable to 

 hope that the whole southern continent may be given over to our tute- 

 lage, and that England, the great depository of freedom, knowledge, and 

 religion, may be the elected guardian of the infancy of Africa. Our 

 extraordinary advances in machinery, and the general command over 

 the powers of nature, a command which seems to have been almost 

 exclusively confided to this nation, have not been given for nothing, 

 and important as they are to the increase of our wealth and comforts at 

 home, we shall yet see them operating through the world on the colossal 

 scale, suited to the wants of nations. The very fact that our powers of 

 steam and machinery are so rapidly increasing, that we literally can 

 hardly imagine to what known obstacle we shall have to apply them, 

 tends to shew that there must remain something very important in this 

 world for man to do. In short, the enormous tools which nature is 

 placing in our hands, clearly foretell that she has some wonderful work 

 for us to perform, and therefore, instead of calculating, as many people 

 do, for instance, how long oiu- coals are to last us, and in how many 

 years hence we are unavoidably to be left in cold and darkness ; is it 

 not justice to believe, that with our new powers, we shall obtain new 



