556 



THE POPULAE EDUCATOR. 



Asiatic in a lesser degree, shown any signs of ability to work out 

 the great problem of civilisation lor themselves as a race, or 

 indeed to improve by the example and under the tuition of the 

 European. Tne apologists of the negro, who would place him on 

 the same level as the white man in every respect, urge that their 

 statement is true, because Fabre Geffrard, the ex-president of 

 Hayti, and a few others, have evinced considerable administra- 

 tive ability, and because Africa has produced one negro bishop 

 of great learning, and exemplary worth and piety the Rev. 

 Samuel Crowther, Bishop of Sierra Leone. But here, as in other 

 cases, the exception goes only to prove the rule, and the great 

 fact remains the same, that the Africa of to-day is much the 

 same as the Africa of a thousand years ago a vast country 

 teeming with natural wealth, which the inhabitants are unable 

 to turn to good account, and cut up into districts nek 1 by petty 

 tribes, whose chief purpose and pleasure of life seems to bo to 

 injure, plunder, kill, or kidnap one another for sale to 

 traders as slaves, whenever a fitting opportunity offers. 

 Hence it is impossible to give the student, as in the case of 

 ot.hpr continents, a clearer or more trustworthy summary of the 

 divisions of Africa than the following divisions which are for 

 most part arbitrary, and separated from each other by no natural 

 landmarks, or political boundaries laid down and defined by man. 

 It must be remembered, as in the summary of the chief divisions 

 pf Asia, that the figures relative to areas, population, etc., are 

 only approximately stated, while the cities whose names are 

 printed in italics are only the most important or most populous 

 towns in the divisions after which they stand. 



THE CHIEF DIVISIONS OF AFRICA THEIR CAPITALS, AREA, 

 POPULATION, ETC. 



Marocco, an empire in the north-western corner of Africa, is 

 one of the Barbary States, the others being Algiers, Tunis, and 

 Tripoli. It is divided into four provinces, Fez, Marocco, Sus, 

 and Tafilet. The chief sea-ports are Tangier and Mogador. 

 Among the manufactures of Marocco, the leather which takes its 

 name from the country deserves especial mention, being remark- 

 able for its extreme softness and pliancy, and its peculiar bril- 

 liancy of colour. The Barbary States, and the oases or fertile 

 islands in the sandy sea of the Sahara, are famous for dates, 

 which form the principal vegetable food of the wandering tribes. 



Algeria, lying on the sea-board of the Mediterranean, to the 

 east of Marocco, is a large and important French colony, taken 



by the French from the Dey of Algiers in 1830, but not wholly 

 subdued until 1847, when Abd-el-Kader ceased to offer resist- 

 ance to the French troops. It is divided into three provinces 

 Algiers, Oran, and Constantino. The French settlers are chiefly 

 engaged in the production of cotton and wine, nearly 100,000 

 acres having been planted with choice vines from the best wine- 

 growing districts of France and Spain. The other possessions 

 of France in Africa, or in African waters, of importance, are St. 

 Louis and Goree in French Seneganibia, and Reunion or tho 

 Isle of Bourbon, eastward of Madagascar. 



Tripoli and Barca, lying eastward of Algeria along the coast of 

 the Mediterranean Sea, and Fezzan, a large oasis to the south of 

 Tripoli, form a dependency of the Ottoman Empire, under an 

 officer styled the Pasha of Tripoli, who acts as governor-general, 

 appointing lieutenant-governors, or beys, in other provinces 

 under his control. Tunis formerly stood in a similar relation 

 to the Ottoman Empire, but it is now an informally annexed 

 dependency of France, although nominally governed by a bey. 



Egypt, bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, and having 

 its eastern coast washed by the Red Sea, is divided into three 

 parts Lower Egypt in the north, which includes the delta of 

 the Nile ; Middle Egypt in the centre ; and Upper Egypt in the 

 south. Nominally it is a dependency of the Ottoman Empire, 

 but Egypt is also an independent country, the government 

 being hereditary and vested in the family of Mehemet Ali, who 

 rendered himself master of the country by the slaughter of 

 the Mamelukes in 1811. Egypt is, however, dependent for 

 its existence as a Sovereign State upon the will of stronger 

 >owers. On the breaking out of a revolt, headed by 

 \rabi Pasha, England intervened to re-establish the authority 

 >f the Khedive, and English influence still predominates in 

 ^gypi- Among the noteworthy engineering works of the 

 present day, the canal cut across the Isthmus of Suez, to enable 

 ships to pass from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. 

 occupies a conspicuous place. 



Nubia and Kordofan, situated between Egypt and Abyssinia, 

 have been, since 1821, subject to Egypt. The people of 

 Southern Nubia are a powerful and athletic race of negroes. 



Abyssinia is a large country in the east of Africa, divided into 

 several petty states, the chief of which are the kingdom of 

 Gondar (or Amhara), the kingdom of Shoa, and the kingdom of 

 Tigre, of which the chief towns are respectively Gondar, 

 Ankobar, and Antalo. The most powerful of the native princes 

 assumes the sovereignty of the whole of Abyssinia, under the 

 title of " negus," holding the same position among the other 

 princes as the Saxon "bretwalda" held among the princes of 

 the Saxon heptarchy. The religion of the Abyssinians is a 

 debased form of Christianity. 



The great desert called Sahara stretches westward across the 

 continent, from the western confines of Nubia to the Atlantic. It 

 is a vast table-land, consisting of a sandy surface studded here 

 and there with rocky tracts, and with nothing to break the 

 dreary monotony of its appearance except a few islets of verdure 

 called oases, formed in depressions of the desert, and watered 

 by springs that are never known to fail. Its inhabitants are 

 wandering tribes of Berber origin. 



Senegambia is a comparatively small district on the west 

 coast of Africa, extending from St. Louis in the north, to the 

 confines of Liberia in the south. The interior is peopled with 

 native tribes. On the coast are the British settlements of 

 British Senegambia (chief town, Bathurst) and Sierra Leone (chief 

 town. Freetown) ; the French settlements of St. Louis and Goree, 

 already mentioned, in French Senegambia; andBissao, in Portu- 

 guese Senegambia. The independent state of Liberia, to the 

 south of Senegambia, is peopled in some measure by blacks re- 

 deemed from slavery, having been established, in 1848, as a safe 

 retreat for negroes rescued from slavers, and for free blacks from 

 the United States of America. Liberia may be considered as 

 forming a part of Upper Guinea. 



Soudan or Nigritia, the country in which the true negro is 

 found, lies to the south of the Sahara, between the desert on one 

 side, and Upper Guinea and the unexplored regions of Central 

 Africa on the other. It consists of a great number of petty 

 states, the principal of which are Bambarra (chief town, Sego), 

 Timbuctoo (chief town, Timbuctoo), Borgou (chief town, Boussa). 

 Sackatoo (chief towns, Sackatoo and Kano), Mandara (chief town, 

 Delow), Bornou (chief town, Kouka), and Bcgharmi, or Bagirmi 

 (chief town, Masena). The people of Soudan are the fartbeat, 



