GROWING WEALTH OF AFRICA. 87 



Among the most characteristic African animals are the lion, 

 leopard, hyena, jackal, gorilla, chimpansee, baboon, African elephant 

 (never domesticated, yielding much ivory to trade), hippopotamus, 

 rhinoceros, giraffe, zebra, cjuagga, antelopes in great variety and 

 immense numbers. Among birds are the ostrich, the secretary- 

 bird, or serpent-eater, the honey-guide cuckoo, sacred ibis, guinea 

 fowl. The reptiles include the crocodile, chameleon, and serpents 

 of various kinds, some of them very venomous. Among insects are 

 locusts, scorpions, the tsetse-fly, whose bite is so fatal to cattle, and 

 white ants. 



The great races of which the population of Africa mainly 

 consists are the Hamites, the Semites, the Negroes, and Bantus. 

 To the Semitic stock belong the Arabs, who form a considerable 

 portion of the population in Egypt and along the north coast, while 

 a portion of the inhabitants of Abyssinia are of the same race 

 (though the blood is considerably mixed). The Hamites are repre- 

 sented in Northern and East Africa. The Negro races occupy a 

 vast territory in the Sudan and Central Africa, while the Bantus 

 occupy the greater part of Southern Africa from a short distance 

 north of the equator, and include the Kaffres, Bechuanas, Swahili, 

 and allied races. 



HOTTENTOTS AND BUSHMEN LARGELY INTERMINGLE. 



In the extreme southwest are the Hottentots and Bushmen 

 (the latter a dwarfish race), distinct from the other races as well 

 as, probably, from each other. In Madagascar there is a Malay 

 element. To these may be added the Fulahs on the Niger and the 

 Nubians on the Nile, and elsewhere, who are of a brownish color, 

 and are often regarded as distinct from the other races, though 

 sometimes classed with the negroes. 



In religion a great proportion of the inhabitants are heathens 

 of the lowest type; Mohammedanism claims a large number of 

 adherents in North Africa, and is rapidly spreading in the Sudan; 

 Christianity prevails in Egypt along the Congo River, among the 

 Abyssinians, the Niger territory, Sierra Leone, Liberia and South- 

 ern Africa. 



