l62 



NATURE 



[Dec. 30, 1875 



tions, he infers that their judiciously moderate use is 

 indispensable to complete health. 



With regard to the almost hopeless stupidity of the 

 negro, the author gives a curious instance. He employed 

 a number of natives while mining malachite at Bembe- 

 He says : — 



" It was great trouble to teach the natives the use of 

 the pick and shovel, and the wheelbarrow was a special 

 ditticulty and stumbling-block ; — when not carrying it on 



Pelojaus sjiirifex and nest — Devil of the xo3iA(Synagrts comuta) — Dasylus jr/.— Caterpillars' 

 nests — Mantis and nest — Mams mnlttstntatum and Ants' nests. 



their heads, which they always did when it was empty, 

 two or three would carry it ; but the most amusing 

 manner in which I saw it used, was once where a black 

 was holding up the handles, but not pushing at all, whilst 

 another in front was walking backward, and turning the 

 wheel round towards him with his hands." 



The following bold and ingenious theory as to the 

 character of the native Africans is at least worthy of con- 

 sideration : — 



" The character of the negro is principally distinguished 

 not so much by the presence of positively bad, as by the 

 absence of good qualities, and of feelings and emotions 

 that we can hardly understand or realise to be wanting in 

 human nature. It is hardly correct to describe the negro 

 intellect as debased and sunken, but rather as belonging 

 to an arrested stage. There is nothing inconsistent in 

 this :it is, on the contrary, perfectly consistent with what 

 we have seen' to be their physical nature. It would be 

 very singular ndeed if a peculiar adaptation for resisting 

 so perfectly the malignant influences of 

 the climate of tropical Africa, the result 

 of an inferior physical organisation, was 

 unaccompanied by a corresponding infe- 

 riority of mental constitution. It is only 

 on the theory of * Natural Selection, or 

 the survival of the fittest ' to resist the 

 baneful influence of the climate through 

 successive and thousands of generations 

 — the * fittest ' being those of greatest 

 physical insensibility — that the present 

 fever-resisting, miasma-proot negro has 

 been produced, and his character can only 

 be explained in the corresponding and 

 accompanying retardation or arrest of de- 

 velopment of his intellect." 



In his second chapter the author gives 

 a very clear account of the physical con- 

 ditions of Angola, whose aspect, produc- 

 tions, and climate present considerable 

 variety both north and south, and from 

 west to east. Contrary to the generally 

 received opinion, Mr. Monteiro doubts 

 whether the Congo, with its vast body of 

 water and rapid current, drains any large 

 extent of country in an easterly direction 

 to the interior, beyond the first rapids. 

 He is inclined to believe that the river, 

 or its principal affluent, after going in a 

 N.E. direction for a comparatively sl^ort 

 distance, bends to the southward and v/ill 

 be found to run for many degrees in that 

 direction. It would be vain to theorise on 

 the question, which happily may be set at 

 rest by Lieut. Cameron, who is expected 

 to arrive in this country in a week or two ; 

 the information he must have obtained 

 about the watersheds between the Zam- 

 besi [and the Congo may enable us to form 

 some notion of the upper course and ap- 

 proximate length of the river. Mr. Mon- 

 teiro's general conclusion seems, however, 

 at present a very probable one. " From 

 the few and insignificant streams travers- 

 ing Angola to the coast, which at most 

 only reach sufficiently far inland to have 

 their source at the third elevation or cen- 

 tral plateau, it would seem that a great 

 central depression or fall drains the waters 

 of this part of Africa in either an easterly or southerly 

 direction." 



The alternation of swamp and dense forest which is 

 characteristic of so much of the West Coast of Africa, 

 ends completely on arriving at the River Congo, and a 

 total change, Mr. Monteiro tells us, to the comparatively 

 arid country of Angola takes place. 

 " I may say that, without exception, from the River 



