The Conquest of the Desert 



Since then we, on the African Continent, have 

 made marked progress in civilisation, but how 

 feeble have been our efforts at colonisation ! 

 Down here in the south we hold a vast empty 

 land, sunlit and healthy ; while both here and 

 beyond the sea there are multitudes of men — 

 the honest poor — only waiting for a welcome 

 and a chance to subdue our deserts and make 

 them blossom as the rose. And they will not 

 bring poverty : nay, rather, untold wealth to 

 our Union. An American statesman, the late 

 Mr Blaine, used to value every penniless British 

 emigrant at three hundred pounds to the United 

 States. The cotton-spinner was poor. He had 

 no capital, but he carried the richest civilisation 

 through the pathless jungles of the Dark Con- 

 tinent, and in the solitude of primeval forests 

 saw the flash of the ether wave, and heard the 

 tramp of a million men. And of him a poet 

 wrote : 



" Open the Abbey doors and bear him in 



To sleep with King and Statesman, Chief and Sage, 

 The missionary come of weaver-kin, 



But great by work that brooks no lower wage ! 



" He needs no epitaph to guard a name 



Which men shall prize while worthy work is known ! 

 He died and lived for good — be that his fame ! 

 Let marble crumble : this is Livingstone." 

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