340 THE LAND OF THE LION 



which enables us to even guess the reason. If we except 

 the Egyptians, no African people have written their name 

 distinctly on any record of olden or modern time. No 

 African race has risen to greatness. The splendours of 

 Carthage were fed and sustained by the sea. Africa 

 proper was in olden times, as in modern, a land ravaged 

 by the gold seekers and slave hunter. 



Mohammedanism has failed in Africa to give the tribes 

 that embraced it anything approaching expansive civiliza- 

 tion. Mohammedanism does much for the individual, let so 

 much be admitted at once. Mohammedanism makes him 

 at least, in sort, brother man with all those who follow the 

 Prophet, tends to make him cleaner, braver and more 

 self-respecting. But there always it seems, fatally, to 

 stop. It leaves him with no regard for his fellow man 

 as a man. The Mohammedan looks down, and as long 

 as he is true to his creed, must ever look down, on all 

 people not of his creed. So he remains forever a pledged 

 opponent of all that is progressive and uplifting in modern 

 knowledge or government. If there was any real and 

 lasting benefit coming to the native African by way of 

 Mohammedanism reason would demand that all good people 

 should rejoice. Many of the tribes near the coast have 

 in large part professedly accepted the Prophet. But 

 their's seems to be a mere veneer of Mohammedanism. 

 The slave-trading Arab and Somali was no doubt often 

 a devoutly religious man after his kind, but he proved 

 a poor sort of missionary, and so left behind him a trail 

 of misery, blood, and death. I do not think, then, that 

 those are prejudiced who say that there is likely to come 

 to Africa from Mohammedanism no permanent uplift. 

 It has had its great chance on that continent. It has 

 worked its will with little let or hindrance for years and 

 there is little to show for it. Africa is dark, very dark 

 to-day, and very hopeless, except in those spots where 



