Africa^ its Past and Future. Ill 



Its missionaries are of a race nearly allied to the Negro. They 

 live among them, adopting their customs, and often intermarry- 

 ing with them. They teach of one God, whom all must worship 

 and obey, and of a future life whose rewards the Negro can com- 

 prehend. They forbid the sacrifice of human victims to appease 

 the wrath of an offended deity. They forbid drunkenness. 

 They give freedom to the slave who becomes a Moslem, and thus 

 elevate and civilize those among whom they dwell. The Chris- 

 tian missionary is of a race too far above him. He is a white 

 man, his lord and master. He teaches of things his mind cannot 

 reach, of a future of which he can form no conception ; he brings 

 a faith too spiritual ; he labors with earnestness and devotion, 

 €ven to the laying-down of his life. Yet the fact remains that 

 Christianity has produced but little impression in civilizing and 

 elevating the people, while the influence of Mohommedanism is 

 spreading on every side. 



In passing from the equator south, the tribes become more de- 

 graded. Sir Henry Maine enunciated the theory of the evolution 

 of civilization from the lowest state of the savage. In Africa he 

 could have found all stages of civilization ; in the lowest scale, 

 man and his mate, living entirely on the fruits of the earth, in a 

 nude condition, his only house pieces of bark hung from the trees 

 to protect him from the prevailing wind ; the vulture his guide 

 to where, the previous night, the lion had fallen on his prey, 

 leaving to him the great marrow-bones of the elephant or the 

 giraffe ; his only arms a stick ; belonging to no tribe, with no con- 

 nection with his fellow-men, his hand against every man, the 

 family relation scarcely recognized. It is the land of the gorilla, 

 and there seems to be little difference between the man and the 

 ape, and both are hunted and shot by the Boers. In ascending the 

 scale, the family and tribal relation appears, — a house built of 

 cane and grass or the bark of the tree ; a few flocks ; skill in setting 

 traps for game ; the weapon a round stone, bored through, and a 

 pointed stick fastened in the hole. Then come tribes of a low 

 order of civilization, that cultivate a little ground, having a 

 despotic king, who has wives without limit, numbering in some 

 <3ases, it is said, 3,000 ; wives and slaves slaughtered at his death, 

 to keep him company and serve him in another life. With them, 

 cannibalism is common. Then come tribes of a higher civiliza- 

 tion, where the power of the chief is limited, where iron, copper, 

 and gold are manufactured, and trade is carried on with foreigners. 



