Africa, its Past and Ftiture. 123 



and its tributaries, and the lake region. The more we learn of 

 equatorial Africa, the greater its natural advantages appear to 

 be. The rivers open up the country in a favorable manner for 

 trade and settlement. Its elevation from 2,000 to 3,000 feet will 

 render it healthy, though this elevation is only equal to from ten 

 degrees to fourteen degrees of north latitude. Here all the 

 fruits of the torrid zone, the fruits and most of the grains of the 

 temperate zone, cotton, India-rubber, and sugar-cane, are found. 



The country has been unhealthly, a great many Eui'opeana 

 have died, and few have been able to remain more than two or 

 three years without returning to Europe to recuperate. These 

 facts seem to show that the climate is not healthy for Europeans. 

 But the mortality has been much greater than it will be when 

 the country is settled and the unhealthy stations have been ex- 

 changed for healthier localities. Every new country has its 

 peculiar dangers, which must be discovered. When these obsta- 

 cles are understood and overcome, Europeans will probably 

 occupy all this region, and it will become a European colony. 



If European colonization is successful, European civilization 

 will come into contact with African barbarism. Where such a 

 contest is carried on in a country where the climate is equally 

 favorable to the two races, it can only result in the subjugation 

 or destruction of the inferior race. If the climate is unfavorable 

 to the white population, then, unless the inferior is subjected to 

 the superior, the white population will fail in colonizing the 

 country, and the Negro will either slowly emerge from barbar- 

 ism, or return to his original condition. 



The Negro has never developed any high degree of civiliza- 

 tion ; and even if, when brought into contact with civilization, 

 he has made considerable progress, when that contact ceased he 

 has deteriorated into barbarism. But, on the other hand, he has 

 never faded away and disappeared, like the Indian of America 

 and the natives of the Southern Archipelago. 



Nature has spread a bountiful and never-ending harvest before 

 the Negro, and given to him a climate where neither labor of 

 body or mind, neither clothing nor a house, is essential to his 

 comfort. All nature invites to an idle life ; and it is only 

 through compulsion, and contact with a life from without, that 

 his condition can be improved. 



In Africa a contest is going on between civilization and 

 barbarism, Christianity and Mohammedanism, freedom and slav- 



