HENEY V. PELTON. 17 



purpose of establishing and maintaining stations through 

 the great Congo basin and extending to Zanzibar on the 

 East Coast, This work was accomplished by peaceful 

 negotiations, though conflicts have since occurred through 

 Arab traders. It has been recognized by all governments 

 and has made numerous treaties with native chiefs, 

 securing their aid to keep the road open and free to all. 

 The Association pays one piece of cloth per month to 

 each chief for his help. The state guarantees to every 

 one equal liberty to trade without imposts or customs. 



There is no need to speak at length of the Missionary 

 settlements. Long continued and most noble efforts 

 have been made to carry the Grospel into the interior, 

 and some stations have been established forty years, but 

 the progress is slow and the opposition vigilant and vin- 

 dictive, for here as nowhere else, Christianity and 

 Mohamedanism are meeting to fight for the mastery. 

 The issue will not seem doubtful to us who believe in a 

 ruling Jehovah but certainly Mohamedanism has in 

 Africa every advantage. It has existed there for at 

 least four centuries. The first Portugese discoverers 

 found Arab traders already established there, and it 

 calls upon the simple Pagan negro for such slight change 

 of life and habit that he finds it in no way irksome. 



The most prominent and most serious fact affecting 

 Africa's welfare is the slave trade. It is most abhorent 

 to our sense of justice and our feelings of humanity ; it 

 is most pernicious in its influence upon the natives ; it is 

 the greatest impediment to the entrance of civilization. 

 African slavery is of two kinds. There is the domestic 

 slavery, that among the Africaos themselves, which is 

 mild in character and subject to few hardships. One 

 writer says that every African is a slave holder in will or 

 deed and every slave buys a slave when he can save the 

 money to do so, and a slave's slave has been known to 

 own a slave. And, alas, there is also the foreign slavery 



