EELIGION. 



23 



Europe. Seafaring communities are rare along the African coasts. The list is 

 almost exhausted by the mention of the Somali at the eastern " horn," and of the 

 Kra or Kroomen on the Atlantic side. But the former scarcely get beyond the 

 Gulf of Aden, passing with the shifting trade winds from shore to shore, while the 

 latter seldom venture far from the coast lagoons and estuaries. 



Religion. 



Since the fall of Carthage and the decadence of Egyptian culture, the most 

 important event in African history has been the Moslem invasion. In t]je Dark 

 Continent the zealous missionaries of Islam have reaped the richest harvests. The 

 simplicity of the Mussulman creed, which limits itself to proclaiming the unitv, 

 omnipotence, and goodness of God ; the clearness of its precepts, recommending 

 above all prayer, and cleanliness as the outward sjonbol of purity ; the zeal of its 

 preachers, the prestige of its victories over the " infidel," all combined to seduce 

 the Egyptians, the Berbers, and Negroes. From age to age the Mohammedan 

 domain has grown in extent, until it now comprises nearly half of the continent, 

 from the Isthmus of Suez to the sources of the Niger, and even to the Gulf of 

 Guinea. During the first period of its triumphs, Islam, heir to the sciences received 

 from the Byzantine world, infused new life, as it were, into Egj'pt and Mauritania, 

 endowed them with a fresh civilization, and through the caravan trade with 

 Morocco, already the emporium of Mussulman Spain, raised Timbuctu, on the Niger, 

 into a great centre of commercial and intellectual movement. 



In Nigretia the propagation of Islam also coincides with important political 

 and social changes. Large states were founded in regions hitherto a prey to a 

 hundred mutually hostile and savage tribes. Manners were thus softened, and a 

 sentiment of solidarity sprang up between communities formerly engaged in ever- 

 lasting warfare. Mohammedanism thus enjoys more material cohesion in Africa 

 than in Europe and Asia, where the faithful, scattered amid populations worship- 

 ping at other altars, are often separated from each other by extensive wastes and 

 arms of the sea. In the Dark Continent they occupy a compact domain as large as 

 all Europe, stretching iminterruptedly from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, and here 

 their common belief tends everywhere to diffuse the social ideas, the habits, usages, 

 and speech of the dominant Arab race. 



In recent times Christianity has attempted to dispute the field with its Moham- 

 medan rival. Protestant missionaries have even obtained some little success, 

 especially in South Africa. But compared with the apostles of Islam they stand 

 at a great disadvantage, for they are unable, except in a figurative sense, to 

 announce themselves as the brethren of their black proselytes. The " messenger 

 of the good tidings " cannot give his daughter in marriage to his Christian Negro 

 convert. Colour keeps them apart, and both remain men of different race and 

 caste. 



Having become the inheritance of the faithful b}'^ the triumph of Islam, Africa 

 has witnessed the birth of prophets powerful enough to declare the " holy war." 



