40 
Central Africa. 
ences ; they have depicted human nature sunk in shame, 
degradation, and suffering, unhappy to a large extent in this 
life, and unconscious of any hope for the next, and these 
accounts have enlisted the sympathies of many Christian 
hearts. Thus, exploration has opened up a path for the 
Gospel, and has prepared the ground for the seed-sowing 
of the Word of Life. 
The earliest attempt at African exploration was made 
by Prince Henry of Portugal, who, in the fifteenth century, 
fitted out ships to explore the African coast. After many 
trials, and many years of labour, much of the coast of 
Africa was discovered and visited by Portuguese vessels. 
In process of time, Sierra Leone was reached, and the Cape 
of Good Hope doubled. Bartholomew Diaz, the sailor 
who first doubled this Cape, gave it the name of " Cape of 
Tempests." A passage to India was discovered by these 
Portuguese ships, which sailed round the Cape of Good 
Hope, and across the Indian Ocean, thus determining finally 
the size and shape of the continent of Africa. Following 
the lead of the sailors, Portuguese missionaries settled in 
the kingdom of Congo, in the seventeenth century. The 
French also made conquests in the north of the con- 
tinent, the Dutch and Danes on the east coast, and the 
English in the south. Cape Colony was first taken by 
the Dutch, about 1650, but in 1806 this colony was taken 
possession of by England, and has ever since continued 
an English colony. With the advent of the Portuguese, 
the slave-trade commenced. They captured specimens 
of the African tribes along the newly discovered coasts, 
in order to bring home, and this, repeated on a larger 
scale, led to the kidnapping of thousands to feed the slave 
markets of the Colonies, the West Indies, the Spanish Main, 
Brazil, and America. By-and-by this slave-trade began to 
