1. 
Savage Africa. 
Africa is emphatically the "Dark Continent." Its geo- 
graphical features, its lake and river systems, its populations 
and productions, its teeming native life and usages, are still 
to a large extent surrounded with mystery ; while, mentally 
and morally considered, "gross darkness covers the people." 
From the Sahara, to the Kalahari Desert, and from the 
mouth of the Congo, to that of the Zambesi, the people 
are buried in the densest heathen darkness. Their hea- 
thenism is not like that of China or India ; inasmuch as 
in many cases they are ignorant of the duty of worshipping, 
and destitute of the very idea. Their native customs are 
in some districts tinged by dark superstitions and vague 
terrors, but they have no systems, no creed, and in the 
majority of cases, no idols. Like beasts of burden they 
have lived, like beasts they have died, hitherto, for the 
most part, unblessed by the faintest sound of any Gospel, 
or "good news," for either this life, or the next. The 
remarks of a traveller in South Africa, respecting the 
natives there, will apply most forcibly to the condition of 
the people in the interior of Central Africa. " I must say 
they positively knew nothing beyond tracking game, and 
breaking in pack oxen. They did not know one year from 
another ; they only knew that at certain times the trees and 
flowers bloom, and that rain may be expected. As to their 
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