T he C ontinent of the F uture.

HAMPTON, VA.:
Normal School Steam Press.
1881.

AFRICA AND ITS WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENT—EXPLORATION, GOLD MINING, TRADE, MISSIONS AND ELEVATION.

The tide of modern civilization and religious development is sweeping round the globe. With the rapid advance of India, the unparalleled strides of Japan, and the steady progress of China to the new era, Africa is about to reveal its long-kept secrets and its possibilities of contributing to the elevation of its inhabitants and the welfare of the world. Commerce, capital, science, philanthropy, and religion have joined hands to penetrate the mysterious land and cast light on its gloomiest portions. Africa is very nearly everywhere regarded as the continent of the future.

Governmental. —France seems about to absorb Tunis and Tripoli, and to unite Algeria to her Senegal possessions. The Chambers have voted eight millions of francs ($1,600,000) for two railroads: (1) from Algiers to Timbuctoo, across the Sahara, and (2) from Saint Louis, Senegal, to Bamaka and Sego. Two millions of francs ($400,000) have also been appropriated for the construction of a telegraph line from Dakar to Saint Vincent, to place Senegal in telegraphic connection with Europe. A loan is proposed of forty-five millions of francs ($9,000,000) for the formation of three hundred villages and the introduction of two hundred thousand colonists into Algeria. This expanding colony is just fifty years old. In 1830, the total exports and imports did not amount to two million francs, ($400,000.) They have now reached three hundred and sixty-five million francs, ($63,100,000.)

M. Soleillet and M. Doponchel give the result of their long and thorough reconnoissance as highly favorable to the project of crossing the Sahara by steam, and they describe the desert as far more fertile than is commonly believed. The latter says: “What is being so successfully accomplished by England in India, by the United States in North America, and by Russia in Central Asia, that should we try to do in emulation of their example—seek a continent whereon to extend our beneficent influence, and find, by the employment of our [2] idle capital, at once a new market for the products of our industries and manufactures, and a vast centre of agricultural production, able to supply us, at small cost, with the raw materials not indigenous to our soil, which we now only obtain with difficulty from foreign sources.”

The expedition under Gallieni is stated to have reached Saint Louis from Timbuctoo, having completed a survey for a railroad between those points, which is pronounced to be entirely feasible. He met with a friendly reception, and formed treaties with numerous tribes, whereby France is granted a right of way, and may establish ambassadorial or military representatives at the proposed principal stations. M. Matheis has been commissioned by the French Government to explore the country from the bend of the Niger to Lake Tchad. M. L. Vassian, an attache of the French Department for Foreign Affairs, is to reside for a time at Khartoum, to study the nature of the commercial relations to be formed with Soudan.

At a conference at Paris in relation to the territories between Sierra Leone and the Gambia, it is understood that the decision reached was that the French are to retain the Mellacouri and the English the Scarcies. The newly appointed Governor of Sierra Leone, Arthur Elibank Havelock, Esq., was one of the representatives of the British Government at the conference.

Portugal is actively caring for her extensive African domain. The Governor-General of Angola has been directed to organize a system of colonization in that province, by selecting a region best adapted for its salubrity, fertility of soil, abundance of water, and facility of communication, and to prepare accommodations for one hundred colonists and their families, an emigration having begun from Madeira. Lorenzo Marquez, the port of Delagoa Bay, has been ceded to Great Britain. It is the best harbor on the south-eastern coast, while its geographical relation to Natal, Zululand and the Transvaal makes its possession of importance to England. The latter guarantees to Portugal the exclusive right to the territory between the Ambriz and Congo rivers. The concession made by the Portuguese Government to the Andrada Land Company, extending from the Shire to the Kafrio, at Nyampanga Island, about seven hundred miles, is in course of examination by a party of French mining engineers. The Commercial Association of Lisbon is raising funds by subscription to be offered to the Government to co-operate with it in the foundation of civilizing stations in the Portuguese African colonies.

Spain is meditating a protectorate of Morocco. Messrs. Bolliglia, Mamoli and Pastori, of the “Italian Society for Promoting Commercial [3] Exploration in Africa,” have left Tripoli to examine the elevated plain of Barka and to found trading posts at Bengasi, Derna and Tebreck, and afterwards others on the oasis bordering the road to Uadai and Bornu. The Italian Government has contributed generously to outfit the expedition. The same Society has dispatched M. Demeitri and M. Michieli from Khartoum for the Red Sea, with a caravan of seven hundred camels laden with various kinds of merchandise for trade. The Egyptian Government has sent the learned Rohlfs to the King of Abyssinia to arrange mutual relations on a friendly basis. The Sultan of Zanzibar has engaged the intrepid Thomson to conduct a geographical investigation of the Rovouma.

The Slave Trade. —It is estimated that fifty thousand natives are annually conveyed to the Turkish and Egyptian ports of the Red Sea, where they are disposed of to dealers. The Sultan of Zanzibar has dispatched an armed force of five hundred men, commanded by an officer detailed from the British Army, in the direction of Lake Tanganyika, and the British Government is to establish consuls at Suakin and Khartoum, with authority to travel in Egypt and on the Red Sea, “to heal the open sore of the world.” The French Government is to make earnest efforts and to co-operate with England in all measures having in view the same humane object. The Khedive has appointed Comte Della Salla to the special office of repressing the slave traffic in lower Egypt. It is to be regretted that at the Berlin Congress in 1878, which afforded an excellent opportunity for concerting a treaty on slavery between the Powers of Europe, this good result was rendered impossible by the action of the English representatives.

Explorations. —In the exploration of Africa the Germans keep the lead, of which almost nothing is known until they appear after an absence of a few years, with a fund of knowledge that is astonishing. Witness, for instance, the apparition of Lenz from a journey from Morocco to Timbuctoo, and thence to Medina and St. Louis. This famous traveler reports passing through towns of from ten to thirty thousand inhabitants, and of having made discoveries which explode the theory of converting the Sahara into an ocean. He states that the most depressed portion of El Juff, the body of the desert, is some five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and that there exist in several oases points which promise to be of great utility for the proposed Sahara railway.

Dr. Pogge is penetrating the country inland from St. Paul de Loando, the German Government having asked for him the protection of the Portuguese Government in its African jurisdiction. Dr. Holub, [4] who has made interesting researches on the Zambesi, intends to cross the continent from south to north. Starting from the Cape of Good Hope he is to strike the Zambesi, thence the watershed district between that river and the Congo, and on to Egypt through Darfur.

Dr. Stocker is exploring Lake Toana. M. Piaggia is traversing Soudan, south of Khartoum, between the Blue and White Nile, M. Lombard, corresponding secretary of the Normandy Society of Geography, has entered on a scientific mission to Abyssinia. M. J. Chouver, a Hollander of fortune and experience as a traveler, has reached the Galla country on his way to the Cape of Good Hope. Capt. Ferreira, Governor of Benguela, and several officers of the army, have offered their services to the Geographical Society of Lisbon for a Portuguese expedition across Africa, starting from the West Coast. M. Antusa is organizing a commercial station at Zomba, where he is to be joined by workmen whom the Portuguese Government has promised to furnish to erect buildings. The learned Dr. Schweinfurth has returned from a visit to the Island of Socotra, off the coast of Aden, and affirms that it is very fertile, with a splendid and varied vegetation. One-fourth of its plants are peculiar to the locality.

M. Moustier, who in 1879, with M. Zweifel, discovered the source of the Niger, is again to start from Freetown on a trading venture and to fix the exact geographical position of “the rise of the mysterious river.” Lieut. Dumbleton and Surgeon Browning, R. A., are in charge of an expedition to penetrate, by the Gambia, into the valley of the Niger to Timbuctoo. Dr. Gouldsbury lately led an exploring party from the river Gambia, via Timbo and Port Lokko, to Sierra Leone, the outlay for which from the colonial treasury was £2,400, ($12,000.)

The Congo. —The illustrious Stanley has reached his second station on the Congo, Isangila, about 30 miles above Vivi, which point was gained only after faithful but weary toil, and against every kind of difficulty. He was obliged to throw bridges across the streams, open, hatchet in hand, a route across dense forests, blow up rocks; leading the way with a group of pioneers, and after advancing a little, to make a halt, pitch a camp, then go back to bring by instalments the rest of the convoy, till all were united. Count de Brazza has ascended the Ogowe to its headwaters, reaching thereby the sources of several of the affluents of the Congo. Descending one of these, the Alima, partly along the shore and partly by boats, he struck the Congo below Stanley Pool, and coming down the river he met Stanley. It is suggested that a more practicable route to the interior than that by the lower Congo may be opened by [5] the Ogowe and the streams which rise near its source. The Count is again to descend the Alima, this time in a transportable steam launch, and then to make a thorough examination of the valley of the Congo—the area of which is estimated to be four times that of France.

Telegraphic. —Telegraphic communication has been established between Elmina and Cape Coast. The Portuguese Commissioner of Public Works has constructed in Angola a telegraphic line from St. Paul de Loando to Dondo and Calcullo. Preparations are making for its extension. The French Government proposes to connect Tunis with Corsica by cable. A third cable has been laid from Marseilles to Algiers. A second telegraphic line is in operation between Algeria and Tunis.

Gold Mines. —Six companies are working on the Gold Coast with encouraging prospects. Improved machinery has been shipped by the African Company, and its mine is reported to be one of extraordinary richness. The success of the Gold Coast Company places it in the highest rank of gold mine enterprise. At meetings of the Effuenta Company (July 7 and 21) resolutions were adopted to create an additional two thousand shares of £5 each, ($25,) to be distributed among the existing shareholders proportional to their present holding. The number of shares applied for was more than double the amount to be issued. The Akankoo Gold Coast Company—a new organization—has acquired territory on the borders of the river Ancobra, and the celebrated Cameron has been engaged to open up the property. The British authorities have placed a civil commandant with a police force at Tacquah. Much of the delay experienced in the production of the precious metal is attributed in some cases to error of management, perhaps unavoidable, and in all to the many difficulties encountered in an almost unknown region, with the additional disadvantages of a very unhealthy climate for Europeans.

Financial. —A prospectus has appeared for the establishment of “The Bank of West Africa,” capital £500,000, ($2,500,000,) in fifty thousand shares of £10 each, ($50.) The chief office is to be in London, with branches at Sierra Leone and Lagos. The shares of the Standard Bank of South Africa, £25, ($125,) paid, are quoted at 57, and the dividends paid for the last two years have been sixteen per cent. Postal money order offices have been opened between Sierra Leone and the Gambia, at the rate of three shillings (75 cents) per £10, ($50.)

Commercial. —Africa contains resources upon which large portions of the enlightened world will in no very remote future be dependent, and it possesses the very highest capacity for the consumption [6] of many of the productions of civilization. One of the marked developments is the numerous orders for utensils and simple machinery of various kinds, to be worked by hand or with light power, and for mechanical tools and agricultural implements. The business is already extensive and is likely to be of immense magnitude. Dr. Holub describes Prince Sechele, chief of the Bechuanas, as living in a grand abode, which he had erected in European style, at a cost of $15,000. Khartoum is making astonishing progress. Magnificent stores have been built within the last three years, and everything in modern civilization can now be had there. The Northwest Company is extending commerce at Cape Juby. The security afforded since the “annexation” by England of Lagos has powerfully helped it to become the “Liverpool of Africa.” The declared value of its exports in 1878 was £577,346, ($2,886,730.) The number, tonnage, &c., of steam vessels which entered Lagos in the same year is thus given:

“The Lagos Warehouse and Commission Company,” capital £50,000, ($250,000) in £5 ($25) shares, has been formed, for the purpose of founding a wholesale warehouse at Lagos, and, when desirable, at other important points on the West Coast. Thus a native merchant will be put in possession of two thirds of the net value of his consignment immediately the Company is in possession of his produce, and he will be enabled to have all his produce realized in the home market.

Steamers. —Twenty-five years ago it took a passenger from the United States one hundred and thirty days to reach Corisco; now a trip via Liverpool of about a month, in a palace compared with the pent-up quarters of a sailing ship, and tables furnish with luxuries instead of ringing the changes of salt beef and hard bread from day to day. Twenty-eight steamships afford weekly communication between Liverpool and the West Coast. The vessels of “the African Steamship Company” are named as follows: Africa, Akassa, Ambriz, Benin, Biafra, Ethiopia, Landana, Mayumba, Nubia, Opobo, Whydah and Winnebah, and those of “the British and African Steam Navigation Company” bear the following names: Benguela, Bonny, Cameroon, Congo, Corisco, Dodo, Forcades, Formoso, Gaboon, Kinsembo, Loando, Lualaba, Ramos, Roquelle, Senegal and Volta. “The West African Steam Navigation Company” also employ a number of steamships in the West African trade. Messrs. Rubattino & Co. announce their intention to put on several steamers between Genoa and Bengasi. Not a steamer from the United States to Africa!

[7]

MAP OF AFRICAN EXPLORATIONS DOWN TO AUGUST, 1877.

[ click here for high resolution map ]

[8]

A company has been formed in New York for “the establishment of a line of steamships for passengers, mail and freight, between New York, Madeira, St. Thomas and Teneriffe, Cape de Verde, the Western Islands, the Canary Islands, and the ports of the West Coast of Africa.” The capital stock is $100,000; and may be increased to $4,000,000; shares $100. Such a line would open cheap and rapid communication between the Liberian Republic and our own, furnishing facilities for the thousands of people of color who desire to obtain an expansive field for their energies, and bringing to our market the valuable staples of its productive soil. In relation to this important project an experienced missionary writes: “Often, during these twenty years, I have been surprised at the apparent indifference of American capitalists and ship owners to the share that they might have obtained in the profits of the African trade, other than slaves. I have seen two English lines of steamers (the South and the West, having their termini respectively at the Cape of Good Hope and the mouth of the Niger) develop by rich opposition to five, and the termini of three of them extended from the Niger down to the Congo-Livingstone, and literally every nation of Europe engaged in their profits, while America has scarcely a showing.” A subsidy or liberal legislation by Congress is counted upon before additional steps in this enterprise are taken. And among other public action tending to success is the creation and appointment of consuls at the Gold Coast, Lagos and Bonny; and vice-consuls at smaller points between Monrovia and the Niger, to be under the supervision of the Minister Resident to Liberia.

Railroad Survey. —While the United States flagship Ticonderoga, Commodore Shufeldt, was on the West African coast, two of her officers, Lieut. Drake and Master Vreeland, assisted by eleven men from the ship and twenty-seven natives furnished by the Liberian Government, made a survey of the St. Paul’s river, and ran a line of levels along its northern bank and some distance inland, to determine the feasibility of constructing a railroad to connect Monrovia with the Soudan Valley, via Boporo. This reconnoissance proved that the engineering difficulties would be comparatively trifling. There is no doubt that Monrovia would be the most available point for the starting of such a road, as it would pass through an entirely virgin country and penetrate to a salubrious region, whose resources for trade, known to be prodigious, are as yet untouched. Such a connection with the interior, with the various appliances of civilization [9] which must follow it, would be one of the most effective agencies for promoting a vigorous colonization of the immigrants, who would at once reach a healthy and fertile district, and it would prove a great practical power in the advancement of missionary work, and immediately become an important auxiliary in developing and controlling an immense and valuable commerce.

This reconnoissance was the first made in that quarter, and it has done much toward bringing the interior tribes into commercial and friendly relations with the Liberians. Other surveys were conducted by the same bold and public-spirited officers, including that of the Sugaree and Marfa rivers. The presence of the Ticonderoga and Commodore Shufeldt will long be pleasantly remembered, and good continue to result. This accomplished officer, in a letter dated April 6, 1881, remarks: “In view of the many failures which have been recorded in every age of the world, Liberia may be regarded as a success. * * * This, the first effort of the African race to establish a free government upon its own soil, merits and should receive the sympathy and encouragement of every man, woman and child in America.”

Liberia Coffee. —The species of coffee which is indigenous to Liberia promises to have an important influence on the industry of those countries in which the coffee blight has almost extinguished the Arabian coffee plant. In Dominica, W. I., the Liberia coffee, from seedlings planted in 1874, has proved impervious to the ravages of the blight, and its productiveness is a matter of astonishment. The stranger is described as “much larger than that of Arabia, being, indeed, in its native state a small tree, its leaves much larger; the berries are twice the size of the ordinary coffee bean, and the flavor is excellent.” The Liberia coffee seed has been introduced into Ceylon, and Liberian coffee from that isle commands a much higher price than the Ceylon, (Arabian) coffee. The bark Elverton took from Liberia to Rio de Janeiro some one hundred thousand coffee plants and fifty thousand pounds of coffee seed, and returning to Monrovia, readily obtained a similar cargo for the same parties in Brazil. A German trading firm is extending the coffee culture a short distance inland, near the Gaboon, with scions procured in Liberia. The Republic is in its infancy with regard to the cultivation of the far-famed berry. The crop last year is said to have reached a half million of pounds.

Mohammedanism. —Enthusiastic propagandists of Islam, without commission or compensation of any kind, but trusting wholly to that hospitality which is the pride of the Oriental, pass from village to village [10] reading the Koran and giving instructions to wondering groups of natives. Whole tribes are stated to be converted to the Mohammedan faith. The eminent scholar and writer, Rev. Dr. Blyden, [*] says: “Africans are continually going to and fro between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. I have met in Liberia and in its eastern frontiers, Mohammedan Negroes born in Mecca, the holy city of Arabia, who thought they were telling of nothing extraordinary when they were detailing the incidents of their journey, and of the journey of their friends, from the banks of the Niger—from the neighborhood of Sierra Leone and Liberia—across the continent to Egypt, Arabia and Jerusalem. I saw in Cairo and Jerusalem, some years ago, West Africans who had come on business and on religious pilgrimage from their distant homes in Senegambia.” The promoters of Christianity are using these native travelers and missionaries of the false prophet. Copies of the Holy Scriptures in Arabic, printed at Beyrout, are sent to Egypt and for circulation in the Delta and along the valley of the Nile, and to Liberia, whence they are distributed among the inhabitants of vast outstretching realms whose vernacular is the Arabic.

Population. —The population of Africa, exclusive of its Islands, is estimated by Dr. Behm, in Peterman’s “Mittheilungen,” at 201,787,000. Of these the number of Protestant communicants in the various colonial and mission churches was reported in 1880 as 122,700; the number composing the communities connected with these churches 506,966; the number of Jews, 350,000; of Coptic, Abyssinian and similar Christians, 4,535,000; of Mohammedans, 51,170,000; of heathen, 145,225,000.

To carry the gospel to these millions, sixty four societies are at work. In South Africa and the colonies and Sierra Leone and Liberia there are connected with colonial churches 468 ministers, evangelists and teachers, of whom 54 are natives. The other white missionaries and teachers on the continent, are reported as 662, with 1095 natives, making 1757 mission workers proper, and 2,255 ministers, missionaries and teachers of all kinds, engaged in religious labors.

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MAP OF EXPLORATIONS SINCE AUGUST, 1877.

[ click here for high resolution map ]

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The population of Liberia, including Medina, may be 1,400,000. The largest proportion of the natives are Mohammedans, perhaps 1,000,000. There are 26 Baptist churches, reporting 24 ministers and 1,928 communicants. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States reports one bishop and 31 others, missionaries, teachers and assistants, 361 communicants, 597 Sunday-school scholars and 415 in day and boarding-schools. The report of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States, gives 25 ministers, 10 assistants, 4 native preachers and 47 local preachers and teachers, 2,200 members, 1,831 Sabbath-school scholars and 300 day scholars. The American Presbyterian Church (North) reports 9 missionaries and assistants, 270 communicants, and 65 pupils in schools. Total 104 ministers, assistants and teachers reported, 4,759 communicants, 2,428 Sabbath-school scholars and 780 day pupils.

It is a suggestive truth that a few only of the “104 ministers, assistants and teachers” laboring in Liberia were sent by missionary societies, but that nearly all of them were sent or are the children of men sent by the American Colonization Society as emigrants, and established there with means of subsistence. This single fact teaches that in proportion as the emigrants from this country are multiplied, the Christian laborers are also multiplied.

Missions. —The six European missions commenced in Central Africa since the death of Dr. Livingstone have been constantly reinforced and strengthened, viz.: The Presbyterian stations on Lake Nyassa; the Church Missionary Society efforts on Lake Victoria Nyanza; the London Missionary Society operations on Lake Tanganyika; the French Bassuto extension to the Barotse Valley, and the Baptist Mission and the Livingstone Inland Mission, both on the Congo. The two latter named are pushing inland from the coast; the first on the southern and the other on the northern side of the river. The Baptists are nearing the accomplishment of their first leading design, viz.; the establishment of a station at Stanley Pool, to be used as a base of operations beyond. A gentleman has given the £4,000 ($20,000) necessary to procure a steel boat to be named the “Plymouth,” to be used upon the Congo. The Livingstone Inland Mission (undenominational, begun in 1878,) has founded five stations and passed some two hundred of the three hundred miles to overcome the cataracts, where the river stretches out in navigable waters for about one thousand miles. Here it is intended to locate an industrial mission station, and to make the work ultimately self-supporting and self-extending.

An offer of £4,000 ($20,000) has been made by James Stevenson, Esq., of Glasgow, for the construction of a road between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. The gift is based on the condition that the London Missionary Society and the Livingstonia Mission open and maintain stations at Mambe and Maliwanda, on the line of the proposed road, and that the Central African Trading Company undertake to keep up regular communication between Lakes Tanganyika [13] and Quilimane. The distance between the lakes is about two hundred and twenty miles. The London Missionary Society has resolved to assume the conditions as far as it is concerned, and the Livingstonia Mission of the Scotch Free Church has sent a force to begin the station at Maliwanda.

Christendom knows not any other such mission as the Niger mission of the Church Missionary Society, begun in 1867, to evangelize that portion of the continent by native Africans, headed by a native African, Bishop Crowther. Large and increasing Christian congregations exist at Bonny and Brass, and assemblies of varying sizes at Onitsha, Asumare and Lokoja. Sixteen hundred worshippers attended religious services at Bonny last Christmas. Kings and chieftains are erecting churches for themselves and their subjects. A cathedral is to be built at Bonny at a cost of £2,000, ($10,000.)

The appointment of a Secretary by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to superintend its operations in Africa, indicates an earnest purpose with respect to that land. Three pioneer missionaries have been cordially received by the King of Bailunda, and others are on their way to found a station at Bihe, which lies behind Benguela, some 250 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, an elevated region, inhabited by large and compact tribes.

The American Missionary Association has sent two commissioners to select a site for a station near the headwaters of the Nile, in aid of which Robert Arthington, Esq., of Leeds, has contributed £3,000, ($15,000,) and English Christians have given a like sum. Two missionaries are under appointment to occupy this field. The American Baptist Missionary Union is considering the Soudan as a theatre of labor, stimulated by an offer from Mr. Arthington of £7,000 ($35,000) toward a mission on an extensive scale in that populous district. No man in this age has done so much to stimulate missionary enterprise as Mr. Arthington. The Southern Presbyterian Board of Missions is contemplating the opening of a station at Kabenda, preparatory to an advance on the centre of the Kingdom of Loango.

American Colonization Society. —This association is quietly prosecuting its work of boundless scope and thrilling issues. An impartial observer of its progress in the United States, and who has personally seen its fruit on the coast of Africa, lately declares: “This was the first and remains the only Society ever organized for the explicit purpose of giving the Negro perfect freedom, of promoting his education for his own good, of making him independent, of giving him a country he can call his own, and of elevating his race to the standard of a Christian nation. * * * * * Liberia’s flag is now honored by all [14] Christian nations, and none more deserves honor, for the cause over which it floats is the grandest and holiest which ever gave birth to a nation—the redemption of a whole race of mankind from heathenism and slavery.”

The number of persons provided passage to and homes in Liberia by the Society in 1880 exceeded that in any one year since 1872. One of its recent proteges, Rev. James O. Hayes, a graduate of Shaw University, writes: “I have met many of the prominent citizens and others, all of whom have extended to me the warm hand of fellowship and welcome. Hon. Beverly P. Yates, who has resided in this Republic fifty-two years, remarked to me that he would prefer Liberia to America, even if he were made President of the United States. I have two brothers and their families, with numerous friends residing at Brewerville, and they are prospering finely. The conviction is strengthened by all I see that persons who improve the advantages afforded immigrants here could not be induced to exchange countries.” The Society looks hopefully for that increase in gifts which the broadening work imperatively demands.

Climate. —Africa continues to be guarded by her malarious seaboard and poisonous fevers, and alien travelers, explorers, miners and missionaries still there find early graves. Statistics show the difference in the effects of the climate upon the white, the mulatto and the black man. In the recent Ashantee campaign, out of the heavy death list of forty-two English officers only six died of wounds. Four scientific explorers are known to have fallen in the last few months, including the hardy Popelin, the leader of the second Belgian expedition. Each of the three first stations of the Livingstone Inland Mission has been consecrated by the call of one of its founders to higher spheres and grander activities. The Presbytery of West Africa has had during the past twenty-five years eleven members. Four were pure Negroes, the others mulattoes and quadroons. Of the mixed men six are dead, all comparatively young. Of the Negroes two are dead, both over sixty. Of the two who survive, one is nearly seventy and the other is fifty years of age. The Niger mission of the Church Missionary Society is manned wholly by native Africans, among whom the deaths in twenty-three years have been but eight, and that in a section which is mostly swampy and under water several months in the year. The Negro is the man of God’s right hand in Africa.

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MAP OF PROTESTANT MISSION STATIONS IN AFRICA.

[ click here for high resolution map ]

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Workmen. —A convention of colored delegates from twelve Southern States, held at Montgomery, Ala., organized the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, the object of which “is to give the gospel to the people of Africa.” Three ministers have expressed their readiness to enter upon labors in “fatherland.” The African Civil and Evangelical Association has for its purpose “the sending and supporting of missionaries and school teachers in Western and interior Africa, a duty we owe as descendants of that continent to our kinsmen there.” The Presbyterian Synod of the Atlantic, composed largely of Freedmen, has inaugurated a movement looking to missionary efforts in the country of their ancestors.

There is a bright and cheering history of African enlightenment to be written. The six millions of reserve force now drilling in America for the final victory are to be called out. They are now on the move. Thousands have already developed many of the proper qualifications for the work, and are waiting the means to go forward. And this mighty country has peculiar facilities for the introduction and extension of civilization. Europe has no population available. Entering on the West Coast, the people and Government of the United States may stretch a chain of settlements of her own citizens through the whole length of Soudan, from the Niger to the Nile—from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

Colonies. —A protracted experience convinces us that it may be laid down as a principle demonstrated by numerous examples, that if Western and Central Africa is ever to advance in civilization; if its inhabitants are ever to become not Europeanized, but intelligent, competent and productive Africans; if they are ever to be brought into commercial relations mutually beneficial with Europe and America, it must be by establishing and fostering such colonies as Liberia. If it is the desire of Christians to abolish polygamy, to put a stop to domestic slavery, to encompass and vivify the people by civilizing influences, to elevate their thought, ennoble their action, and regenerate the continent, these things must be done by planting colonies of Christian and civilized Negroes along that coast and in the interior.

The Continent of the Future. —The Supplement of “The Sun” to-day contains an article by Mr. William Coppinger, Secretary of the American Colonization Society, upon Africa, its condition from various points of view, its trade, mines, agricultural products and increased closeness of relation with the civilized world, which cannot fail to prove of interest to all persons concerned in the future of the mysterious “dark continent.” Americans can hardly conceive the importance attached by Europeans at present to the matters with which Mr. Coppinger so fully and entertainingly deals. The continental powers of Europe, perceiving the immense advantage possessed by England in having her Indian Empire and her colonies as outlets for her manufactures and excess of population, are seeking to imitate her example by founding claims to such territories yet unoccupied by Europeans as are unable to protect themselves from aggression backed by Krupp guns. After the pickings of Russia, England and France, there is little of Asia, besides, perhaps, the Corean peninsula, left to appropriate. The jealousy of the United States has deterred the nations of the Eastern hemisphere from attempts, like that of Maximilian in Mexico, to found claims upon territories in either North or South America. Africa remains, and is at their doors. Having an area of 9,858,000 square miles, and an estimated population, mostly barbarous, of about 201,787,000 souls, it offers, despite its unfavorable climate, great advantages to the European people who shall first appropriate its fertile interior, its trade in mineral and agricultural products, and open these up to European commerce by means of lines of steamboat and railway communications. Africa will perhaps at no distant day become to Europe what North and South America have been for the last two hundred years, the recipient of their overflow of population and their chief producer of food. Its capabilities are untried, but we know they are enormous. Explorers within recent years have traversed the continent in every direction, and have brought back reports generally favorable. The Sahara is shown to be by no means the barren waste it has been represented, and the Soudan has had its vast capabilities exploited. Behind the explorer comes the military post and European civilization. As was shown in “The Sun” some time ago, France has since 1854 been extending her acquisitions from St. Louis, on the [18] West Coast, along the Senegal and Gambia rivers, eastwardly into the Soudan, until she now possesses a large area of country, and exerts a predominant influence over a territory comparable, it is said, in extent with that of England in India. It is to consolidate and strengthen her acquisitions that she proposes to add Tunis to Algeria, and it would be doing scant justice to her policy to suppose that the seizure of Tunis is a detached and insignificant incident. Mr. Coppinger narrates in detail the measures being taken to confirm her position in Africa, as against her various European competitors. A notable fact in connection with the Islamic movement, of which so much is said, is the large hold the Mohammedan religion already has in Africa. There are 51,170,000 of this faith to 145,225,000 heathen, 350,000 Jews and 4,535,000 Coptic and other Christians. Even in Liberia, out of a total population estimated by Mr. Coppinger at 1,400,000, fully 1,000,000 are Mohammedans, and of an aggressive character.