Title: The Continent of the Future: - Africa and Its Wonderful Development—Exploration, Gold Mining, Trade, Missions and Elevation
Author: Coppinger, William
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Continent of the Future: - Africa and Its Wonderful Development—Exploration, Gold Mining, Trade, Missions and Elevation" ***


                     The Continent of the Future.


                             HAMPTON, VA.:
                     _Normal School Steam Press._
                                 1881.



                     THE CONTINENT OF THE FUTURE.

          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 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
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, 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 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 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:

    Nationality.   Steamers.  Tonnage.    Crews.

    British           144     141,590     5,746
    German             72       4,251     1,177
                      ―――     ―――――――     ―――――
         Totals       216     145,841     6,293

“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!

[Illustration: MAP OF AFRICAN EXPLORATIONS DOWN TO AUGUST, 1877.]

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 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
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.

 [*] Liberal use has been made of the writings of this gifted Negro,
     and of the pages of the Missionary Herald, of Boston, Foreign
     Missionary, of New York, African Times, of London, and L’Afrique,
     of Geneva.

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.

[Illustration: MAP OF EXPLORATIONS SINCE AUGUST, 1877.]

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 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
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.

[Illustration: MAP OF PROTESTANT MISSION STATIONS IN AFRICA.]

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.

    “Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!
       The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
     Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
       From distant mountains catch the flying joy:
     Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
       Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round.”



[_Editorial from_ THE SUN, _of Baltimore, October 25, 1881_.]


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 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.



 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Continent of the Future: - Africa and Its Wonderful Development—Exploration, Gold Mining, Trade, Missions and Elevation" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.