HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa
OF
Gammon Theological Seminary

IN CONNECTION WITH
THE COTTON STATES AND INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION

DECEMBER 13-15, 1895
Edited by Prof. J. W. E. Bowen, Ph.D., D.D., Secretary of the Congress
ATLANTA
GAMMON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
1896

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PRESS OF
THE FRANKLIN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO.,
ATLANTA, GA.

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WILBUR P. THIRKIELD, D.D.
President of the Congress on Africa
President of Gammon Theological Seminary from its Foundation in 1883 to the Present

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Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . 7
The Rev. Bishop I. W. Joyce, LL.D., Chattanooga, Tenn.
THE STEWART MISSIONARY FOUNDATION FOR AFRICA AND THE PURPOSE OF THE CONGRESS . . . . . 9
Prof. E. L. Parks, D.D., Gammon Theological Seminary
OPENING REMARKS . . . . . 13
President W. P. Thirkield, D.D., Gammon Theological Seminary
ADDRESS OF WELCOME . . . . . 15
His Excellency, The Hon. W. Y. Atkinson, Governor of Georgia
PART I
AFRICA: THE CONTINENT; ITS PEOPLES, THEIR CIVILIZATION
AND EVANGELIZATION
LETTER OF GREETING AND COMMENDATION . . . . . 16
The Hon. E. W. Blyden, LL.D., Liberian Minister to the Court of St. James
LETTER ON THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE OF AFRICA . . . . . 17
Cyrus C. Adams, Editor New York Sun
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF AFRICAN TRIBES AND LANGUAGES . . . . . 19
Heli Chatelain, African Traveler and Philologist
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE YORUBA PEOPLE, WEST AFRICA . . . . . 31
Orishetukeh Faduma, B. D., West Africa
SOME RESULTS OF THE AFRICAN MOVEMENT . . . . . 37
Cyrus C. Adams, Editor New York Sun
THE DIVISION OF THE DARK CONTINENT . . . . . 47
J. C. Hartzell, D.D., Corresponding Secretary Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society
OUTLOOK FOR AFRICAN MISSIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY . . . . . 61
Frederic Perry Noble, Secretary World's Congress on Africa at the Columbian Exposition
THE AFRICAN IN AFRICA, AND THE AFRICAN IN AMERICA . . . . . 69
The Hon, John H. Smyth, LL.D., ex-Minister to Liberia
THE POLICY OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY . . . . . 85
Thomas G. Addison, D.D., Delegate of the Colonization Society
HEALTH CONDITIONS AND HYGIENE IN CENTRAL AFRICA . . . . . 87
R. W. Felkin, M.D., F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S., ex-Missionary to Uganda
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PRACTICAL ISSUES OF AN AFRICAN EXPERIENCE . . . . . 95
Mrs. M. French-Sheldon, F.R.G.S., African Explorer
AFRICAN SLAVERY: ITS STATUS; THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT IN EUROPE . . . . . 103
Heli Chatelain, African Traveler and Philologist
MY LIFE IN AFRICA . . . . . 113
Etna Holderness, Bassa Tribe, Africa
MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES AMONG THE ZULUS . . . . . 117
Josiah Tyler, D.D., Forty years Missionary in Africa
CIVILIZATION A COLLATERAL AGENCY IN PLANTING THE CHURCH IN AFRICA . . . . . 119
Alexander Crummell, D.D., Twenty years Missionary in Africa
SUCCESS AND DRAWBACKS TO MISSIONARY WORK IN AFRICA . . . . . 125
Orishetukeh Faduma, B.D., West Africa
THE ABSOLUTE NEED OF AN INDIGENOUS MISSIONARY AGENCY IN AFRICA . . . . . 137
Alexander Crummell, D.D., Twenty years Missionary in Africa
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND THE EVANGELIZATION OF AFRICA . . . . . 143
M. C. B. Mason, D.D., Assistant Corresponding Secretary Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society
SELF-SUPPORTING MISSIONS IN AFRICA . . . . . 149
William Taylor, Bishop of Africa of the Methodist Episcopal church
PART II
THE AMERICAN NEGRO: HIS RELATION TO THE CIVILIZATION
AND REDEMPTION OF AFRICA
THE AMERICAN NEGRO IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY . . . . . 161
H.K. Carroll, LL.D., Editor The Independent
COMPARATIVE STATUS OF THE NEGRO AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR AND TO-DAY . . . . . 163
Prof. J. W. E. Bowen, Ph.D., D.D., Gammon Theological Seminary
OCCULT AFRICA . . . . . 175
J. W. Hamilton, D.D., Corresponding Secretary Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society
THE STUDY OF FOLK-LORE . . . . . 187
Alice M. Bacon, Secretary Hampton Folk-Lore Society
THE AMERICAN NEGRO AND HIS FATHERLAND . . . . . 195
The Rev. Bishop H. M. Turner, D.D., African Methodist Episcopal Church
THE NATIONALIZATION OF AFRICA . . . . . 199
T. Thomas Fortune, Editor New York Age
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AFRICA IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION . . . . . 205
E. W. S. Hammond, D.D., Editor South Western Christian Advocate
THE NEEDS OF AFRICANS AS MEN . . . . . 211
R. S. Rust, D.D., Honorary Secretary Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society
THE NEGRO IN HIS RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH . . . . . 215
H. K. Carroll, LL.D., Editor The Independent
AFRICA AND AMERICA . . . . . 219
Joseph E. Roy, D.D., President World's Fair Congress on Africa
MINUTES OF THE DAILY SESSIONS . . . . . 227
SPECIMEN HYMNS SUNG AT THE CONGRESS . . . . . 236
APPENDIX A--TABLE OF BIBLE TRANSLATIONS (The Whole or Portions) . . . . . 239
Robert Needham Cust, LL.D., author of Modern Languages of Africa
APPENDIX B--ALPHABETICAL LIST OF MISSIONS . . . . . 240
Robert Needham Cust, LL.D., Author of Modern Languages of Africa

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BISHOP ISAAC W. JOYCE, D.D., LL.D.
Of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Chancellor of the U.S. Grant University

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INTRODUCTION
A congress on Africa! Why not?

What land is more entitled to our best thought, or more deserving the most helpful service we can render? Where the country with a history of more romantic interest, or one whose peoples have had a more varied experience or presented more serious problems for the study of mankind? Men, whose names are among the greatest in history, have been its explorers, and the students of its languages and of its dialects. It is so rich in soils and in minerals as to excite the greed of the world, and the nations of the earth have contended with each other for a division of its treasures. In the interests of commerce the steamers of the merchant princes navigate its waters, and the markets of the world are open to its products. A literature on Africa, rich in every way, has been created by scholarly men, who have made the most heroic sacrifices that they might acquaint the world with the present greatness and future possibilities of "The Dark Continent." These men, and others such as they, will continue to enrich with the best equipments those who wish to wisely study the many phases of the growing questions in relation to Africa. This Congress was surely in the order of Divine Providence. God uses men in the development of His plans. In this instance it was His servant, the Rev. W. F. Stewart, through the agency of whose consecrated wealth this "Missionary Foundation" was established, and the holding of this congress was made possible. Men of scholarship, and imbued with the spirit of Christ, deeply interested in the evangelization of Africa, came together from various parts of the United States and other countries, and presented well prepared papers on the subjects which had been assigned them. The discussions which followed revealed mental grasps of the subjects and the hearty interest of the speakers in the principles underlying the whole question. From the beginning of the congress to its close the audiences were large and the interest very great.

The utmost harmony prevailed in all the deliberations, and this volume, which is the result of the congress, is an evidence of the oneness of spirit that was at all times manifest, and also of the fervent conviction that pervaded all hearts that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to arise and go forth and evangelize Africa, thus obeying the command of the Lord to "Go into all the world."

That she is able to do this there can be no question; that it is her duty to do this, all will agree; but will she do this great work? Our faith answers: Yes. The establishment of this Missionary Foundation is a strong testimony that the Holy Spirit is drawing the thoughts and hearts of the servants of God to the ever-crying needs of "The Dark Continent," and a careful reading of the pages of this book will make impressions which will strengthen the testimony

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in favor of this truth. It would be well, from time to time in the coming years, for those in charge of this great interest to hold other congresses of like character and purpose with this one, and thus widen and intensify the influence of "The Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa," in its association with Gammon Theological Seminary. Thus in all the years to come the names of Stewart and of Gammon would be blended in the thoughts and love of all good men, and the wealth they consecrated to the enlargement of the Kingdom of Christ among men would be multiplied many times in power for good and increased in influence for righteousness through all time, even unto the end of the world.

ISAAC W. JOYCE

Chattanooga, Tenn.

REV. WM. F. STEWART, A. M.
Establisher of the Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa in Gammon Theological Seminary; For Fifty-Two Years member of the Ohio, then of the Rock River, Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church; For many years one of the Trustees of the Northwestern University of Chicago.

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The Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa
and the Purpose of the Congress
BY
PROF. E. L. PARKS, D.D.
GAMMON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

This Foundation is in the interest, especially among American Negroes, of missionary work for Africa. It has been established by Rev. W. F. Stewart, A. M., of the Rock River Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is the outgrowth of many years of thought in the consecration of a large portion of his property. In a letter in the early part of the correspondence leading to the establishment of the Foundation, Mr. Stewart thus comprehensively states the purpose of the Foundation:

"My hope is that it may become a center for the diffusion of missionary intelligence, the development of missionary enthusiasm, the increase of missionary offerings and through sanctified and trained missionaries hasten obedience to the great commission to 'preach the gospel to every creature.' In addition to the direct work of the recitation room, I have contemplated other educating means that would reach our schools and missions and the whole membership of the church."

Mr. Stewart has set aside for the endowment of the Foundation a group of farms in Central Illinois, comprising in all some six hundred acres. The whole tract is tile-drained in a systematic and thorough manner, so as to make every acre of it first-class tillable land.

In placing this Foundation in connection with Gammon Theological Seminary, Mr. Stewart unites it with a largely endowed institution, which is central and at the head, in theological education, of one of the greatest systems of schools for the Negro in America. The Foundation fills an important place in the very purpose for which the Seminary was established. All the forces of the Seminary are used to reduplicate the influence of the Foundation. There is not only a remarkable parallel in the work of Mr. Gammon and Mr. Stewart, but the fundamental thought which was back of their work is also in perfect accord. This clearly appears in the following, which shows also that Elijah H. Gammon was our prophet, as well as the founder of the Seminary. As early as August, 1887, he wrote:

"I believe it most thoroughly, as Ethiopia stretches out her hands to God, help must come through your school. Who but you can furnish the thousands of missionaries for Africa? You may as well attempt to understand and comprehend the astronomy of the heavens as the possibilities of your school."

The work of the Foundation has been inaugurated by offering prizes for

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essays and orations on Africa as a missionary field, the obligation of the American Negro to missionary work in Africa and kindred themes, and for missionary hymns. The object of offering these prizes is to encourage thought and investigation, spread intelligence and stimulate personal and property consecration among the American Negroes for missionary work in Africa. These prizes are offered, among the colored people, to the students of all the schools of the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society, and to all the local churches of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Correspondence, to secure the prompt coöperation of all interested, is invited.

The Foundation is also gathering a special library on Africa. The nucleus already has been pronounced, by expert judges, one of the best in the country in the general field of African exploration and missionary work. The Foundation is also collecting an African museum. This collection already includes a large number of specimens of African handiwork in wood, iron, brass, cloth, grass, etc., which reveal very clearly the native genius and artistic skill of the untutored African. In addition to the above, out of a list of five hundred or more stereopticon slides, there have been selected about two hundred superior views for use in the stereopticon of the Seminary. These native fabrics and curios, as well as the stereopticon slides, will be used in the schools and churches to illustrate the products, industries and scenery of Africa, and the conditions and life of its peoples. These are only the beginnings of the collections of books and illustrative material on Africa and its peoples, which it is hoped will be made among the greatest of their kind in this country. They are deposited in the practically fire-proof library building of the Seminary. Donations are invited.

As a very important means in carrying out the purpose of Mr. Stewart in establishing the Foundation, as stated in the foregoing, the President of the Seminary, with the coöperation of the Faculty, suggested to Mr. Stewart the feasibility of a congress on Africa. Mr. Stewart heartily approved the plan. Through Mr. I. Garland Penn, Chief Commissioner of the Negro Exhibit, it was made one of the auxiliary congresses of the Cotton States and International Exposition at Atlanta.

In all the plans of the congress the Faculty of the Seminary kept in view the general purpose of the Foundation, the promotion of the interests, especially among American Negroes, of missionary work for Africa. The industrial, intellectual, moral and spiritual progress of the colored people in America is a prophecy, both of what they will become and will do for the redemption of their fatherland, and also of what the native African is capable of becoming. For this reason, it was thought wise to include in the program addresses and papers on the American Negro, by the side of those on African exploration, native peoples, languages and religion, and the opportunity, means for the promotion, and progress of civilization and of missions in Africa.

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PART I
AFRICA: THE CONTINENT; ITS PEOPLES, THEIR
CIVILIZATION AND EVANGELIZATION

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Opening Remarks
BY
PREST. W. P. THIRKIELD, D.D.
GAMMON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

It is a most grateful task that falls to me, as President of this Congress, to welcome you, as delegates and friends, to the first Congress on Africa ever held in the South. This great audience at the opening session emphasizes the interest of the people in the program prepared for this occasion.

This Christian Congress indicates that God is stretching forth his hands to Ethiopia--to that "Dark Continent" which, through long and dolorous ages, has been vainly stretching forth its hands unto God.

While light is breaking in upon its darkness, the hand that blights and curses is not yet lifted. In other centuries the curse was the stealing of Africans from Africa. Now, it is the game among European nations of "shut your eyes and grab" in their efforts to steal Africa from the Africans. But God is yet in that world. Not in vain has its two hundred millions stretched forth their hands to Him. He causeth the wrath of man to praise Him. Even through the greed and wars of nations, in their selfish partition of Africa, He shall yet "save many people alive."

This Congress comes to take its place in the ever-widening plans of God for Africa. It should now be said that the original intention of the projectors of the congress was to hold it, as announced, during April, 1896. On account of the Cotton States and International Exposition, it was decided, as late as September, that the date should be changed, so as to reach and influence a larger number of people from all parts of the nation and of the world. This has necessitated some change in our plans. We congratulate ourselves, however, that we are able to present a program of such value and importance, and that the speakers, representing three continents, are now present, with two exceptions. Dr. Blyden is detained in London by serious illness. These places on the program are to be well filled, respectively, by a venerable and honored missionary with forty years experience in Zululand behind him, and by a special delegate from the American Colonization Society.

This Congress will have a large, practical tendency. It has definite aims in view. Problems of the most serious interest are before us. This nation is, in a peculiar sense, under bonds to Africa. It must come to see its duty. It must be stirred by an outlook upon its immense opportunity. We aim, therefore, to give the public clearer views of Africa and of the African movement. From a survey of the knowledge and experience gained in the last twenty-five years we should be able to deduce general principles and definite plans that may influence future work in the line of commercial, industrial, civilizing, and redeeming effort.

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One of the vital and urgent problems before us is the relation of the American Negro to the civilization and redemption of his Fatherland. God's hand must be recognized in his presence in America. This is now the home and heritage of these American born of the colored race. Here he will stay. But the forefinger of that same Hand that brought him hither points the way to Africa for the tens, the hundreds, and, in future years, to the thousands who shall be agents of God in the redemption of the Dark Continent. It will appear that the call is not for the weak, the poor, the ignorant of the race. Such may only relapse into barbarism. But Africa now needs the best brain, and the best heart, the finest moral fiber, and the most skilled genius and power that the American Negro can furnish for her civilization and redemption.

To give light on these problems is the definite aim of this Congress. You shall have presented to you the latest and most accurate information on Africa; you shall have set forth clearly by word, by maps, and by illustrative slides, the land and people as they are; the life, character, customs of the natives; their tribal relations, and languages; the progress of discovery and occupation; the latest work of geographers; the march of civilization; the partition of Africa; the achievements of missions; the difficulties and drawbacks of missionary effort, and the outlook of missions for the nineteenth century.

We may congratulate ourselves that on our program there are speakers representing three continents; that we are to hear venerable and heroic missionaries who have labored from one to two score years in Africa; travelers who have penetrated the dark regions of Africa; Africanists of world-wide fame; scholars who have made original discoveries in the languages and in the religious beliefs of the people; natives of that last and most interesting of the continents, who bring the knowledge of personal life and experience, and whose presence and words furnish the strongest appeal for the civilization and redemption of their people.

I take pleasure in turning over the chairmanship of this session to Bishop I. W. Joyce, of Chattanooga, who will present to you His Excellency Governor Atkinson, of Georgia, from whom we shall have the address of welcome for this Empire Commonwealth.

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Address of Welcome
BY
HIS EXCELLENCY, THE HON. W. Y. ATKINSON
GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA

[The following is a condensed report of the Governor's address, giving his most memorable sentences, as they were taken down at the time.]

Fellow citizens:

It is entirely proper that Georgia should take a leading part in a work of this character. Her first settlers were from the oppressed. They were actuated by a spirit of philanthropy which would lead their settlement to be a blessing to mankind, including Africa. Though pressed with many official duties, I am here to attest my interest, as the Governor of the State and as an individual, in this work.

A mysterious Providence has been over us. Slavery cannot be justified. But may not God have intended that you, who are the descendants of those whom slavery brought to this country, should pray and work for the redemption of your fatherland?

There is no higher duty resting upon the Governor of the State of Georgia than to advance the education of the people of the State without regard to color. If any doubt that the colored man can be educated existed, it has all been dispelled by my attending the commencements of the colleges of the State for the colored people. It is natural, proper, noble to look beyond yourselves and your country to save the people of your fatherland. No government, no society, can settle whether you should return to reside in Africa. You are free, independent citizens, and you must decide for yourselves, on the principles of your duty and your interest, whether you will reside in Georgia or in Africa. But in saving men and women from sin, degradation and hell, it is sometimes necessary to forego and forget interests. The great are not alone those who shine in high places. There are great souls careless of reputation among men and who are seeking only the approval of God.

So long as the colored man remains in Georgia, so far as is in my power, I shall see to it that he is fairly and justly treated--that he receives his rights. The Anglo-Saxon cannot defend the honor and reputation of his race by injustice to his fellow-man.

Do your duty, and for results trust in God.

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Letter of Greeting and Commendation
BY
THE HON. E. W. BLYDEN, LL.D.
LIBERIAN MINISTER TO THE COURT OF ST. JAMES

28 Nov., 1895
, 3 Coleman Street, London, E. C.

Dear Dr. Thirkield:

You will regret to learn that I have been very ill since I left America, having taken a severe cold on the steamer coming over, where there was no heating apparatus in operation, and I could only keep warm in my berth by wearing my overcoat.

The "Congress on Africa" at this time is most opportune, when all the world is looking to that continent as a field for political, commercial and philanthropic effort. I hope that the results of the congress upon the Negro population of your country will be such as to lead them to take greater practical interest in the land of their fathers.

There will be, within the next few years, mighty developments on that continent. The British government are taking most active interest in the exploitation and building up of regions which have been for generations scenes of warfare and carnage. Such is the enthusiasm here for opening Africa, that when it was learned, only a few days ago, that the so-called King of Ashantee was placing obstacles in the way of England's efforts to bring that country within the pale of civilization, a magnificent expedition was organized at once, consisting of the flower of the British army, and dispatched to the scene. Two of the British princes have joined the expedition, which is intended not so much to fight as to convince the refractory chief of Coomassie, and all others like him, how utterly useless it is to attempt to cling to the hoary and pernicious superstitions of the past, and oppose efforts for the amelioration of the condition of their people.

Nothing is clearer to my mind than that it is the duty of a superior civilization to assist--not to exterminate--in the elevation of the inferior or backward populations of the earth, and your congress, I trust, will be one of the Providential agencies in the promotion of the magnificent work of Africa's regeneration.

Believe me, dear Dr. Thirkield, yours faithfully,

EDWARD WILMOT BLYDEN

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Letter on the Importance of Knowledge of
Africa
BY
CYRUS C. ADAMS
EDITOR New York Sun

The colossal work of twenty-five years has proved that the African native, in his own home, must be the foremost agent in reclaiming his continent. This century, having established the broad lines upon which the work must proceed, bequeaths to coming generations the privilege of helping the African to attain his full stature and development.

The most powerful motives, philanthropic and selfish, incite and will sustain this work; for the world needs Africa, and knows, to-day, that mankind will never profit by a tithe of her resources until the strength of Africa's millions, intellectual, moral and physical, are added to productive energy; and further, that the African's capacity for the development so essential for his own good and the world's, is being, year by year, most conclusively demonstrated.

All friends of Africa should scrutinize every phase of the work, as it goes on, so that the sentiment of civilized nations may be voiced in powerful and effective protest if intelligence, patience, humanity and justice do not shape all policies relating to Africa and her peoples.

CYRUS C. ADAMS

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HELI CHATELAIN
African Philologist; Organizer of the Philafrican Liberator's League; Editor of African Terms and Names in the Standard Dictionary, and in the Century Dictionary of Names; Author of "Folk-Tales of Angola," Grammar of Kimbundu; "Comparative Grammar and Vocabularies; "Bantu Notes;" and late African Traveler, Missionary and United States Commercial Agent at St. Paul DeLoanda

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A Bird's-Eye View of African Tribes and
Languages
BY
HELI CHATELAIN,
AFRICAN TRAVELER AND PHILOLOGIST; AUTHOR OF "FOLK-TALES OF ANGOLA"

Our knowledge of African tribes and languages is still very imperfect. Every specialist who undertakes to study any single tribe or language is soon impressed with the fact that the little information he can get hold of, either in print and manuscript, or by correspondence and conversation, is far from being scientifically accurate or worthy of implicit confidence.

The outline of African ethnography and philology given in this paper is simply a resume of a critical study of the available material, and therefore no more infallible than this.

If we first consider the races represented in Africa, we find conflicting classifications and contradictory descriptions among scientific men, while in books of travel and periodical literature the wildest confusion of names is indulged in.

Some scientists hold that all native Africans belong to one racial stock with numerous ramifications.

This view is founded on the strong resemblances and common features which are observed in all populations of the Dark Continent. It brings out certain truths which it is well to retain, but the theory is far from proved.

Others insist on a certain number of races with clean cut characteristics and demarcations. They make us realize more the differences than the resemblances between the great sections of African population.

In English literature, taken generally, Dr. Cust's linguistic map of Africa made on Friedrich Muller's plan, has been taken, or mistaken, for an ethnologic map; and his linguistic divisions, which are useful if rightly understood, have been used by hasty readers and writers as a kind of standard classification of African races.

For practical purposes, it seems best to divide African tribes, according to the prevalent tinge of their skin, into white, black and brown races. In the Sudan, the brown, with all the intermediary shades between white and black, seems due to a mixture of white and black. The geographical position of these brown tribes between the white and black, the mixed nature of their languages, as well as historical data, renders this double origin almost more than probable.

While the confusion of linguistic and ethnologic names is sadly misleading, it must be confessed that the linguistic work is exceedingly valuable for

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ethnographic identification. There remains the great fact, that apart from political influences, great classes or families of languages correspond to great races, and that there is a parallel affinity between linguistic and ethnologic divisions.

THE WHITE RACE
Beginning with representatives of the white race, we first notice the Arabs, whose language and features are Semitic. They entered Africa from Arabia in four or five migrations, all in historical times. The most important branch invaded North Africa through the isthmus of Suez and conquered all Northern Africa, implanting everywhere Moslem culture and the Arabic language. That wave of Mohammedan conquest, passing over North Africa, wiped out the Christian religion, but failed to tread out the Hamitic languages, or to efface the ethnologic features, of the subjected tribes. The present states of Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli and Egypt are the remains of that conquest of Islam. The Egyptians, who were Hamitic Christians, gradually lost their language, and to a large extent, their Christian religion, but retained the racial features of the Hamites.

A second branch of Arabic Semites crossed the Red Sea and settled in the mountains of Abyssinia. The old Ethiopic and the modern Amhara and Tigre, languages of Semitic type, were wedged into Hamitic languages, but failed to supersede them. As to the racial features of the Semitic invaders, they were largely lost by inter-marriage.

In the Egyptian Sudan is found a third branch of Semites, leading a nomadic life. They also crossed the Red Sea.

From Muscat and the South-East corner of Arabia came a fourth branch, which founded settlements all along the East-Coast of Africa. In recent times they have gone from Zanzibar to the Great Lakes, and far into the Kongo Basin.

Although Moslem religion and culture are superior to African heathenism, it must be admitted that the Arabs have been a curse to Africa. We can be justly thankful that their political power is on the wane, and its final destruction inevitable. The Mohammedan religion, which has been introduced and upheld largely by the sword and the rifle of the Arabs, must necessarily suffer from the overthrow of Arab supremacy; and the final enforcement of European rule will be the signal for a wholesale desertion of a religion which has affected the externals more than the hearts and consciences of its African adepts.

The pure Arabs have never been numerically strong in Africa. They form only a fraction of the Mohammedan population speaking or understanding Arabic. Therefore, even if the Arabs and their religion finally disappear from the continent, their beautiful language is likely to remain in Egypt and all Northern Africa.

The Hamites are also considered as belonging to the white race. But in reality the white type with fair hair and blue eyes is only met with among a few tribes of Berbers. These blue-eyed Berbers were sometimes believed to be descendants of the German Vandals or more ancient immigrants from Europe, but the present tendency is rather to view them as of pure Hamitic

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stock. The bulk of the Africans speaking the Hamitic languages are more or less colored, and many Galla and Somal come nearer the negro than the white type.

Most writers believe that the Hamites, like the Semites, passed into Africa from Asia, but in prehistoric times. The ancient Egyptians were Hamites, and are supposed to have closed the march of Hamitic migration into Africa.

Moses says that "the sons of Ham were Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan," and the present scientific division of the Hamites still rests on the genealogic table of Moses.

Mizraim was Egypt, the present Lower Egypt. There, was developed the first great civilization. From Egypt came the Libyans, who spread over North Africa, the oases of the great desert, and even to the Canary Islands. The Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians are the Kopts. The descendants of the Libyans are the Berbers.

The ancient Carthaginians, though speaking a Semitic language, were also originally Hamites of the Punic branch.

Cush represents the inhabitants of Abyssinia and Upper Egypt,.known to the Greeks and Romans as Ethiopians. This term Ethiopian comprehended also the Negroes; but the Egyptians, who were in immediate contact with both, had a special name for the Negroes, calling them nahasi.

The Phut of Moses and the Puna of the Egyptians were probably the red-brown people of both coasts of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, about the gulf of Aden. Vestiges of Hamitic tribes have recently been found in Southern Arabia. Probably the modern Somal and Galla are the descendants of the ancient Puna, from whom the Egyptians obtained incense, gold, ivory and Negro slaves.

The Berbers, though whites by race, and cousins of the Egyptians and Carthaginians, have never united into a powerful nation nor developed a culture decidedly superior to that of the Negroes south of the Sahara. Some inhabit the oases Siwa and Djala and parts of Tripoli and Tunis. Those of Algeria and Morocco are descended of the Roman Numidians and are frequently called Moors. In Algeria they number about two millions, of whom seven hundred and fifty thousand speak only Berber dialects, while the other one and a quarter million speak either Arabic, in addition to Berber, or Arabic alone. The Zouaves of the French army are a tribe of Berbers, inhabiting the sea-board between Algiers and Constantine. In Morocco the famous Rif pirates are Berber by race and language, and the Berber dialects Mazirgh and Shluh are still spoken from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast, opposite the Canary Islands.

The extensive, but arid region between Algeria and the northern bend of the Niger is inhabited by the Berber tribe of the Imoshagh, whom the Arabs call the Tuárek. Their Hamitic language is the Tamashek. Although favored with an original system of writing, in which many inscriptions have been preserved, the Imoshagh have failed to produce a national literature.

In the Nile Valley, between the Red Sea and the river, from lower Egypt to Abyssinia, the Bedja or Bisharin have upheld to this day Hamitic speech and type. The four principal tribes, the Ababde, Hadendoa, Beni-Amir and

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Hallenga, speak each a dialect of its own. Commonly they are known as Nubians, but this name is more properly applied to their neighbors on the banks of the Nile, who are of Negro extraction and who speak a language of nigritic structure. The Bisharin are pastoral and nomadic. They have all adopted Islam, and followed the Mahdi in his revolt.

The Danakil or Dankali, between Massawa and Obokh, are Hamitic and Pagan, but claim to be Arabs and Mohammedans. Their principal dialects are Saho and Afar.

Between the gulf of Aden and the equator, the eastern Horn of Africa is in the possession of the numerous tribes of Somals who are Hamitic by language and by descent, and Mohammedan by faith. In the North they are mixed with Arab blood, and with Negro blood in the South. Owing to this they vary much in color and form. Naturally jovial and sociable, they are fiercely opposed to foreign intrusion, and cordially hate their neighbors and kinsmen, the heathen Oroma or Galla. They tend their herds of camels, horses, oxen and sheep, while their limited agriculture is left to domestic slaves.

The Galla, whose number is estimated at 3,000,000, and who dwell between the Juba river and Albert Nyanza, are so called by their enemies, the Somal. They call themselves Oroma or Ilmorna, that is, "men." In race mixed Hamitic and Negro, in language and customs purely Hamitic, in religion partly Christian, partly Mohammedan, but mostly heathen, they are brave, intelligent, and industrious. Their government is largely republican, and they keep no slaves. The royal families of Uganda and Karagwe were originally Gallas of the Huma tribe.

Both Galla and Somal have preserved their languages remarkably pure from foreign loan-words; so much so that more archaic and primitive forms are found in them than even in hieroglyphic Egyptian.

The Egyptian, Berber and Cushitic languages which we have just considered are all so homogeneous in structure and word-store that they evidently form one family, derived from one mother-tongue.

In religion the Hamites are mostly Mohammedan. About one-quarter of a million Kopts in Egypt and several tribes in Abyssinia are Christians, 50,000 Falasha are Jews, and a portion of the Galla as also several tribes in or about Abyssinia are heathen.

Everywhere, except in lower Egypt, the Hamites are rather nomadic and pastoral, broken up in petty tribes, and jealous of their tribal independence.

No race, perhaps, is at the present time so little evangelized by Protestant missions.

BROWN RACES
Brown races are found in the Sudan, in southwest Africa and in Madagascar. They have nothing in common except the color. Nor is their brown color of the same tinge, some being light brown, others dark brown.

The brown people of the Sudan are probably a mixture of Hamites and Negroes; the Hottentots, Bushmen and Pygmies differ from the other brown peoples of Africa in structure, stature and physiognomy; and the brown Malagassy of the eastern and central portion of the great Island of Madagascar are Malays who have likely immigrated from Sumatra; at least linguistic affinity seems to indicate this.

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It is in the ethnographic and linguistic classification of the Sudan tribes that we meet the greatest difficulties. Owing to the mixed character of racial and linguistic features different authors class the same tribe with the Hamites or with the Negroes, with the Berbers or with the Somal, or constitute it with other tribes into new groups, sub-divisions or families.

The Fulbe or Fulahs are scattered through the Sudan from Senegal to Wadai, and south to Adamawa. They are reddish brown, with straight nose and curly hair. Some differ but little from the Berbers while others look almost like negroes. Their language is remarkable for its peculiar initial formations. It can boast of a considerable literature written in Arabic character. By faith the Fulbe are Mohommedan, but not fanatical. Pastoral, like most Hamites, they are warlike, intelligent and industrious, ruling over negro tribes in Futa-Jallon, Kaarta, Segu, Massina, Gando, Sokoto, Adamawa. Around Lake Tshad, in Bornu, Baghirmi and Wadai, they are too weak in numbers to assume command. It was in the beginning of this century that they revolutionized the Sudan, founding under Otman dan Fodio their great kingdoms, which are not yet on the wane. They, and many of their negro subjects, are by no means savages or barbarians. Their populous cities are well built and evince an advanced stage of Moslem culture. Recently their territory has been included in the French, British and German spheres of influence. According to A. W. Schleicher they are a branch of the Somal; and would thus have traversed the whole continent in its greatest width.

The gap between the eastern Fulah around Lake Tshad and their cousins, the Galla and Somal, is largely filled by the Nyam-Nyam and Mombuttu, the Masai and the Kuafi, whose physique and languages show also an intermediate position between Hamites and Negroes.

Fried. Müller has joined to the language of the Nyam-Nyam or Azande those of five neighboring tribes: the Kredj, the Golo, the Amadi, the Mangbatu and the Abarambo, and constituted them into an Equatorial Family. Their territory is practically the only one in Africa which is not yet assigned to one or more European powers. It has also remained perfectly virgin of any misionary enterprise on the part of Christians. But it will not remain so long, since the discoveries of Van Gèle and others have made it accessible through the Kongo and its mighty northern affluent, the Mobanghi.

The Nyam-Nyam or Azande are said to number about two millions. They come very near the negro type in color and hair, but many peculiarities show a mixed origin. They are clever workers, hunters and musicians, but indulge in cannibalism.

The great and progressive nation of the Fang between the Gaboon and the Nyam-Nyam speak a very corrupt form of Bantu speech, and have many points of contact with the Azande.

The Masai and Kuafi, between Lake Victoria and the snow-capped peaks of Kenia and Kilimanjaro, have wedged themselves in among Bantu tribes as far south as the latitude of Zanzibar and the mouth of the Kongo. The fact that trustworthy witnesses class them physically with the Hamites and with the negroes, and that linguists are equally at variance concerning their language is strong evidence in favor of the theory that they are of mixed Hamitic and

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Bantu-Negro origin. They have a peculiar social organization. The young and able-bodied men lead a military life in camps, keeping the women in common, while the old men, women and children inhabit the villages and tend the cattle. The language is connected with that of the negro Bari.

The Nubahs of the Nile Valley, between Dongola and Assuan, were probably once pure negroes like their cousins, the Hill-Nubahs; but long intercourse with neighboring Hamites has so far altered their type that they are often confounded with these. The language, however, has preserved more distinct traces of their origin.

The Hottentots, or Khoi-Khoi, occupying the arid southwestern portion of Africa, are a brown people with very peculiar characteristics. They have all the distinctive features of the Negro, even exaggerated, but their color is much lighter, their stature inferior, while their straight and large forehead dwarfed nose, tapering chin and plentiful wrinkles give them a physiognomy atonce distinguishable from that of the negro. Their language reminds one by the formation of genders of the Hamitic family, while the classification of nouns savors of Bantu affinity and the numerous musical tones added to monosyllibic tendency are like an echo of Chinese parentage. What is most striking to a stranger is the clicks which are produced with tongue, palate and lips. Are the Hottentots bastards of the Bantu-Negroes with prehistoric Punas of Hamitic stock who worked the gold mines of Mashona-land and left the ruins of Zimbabie? Or are they descended from miscegenation with south-eastern Asiatics of the Chinese type who preceded the Malays of Madagascar in their far westward voyage, or were these three elements blended with Bushman blood?

The next twenty or thirty years will no doubt furnish material that will help decide this question with a probability not far removed from certainty.

The Hottentots are pastoral, and fairly intelligent. They have adopted Cape Dutch in the Cape Colony, while the Nama of German Southwest-Africa, have largely retained their own language. It is estimated that 350,000 Namas between the Orange and Kunene rivers, and 30,000 Hill-Damaras of Negro race, still speak Khoikhoi. A large proportion of the Hottentots is Christianized.

The Bushmen, or San, of South Africa, belong to the same race as the Pygmies or dwarfs of the Central African and equatorial forests. Their stature varies between four and five feet. Their physical appearance and their language show affinity with the Hottentots, but the relationship is very remote. The San language is poorer in morphology than the Khoikhoi, but richer in clicks. The Bushmen, like the Pygmies, are exceedingly timid, and hover, as Helots, on the skirts of Bantu settlements, which they supply with game. The Hottentots, on the contrary, are pastoral, independent, and even aggressive. They are the terror of less audacious and less advanced Bantu tribes. Perhaps no savage people on earth excell the Bushmen as hunters; and their rock-paintings show decided artistic aptitude.

Both Hottentots and Bushmen are not numerous enough to resist, independently, the absorbing influence of their Bantu and European neighbors.

The Pygmies of Central and Equatorial Africa form, most probably, one

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ethnic class with the Bushmen of South Africa. Their language, however, is not yet sufficiently known to warrant the expression of an opinion as to kinship with San. They are hunters and fishermen, living in temporary grass huts of bee-hive shape, and keep no domestic animals save chickens. Though culturally on the lowest scale, they are said to possess many virtues; and may, under the regenerating influence of the Gospel, develop some sterling qualities and attain pre-eminence in certain specialties.

Ba-rwa, Ba-twa, Ba-kwa, Ba-chwa is the common name of the Bushmen and Pygmies from one end of the Bantu field to the other, and should, in the form Ba-twa, be applied to the whole race or class. They have been noticed north of the Zambesi, at the head of Lake Nyassa, in the Nguru mountains near Zanzibar, on the Lulua, on the Sankuru and in the horse-shoe bend of the Kongo, in the Kuango valley, in French Kongo, on the Aruwimi, on the Blue Nile, and in Abyssinia.

THE NEGRO RACE
The field that is left to our consideration after we have disposed of the white Hamites of North Africa, the mixed brown peoples of the Sudan, the Malays of Madagascar, the Hottentots of South Africa, the Bushmen and the Pygmies, is all occupied by the Negro race, which forms the bulk of the African population, and fully deserves to be called the African race par excellence. The Hamites and semi-Hamites are mostly scattered in loose bands through the arid stretches of North Africa. Their unproductive soil, their nomadic habits, and their Mohammedan fanaticism preclude any rapid development of their countries and any phenomenal rise in civilization.

Nearly all the land occupied by the Negro race is rich in minerals and in fertile soil; it is watered by abundant rains and numerous rivers. The tropical sun matures in the same field two or three yearly crops of fruits, vegetables, and cereals, which in the temperate zone yield only once a year. The Negro is agricultural, commercial and industrial, of a peaceful and teachable disposition. In the Pagan state he has no religious creed to oppose to Christianity. If this religion and civilization had been presented to him free from man-stealing, commercial cheating, rum-poisoning, and blood-shedding exploration, from voracious land-grabbing and wholesale village-burning, the end of this century might have witnessed a rush of thousands into the bosom of the Christian church, a colossal demand for civilized manufactures, and torrents of tropical produce flowing northward to Europe and westward to America. But it is useless to expect ideal perfection from man, or to worry over what cannot be altered. Let us be thankful for the progress in knowledge, in politics, in religion, and, chief of all, in methods, as compared with similar movements in the past.

When I speak of the Negro race in Africa I include the so-called Bantu, who are probably, in race as well as in language, the purest stock of the black-skinned and woolly-haired variety of mankind. The distinction of Bantu and Negro races is a myth. The Negroes of Upper Guinea and the Sudan form one compact and homogeneous race with the Bantu of the Kongo Basin; their physical, mental and moral characteristics, their religious views, their folk-lore, and their social order is one and the same. The Negroes south of the

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equator, the so-called Bantu, speak languages ruled by a common grammar and possessing a common word-store, thus forming one great family of languages; while the Negroes north of the equator, that is in the Sudan and Upper Guinea, speak languages which have retained more or less grammatical forms of Bantu grammar and word roots of Bantu origin, but these ruins are overgrown by a rank and wild vegetation which it will take philology a long time to penetrate. It is, however, easy in some of the better known languages spoken by Sudan Negroes to discover traces of distinctly Hamitic influence.

The physical characteristics of the black or Negro race are: A large and strong skeleton, long and thick skull, projecting jaws, skin from dark brown to black, woolly hair, thick lips, flat nose and wide nostrils. The typical color of the race is not coal black but the dark brown of a horse chestnut. Observation shows that the darkest specimens are found on the borders, where Negroes have been in contact with lighter races, while in the population of the Kongo Basin, which has been almost completely free from mixture, the dark-brown type prevails.

If we begin our survey of Negro tribes in the North, we first notice the Teda or Tibbu, who hold a large tract of the Sahara desert, north of Lake Tshad, in the very heart of the Hamitic field. No wonder that owing to this position, both the race and the language have paid rich tribute to the Hamitic surroundings.

From Senegambia to Lake Tshad, we have seen that the Negroes are mostly ruled by Fulah conquerors, who have founded great sultanates, which have swallowed up the native Negro kingdoms and their names.

In Wadai, east of Lake Tshad, the government is still in the hands of Negroes, who have maintained their independence against Arabs and Fulahs, thanks to their Mohammedan fanaticism. Wadai even exercises a sort of sovereignty over the neighboring kingdom of Baghirmi, where the bulk of the population is also Negro.

In Bornu, the government is Fulah, and the Negro population strongly mixed with Imoshagh and Arabs, all professing the Mohammedan religion. In Sokoto, the population is Hausa, who are Negroes, but slightly mixed with Hamites. They are the most promising nation of the Sudan, and their language will probably manage to compete with Arabic and English over the vast area between Lake Tshad and the Niger. It is among the one hundred millions of Sudanese that Islam is still making important progress; and there at least it seems to raise the heathen to a higher plane of life.

The peoples of Upper Guinea are mostly heathen, but widely honeycombed by Christian missions.

The Wolofs of French Senegambia, near St. Louis, are very black, well built, less prognathic than Negroes generally, and their language differs considerably from that of their neighbors.

Around Sierra Leone we find the Susu, Temne, and Mende tribes. Their languages have so much of Bantu structure that they deserve to be called semi-Bantu. In Liberia, we notice the Vei, made famous by the original syllabic character invented by one of their tribesmen; and also the athletic and hard-working Kru-men, one of the most promising nations of the west coast.

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On the pestilential Gold and Slave coasts, the Ephe, the Ga, and the Tshi speaking people, including the once important kingdoms of Asante and Dahome, are being thoroughly evangelized by the heroic workers of the Basel and Wesleyan missions.

In the Lower Niger basin, the Yariba, the Nupe, the Ibo and the Efik, all speaking languages with crippled remains of Bantu grammar, are rapidly emerging out of the cruel rites of heathenism, and rising into prosperous Christian communities.

At Kamerun we strike the great field of the Bantu languages, which is considerably larger than Europe. It is the field which the explorations of Livingstone, Stanley, De Brazza. Wissmann and Holub have brought so prominently before the public, and which the powers of Christendom have taken under a partly national and partly international protectorate.

The Bantu, or Negroes south of the equator, are in some respects the most remarkable section of mankind. Separated from the rest of the world by wide oceans, virgin forests and the Sahara Desert, they have been less than any other race subject to foreign influences. No strange blood has altered their physical constitution; no foreign languages have permanently mangled the structure and the word-store of their principal forms of speech; no outside religion has seriously affected their conceptions of God, the spiritual, the animal and the natural worlds. Now they are receiving Christianity and the highest civilization the world has ever known, by methods which, however crude, inconsiderate and unjust they may appear fifty years hence, are yet far superior to all that our most sanguine forefathers could have anticipated.

In the supplement to his "Languages of Africa" Dr. Cust counts 450 African languages, with over 150 dialects. The Sudan languages number 212, and their dialects 56. The Bantu languages are estimated at 180, their dialects at 60.

With regard to the Sudan languages I will not express an opinion, as they are not in my special line; but concerning the Bantu languages, which are my special field, I am glad to be able to make the comforting statement that if we reverse the statement, and say that there are 60 languages and 180 dialects, we are much nearer the truth.

As a boy, in my native land, I studied a big book giving specimens of about 70 dialects. Now, 60 of these 70 dialects covered only a small part of three language fields, German, French and Italian. Of the African dialects, we are far from knowing all, even by name; but of the languages, we know by name a great many more than really exist.

Let me illustrate this by a few authentic examples. On the testimony of travelers and grammarians, Dr. Cust gives within the boundaries of the one Kimbundu, or Angola language, seven distinct languages. Now, these seven languages are simply dialects, and not all at that, of the language in which I am founding a Christian literature. The same process of reduction is repeated wherever sufficient material is obtained to compare the different dialects, which, until compared, seemed to deserve a separate place as languages.

Thus, in the region between Tanganyika, Bangweolo and the confluence of the Lulua and Kassai, were placed peoples with different names, the Moluas,

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the Barua, the Baluba, and the Bashilange, besides a number of others. My friend Dr. Summers labored two years at one end of this field, among the Bashilange, and gathered valuable linguistic material which he bequeathed to me. At the other end of the field, in Garenganze, another friend, the missionary Swan, also learned the language and published a vocabulary with a few chapters of a gospel. By comparing these materials collected at a distance of about 600 miles, I was surprised to find that it was the same language, and that the natives gave it the same name. At the same time I had opportunities to consult a Belgian explorer who had traversed the region comprised between those two extreme points, and also native Angolans who had accompanied him on his expedition. Their testimony confirmed my discovery. Further comparative study revealed the fact that other dialects are comprehended within the boundaries of this great Luba language, and that Luganda, at the north end of Lake Victoria, has practically the same grammatical structure.*

* See Heli Chatelain, "Bantu Notes and Vocabularies," Nos. I. and II.

During my second stay at Loanda I collected a vocabulary of U-iaka, the language of the Ma-iaka, or Ma-iakala. On my return to America I discovered, by comparison, that U-iaka was practically the same as Ki-teke, in which Dr. Sims of Stanley Pool had published a gospel and a vocabulary. Further research disclosed the fact that several other tribes, the Northern Mbamba, the Buma, the Mbete and the Tsaia speak dialects of the same language. Still further investigation into the physical appearance and the customs of these tribes showed them to be identic in all points in which they differ from their neighbors speaking other languages. These facts combined proved that between the equator and the 8° South latitude there is a cluster of tribes speaking the same language and having the same customs; forming, therefore, one great nation.*

* See "Bantu Notes," No. III.

This nation the powers assembled at Berlin in 1885 have, without knowing it, and without the nation's knowledge, divided between France, the Kongo State and Portugal, France getting the lion's share.

The discovery of this Ba-teke nation also enabled me to solve two or three historical riddles which had puzzled Africanists and still puzzle those who have not read my article on the Ma-iaka. The other Bantu nations and languages of some importance all deserve to be dwelt on at some length, but the time limit is inexorable, and I must dispose of them with a few words.

In the German Kamerun, the Dualla language is being officially taught in excellent government schools and in the stations of the Basel missions.

In French Kongo, or Gabun, the Mpongwe tribe is dying out, being superseded by the aggressive Fang. These speak a Bantu or rather semi-Bantu language. The Benga, on the sea-coast, rejoice in a considerable Christian literature, published by American Presbyterians.

The Kongo nation, with its sub-tribes, the Luangu, Buende, Sundi, Solongo, Ndembu, Hungu and Pangu, is evangelized by seven or eight Protestant missionary societies, in addition to the thrice centenarian work of the Catholic church.

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In the semi-civilized portion of Angola the natives are joining hands and blending with the Portuguese colonists, thus preparing the creation of a powerful nationality.

In the highland of Angola the Ovi-mbundu of Bailundu and Bihe bring the produce from the head streams of the mighty Kongo to the seaport of Benguella, where they barter it for cloth and rum, and also for fire-arms and powder, which enable the Ma-kioko to continue their audacious slave raids. These Ma-kioko, one of the finest looking tribes of interior Africa, with long plaited beards, have made an end of the once powerful empire of Lunda, reducing into slavery subjects of their former suzerain, the great Muatyamvo. If published vocabularies are correct, the Kioko tribe speaks practically the same language as the Ambuella, around the western headwaters of the Zambesi river, and so we would have here again one great nation and language instead of a number of unconnected tribes and dialects.

The cattle herding Ova-herero, in German South Africa, so long the victims of the periodic raids of the Hottentots, begin to breathe and raise their heads since the German troops have finally put down the Nama chieftain Witboy.

In the Upper Zambesi valley the Barotse under Lewanika seem to respond at last to the appeals of their apostles, Missionary Coillard and his colleagues.

The Zulus, the Kaffirs, the Bechuana, the Batonga, the Matebele, the Mashona and the Ba-nyai, all south of the Zambesi, are important Bantu nations, who are coming more and more into public view as their territories are invaded by the gold hunters, land-grabbers, and by the messengers of the evangel of peace and holiness.

In Portuguese Mozambique, between the Rovuma and Zambesi rivers, the great nation of the Ma-kua, including the Lomve, Metu, Ibo and Angoche sub-tribes, sees its territory gradually invaded by the whites who secure concessions from the Portuguese.

The Wa-yao, the Ma-konde, and the Manganga, around Lake Nyassa, enjoy the protection of British and German authorities against the Maviti and the Arab raiders. Scottish, English, and German-Moravian missionaries teach thousands of their young people, while the Africa Lakes Company and an Industrial Mission employ thousands of strong hands in their commercial and agricultural undertakings.

The tribes of German East Africa, among whom the Wa-Zaramo, Wa Zeguha, Wa-Sagara, Wa-Gogo, Wa Hehe, and Wa-Nyamwezi are the principal, speak all languages so closely related to that of Zanzibar, the Ki-Suahili, that the latter may finally become the literary language of all that vast region.

All readers of the daily papers and of missionary journals have become familiar with the story of U-ganda. The wonderful changes which have there taken place since 1872, when the first missionary party entered the country, and which have transformed that semi-Pagan and semi-Mohamedan country and people into a semi-Protestant and semi-Catholic Christian nation more progressive and more promising than some sections of the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese nations, those changes, I say, are prophetic of what is about to happen among all the great Bantu nations we have passed in review.

If my opinion about the future were asked, I should not hesitate to declare

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my conviction that within one hundred years all Bantu-land will contain more than 500,000,000 inhabitants, will equal Europe in civilization, will be united in a great United States of Central Africa under a new and improved edition of our American Constitution, will both speak and write a common language, the mother-tongue of all Bantu dialects, as revived by scholars and enriched with the best developments of its daughters, and will produce master-pieces of literature, science, and art, vying with all the best that Europe and America will then be able to bring forth.

ORISHETUKEH FADUMA, B. D.
Native of the Yoruba Tribe, West Africa; Educated in Sierra Leone, London, and in Yale University

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Religious Beliefs of the Yoruba People in West
Africa
BY
ORISHATUKEH FADUMA, B. D. West Africa

We are now at a period in the world's history when the religions of Pagan nations are studied with a view to find out whether there is any point of contact between them and the more developed forms of religion; what are their beginnings; who were the prime leaders of their religious thought; and what changes have taken place since their existence. There are observances in the ritual of Israel found in the rituals of Egypt and Chaldea, nations by far older than the Hebrews. There is something, therefore, in common with Judaism and the ethnic religions which preceded it, and by which it was surrounded. Christianity is an evolution of Judaism, yet so evolved that it becomes a new religion. Mahommedanism is a corruption of Judaism, a mingling of monotheism with Arab heathenism. Max Müller, Rawlinson, Sayce, and others have contributed not a little to the study of heathen beliefs. The observations of anthropologists and ethnologists are helping us to get at facts, and draw conclusions which otherwise would be impossible. For the present we shall be satisfied with the presentation of facts, as they are not large enough to warrant us in making large deductions.

To some of the beliefs of the Yoruba people I wish to call your attention. These people are known under four names: Yoruba, Yariba, Aku, and Oku. They live in West Central Africa, having Lagos as their seaport town. Of all West African tribes the Yoruba people are preeminently agricultural and commercial. As a commercial people, their lives are not spent in seclusion, but they come in contact with many native and foreign people. They have a native civilization which combines both the native and the Mohammedan elements. The ubiquitous Arab has somewhat modified his civil as well as religious life, but has not stamped it out of existence. They are by no means a savage, but are a semi-civilized people.

The Yoruba people, like the Athenians of old, are given to much reverence. Reverence to traditions, reverence to ancestors, reverence to the gods and spirits, is interwoven with their beliefs. If it were connected with a belief which questions before it is practiced, the Yorubas would be a highly religious people. But when reverence is merely the result of custom, then men worship they know not what, and that which ought to be sacred in religion becomes painfully supertitious. When I speak of the Yorubas as very religious, I mean that they are very superstitious. Notwithstanding this, it is important to study their system of belief, or construct one if it has not been done. The study of religion in all its forms ought to be important to the student of

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comparative religion. The genesis and development of religious belief, the stagnant condition of some religions and the apparent or real growth of others, the underlying principles which run through all and manifest themselves in what are termed the phenomena of religion, are subjects demanding a careful study. To make such a study profitable requires a sympathetic as well as an educated mind.

In studying the pagan system of the Yorubas, we shall find the three stages observed in the evolution of religion. They are Fetichism, Nature worship, and Prophecy or Divination.

1. Fetichism, the lowest, is practical, though not exclusively so. A fetich may be any object in which the god or gods convey their powers either to protect or defend the possessor. It is worn around the neck and waist, on the arms and wrists, on the ankles, or inserted into the hair. It is often concealed by an outer covering made of cloth or leather sewed tightly together. Human hair, finger nails, refuse of animals and men, precious stones, roots of trees, relics of the dead, in fact almost anything may be used. To the traveler it is a convenient vade mecum, for it is portable. It therefore takes the place of the idol and may be worn around the neck of the holder. It is a kind of a god in times of emergency. It brings good luck to the individual who wears it, and protects him from injury. It guards him against the attack of witches and the malevolence of personal and private foes. The hunter ties it near the muzzle or nipple of his gun, and it is thought to make him aim straight at his victim. What, in ordinary civilized life, would be considered a trained and skilled marksman, would be attributed to the charm or fetich. In all such cases it is some spirit whose power is felt through the charm, which is its medium. The favor or disfavor of heaven is communicated through the material medium called fetich.

2. In Nature worship, we have the image of a god made out of stone or wood. The god has the form and features of a person. It is generally an ill-shapen image, but this is probably due to the primitive state in which art is. It belongs to a high stage of civilization to produce the work of a Phidias, a Praxiteles, or a Polycletus. Yet Greek art had quite as humble beginning. Side by side with this nature worship is fetichism, so that one is at a loss to say whether the former is really an evolution from the latter. The worshipper of images has also a fetich which may be about his person even when he is in the act of worshipping his image.

3. Along with fetichism and idolatry is developed a system of priestcraft which may be at one time esoteric, and at another time exoteric. A man may make his own fetich, but when difficulties of a peculiar kind arise, the trained hand is sought. It is the man whose chief employment is to make fetiches, who knows the nature of diseases, foretells the future, and is in closer touch with the god or gods. Such a man has a powerful influence in the community; he is a physician of rare ability, a herbalist of repute, and a magician. He is sought by the high and low, consulted in family disappointments, and at the King's Court. His advice is taken, and he is dreaded by all.

The Yoruba gods are many. There is a god of war, like the Roman Mars or the Ares of the Greeks, who leads armies to victory and to whom human

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victims are offered. There is Shango, the god of thunder, whose priests are white-robed. He is like the Jupiter Tonans of the Romans. When he thunders and sends forth his lightning upon the dwellings of men, his priests are sought after to appease his wrath. There is a god who, like Ceres, controls agriculture, to whom the first fruits of the field are offered. Over the sea presides the water-god, who, like Neptune, calms the stormy seas and puts to flight the storm clouds. There are gods of the mountains, valleys and hills; gods of the market and pathways, household gods the peculiar treasures of individual families, and gods of the nation. There are several names by which the gods are known, but above them all is Olodumare, the supreme king both of gods and men, who assigns a sphere of influence to each of the local gods. He holds precisely the same relations to the gods as Jupiter held in the Roman pantheon, or Zeus in the Greek. The existence of these gods seems to be an arrangement by which the supreme God is helped to rule the country. Since the native worshipper cannot see the supreme god who is hid somewhere in the clouds, his nature demands the presence of one to whom he can appeal in cases of need, some one who can be seen by the naked eye. The necessity therefore arises for the fabrication of an object which would be a symbol of the Supreme God. It is a remarkable, though crude, expression of the people's need of an agent who shall come between them and their God, an agent who is not clothed with spirituality, but who can be seen and touched. To this visible obiect his needs are made known. Through all ethnic religions such an agent is found. In Christianity we have a solution of this need, and the truest expression in the living, the personal, visible, and tangible Christ, who is God clothed in flesh, and the mediator between God and man. Through the ages men have been groping in the dark, seeking, if haply, they may find such a Christ.

The Yoruba worships the objects of nature above him. The moon is one of them. Constant reflection on its movements sharpens his intellect. He is a good calculator. He tells his age by the number of moons he has seen. To him the moon is a harbinger of joy or sorrow; he supplicates it when it appears in its new crescent robe to avert all evils of the new month. Throughout the system of image worship, what appears first as a symbol of the God, is now confounded with, and worshipped as God. The distinction between them is lost, so that if there is a monotheism in the system, is lost in polytheism. God, as spirit, is lost and absorbed in God as matter.

Of the origin of the human race, the Yorubas have a very faint conception. The first pair sprang from that section of Yoruba country known as Iffe (Iffeh).

Of the future life they have some conception. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls is prevalent. The spirit of a good man is changed at death to some good being or animal, while that of a bad man is transformed to a ferocious animal or an evil spirit. Ancestors may be born again in the world. The children, called Abiku, that is, children who die prematurely, are said to return to life at the next birth of its mother, if at this birth the child also dies prematurely. At the death of one, messages are sent in tears and songs to dead relatives and friends. Feasts are observed and sacrifices offered to the dead. On the third day after burial, an early morning sacrifice of meal

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and oil is made at the grave of the deceased, and his spirit is supposed to eat a portion of it. On the seventh day after burial there is a feast preceded by a morning sacrifice, in which the spirit of the deceased and the spirits of ancestors partake. After this feast and sacrifice, the spirit of the deceased is supposed to leave the old home and take interest in the welfare of surviving friends.

The whole system of Yoruba worship is steeped in spirit worship. Spirits are found everywhere. They are the controllers of diseases. When a child suffers from convulsions it is because he sees a spirit which frightens him. The medicine man, therefore, washes his eyes with a solution prepared from the bark of a medicinal plant. There are spirits which exert evil influence in the world. These may be seen, and are called egbere (aygbayray). They are of diminutive stature; they leave their graves at midnight and return to them before daybreak. Sheep-riding is their delight. They are the cause of the destruction of sheep by disease. The medicine man is often called to drive them away by shooting at them, or supplying individuals who are spirit-frightened with a charm or fetich as a protection. There are also good spirits. These exert good influence in the world, and protect men from danger, and appear to them in dreams. If there is sorrow at the grave of the departed it is relieved after the seventh day, when a feast of rejoicing follows, and by the knowledge of the fact that the spirit of the deceased has gone to join those of his ancestors. There is a kind of spirit telegraphy by which the present and the future are connected.

The sacrificial system of the Yorubas has nothing peculiar. It has the same characteristics found in other systems of pagan religions. The one who offers sacrifice may be the father of the family in ordinary cases. In peculiar and trying circumstances a trained hand is sought. The medicine man is qualified by years of training for the post. The offices of doctor and sacrificer are invariably combined under the same individual. Sacrifice has a raison d'etre. It is, first of all, prophylactic. Men feel the pain of diseases, they know that evil spirits surround them and are seeking their destruction, they are aware of personal foes who are bent on their destruction; they are, therefore, compelled to sacrifice to a God and ask for his protection. The idea of communing with the gods is not a prominent one, though it is found in the system. What stands in bold relief is the feeling of deliverance and salvation from outward, not inward, evils. No one ever thinks of praying to the gods for strength to overcome personal feelings and to resist temptations. When one is surrounded by evil, or has escaped some calamity, the god is approached and his protection sought, or he is thanked for averting a calamity. Sacrifice is a prophylactic, as well as a thank-offering.

The religion of the people is one of fear and suspicion. The worshipper does not love his god, but fears him. The same mental act which is produced when the worshipper approaches his god, is also produced in children and wives when they approach their fathers and husbands. The same is produced in subjects when they approach those who are in authority. The father of a family, as well as the king or chief of the tribe, holds the same relation to his children or subjects as the god holds to the nation. It may be said that children fear rather than love their fathers, and wives submit with dread to

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their lords. The obedience required of them is an enforced one; it does not spring from love, but it is caused by fear. The native rule is like the rule of his gods, it is stern and severe. If there is any love, it is swallowed up in fear. It may be said, however, that this is not a peculiar characteristic of the Yoruba people and religion, but a general characteristic of Pagan Africa.

In the Yoruba sacrifice are included fruits of the earth, such as bananas, kola nuts, meal made of beans, oil (generally palm oil), animals and human beings. Kola nuts occupy an important place in worship. Through it the god makes known his will to men. The worshipper, after separating the two halves of the nut, throws them on the ground; if the inner parts turn upwards they signify that the god looks with favor upon the worshipper; if they turn downwards they indicate the god's disfavor. In all human sacrifices the blood is the most important. It is offered as a libation to the god and poured on the ground. While the worshipper may become impoverished by constant sacrifice, the sacrificer or medicine man is often enriched by it. Salvation sought through such a system is one of sacrifices and works.

The gods often reveal their minds to men by means of omens. If one, on the eve of an expedition, were to hit his left toe against an object, it presages evil; if the right toe, the result would be a success. Often the traveler is obliged to return home and wait for a favorable omen. If a snake is seen crossing a path, it means that some misfortune will happen to the beholder. Shooting stars are sure signs of the removal of friends from earth by death. The flight or cries of certain birds point to disaster.

The Pagan system of Yoruba worship, like all religions which are in a state of childhood, is not philosophical but poetical, a religion inspired by fear rather than love. There is no element found in it which is not present in similar religions. God is the fundamental conception; worship of Him includes prayer, which is an expression of the soul's yearnings, and sacrifice, which is made to appease God and escape danger. "Nor is it possible to conceive the existence of a race, properly human, without some germ of the sense of spiritual mystery which so rapidly widens out into an apprehension of that Infinite 'whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere.' But such an apprehension involves the feeling of dependence, subordination, the craving after harmony with that larger power which is dimly discerned. And it is in this distinctively human apprehension which, while fairly discoverable in the humblest, remains in the highest humanity wholly unresolvable into any forms of the logical understanding, that we must seek the essential nature of religion.'"* We cannot deny to these people the possession of a religious or a moral sense. Both exist, though corrupted and distorted. At the root of their religion is God, yet it leads away from God, and finally loses Him, because it has from the start a wrong conception of His nature, and confounded Him with His works. The study of the philosophy of religion is bringing us nearer and nearer the truth that the conception of God is universal, and that it is only the "fool that saith in his heart there is no God." "In this experience of God, every soul of man has a part. He is not far from every one of us; in Him we live and move and have our being.

* The Essential Nature of Religion, by Picton.

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It is possible for every soul, however degraded, however ignorant and humble, to feel after Him and find Him (Acts xvii: 27-28).

The knowledge of God is common knowledge. However imperfectly and pervertedly men may hold it and express it, all have it, so that when the higher Christian truth comes to a soul, it does not come to one ignorant of God, but to one that, from its earliest days, has felt his presence and power."*

* The evidence of Christian experience; Theistic philosophical presuppositions; Stearns.

CYRUS C. ADAMS
One of the Editors of The Sun, New York; Geographer and Africanist; Member of the American Geographical Society; Late Delegate to the International Geographical Congress, at London; Member and Contributor of the Brooklyn Geographic Institute and the National Geographic Society at Washington, D. C.

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Some Results of the African Movement
BY
CYRUS C. ADAMS
GEOGRAPHER, EDITOR New York Sun

The particular results of the African movement of which I shall speak to you have little to do with exploration, commerce or other material outcome of the work in Africa. Let us consider rather some of the ideas to be derived from the experience of the past generation of African workers. If we wish to study Africa, if we wish to work for Africa, at home or there, what ideas, what lessons drawn from experience, will help us to start right, and to make our energy most effective? I shall try to indicate some of these lessons. It is a wide subject and in this paper I can do no more than briefly to emphasize, without enlarging upon these ideas.

To do good work we must work intelligently and therefore must use as effectively as we can, the literary helps within our reach. We are confronted at once with the difficulty that the mass of literature is already too enormous to be examined except by specialists. Much of it is very valuable, much is commonplace, much is worthless. Then a great deal of the best material is not accessible to those who read English only. The best and latest works on Liberia, on the rich and populous west and central Soudan, the Cameroons and German East Africa have not yet been translated from the German. The fullest summary of the Congo basin and the remarkable work there, in all their aspects, is published in French. Considerable of the most valuable material is scattered through the publications of geographical societies and has not appeared in book form at all. There have recently been published or are now preparing some compendiums on Africa and some bibliographies. They will be very helpful but not wholly adequate for our special needs. I believe money, time and energy will be economized if those persons whom America sends out as missionaries, teachers or merchants are helped, first, to get right at the gist of the most reliable literature about the particular districts to which they are going; and second, to become thoroughly imbued, before they leave home, with some of the fundamental ideas, the outgrowth, sometimes, of bitter experience, that seem necessary to success. Here is an illustration or two of what I mean:

The Scottish mission at Blantyre in the Nyassa Highlands, was founded upon the idea that the missionaries might well combine with their religious and educative work, the functions of a civil government and even of commercial and industrial enterprise. It was simply an attempt to carry out the views of Livingstone, himself, who discovered this land; and the history of that endeavor is one of the most instructive chapters in the story of African missions. I can only say here, the experiment was a dismal failure, even scandal resulted,

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and in the blackest days, that splendid work was saved from utter collapse, apparently, by the deciding voice of one man in Edinburgh. Let governing power, commercial endeavor and religious and educative influence, work for good ends in parallel lines which, you know never run together, and the desired unity of effort is attained. Combine these various functions in one agency, and disaster seems inevitable among these barbarous tribes. This was a lesson that was not learned except by actual experiment.

Again, do you suppose that when the missionary societies began to send medical missionaries to Africa, they had any very clear idea as to what the greatest potency of these physicians and surgeons would prove to be? It is already found in some places, that these specialists are striking at the very root of an evil which, perhaps more than any other one influence, keeps the African native degraded. That is the superstition which has invested the fetich doctor with mysterious power over human life and happiness. No man can grow while he believes the fetitch doctor can exorcize the evil spirits that make him ill, or sell him charms that bring victory in battle. No man can progress so long as a greedy chief, eager to seize the little property his subject has gathered, may call in the fetich man to declare him a witch, and condemn him to death. The glimmer of an idea is dawning upon many of these people, that the real healers are these men who have come among them and that there is nothing supernatural about their skill. They are beginning to see the imposition that has kept them prostrate. Governments have observed this tendency of medical work and it is helping to stimulate them to supplement the influence of medical missionaries in more drastic fashion. In an immense area of inner Africa, to-day, it is a crime to practice fetichism. The law has lately been proclaimed throughout the great territory of the British South Africa, from the South African Republic to Lake Nyassa, that any fetich doctor will be severely punished if convicted of practicing his arts.

These are two among many facts and ideas, the results of experience, that should be collated from the best sources for the benefit of those who are preparing for missionary work, with a view to instructing them in the nature, conditions and methods of their future activity before they ever see Africa.

When we study Africa we must bear one thing in mind. That is that many books on Africa contain an undue admixture of crude personal impression which has passed, too often, for statement of fact. Two observers in the same field may give diametrically opposite views of it, the fact being, perhaps, that the more unfortunate pioneer, overcome by unaccustomed hardships, weary and homesick, sees everything as through smoked glass, very darkly. The late Montague Kerr, the first explorer to completely cross Mashona Land, wrote me once that he had seen nothing there giving promise that the region was worth occupying. He enlarged upon this statement in his book; and yet some thousands of white men are living there to-day, and two railroads are pushing towards the country. Now it takes time and study to learn to read critically about Africa, to learn to discriminate between what is best to retain and what to reject; and those who dip only here and there in desultory fashion into the immense mass of literature will get hardly the faintest idea of some mighty influences, of which I shall speak, that are working as quietly and as potently as leaven, preparing the native mind in

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wide districts to become fertile soil in which the seeds of a higher life may germinate and thrive.

I know of nothing, apart from the desire to Christianize these millions of men, that would so stimulate the practical interest of our philanthropists in the best African work as to make it possible for them, who cannot themselves give months and years to the study, to see clearly the trend of this African movement; and I know nothing that would be more useful in preparing young men for practical service than to guide them to those things in African literature that will most help and edify them.

Where are the two or three educated young men specially qualified for such work who will give the requisite study to this literature, in the English and other languages, that will fit them to compile, with critical care, a list of references to the books, monographs and maps that have special bearing upon the work we want to do? I do not mean a bibliography of Africa for that work would be colossal and, for our purposes, redundant and unwieldly. The bibliography of Congo alone, now preparing, will contain 4,000 titles. But we need to be directed to the volumes and pages in which the best information may be found about regions in which Americans are to labor; their geography, resources, climatology and hygiene; character of natives; their amenability to good or bad influences; methods approved for winning their confidence and affecting their lives; coöperation given by governments to religious and educative work; their provisions for safeguarding the people from pernicious influences and the work done by government and commerce to elevate them; in general, the results and teachings of experience thus far. We need concise digests of the most helpful things that are not accessible except in foreign languages; and attention should particularly be called to any writings that give a good idea of the scope of this whole African movement; of the colossal-forces that are moving for the mastery of that continent; and of the profound, the astonishing effect already apparent throughout large areas.

A concise monograph showing what these forces are and how they are beginning to affect African barbarism does not exist. When written, it should be a most effective instrument in stirring the hearts and impelling the cooperation of our philanthropists in the cause of African regeneration. These things will cost some money, but they will pay.

Students of Africa like such work as the Haussa Association is doing. It was organized in 1892 to prepare for missionary work in that fine part of the Sudan between the Niger and Lake Tchad. Unable yet to enter that region, the society's agents have gone to accessible places where they may meet Haussas, have studied their language, whose field is far wider than that of any other tongue in Central Africa, and have collected much information to serve them when the time is ripe for entering the land. I have talked with missionaries in New York, just embarking for Africa, who had never read anything of the region for which they were bound, and knew nothing even of the hygienic rules they should observe to preserve their health. Hereafter such ignorance should not be possible.

A gentleman in Europe, learned in African matters, has written a careful book in which he has attempted to figure out, in percentages, just what this

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and that part of Africa will be worth to civilization and commerce. I believe that this is labor lost. There is no oracle among us to tell what the future of Africa will be. Just as the discoveries of five years revolutionized our notions of the hydrography of the Congo basin, so time and again have we seer the verdict passed by explorers upon this or that region or people overthrown by later studies. We do not yet know enough about Africa or the potentialities latent in her 175,000,000 of people to give value to any hard and fast estimate as to their part and place in future history. Africa's future depends upon her resources still almost untouched, the abilities of her people still unfathomed, and the capacity of the human race to advance and to this capacity no prophet has a right to assign limits. I say this much because certain writers have assumed that their dictum about the ultimate destiny of Africa is worthy of attention. If anyone were to ask me what the world will do with the desert of Sahara, I should tell him that we do not know; but we know, at least, that an edge of that desert has been made to blossom by the irrigation works of the French. The story of the white man's enterprises in Africa, every year for the past eighteen years, teaches us that pessimistic conclusions are not warranted by any events, however inexplicable or disheartening they may seem. We might fill all the sessions of this congress with illustrations of this fact. When Stanley began to plant his stations on the Congo he could induce hardly a native to lift a pound of freight or to sell an hour of service. For years, labor was brought to the Congo from Zanzibar and the Guinea coast. Even Chinese were imported to work on the railroad. But to day, Congoland is not importing labor. Fifty thousand of the people who live there are working for wages. They man the stations and steamboats carry on their backs thousands of tons of freight, and their humble service both in peace and war, is helping to develop their country. It was with the guns in their hands that the Arab slave raiders were driven out of the Congo basin and the natives themselves are grading the bed, and laying the rails of the railroad, that is now advancing a quarter of a mile a day.

Eighteen years ago Colonel Chaille Long said in his book that Central Africa was a plague spot, that its people were miserable wretches, and he protested against sending any missionaries to Uganda in answer to Stanley's call, because they would meet only with misery and speedy death without any results to justify their martyrdom. To day 50,000 of these Uganda can read. Two hundred native churches are scattered over their country, and the largest church at Mengo, the capital, holds 3,000 people.

The man who dedicates himself to Africa will find in facts as they are, a sufficient tax upon his resources and energy. He should be taught, early in his training, not to borrow needless trouble from, nor to be unduly perplexed by the dictum, so lightly spoken of writers who imagine that their few months or years in Africa qualify them to sum up and pass final judgment.

When we make it easier for our people to study the whole African movement what are some of the ideas that are likely to get firm lodgement in their minds? I will tell you what I think some of them will be.

As far as we can see, Africa, or the most of it, is for the African. He has a land in which other races cannot swarm as they have over America. His is the only race that has lived, thrived and done a man's full work in every

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climate of the world. A few papers have recently been written in Europe to show, some that the native population of Africa is increasing, others that it is diminishing. I have seen no facts or arguments at all convincing in favor of the latter hypothesis. The most careful observers believe that in certain districts intestine wars or slave raids have diminished the population to a marked extent; that other areas which have suffered from evils less formidable are holding their own, and that Africa, as a whole, is growing in population. It is observed that certain regions have recuperated from evils that devastated them with remarkable rapidity. One of the best authorities on the statistics of the world's population (Der Bevölkerung der Erde), in its edition of 1891, assigns to Africa a population exceeding by 42,000,000 the total number of inhabitants in the three Americas, and the West Indies. We have no reason to believe that if the Caucasian race could invade Africa in myriads they would or could wipe out the native people, for the Negro is not made of the stuff that breaks and disappears, like the Pacific islander and the American Indian, upon the intrusion of other peoples.

Every European government in Africa is seeing more and more clearly that the native is the largest factor in determining the prosperity of Caucasian enterprises there; that the more the native is elevated the more money can be made; and so some of these governments are conspicuously bending their energies to improve the condition of the natives, and the world never saw before such colossal efforts to this end among barbarous peoples, nor such significant results in so short a time.

It is found that a very large part of these natives have offered little or no obstruction to the introduction of governments and other agencies of civilization. It is an impressive fact that, in the course of a few years, the agents of the International Association of the Congo, from which the Free State issued, made over 1,000 treaties with Negro chiefs in the Congo basin, by which they voluntarily ce ed their sovereign rights, accepted the government offered to them, and all this work was done without firing a shot.

We may be thankful for the selfishness that is the basis of some of the most powerful influences yet brought to bear upon the African native. It is no mere love of humanity that has impelled the European States to divide these regions among themselves. We can hardly realize here the intensity of the struggle for existence in many of the overcrowded regions of Europe. Their industries, their manufactories are enormously productive but the people will suffer for food unless they can export. It was the crying need for new markets. for new sources of raw material, that drove these States into Africa; and we should be glad for Africa's sake that they have gone there to make money.

We believe that it is immoral to waste or destroy useful things. Day by day, this moral truth is now being inculcated in the minds of many thousands of Africans by men who are not teachers of morality but whose purpose is to protect a source of wealth.

All over the Congo basin is a species of the rubber plant whose product is worth exporting though it still has to be carried on the backs of men around 235 miles of cataracts. The native method of getting the sap is to cut off the vine, thus destroying the plant. There are nearly 150 stations of the State

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and of the Belgian and Dutch trading companies scattered over the upper Congo and most of them are centers of the rubber trade. Everywhere the natives are told:

"Rubber is valuable to you, for we give you cloth and wire and beads for it. It is valuable to us or we would not buy it. But you have been killing the vine, destroying that which is good for you and us. Bula Matari has made a law forbidding anyone to kill the rubber vine and you must not do so any more. This is the way to get the juice. Tap the vine, the juice will flow out for you, the wound will heal, the vine will produce again. But if you kill any more vines the law will punish you."

And it does if they forget the prohibition. The result is that these thousands of rubber gatherers are beginning to protect the vine and are telling their children: "There is a plant that is good for men. You must never kill it." Surely this inculcation of one vital principle of morality by a government whose arm reaches far and which has the strength not only to teach but to insist and persist until the lesson is learned is an important fact in this African work.

We know that very serious injustice has been done to natives by agents of governments in Africa. Instances of this sort from the Congo are now being investigated at Brussels, and it is high time, for the gravest outrages have been committed there and elsewhere. But we must not think because young men in the depths of Africa, unworthy of their trust, have been guilty of cruel and scandalous acts, that the government is indifferent to native welfare and unmindful of justice. The laws for safeguarding the natives are all right. The observance of these laws has fallen short of that measure of protection, of forbearance and mercy that the world must demand now and hereafter. But we should know that this sort of crime against the native is an incident, inexcusable to be sure, but not a policy. The regulations to secure the just and considerate treatment of uncivilized peoples, probably, were never more wisely devised than those of the various powers in Africa, with one exception. The world wants justice and protection for these natives and none will insist upon it more strenuously than the people of the leading powers that are identified with the African work.

We protest against the evils of the drink traffic. They are bad enough. But do we not see, even now, some signs amelioration? The Royal Niger Company has just announced that it has doubled the import tax on spirits with the expectation that it will considerably reduce the trade. The British South Africa Company has just proclaimed its positive prohibition of the sale of spirits to natives throughout its immense domain. Such sales to natives are strictly forbidden in more than nine-tenths of the Congo basin. We take it for granted that missionary influence will be for good. The point I wish to make is that though various evils are marking the progress of the African work, they are, as I verily believe, but a drop in the bucket as compared with the fundamental and lasting good that governments and commerce are doing and will do.

What grander thought can be conceived of the African native than that he himself shall be made the agent of the regeneration of his land. That is the idea, expressed or implied, underlying the policy of the African governments.

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He is not to be a ward of the nations, placed on a rerseve like the American Indian; and see how skillfully some of the governments are managing him to bring about his willing compliance with their desire that he shall become the potent factor he must be in the development of Africa.

A small tax is now levied upon 60,000 native huts in Mashona Land. That is right. Paying taxes is one of the privileges of civilization. The natives who pay this hut tax, were living, until recently, in those places that were loftiest and most difficult to reach, in constant terror of the Matabeles who killed them, burned their villages and carried off their women and cattle. The only hope in the lives of these miserable people was that they would escape the Matabele raids. Now they are living as safely as our own farmers. The valleys are covered with their gardens and their herds are multiplying. It is right that they should pay for the blessings of the wise and humane government they now enjoy and that has made life worth living; and what a wonderful impetus in the way of development is this fact that they have good government and are helping to pay for it. Now the Mashonas, like all Kaffir tribes, are rather thrifty. They hate to part with money or cattle; and Sir Cecil Rhodes's government is taking advantage of this trait to get them to work and train them in methods of work. The Mashona hut-owners are told:

"You may pay the hut tax in money or cattle; but if you wish to keep these, come to our officials and work a month. You will be well fed and at the end of the month you will owe the government nothing and you will then have eleven months to devote to your fields and your herds."

So thousands of these Mashonas are supplying their labor to the government in lieu of paying the tax. They are working on the railroad to the Indian Ocean, in the mines, in the townships, on the highways. They are well kept and well treated and it is found that many who came in to work a month remain six, and pocket their wages. It is also seen that their wants, though very simple yet, are increasing a little. They have discovered, for instance, that a blanket is a very comfortable thing on the cooler nights in their country. Now this revolution in native aims and conditions of life is occurring in the veriest wilderness of Africa where, ten years ago, no white man could venture except at imminent peril.

If you can give a barbarous people the protection of a good government and induce them to work, all things are not only possible but are coming. So we see throughout an enormous area from the South African Republic to the north end of Lake Nyassa, in a considerable part of German East Africa, in Uganda, and for thousands of miles along the Congo and its tributaries, the effort is constantly widening to give government, which means good order and protection, to these tribes and to require from them what it is right they should pay for the security of life and property they are beginning to enjoy for the first time in their lives.

The laws of the Congo State provide that crimes against native persons and property shall be severely punished; and though these laws have been violated by agents of the State, it is none the less true that as fast as the State has been able to extend its influence, inter-tribal wars and the practices of cannibalism and human sacrifices have been suppressed; and simultaneously the State is requiring from the villages thus protected a tax payable in rubber.

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The question, "Will the native African work?" is no longer a conundrum. It seems only yesterday that the white agents in German East Africa were writing, that to procure the essential native labor it would be necessary, in effect, to reduce the people to slavery; that is, they were to be forced to work. There is not a government in Africa, to-day, that needs to import labor. The cry from all over South Africa, where an enormous amount of manual labor is required, is, "Do not send us laborers. The natives give us cheap and effective service."

You have heard of the fierce Matabeles, trained for war and not for work. Work was fit only for the women and slaves. They have, no longer, need for the assegai and shield. They could not go on the war-path if they would Their thoughts, turned from the pursuit of war, are now bent on getting ahead in the world. The men who, four years ago, could not own cattle because cattle were the prerogative of the king, now have their herds and farms. Who would have thought when the African Congress was held in Chicago, that it would have been written in this century: "Prospectors, in pairs or singly, wander all over Matabele Land and, far from being molested, they are hospitably received. The Matabeles are not a difficult people to deal with. They are pleased to see the white men in their country. They were cruel at the bidding of their king. As soon as the barbarous system that ground them down was destroyed, they became quite reconciled to the new order of things."

Eight hundred of these soldiers who fought in their impis three years ago, to drive the white men out of the gold fields, came unbidden, in August last, to Bulawayo and secured work in the brickyards and other industries of the place; and the barbarous African is not only beginning to work his way to a higher place, but also to fight his way there, if need be. It was chiefly the former cannibals of the middle Congo, who chased Stanley down the river crying: "Meat, meat," who were the agents in driving the Arab slavers out of a vast region which will, probably never again be scourged by the evil that kills eight people to enslave one.

The fact that in many ways, the native is putting his own shoulder to the wheel in this enormous work is clinching the conviction that has been growing for years, that all of tropical and sub-tropical Africa, the greater part of the continent, is for the Africans, just as India is for the East Indians, though a British possession.

The missionary and the trader are sometimes preceding this extension of government influence, sometimes following it. Now one, now another is the pioneer; and the more there are of them all, the better. Experience in some large districts seems to show clearly that if you can double the points of contact between the natives and the civilizing influences, governmental, religious, educative, industrial, commercial, you more than double the good results; for the multiplicity of reputable foreign enterprises and stations, as a rule, increases the security of the native and hastens the day when the fact begins to dawn upon him that the good things brought to him, in other words, civilization, mean a diminution of his sufferings and an augmentation of his well-being. The constant effort must be to impress this fact upon him and when he clearly sees it the victory will be two-thirds won.

I see not a particle of inducement for Afro-Americans to go to Africa to

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earn the wages of a day laborer. The work required in every field needs something more than strength of hands. Any foreigner who cannot devote to Africa special gifts or attainments in some direction, or the self-effacing zeal of the Christian missionary or teacher, had better keep away. He can make a more comfortable living at home and Africa does not need him.

But it would be surprising if Afro-Americans should not become prominent in one or another of the great departments of this movement. The field of missionary and educative work seems especially to invite them. Their capacity for the work, their strength to help Africa if they will only put it forth, needs no argument. I am glad the day has gone when every untruthful statement about Africa can be met only with a little argument and less knowledge. It is much easier and more convincing to be able to point to precedent and fact. If any one were to tell me that the millions of Afro-Americans, stronger every day as they are, cannot, if they have the impulse and the zeal, make for themselves a chapter in the history of Africa's development that shall be an enduring monument to their love of God and man, I should simply point to that little colony of freed slaves on the Grain Coast, struggling as they have been and still are. What work has Liberia done in politics, in agriculture, in morals, in religion that she need be ashamed to compare with the best results of European domination on Africa's coasts, and I do not except the British settlements of Sierra Leone and Lagos? Who would belittle the part that Liberia played in freeing West Africa from the curse of the slave trade; or what thinking man would dream of denying that the handful of freed slaves was a boon to Africa when he sees aborigines of Liberia fitted to take some part in her public affairs, prominently engaged in agriculture or commerce and spreading the tidings of the Christian faith among their people?

Strive to get your ideas of Africa and the African work from the sources that are, admittedly, most reliable.

Look upon all estimates of Africa's ultimate value to the world as purely tentative, for they may be proven, in the course of Africa's evolution, to be far from accurate.

Remember that we are still in the early stages of African work, that much that is done is experimental, and that all the ideas that promise improvement in policies or methods should be widely published and studied if found worthy.

In all your efforts, keep before you the thought that Africa is for the African; that the summing up of the work is to help him to help himself; that the destiny of his continent depends upon his development; and that in every stage of his progress his life and property should be shielded by laws as efficiently enforced as our own. I believe that no missionary center is true to duty that fails to make injustice and inhumanity known, and in such cases America should swell if she does not lead in a chorus of indignation and protest that cannot be ignored, and that shall teach governments and trading companies to look well after the fitness of the agents they send to Africa.

Remember that government and commerce are and should be the natural allies of missionary enterprise, each having its own ends in view, but all essential factors in the same great scheme. I do not believe that more eloquent

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tributes have ever been paid to the value of missionary work than those of men who have been prominent in the Congo government service. If the whole work thrives, there must be co-operation and mutual helpfulness; and the world should hear of any attempt by government agents or traders to impede or interfere with the development of missionary or educative endeavor. Neither public opinion nor the governments themselves will countenance such interference.

Do not encourage interference, at least for the present, with any native customs that are not unsurmountable stumbling blocks in the way of the work. Missionary societies may draw a useful lesson from the example of the British South Africa Company, which is telling all the natives under its rule that it will not interfere with their laws and customs save that there must be no more raiding, no more murder and no more witchcraft. Establish the essentials of progress first, for premature attention to non-essentials may retard the general advance.

Mr. Droogmans, a Belgian writer, has called attention to the fact that recent years have seen Austria, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, none of them having possessions in Africa, organizing societies, raising funds, earnestly and actively promoting philanthropic work in that continent. We have been lagging behind, not because we have less love for humanity, but because we have not been organized as they are abroad for effective appeal to the philanthropic spirit of our people in behalf of Africa. The World is full of that spirit now and we can hardly conceive of the change that fifty years have brought. We can scarcely realize that up to the middle of this century the principal article of African commerce was man. How ghastly now appear the Spanish statistics of their traffic recorded, not in numbers, but in weight of slaves. Ten thousand tons of Negroes exported in a year!

I should be glad to see among the practical results of this congress, a new department in some existing society, or better yet, a new organization here in the South, whose special aims should be:

A more effective organizatiou of the philanthropic impulse and spirit that pervades our own country, for the promotion of good works in Africa.

The preparation of literary helps and guides for the use of those who wish to study the whole subject or parts of it.

The collection of data, by correspondonce and exchange of news with philanthropic African and missionary societies, at home and abroad, relating to the treatment of native tribes by foreign agencies of every sort, so that the influences at work and the measure of justice and humanity accorded, may accurately be presented for the judgment of public opinion.

J. C. HARTZELL, D.D.
Corresponding Secretary of the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Formerly Editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, New Orleans; For twenty-five years connected with the work for the colored people

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The Division of the Dark Continent
By
REV. J. C. HARTZELL, D.D.
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY FREEDMEN'S AID AND SOUTHERN EDUCATION SOCIETY

Fifteen years ago, Victor Hugo said: "In the nineteenth century the white has made a man of the black; in the twentieth century Europe will make a world out of Africa."

The fulfillment of Victor Hugo's prophecy has begun. During the past few years, the world has witnessed results in the dividing of the African continent among the nations of Europe which have been unparalleled in the annals of history and which mark a very important episode in the progress of the world. These results indicate the rising tide of Christian fraternity among nations; and also demonstrate to the Christian student of history that God is preparing the way for a rapid and mighty uplift of the African continent, not only in material things, but also for her millions of black people, of whom the world knows so little, and concerning whom there are such conflicting theories and prophecies.

The preparation has been long, extending through many centuries, even reaching far back into pre-historic times, but the culmination has been sudden, remarkable and fraught with far-reaching consequences to that continent, its people, to Europe and to the world.

The continent of Africa lies in the eastern hemisphere, south of Europe with the Mediterranean Sea between, and the Red Sea separates it from Asia on the northeast, except the Isthmus of Suez, a narrow strip of land between that sea and the Mediterranean. As the Suez canal crosses this neck of land, Africa, in fact, is a vast island. On the north is the Mediterranean, on whose banks have arisen and passed away empires and civilizations. On the west is the Atlantic from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope. On the east and south are the Suez canal, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. In comparison with Africa, America and Australia are new discoveries. Our oldest traditions and most ancient history are African. The Phoenecians had settled in Syria and Egyptian civilization had begun its wonderful growth long before Abraham left his father's field, and while Europe was yet occupied by wandering tribes of barbarians. Only in recent times are the sources of Egyptian civilization being solved. Its history includes thousands of years before Christ.

The territory of the dark continent includes 11,500,000 square miles, and lies in about 70° of latitude and about the same of longitude. It is three times larger than all Europe, and about two-thirds the size of both North and South America, and three times as large as the United States. From Cape Bon to Tunis,

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on the north, to Cape Agulhas near the Cape of Good Hope, on the south, it is five thousand miles; and from Cape Verde on the west, to Cape Gardafui on the Indian Ocean, in the east, it is 4,500 miles.

It seems incredible that this continent, so vast in extent and in resources, just south of Europe, and on the highway from Europe to India, more easy of access from Europe than America, and much of its northern border lying on the highway of empire, as it traveled from Asia westward, should have so long been neglected and left in doubt and uncertainty.

This fact is emphasized when we remember what has been accomplished in comparatively few years in America and Australia. Only four hundred years ago Columbus accidentally run on the shores of this western world, with its sixteen millions of square miles of territory. There were probably four millions of aborigines in North and South America, and of these, perhaps half a million were in North America. These aborgines were the remnants of civilizations of whose origin we have no data. What marvelous changes have come in four brief centuries! Those remnants of civilization have disappeared and those copper colored barbarians are exterminated or without influence, and one hundred and thirty millions of people of European origin or descent have spread over this vast territory. In the United States alone are fifty-five millions of white people, and in Canada, just to the north, are nearly four millions more. And what prodigious advances in art, science, literature, agriculture, manufacturing and in moral activities! And again, what wonderful results in the extension of American influence in all the world, in business, diplomacy, education and missionary enterprises.

Australia gives another remarkable contrast. Only a hundred years ago the first convict settlement was made in New South Wales. Half a million of the lowest type of humanity were scattered over this domain, which is about as large as the United States or Europe. It is only about fifty years since the real transformation began. The result is wonderful. That half million of savage people have given place to three million whites, mostly of British origin and the annual trade amounts to $600,000,000.

On the other hand, Africa, with a population estimated at from one hundred and fifty to two hundred millions, one-ninth of the world's population, with ancient and at times powerful settlements on its northern borders, with both its coast lines known to the most powerful and populous nations, has remained until recent times, practically unknown. Its people, century after century, have continued to babble their one hundred and fifty languages and to live and die in the midst of their vast natural domain unreached by the thought or inspiration of the great world without.

And what adds pathos to this remarkable picture, is the fact that all other races united in a determination not to enslave each other, but to combine in the enslavement of the African. There are about thirty millions of Africa's sons and daughters in North and South America, the inheritance chiefly of slavery, and the descendants of freedmen. It is estimated that up to 1860 during three hundred and sixty years, fifteen millions of Africa's sons and daughters have been carried to America and Europe as slaves. It is also estimated that for every slave delivered into bondage the life of another African was sacrificed, so that thirty millions of these barbarous people have

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been murdered or sold into slavery, as the result of the accur