Our Abstract Does, At Best, But Scanty Justice To The Most Interesting,
As Well As Most Valuable, Of Modern Works Of Travel.
It has revolutionized
our ideas of African character as well as of African geography.
It shows that Central Africa is peopled by tribes barbarous, indeed,
but far from manifesting those savage and degrading traits which
we are wont to associate with the negro race.
In all his long pilgrimage
Livingstone saw scarcely a trace of the brutal rites and bloody superstitions
of Dahomey and Ashanti. The natives every where long for intercourse
with the whites, and eagerly seek the products of civilized labor. In regions
where no white men had ever been seen the cottons of Lowell and Manchester,
passed from tribe to tribe, are even now the standard currency.
Civilized nations have an equal interest in opening intercourse
with these countries, for they are capable of supplying those
great tropical staples which the industrious temperate zones must have,
but can not produce. Livingstone found cotton growing wild all along
his route from Loanda to Kilimane; the sugar-cane flourishes spontaneously
in the valley of "The River"; coffee abounds on the west coast; and indigo
is a weed in the delta of the Zambesi. Barth also finds these products
abundant on the banks of the Benuwe and Shari, and around Lake Tsad.
The prevalent idea of the inherent laziness of the Africans must be abandoned,
for, scattered through the narratives of both these intrepid explorers
are abundant testimonies of the industrious disposition of the natives.
Livingstone, as befits his profession, regards his discoveries
from a religious stand-point. "The end of the geographical feat," he says,
"is the beginning of the missionary enterprise." But he is a philosopher
as well as a preacher, recognizing as true missionaries the man of science
who searches after hidden truths, the soldier who fights against tyranny,
the sailor who puts down the slave-trade, and the merchant
who teaches practically the mutual dependence of the nations of the earth.
His idea of missionary labor looks to this world as well as the next.
Had the Bakwains possessed rifles as well as Bibles - had they raised cotton
as well as attended prayer-meetings - it would have been better for them.
He is clearly of the opinion that decent clothing is of more immediate use
to the heathen than doctrinal sermons. "We ought," he says, "to encourage
the Africans to cultivate for our markets, as the most effectual means,
next to the Gospel, of their elevation." His practical turn of mind
suffers him to present no fancy pictures of barbarous nations
longing for the Gospel. His Makololo friends, indeed, listened respectfully
when he discoursed of the Saviour, but were all earnestness
when he spoke of cotton cloths and muskets. Sekeletu favored the missionary,
not as the man who could give him Bibles and tracts, but as the one
by whose help he hoped to sell his ivory for a rifle, a sugar-mill,
and brass wire.
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