Élisée Reclus

“ On the contrary, we are irresistibly attracted by the study of our own social evolution to the Nile basin in North-East Africa. Looking back through the long perspective of the past, far beyond the heroic times of Greece, where was cradled our distinctly European culture, we ascend from century to century to the remote ages when the Pyramids were raised, when the first ploughshare turned up the rich soil of the Nile delta. In Egypt are found the very oldest documents of authentic history. ”

“ It is one of the glories of our age to have produced so many heroes, some who have achieved fame, others whose very names are already forgotten, but all alike devoting themselves merely to fill up the blank spaces on the map of the Dark Continent. A "necrological" Map of Africa has been prepared by M. Henri Duveyrier, showing the names of the chief European explorers who, between the years 1800 and 1874, have either been murdered by fanatical Mohammedans or fallen victims to the deadly climate and the hardships undergone in their efforts to advance geographical knowledge. ”

“ Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that for thousands of years an active trade has been carried on with the interior. Down to a recent epoch caravans were regarded as sacred, passing fearlessly through contending armies and across disturbed regions. The spirit of traffic prevails amongst numerous tribes in Mauritania, the Upper Nile, and Sudan, as amongst the Jews and Armenians elsewhere, and their dealers display all the shrewdness, tenacity, and inexhaustible obsequiousness everywhere characteristic of the mercantile classes. ”

“ The water-gods, who dwell on the islands, condescend to communicate with mortals only through their envoys, who dare not be approached by empty-handed votaries. But the steam launches must ere long deprive these local deities of their prestige and reduce them to the level of ordinary mortals. When the American Chaillé-Long wanted to embark on the lake, the king of U-Ganda struck off the heads of seven wizards who had hitherto been both worshipped and hated as the evil genii of Nyanza. ”

“ Henceforth supported by other produce than that of slaves, the commerce of Africa already finds the interior more accessible to its agents, and the continent thus becomes daily more closely connected with the rest of the world. Large numbers of explorers starting from various points round the coast are continually invading new or little-known regions, and amongst them are many brave volunteers ever ready to sacrifice their lives in the sole interest of science and humanity. ”

“ The whole of Africa may thus be compared to a vast citadel, whose disunited garrison of some two hundred million men, acting without unity or concert, must sooner or later open their gates and capitulate to their European conquerors or patrons. For the possession of the interior must inevitably fall ultimately to the masters of the sea and surrounding coastlands. Even were any of the central states temporarily to acquire command of the seaboard, they would be compelled to treat with some maritime European power, and thus prepare the way for the invasion of their territories. ”

“ Africa is more sharply distributed in distinct regions by its deserts than it could have been by broad arms of the sea, and the distribution of its inhabitants has also been determined almost exclusively by the climatic conditions, depending everywhere on the abundance of rain and vegetation.
Flora and Fauna.
In its flora and fauna, as well as its climate and geology, North Africa belongs to the zone of transition between Europe and Asia. The apparent unity imparted to the continent by its compact form is not realised when we examine in detail the phenomena of life. ”

“ We seem at times to be lost in the maze of names of tribes and races collected by travellers in the various regions of Africa, and the chaos is often intensified by the reckless use of these names, the same term being applied in one place to two distinct peoples, while in another the some group is indicated on the maps by several different appellations. The Mediterranean seaboard differs from the rest of the continent as much in its inhabitants as it does in its geological history, its physical features, its animal and vegetable species. ”

“ Mohammedanism thus enjoys more material cohesion in Africa than in Europe and Asia, where the faithful, scattered amid populations worshipping at other altars, are often separated from each other by extensive wastes and arms of the sea. In the Dark Continent they occupy a compact domain as large as all Europe, stretching uninterruptedly from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, and here their common belief tends everywhere to diffuse the social ideas, the habits, usages, and speech of the dominant Arab race. ”

“ The Nile and Congo rising amid the higher plateaux, where the slope is still undecided, traverse in their upper courses many great lakes, which according to a vague tradition once constituted a single lacustrine basin of enormous extent. In the sixteenth century the Portuguese explorers had some idea of this hydrographic system. But in tracing the outlines of the great equatorial lakes they seem to have rather copied older maps than relied on positive information. But, however this be, they appear to have believed in the existence of a single source for the Nile, Congo, and even the Zambesi. ”

“ For the whole continent, the characteristic vegetable zone is that of Sudan and the equatorial regions, which stretches from sea to sea, and from desert to desert, between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, between the Sahara and Kalahari. Speaking broadly, it is much poorer in distinct species than the other tropical regions, such as India and the Sunda Islands, and even than some sub-tropical lands, such as Asia Minor. ”

“ They are timid and inquisitive, jealous and coquettish, great gossips and scandal-mongers, quick to love, as quick to fall out and make up their quarrels again. Like so many women, they also delight in abject submission, even sacrificing themselves for those who despise and oppress them. ”

“ The "Dark Continent" is entirely destitute of the great estuaries and broad arteries giving access in the New World from the Atlantic seaboard almost to the foot of the Andes. The comparative absence of navigable waters, of islands and good harbours, combined with the great extent of desert wastes, has mainly contributed to exclude Africa from the general life of the commercial world.
All the great rivers—Nile, Congo, and Niger—are interrupted by cataracts and rapids, which cut off from outward intercourse populous regions whose fluvial systems ramify over many hundred millions of acres. ”

“ In agriculture and industry the Africans so far co-operated in the development of human culture. But their direct influence in the trade of the world was felt only through Egypt and Mauritania along the Mediterranean seaboard. Commercial intercourse was doubtless carried on throughout the whole continent, but very slowly, and through a thousand intermediary tribes. The produce of Central Africa reached Europe long after all trace of its source had disappeared. ”

“ It would be impossible even roughly to estimate the multitude of human beings sacrificed by the slave-trade, through the wars it fomented around the African seaboard, the epidemics it propagated, the revolts and massacres of which it was the consequence.
Although the Africans removed to the New "World must be reckoned by many millions, the coloured population, consisting almost exclusively of men, increased very slowly on the plantations. In the present century, however, the equilibrium of the sexes has at least been established amongst the exiled race. ”

“ The ancients asserted that the Nile had its source in the "Mountains of the Moon," and it is noteworthy that the southernmost affluents of the lacustrine system whence it escapes were met by Speke in the "Land of the Moon." But amongst these affluents is there one copious and large enough to be regarded as the main upper stream? This "head of the Nile" is still being sought, and as in the time of Lucan, no one can yet boast of having seen the farthest source of the Nile. ”

“ The Niger in fact belongs to a region wholly different from that of the Nile in the form and disposition of its plateaux. On the other side of the hills where it takes its rise, the Congo, Rio Grande, Gambia, and several other streams flow to independent estuaries on the west coast, while farther north the Senegal, rising on the same slope as the Niger, sweeps round the hills, forcing its way to the Atlantic through a series of rocky gorges and rapids. ”

“ Most of these streams have a very gentle incline, the most rapid being those that take their rise in the mountains near lake Albert Nyanza. Some have their source altogether in the plains, offering an almost imperceptible transition to the basin of the Congo. In their lower course the Rol, Diur, and some others have too slight a fall to scour their beds of the vegetation constantly accumulating. The consequence is that, like the Nile, they overflow their banks, during the floods converting the whole country for some thousiinds of square miles into an impassable morass. ”

“ The greatest obstacle to the development of Africa is caused by the tsetse (glossina morsitants) , a simple fly, whose bite is fatal to horses, camels, oxen, and dogs, although harmless to man, the calf, goat, and wild beasts. This destructive insect, which is supposed, rightly or wrongly, to infuse anthrax virus into its victims, is very common in certain districts of South and Central Africa, but does not extend farther north than the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Senaar, and is unknown in the north-west. ”

“ It frequently sends down a greater volume than the main stream, whose waters during the floods are stemmed and driven back by its current. To judge from its whitish fluid contents, in which the blackish Nile water disappears, the Sobat has the best claim to the title of Bahr-el-Abiad, or "White River." Some of its affluents rise on the low-lying plains stretching east of the Nile; but the most important has its source much farther east, in the upland valleys of the Ghesha range, which forms the water-parting between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean basins. ”

“ To Africa the expression "Dark Continent" is frequently applied, as if all its inhabitants were Negroes properly so called, analogous in type to the maritime populations in the west equatorial region. The term Beled-es-Sudan, or "Black Land," would thus be extended to the whole continent. But the true Negroes, although perhaps forming a majority of the inhabitants, occupy less than Half of the land. The regions to the north, east, and south belong to tribes and peoples of diverse physical appearance, and grouped in distinct races or sub-races. ”

“ Several of the maladies common in Europe are unknown, or at least very rare, in Africa. Cancer, croup, dental caries, typhoid and marsh fevers, seldom attack the Negro, who on the other hand suffers more from bilious and cutaneous disorders. Tetanus also is much dreaded by them, and the least change of climate exposes them to pulmonary affections. Where the whites and blacks live side by side on the same plantations, the former fall victims to yellow fever, the latter to cholera. ”

“ For several miles from the shore its dark grey stream continues to flow in a separate channel without intermingling with the blue waters of the lake.
The natives have a great veneration for their river, and one of the titles they give it seems to justify the hypothesis that it is really the main headstream of the Nile. According to Stanley they call it the "mother" of the "Stony Current," that is, of the emissary of Lake Nyanza in Uganda. At its north-west angle the lake is joined by the Kalonga, another copious river rising in the west in the neighbourhood of Lake Mwutan-Nzigé. ”