Page:The future of Africa.djvu/119

Rh turous spirits are starting off from every civilized land for Africa; anxious to dissipate the spell, which for centuries has divorced her crowded populations from the world's brotherhood and enlightenment; and eager to guarantee them the advantages of culture, which, during the ages, has raised them from rudeness and degradation, and carried them up to the heights of grace and refinement. Fifty years ago Africa was but little better known than it was in the days of Herodotus. Even the adventures of Bruce were regarded as splendid fictions; and he himself was often refused the courtesies due of society, from the supposed mendacity of his narrative. But the travels of Park and Clapperton, of Ledyard and the Landers, of Richardson and Barth, of Kraft and Livingston; have rectified the geographical errors which existed concerning the Nile and its several branches; have unfolded to the greedy gaze of commerce a vast interior route for trade and barter, by the river Niger, more than rivalling your own Mississippi, in its tropical richness and untouched luxuriant resources;—have modified the degrading prejudices concerning the negro, by contrasting him as free, dignified, powerful, and ingenious, in his native superiority, with the miserable caricature of him, shorn of bis manhood, ludicrous, and benighted, in chains and slavery; and have led to the discovery of superior peoples, mighty nations, vast kingdoms, and populous cities with from 50 to 100,000 inhabitants in the interior, subject to law and authority, given to enterprise, and engaged in manufactures, agriculture, and extensive commerce.