Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1850-08-24
AFRICA.


WHAT wonderful continent is this round
ed, smooth-shored Africa, known from the
earliest dawn of time, yet so unknownj the
granary Of nations, yet sterile and fruitless
as the sea swarming with life, yet dazzling
the eyes with its vast tract of glitteriDg
sand North America, first seen but the
other day, has been probed from end to end
its gallant and restive Philips, Tecumsehs,
and Montezumas, have been bridled and
broken by the white man; but Africa has
seen no Cortez, or even De Soto or La
Sale, " wringing favor from fate" Some
solitary Mungo Park, or faithful Lander,
or persevering Burckhnrdt alone has tried to
read the secret of the mother Of civilization,
the grny-haired Africa.
| If we seek land of romance and myste-
ry, what quarter of the globe compares with
that which holds the pyramids; the giant
| Theban temples, one roof of which clusters
a modern yilluge the solemn hewn noun
tain cliff of sphinx; the ruins Of Carthage;
the Nile with its hidden sources; the Niger
with its unknown outlet; the hcaven-bearing
Atlas; the dimly-seen Mountain of'the Moon
There, reader, the slave rose romantically
to be the ruler of millions; there Moses,
floating in his cradle, is saved by u kings
daughter, and, like the hero of some eurller1
chivalry, breaks the bonds of his people, and
founds a new and mighty nation. There
was the home of Dido, of Hannibal, the
scene of Scipio's triumphs and Jugurtha's
crimes; there lived Tertullian, Athannsius,
and Augustine the romance of the Moors
dwelt there; the last breath Of Louis of
France was drawn there.
Africa is the home of the leviathan, the
behemo,h, the unicorn, the giraffe, the slight
antelope, the carth-shalSing elephant, the un-
accountable lion, the all-conquering buffalo.
il is tho home too of the mysterious negro
races, yet lying dormant in the germ, destin-
cd perhaps to rule this earth when our proud
Anglo-Saxon blood is as corrupt as that
of the descendants of Homer and Pericles.
The past, present, and future OF Africa
are alike wrapped in mystery. Who can
tell us of the childhood of dark-browed
| Egypt, squares -shouldcred and energetic p
Carthage, the England of the worlds rulers,
has not even romancing Livy, still less an
unwearied Niebuhr, TO explain her rise and
untangIe the mysteries of her constitution
OF all the vast interior, what do we know
more than the Punc merchants, who, like
us, dealt there, taking slaves, ivory, andgold
And what can we hope hereafter to see in
those immese, unknown lands? God has
enabled the European to drive the North
American, step by step, toward extinction,
and he has given great continent the full
development and trial of whatever perma-
nent power the Caucasian race possesses;
but Africa he has preserved-ior what P
For future contest? For an imported for
eign civilization, to be entered through Lii
berias and Cape Colonies? France and
Britain are watching each other now along
those burning sands, as they once watched by
the icy rocks Of Canada and Acadia; is il to
end in the same subjection of the aboriginal
owners to one or both of these? Or does
the dark race, in all its varieties, possess a
capacity for understanding, and living out
the deep meaning of the worlds ruler,
Christianity, as the offspring of the followers
of Odin never did, and never can, under
stand and actit?
If the old Egyptian Sesostris had paused
to contemplate the iliterate wanderers of
Greece, to whom Cadmus was just striving
to make known the letters of Phpnicia,
would not Plato and Aristotle have seemed
as impossible TO him as the existence in Af-
ricu of higher Christianity than has yet
been seen, seems TO us? Would the pres
ent position of the Teutonic race have ap-
pearcd equally incredible to the founder
Of the Parthenon, or the loungcrs in the gar
dens of the Academy ?-foreign Reuie,o.
| CHOLERA IN CuBA.--Much anxiety is
felt, and great degree of uncertainty ex-
! lists in regard to the progress of the cholera
in the interior of the island, and as TO its
probable effects upon the next and subse-
quent crops. This disease has not yet be-
come general, but it continues to spread in
various directions, and its rnvages, in many
cases, have been appalling! On several
estates the destruction of life among the ne
groes amunts 10 25 and 80 per cent, and in
some cases even 40 and so per cent. of the
whole number, and the most efficient are
generally the victims. Should the disease
difiuse itself throughout the island, the loss
of life among the slave operatives would, in
this ratio, probably not be short of 100000 to
! l25,000, Even at the present average rate
of mortality. on the estates, the esti-
antics as TO the ultimate destruction of
life among the negroes, in the event of the
epidemic becoming general throughout the
interior are not less than 20 or $4,000 The
period of the year is, unfortunately, not ta-
vorable for checking the malady. The la
borers carried off are an irreparable loss, be-
canse there is no source available OF present
from which they can be replaced. The loss
falls heavily on the production of sugar, be-
cause that branch has already absorbed the
available laborers previously employed IL
the culture of coffee, the yield OF which ar
iicle has been insignificant for several years