Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-05-26
CIVIL RIGHT. AT HOWE.

1
and Adventures in the UNEMPLOYED Regions OF
| Central Africa, from 1865 to 1871. BY Dr.
George Schweinfurth. Translated BY Ellen
Z. Frewer, with an Introduction by WinEood
Reade In two volumes, with Maps and Wood
cut Illustrations New York. Harper y
EBrothers, Publishers.
Worthily did the Humboldt Institu-
ton, in connection with the Royal
Academy of Science of Berlin, furnish
funds to enable DIR. Schweinfurth to
spend three years In the heart of At
RIGA, near the equator and west of the
Nile, to study its plants, animals, peo-
| pie, geological, geographical and other
peculiarities. The Doctor had before
spent some years in Africa, south of
the Nubian desert, and made a
valuable botanical collection. He
was master of the Arabic and other
languages used on the White Nile, and
knew before he started on his second
enterprise what he needed to command
success. The marshes, swamps, lakes,
and lagoons OF the Upper Nile, under a
tropical sun. are perhaps the most ma
larious and sickiy region in the world,
and how a man, born and reared In
Central Europe, could botanic for
years, wading much in the water like a
duck, and spending perhaps third of
his time In canoe, and not meet the
fate of DIR. Livingstone, is question Of
fact interesting in its relations to the
public health, and to medical science.
DR.. Schweinfurth took from six to eight
grains of outline day in several doses,
which prevented the growth of fever
germs. Strictly temperate in all things
he may live to the age of Humboldt,
and, as he is only thirty-eight years
old, successfully explore other parts of
the great continent inhabited by can't
balls, lions and elephants.
In describing the people of MAN.
MAN, some four or FIVE degrees north
of the equator and west of the Nile,
the author says: mo niutilation of
the body is practiced by either sex, but
this remark must be subject to the one
exception that they fall in with the
custom, common to the whole of Gen.
trail Africa, of filing the incisor teeth
to point, for the purpose of effectu.
ally gripping the arm of an ad-
versary in wrestling, or In sin
gle combat" Human fat Is uni
versally sold among these people"
They have stakes driven into the
groand near their huts for the exhibit
ton of their trophies, with the skulls
of the men whom they have devouted."
These are large tribes of negroes who
raise cattle, but never kill beast for
food; such as die a natural death are
eaten. In time Of war, which may be
called the normal condition of Afri-
can society, enemies are eaten. no mat
ter how they die, unless affected by a
lothsome cutaneous disease. In times
of scarcity, old men and women and
some times children of near kin, are
claim for food. There are few wild
beasts of prey, if any, that SO readily
devour their own species for sustenance,
and none that file their teeth to bite
the sharper.
We have not found word in either
volume of this most interesting work
about the origin of man. The author
gives his readers plain facts from
which intelligent minds may draw their
own conclusions. To get at facts DIR.
Schweinfurth said to the natives:
Bring your weapons, and the produce
of your handicraft, your ornaments and
tools, and 1 will give you beautiful
things in RETURNS bring the fruits of
your forests, and the leaves of the trees
on which they grow; bring the skins
and skulls of animals; but above all |
bring the human skulls that remain |
over from your meals; they are of no
use to you-bring them and 1 will give |
you copper in exchange" Out of 200
skulls that were produced, 40 were Sc
lected and sent to Europe.
Within three hundred miles Of each |
other, nature has, apparently, develop |
ed human tribes, the one as large as the
Patigonian giants, and the other Pyg-
mics the most remarkable of which |
history gives any account. Surely
Nature delights in an infinite variety
In all that lives, whether plant or ami
NAL. The profound and accurate
science of DR.. Schweinfurth, his sim
plicity of statement, his sef-denial in
the matter of theorizing and his OBJ
vious desire to reach, if possible, the
exact truth, will place his volumes
among the classics of this age. All
is to be condemned as
deceptive and injurious.
Africa is land of wonders and
of excuses, where extremes meet.
1t is almost inconceivable how the same
climate and soil should be the birth
place of vast herds of elephants,
shaking the earth with their heavy
tread, and of the smallest specimens of
humanity that can be found on this
planet. How came evolution 50 weak
in the biped, and SO powerful in the
guardruped?
The facts disclosed for the first time
IN this work are exceedingly suggestive
as well as instructive. When the Vice
roy of Egypt gets his railway across
the Nubian Desert completed, and
travellers learn better how to kill all
niasmatic germs, and prevent both
cholera and fevers, Africa will be fully
explored, and its resources developed.
In some places it now supports a
population of 600 to the square mile.
4 r i