Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-09-20
IN TROPICAL AFRICA.
weu-Deflned Paths In the Un-
mapped Continent
The Life of the Native African Darkened
by the Tragedies of the Slave
Trade-WOnderful Romance
of the White Ant.

world" says Prof. Henry Drum
mond, in his Tropical Africa"
"civilized or uncivilized, is better
supplied with paths than the up
mapped continent. Every village is
connected with some other village,
every tribe with the next tribe, every
State with its neighbor. and therefore
with all the rest. The explorers
business is simply to select from this
network of tracks, keep a general
direction, and hold on his way. Let
him begin at Zanzibar, plant his foot
on a native footpath, and set his face
toward Tanganyika. In eight months
he will be there. He has simply to
persevere. Nor is there any art in
finding out these successive villages
with their intercommunicating links.
He must find them out. A whole
army of guides, servants, carriers, SOL
diers and camp-follOwers accompany
him in his march, and this nondescript
regiment must be fed. Indian corn,
cassava, mawere. beans and bananas
these do not grow wild even in Africa.
Every meal has to be bought and paid
for in cloth and beads. The native
tracks are the same in character all
ever Africa. They are veritable foot
paths, never over a foot in breadth,
beaten as hard rs adamant, and rutted
beneath the level of the forest bed by
centuries of native traffic. As rule
the footpaths are marvelously direct"
1.-The life of the native African"
says Mr.. Drummond, is not all idyll.
1t is darkened by a tragedy whose ter
rors are unknown to any other people
Its revolving witchcraft and its end
less quarrels and frequent tribal wars
these minor evils are lost in the
shadow of a great and national wrong.
Among these simple and unprotected
tribes Arabs-uninvited strangers of
another race and nature-pour in from
the North and East with the deliberate
purpose of making this paradise hell.
1t sees the awful destiny OF this home
less people to spend their lives in
breaking up the homes of others. Al
ready they hold the whole continent
under one reign Of terror. They have
effected this in virtue of one thing
they possess firearms, and they do it
for one object-ivory and slaves, for
these two are one. The slaves are
needed to buy ivory with. then more
slaves have to be stolen to carry it. So
living man himself has become the
commercial currency of Africa. He is
locomotive, he is easily acquired, he is
Immediately negotiable.
1.-The last act in the dramatic
slave march-is the aspect of slavery
which in the past has chiefly aroused
the passions and the sympathy of the
outside world. but the greater evil is
the decentralization and the disintegra-
ton of communities by which it is
necessarily preceded. 1t is essential to
the traffic that the region drained by
the SLAYER should be kept in perpetual
political ferment; that, in order to pre-
vent combination, chief should be pit
ted against chief, and that the moment
any tribe threatened to assume DOM
mating strength it should either be
broken up by the instigation of rebel
lion among its dependencies or made q
tool of at their expense.
II do not presume to bring forward
formal proposal. but two things oc-
cur to me as feasible, and l shall
simply name them. The first, for
England. or Germany. or France. or
some one with power and earnestness.
to take a firm and uncomprornising
stand at Zanzibar. Zanzibar, as the
Arab capital Is one of the keys of the
situation, and a4Y lesson taught here
would be learned by the whole Ma
hommedan following in the country.
1.-The other key to the situation is
tho vast and splendid waterway in the
heart Of Afri.a-the Upper shire, Lake