The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-02
PART w.


 PART W. -----~-
 It is not commonly thought that the na- tive African does much work in his own land. But 1t is fact that the negro Is essentially a laboring man even in his aboriginal, condition. To be sure. most of the common menial tasks are performed by women. They till the soil, raising maize, rice, peas, beans, sorghum. sugar. cane, millet plantains. potatoes, yarns, cassava, onions, tomatoes, etc., attending to every part of the work from the plant Ing to placing the food in the earthen pot in which 1t Is eaten. The only part of agricultural labor borne by the men is the clearing off of the land and setting tre to the grass or brush. The women also gather the firewood, bring the water, attend to the goats. fowls. sheep and pigs. and watch the children. But the men have their work to do also. They make the houses, gathering the materials from the woods. and sometimes, exhibiting marked skin In their construction. Once I needed a house for one of my principal workmen. As did not wish to be troubled with the work, made 6 contract with the eldest son of Ndombe, whose name was Mianye. He agreed to build the house about twenty-four yardss He called to- gether a number of h.s young companions and slaves. and they all repaired to the woods where they secured quantity of palm leaves, rattan, and fibre. Then they returned, and Mianye laid of the house so that 1t faced exactly north, taking an observation of the shadow of stick just before sunset in order to deter mine the points of the compass. Then he constructed a square on the ground by using three sticks, two of which were of the same length, and the third making the hypothenuse of the right angled tri- angle fromed by the three. He placed this triangle on each side of the semi-square of the ground plot of the house, obtained the point for each of his four corner posts, and then was ready for erection. The next day these boys put up the house, finishing off the gables in elabo- rate geometrical designs. and tying the whole together so well with the rattan that 1t resisted the fury of the tropical storms as long as lived there.
 Besides building houses, the men are quite expert at metallurgy of a primitive kind. They secure the iron or copper ore which is so plentiful in that region reduce 1t in small clay furnaces, and distribute the pig iron or copper among the many blacksmiths. The smith ss a most import ant functionary in the social state of the African. He ranks next to the chief Strangely enough the commonest name in Africa Is Kassongo, which means Smith, These native blacksmiths have little sim pie forges, with bellows ingeniously con- trived with sheepslSin and wooden bowls, a stone for an anvil. and with charcoal, palm oil, water, sand, and clay cruci- bles as accessories. With these they make arrow-heads, knives, battleaxes, hoes, hatchets, spear-heads, needles. rings and various ornaments.
 The men do nearly all the cloth making They have primitive looms. on which the fibre of the palm is made into rough cloth of exceeding strength. Another task of the men is to do all of the sewing and needle work, including fancy em- broidery. The ladies of the missions in Africa were surprised to find that the boys learned to sew so much mere read ily and satisfactorily than the girls. This was because the needle is regarded as a mans implement. The men also do much wood carving. transact most of the native commercial operations, which are fre- uuently considerable, do all the hunting and most of the fishing, all of which is regarded as work-gnd 1t certainly is-and of course are the medicine men and at- tend to all governmental duties, with rare executions. So the aboriginal Afri- can may clanm to live more by work than in any other way. Of course, he does not work with either the intensity or the per- -sistence of the more highly developed races, but he lives by labor just the same.
 As to the relative efficiency of this work, 1t Is of course not on par with that Of the European or Asiatic. Among the five races of mankind, he ranks third in ef- dciency as a laborer. He is above the Indian, because he will work, and above the nomadic desert tribes, because he has
 settlements in which his life has devel- oped from point to point in the general
 evolution of the race.
 The peculiar fact about the African
 which gives him more than ordinary inn portance at this time in the history of | the world is that he Is specially adapted
 to work in the tropical parts of the earth. His dark skin absorbs light and heat, and
 so renders him less sensitive to the great | temperatures of the torrid zones. I have \ been amazed at the utter indifference of | the aborigines of the countries explored | to the heat of the sun. Often I have seen | them stretched out at full length under the blazing midday sun. with no covering
 at all, when the thermometer registered | no, and the white man dared not show
 his face out of doors at all. They will
 march all day long under that sun, will
 work at their tasks without intermission and they wear no head-gear at all. IT
 this respect they are the hardest people
 on earth. When the Belgians began tc
 build the Kongo Railway, they at first
 imported large numbers of Chinese coo
 lies. These all died out in a few months
 and the Belgians were obliged to com
 plete the work with native African labol
 which they found ultimately the most ef
 fcient of all the heterogeneous classes oi
 workmen they had gathered together.
 l It Is only when we realize the full i'm
 portance of the tropics to the rest of tho
 world that we can see clearly the respon'
 sible position occupied by the African tC
 the great issue of modern times.
 Sir William Crookes. the eminent Brit
 ish scientist, has shown that the time
 when the world is to be forced to draw or | the tropics for food Is already at hand
 The great agricultural belts of the tenn perate zones are already occupied by 6
 considerable population and one increas- ing at an enormous rate. It Is a strange 1 fact that nearly two-thirds of the inhabit
 able globe is occupied by less than one
 third of its population. The tropics con
 stitute by far the largest surface of the
 land of the world. but the other parts
 contain the bulk of the people. Thus the | teFnnarate parts are fast becoming too