Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume VIII, No. 5 [‎43r] (88/154)

RAILWAYS IN AFRICA.
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become. There appears, in fact, to have been a number of waves of advancing
civilization, each one pressing the one in front of it towards these inhospitable
forest belts. Near the coast the lowest type of negro is, generally speaking,
to be found; then, as the more open country is reached, higher types of negroes
are encountered—for example, the Mandingoes of the Senegal region are distinctly
higher than the Jolas inhabiting the mouths of the Gambia; and the Hausas
of the Sokoto empire are vastly superior to the cannibals of the Oil rivers. In
both these cases the higher types are probably not pure negroes, but have Fulah,
Berber, or Arab blood in their veins; for we see, in the case of the Fulahs, how
they become absorbed into the race they are conquering. Near the Senegal river
they are comparatively light in colour, but in Adamawa they are hardly to be dis
tinguished by their features from the negroes they despise. Thus the process
appears to have been a double one; the higher race driving some of the lower
aboriginal tribes before them out of the better lands, and, at the same time, raising
other tribes by means of an admixture of better blood. These waves of advancing
civilization seem to have advanced from the north and east, for the more we pene
trate in these directions, the higher is the type of inhabitant met with, until at
last we reach the pure Berbers and the pure Arabs. Thus there are two civilizing
influences visible in this part of Africa; one coming from the north and east—a
Mohammedan advance—which keeps beating up against this forest belt and occa
sionally breaking into it; the other, a Christian movement, which, until the
middle of this century, was brought to a dead halt by this same obstacle. The
map of Africa, showing the state of geographical knowledge in 1815, makes it clear
that, except in a few cases where rivers helped travellers through these malarial
regions, nothing was known about the interior. No doubt much has been done
since those days, but this barrier still remains the great impediment to progress from
the West Coast; and those-who desire our influence to spread more effectively
into the interior must wish to see some means of overcoming this obstacle. On
the East Coast of Africa the conditions are somewhat different, as there is com
paratively little dense forest there; but the districts near that coast are also
usually unhealthy, and howto cross those malarial regions quickly into the healthy
or less unhealthy interior is the most important problem connected with the
development of tropical Africa.
Other influences have been at work, no doubt, in checking our progress from
the West Coast. In old days, the European possessions in these districts were
mere depots for the export of slaves. As the white residents could not hope to
compete with the natives in the actual work of catching these unfortunate creatures,
and as the lower the type the more easily were they caught, as a rule, there was
no reason whatever for attempting to penetrate into the interior, where the higher
types are met with. But, though this export trade in human beings is now no
longer an impediment to progress, the slave trade in the interior still helps to bar
the way. When the forest belt is passed, we now come, generally speaking, to the
line of demarcation between the Mohammedan and the pagan tribes, and here
slave-catching is generally rife; when it is so, the constant raids of the Moham
medan chiefs keep these border districts in a state of unrest, which in every way
tends to impede progress. Thus a mere advance to the higher inland regions will
not by any means solve all our difficulties, but it will greatly lessen them ; and it
is universally admitted that the more communication with the interior is facilitated,
the more easy will it be to suppress this terrible traffic in human beings. By the
General Act of the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference of 1890-91, it was agreed by
the assembled delegates that the construction of roads, and, in particular, of rail
ways, connecting the advanced stations with the coast, and permitting easy access