The Prospective Civilization of Africa [pp. 171-191]

- THE PRINCE 7'ON ARE VIE kV.
which has been scooped in the desert by the action of the Nile,
the sea of sand which stretches across the whole of Africa from
west to east offers a barrier to intercourse that is only with
extreme difficulty surmountable. A few travellers of great
physical vigor and indomitable courage, like Lyon, Mungo Park,
and Barth, have made their way across by Fezzan and Tebu, or
by Tawat and Mabruk, and have reached the fertile region that
lies south of the desert in the vicinity of Lake Tchad or of Timbuctoo. Small caravans of natives occasionally also effect the
passage; but the absence of all rivers and streams between lat.
300 and lat. 18~, and the scantiness of the supply procurable
from wells, renders the Sahara for commercial purposes almost
impervious. As the main seats of African culture have always
lain along the Mediterranean coast, the effect of this barrier in
checking the progress of African civilization has been great. In
ancient times the Sahara was viewed as impenetrable; and tho
Mahometan civilization, such as it is, has crossed it, and established Mussulman communities in the tropical region between
the Upper Niger and Darfur, yet the difficulties of the communication with the coast tract are such as to keep the inland states
in an unprogressive and semi-barbarous condition. Towards the
east, where the Nile valley furnishes a safe and well-watered
route, the course of the river is so circuitous that travellers, and
even caravans, generally prefer to it the passage through the
Nubian desert from Koranko to Abu Hamed-which is "a wilderness of scorching sand and. glowing basalt rocks" and which
cannot but constitute a great hindrance to regular and frequent
communication. Altogether, it must be said that the south is
in a great measure cut off from the north, and that the civilizing
influences which are to penetrate to the far interior must reach it
mainly from the western, southern, and eastern coasts-from the
shores of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.
II. Another distinct head of impediment to African civilization is to be found in the CLIMATIC CONDITIONS. Africa lies
well upon the equator, and more than three fourths of its area
is included within the limits of the tropics. Low lands thus
situated are notoriously unhealthy; and the coast tracts of
tropical Africa, being but slightly raised above the level of the
sea, are about as pestilential as any regions of the known world,
176