IV.

THE HEART-DISEASE OF AFRICA.

ITS PATHOLOGY AND CURE.

The life of the native African is not all idyll. It is darkened by a tragedy whose terrors are unknown to any other people under heaven. Of its mild domestic slavery I do not speak, nor of its revolting witchcraft, nor of its endless 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 a hell. It seems the awful destiny of this homeless people to spend their lives in breaking up the homes of others. Wherever they go in Africa the followers of Islam are the destroyers of peace, the breakers up of the patriarchal life, the dissolvers of the family tie. Already 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.

Arab encampments for carrying on a wholesale trade in this terrible commodity are now established all over the heart of Africa. They are usually connected with wealthy Arab traders at Zanzibar and other places on the coast, and communication is kept up by caravans which pass, at long intervals, from one to the other. Being always large and well supplied with the material of war, these caravans have at their mercy the feeble and divided native tribes through which they pass, and their trail across the Continent is darkened with every aggravation of tyranny and crime. They come upon the scene suddenly; they stay only long enough to secure their end, and disappear only to return when a new crop has arisen which is worth the reaping.

Sometimes these Arab traders will actually settle for a year or two in the heart of some quiet community in the remote interior. They pretend perfect friendship; they molest no one; they barter honestly. They plant the seeds of their favorite vegetables and fruits--the Arab always carries seeds with him--as if they meant to stay for ever. Meantime they buy ivory, tusk after tusk, until great piles of it are buried beneath their huts and all their barter-goods are gone. Then one day, suddenly, the inevitable quarrel is picked. And then follows a wholesale massacre. Enough only are spared from the slaughter to carry the ivory to the coast; the grass-huts of the villages are set on fire; the Arabs strike camp; and the slave-march, worse than death, begins.

This last act in the drama, the 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 demoralization and disintegration of communities by which it is necessarily preceded. It is essential to the traffic that the region drained by the slaver should be kept in perpetual political ferment; that, in order to prevent combination, chief should be pitted against chief; and that the moment any tribe threatened to assume a dominating strength it should either be broken up by the instigation of rebellion among its dependencies, or made a tool of at their expense. The inter-relation of tribe with tribe is so intricate that it is impossible to exaggerate the effect of disturbing the equilibrium at even a single centre. But, like a river, a slave-caravan has to be fed by innumerable tributaries all along its course--at first in order to gather a sufficient volume of human bodies for the start, and afterwards to replace the frightful loss by desertion, disablement, and death.

Many at home imagine that the death-knell of slavery was struck with the events which followed the death of Livingstone. In the great explorer's time we heard much of slavery; we were often appealed to; the Government busied itself; something was really done. But the wail is already forgotten, and England hears little now of the open sore of the world. But the tragedy I have alluded to is repeated every year and every month--witness such recent atrocities as those of the Upper Congo, the Kassai and Sankaru region described by Wissmann, of the Welle-Inakua district referred to by Van Gele. It was but yesterday that an explorer, crossing from Lake Nyassa to Lake Tanganyika, saw the whole southern end of Tanganyika peopled with large and prosperous villages. The next to follow him found not a solitary human being--nothing but burned homes and bleaching skeletons. It was but yesterday--the close of 1887--that the Arabs at the north end of Lake Nyassa, after destroying fourteen villages with many of their inhabitants, pursued the population of one village into a patch of tall dry grass, set it on fire, surrounded it, and slew with the bullet and the spear those who crawled out from the more merciful flames. The Wa-Nkonde tribe, to which these people belonged, were, until this event, one of the most prosperous tribes in East Central Africa. They occupied a country of exceptional fertility and beauty. Three rivers, which never failed in the severest drought, run through their territory, and their crops were the richest and most varied in the country. They possessed herds of cattle and goats; they fished in the lake with nets; they wrought iron into many-patterned spearheads with exceptional ingenuity and skill; and that even artistic taste had begun to develop among them was evident from the ornamental work upon their huts, which were themselves unique in Africa for clever construction and beauty of design. This people, in short, by their own inherent ability and the natural resources of their country, were on the high road to civilization. Now, mark the swift stages in their decline and fall. Years ago an almost unnoticed rill from that great Arab stream, which with noiseless current and ever-changing bed has never ceased to flow through Africa, trickled into the country. At first the Arab was there on sufferance; he paid his way. Land was bought from the Wa-Nkonde chiefs, and their sovereignty acknowledged. The Arab force grew. In time it developed into a powerful incursion, and the Arabs began openly to assert themselves. One of their own number was elevated to the rulership, with the title of "Sultan of Nkonde." The tension became great, and finally too severe to last. After innumerable petty fights the final catastrophe was hurried on, and after an atrocious carnage the remnant of the Wa-Nkonde were driven from their fatherland. Such is the very last chapter in the history of Arab rule in Africa.

The Germans, the Belgians, the English, and the Portuguese, are crying out at present for territory in Central Africa. Meantime humanity is crying out for some one to administer the country; for some one to claim it, not by delimiting a frontier-line upon a map with colored crayons, but by seeing justice done upon the spot; for some one with a strong arm and a pitiful heart to break the Arab yoke and keep these unprotected children free. It has been reserved for a small company of English gentlemen to arrest the hand of the raider in the episode I have just described. While Germany covets Nyassa-land, while Portugal claims it, while England has sent a consul there, without protection, to safeguard British missionary and trading interests, two agents of the African Lakes Company, two missionaries, the British Consul at Mozambique, with two companions who happened to be in Nyassa-land on scientific work, have, at the risk of their lives, averted further war, and with their own rifles avenged the crime.

But this fortuitous concourse of English rifles cannot be reckoned upon every day; nor is it the part of the missionary and the trader to play the game of war. The one thing needed for Africa at present is some system of organized protection to the native, and the decisive breaking of the Arab influence throughout the whole interior. These events at Lake Nyassa have brought this subject once more before the civilized world, and I may briefly state the situation as it at present stands.

Five years ago the British cruisers which had been for years engaged in suppressing the slave-trade were tempted to relax their efforts. They had done splendid service. The very sight of the great hull of the _London_, as she rocked in the harbor of Zanzibar, had a pacific influence; and as the caravans from the interior came and went at intervals of years and found the cruiser's cannon still pointing to their sultan's palace, they carried the fear of England over the length and breadth of Africa. The slave-trade was seriously discouraged, and, so far as the coast traffic was concerned, it was all but completely arrested. What work, up to this point, was done, was well done; but, after all, only half the task had ever been attempted. It was not enough to stop the sewer at its mouth; its sources in the heart of Africa should have been sought out and purified. But now that even the menace at Zanzibar no longer threatened the slavers, their work was resumed with redoubled energy. The withdrawal of the _London_ was interpreted to mean either that England conceived her work to be done or that she had grown apathetic and would interfere no more.

The consequences were almost immediately disastrous. A new license to devastate, to murder, and to enslave, was telegraphed all over Africa, and speedily found expression, in widely separated parts of the country, in horrors the details of which can never be known to the civilized world. The disturbances on Lake Nyassa undoubtedly belong, though indirectly, to this new category of crime. Already the Arabs have learned that there is no one now to take them to task. In one district after another they have played their game and won; and with ample power, with absolute immunity from retribution, and with the sudden creation of a new demand for slaves in a quarter of which I dare not speak further here, their offenses can only increase in number and audacity. It is remarkable in the Wa-Nkonde episode that, for the first time probably in Central Africa, the Mohammedan defiance to the Christian power was open and undisguised. Hitherto the Arab worked in secret. The mere presence of a white man in the country was sufficient to stay his hand. On this occasion the Arab not only did not conceal his doings from the Europeans, nor flee when he was remonstrated with, but turned and attacked his monitors. The political significance of this is plain. It is part of a policy. It is a challenge to Europe from the whole Mohammedan power. Europe in Africa is divided; Mohammedanism is one. No isolated band of Arabs would have ventured upon such a line of action unless they were perfectly sure of their ground. Nor is there any reason why they should not be sure of their ground. Europe is talking much about Africa; it is doing nothing. This the Arab has discerned. It is one of the most astounding facts in morals that England should have kept the Arab at bay so long. But the time of probation is over. And the plain issue is now before the world--Is the Arab or the European henceforth to reign in Africa?

How the European could reign in Africa is a simple problem. The real difficulty is as to who in Europe will do it. Africa is claimed by everybody, and it belongs to nobody. So far as the Nyassa region is concerned, while the Portuguese assert their right to the south and west, scarcely one of them has ever set foot in it: and while the Germans claim the north and east, their pretension is based neither upon right of discovery, right of treaty, right of purchase, right of conquest, nor right of possession, but on the cool audacity of some chartographer in Berlin, who, in delineating a tract of country recognized as German by the London Convention of 1886, allowed his paint-brush to color some tens of thousands of square miles beyond the latitude assigned. To England it is a small matter politically who gets Africa. But it is of moment that those who secure the glory of annexation should not evade the duty of administration. The present condition of Africa is too critical to permit so wholesale a system of absentee landlordism; and it is the duty of England, so far at least as the Nyassa region is concerned, to insist on the various claimants either being true to their assumed responsibilities or abandoning a nominal sovereignty.

It is well known,--it is certain,--that neither Portugal nor Germany will ever administer this region. If they would, the problem would be solved, and England would gladly welcome the release; the release, for, although England has never aided this country with a force of arms, she has for some time known that in some way, direct or indirect, she ought to do it. This country is, in a special sense, the _protégé_ of England. Since Livingstone's death the burden of it has never really left her conscience. The past relation of England to Nyassa-land, and her duty now, will be apparent from the following simple facts:--

Lake Nyassa was discovered by David Livingstone. At that time he was acting as Her Majesty's Consul, and was sent to Africa with a Government Expedition, which was equipped not to perform an exceptional and romantic piece of work, but in accordance with a settled policy on the part of England. "The main object of the Zambesi Expedition," says Livingstone, "as our instructions from Her Majesty's Government explicitly stated, was to extend the knowledge already attained of the geography, and mineral and agricultural resources, of Eastern and Central Africa; to improve our acquaintance with the inhabitants, and to endeavor to engage them to apply themselves to industrial pursuits, and to the cultivation of their lands, with a view to the production of raw material to be exported to England in return for British manufactures; and it was hoped that, by encouraging the natives to occupy themselves in the development of the resources of the country, a considerable advance might be made towards the extinction of the slave-trade, as they would not be long in discovering that the former would eventually be a more certain source of profit than the latter. The Expedition was sent _in accordance with the settled policy of the English Government_; and the Earl of Clarendon being then at the head of the Foreign Office, the Mission was organized under his immediate care. When a change of Government ensued we experienced the same generous countenance and sympathy from the Earl of Malmesbury as we had previously received from Lord Clarendon; and on the accession of Earl Russell to the high office he has so long filled we were always favored with equally ready attention and the same prompt assistance. Thus _the conviction was produced that our work embodied the principles not of any one party, but of the hearts of the statesmen and of the people of England generally._"

Encouraged by this national interest in Africa, the churches of England and Scotland attempted to follow up the work of Livingstone in one at least of its aspects, by sending missionaries into the country. These have already succeeded in establishing themselves in one district after another, and are daily extending in numbers and influence.

In order to perpetuate a scarcely less important branch of the movement initiated by Livingstone,--a department specially sanctioned, as the above extract shows, by the English Government--the African Lakes Company was formed in 1878. Its object was to open up and develop the regions of East Central Africa from the Zambesi to Tanganyika; to make employments for the native peoples, to trade with them honestly, to keep out rum, and, so far as possible, gunpowder and firearms, and to co-operate and strengthen the hands of the missionary. It has already established twelve trading stations, manned by a staff of twenty-five Europeans and many native agents. The _Ilala_ on Lake Nyassa belongs to it; and it has just placed a new steamer to supersede the _Lady Nyassa_ on the river Shiré. It has succeeded in starting a flourishing coffee plantation in the interior, and new sources of wealth are being gradually introduced. For the first time, on the large scale, it has taught the natives the meaning and the blessings of work. It has acted, to some extent, as a check upon the slave-trade; it has prevented inter-tribal strife, and helped to protect the missionaries in time of war. The African Lakes Company, in short, modest as is the scale on which it works, and, necessarily limited as are its opportunities, has been for years the sole administering hand in this part of Africa. This Company does not exist for gain;--or exists for gain only in the sense that commercial soundness is the only solid basis on which to build up an institution which can permanently benefit others. A large amount of private capital has been expended by this Company; yet, during all the years it has carried on its noble enterprise, it has re-invested in Africa all that it has taken from it.

All this British capital, all the capital of the Missions, all these various and not inconsiderable agencies, have been tempted into Africa largely in the hope that the old policy of England would not only be continued but extended. England has never in theory departed from the position she assumed in the days of the Zambesi Expedition. On the contrary, she has distinctly recognized the relation between her Government and Africa. She has continued to send out British Consuls to be the successors of Livingstone in the Nyassa region. When the first of these, Captain Foote, R.N., died in the Shiré Highlands in 1884, the English Government immediately sent another to take his place. But this is the last thing that has been done. The Consul is there as a protest that England has still her eye on Africa. But Africa needs more than an eye. And when, as happened the other day, one of Her Majesty's representatives was under Arab fire for five days and nights on the shores of Lake Nyassa, this was brought home to us in such practical fashion as to lead to the hope that some practical measures will now be taken.

I do not presume to bring forward a formal proposal; but two things occur to one as feasible, and I shall simply name them. The first is for England, or Germany, or France, or some one with power and earnestness, to take a firm and uncompromising stand at Zanzibar. Zanzibar, as the Arab capital, is one of the keys of the situation, and any lesson taught here would be learned presently by the whole Mohammedan following in the country.

The other key to the situation is the vast and splendid water-way in the heart of Africa--the Upper Shiré, Lake Nyassa, Lake Tanganyika, and the Great Lakes generally. As a base for military or patrol operations nothing better could be desired than these great inland seas. A small steamer upon each of them--or, to begin with, upon Nyassa and Tanganyika--with an associated depôt or two of armed men on the higher and healthier plateaux which surround them, would keep the whole country quiet. Only a trifling force of well-drilled men would be needed for this purpose. They might be whites, or blacks and whites; they might be Sikhs or Pathans from India; and the expense is not to be named considering the magnitude of the results--the pacification of the entire equatorial region--that would be achieved. That expense could be borne by the Missions, but it is not their province to employ the use of force; it could be borne by the Lakes Company, only they deserve protection from others rather than that this should be added to the large debt civilization already owes them; it could be done by the Free Congo State,--and if no one else is shamed into doing it, this further labor of love may fall into its hands. But whether alone, or in co-operation with the few and overburdened capitalists of the country, or in conjunction with foreign powers, England will be looked to to take the initiative with this or a similar scheme.

The barriers in the way of Government action are only two, and neither is insurmountable. The one is Portugal, which owns the approaches to the country; the other is Germany, which has inland interests of her own. Whether England could proceed in the face of these two powers would simply depend on how it was done. As a mere political move such an occupation of the interior might at once excite alarm and jealousy. But wearing the aspect of a serious mission for the good of Africa, instigated not by the Foreign Office but by the people of England, it is impossible to believe that the step could either be misunderstood or opposed. It is time the nations looked upon Africa as something more than a chess-board. And even if it were but a chess-board, the players on every hand are wise enough to know that whatever is honestly done to relieve this suffering continent will react in a hundred ways upon the interests of all who hold territorial rights within it.

A beginning once made, one might not be unduly sanguine in anticipating that the meshes of a pacific and civilizing influence would rapidly spread throughout the country. Already the missionaries are pioneering everywhere, prepared to slay and do their part; and asking no more from the rest of the world than a reasonable guarantee that they should be allowed to live. Already the trading companies are there, from every nationality, and in every direction ready to open up the country, but unable to go on with any confidence or enthusiasm till their isolated interests are linked together and secured in the presence of a common foe. The territories of the various colonies are slowly converging upon the heart of Africa, and to unite them in an informal defensive alliance would not be impossible. With Emin Pasha occupying the field in the north; with the African Lakes Company, the British East African Association, and the German Association, in the east; with the Congo Free State in the west, and British Bechuanaland in the south, a cordon is already thrown around the Great Lakes region, which requires only to have its several parts connected with one another and with central forces on the Lakes, to secure the peace of Africa.