THE CONGO AND COASTS OF AFRICA


I

THE COASTERS


No matter how often one sets out, "for to admire, and for to see,
for to behold this world so wide," he never quite gets over being
surprised at the erratic manner in which "civilization" distributes
itself; at the way it ignores one spot upon the earth's surface, and
upon another, several thousand miles away, heaps its blessings and
its tyrannies. Having settled in a place one might suppose the
"influences of civilization" would first be felt by the people
nearest that place. Instead of which, a number of men go forth in a
ship and carry civilization as far away from that spot as the winds
will bear them.

When a stone falls in a pool each part of each ripple is equally
distant from the spot where the stone fell; but if the stone of
civilization were to have fallen, for instance, into New Orleans,
equally near to that spot we would find the people of New York City
and the naked Indians of Yucatan. Civilization does not radiate, or
diffuse. It leaps; and as to where it will next strike it is as
independent as forked lightning. During hundreds of years it passed
over the continent of Africa to settle only at its northern coast
line and its most southern cape; and, to-day, it has given Cuba all