practically every budding center of culture at the mercy of barbarism,
sweeping a thousand miles, with no Alps or Himalayas or Appalachians to
hinder.

With this peculiarly uninviting coast line and the difficulties in
interior segregation must be considered the climate of Africa. While there
is much diversity and many salubrious tracts along with vast barren
wastes, yet, as Sir Harry Johnston well remarks, "Africa is the chief
stronghold of the real Devil--the reactionary forces of Nature hostile to
the uprise of Humanity. Here Beelzebub, King of the Flies, marshals his
vermiform and arthropod hosts--insects, ticks, and nematode worms--which
more than in other continents (excepting Negroid Asia) convey to the skin,
veins, intestines, and spinal marrow of men and other vertebrates the
microorganisms which cause deadly, disfiguring, or debilitating diseases,
or themselves create the morbid condition of the persecuted human being,
beasts, bird, reptile, frog, or fish."[2] The inhabitants of this land
have had a sheer fight for physical survival comparable with that in no
other great continent, and this must not be forgotten when we consider
their history.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Von Luschan: in _Inter-Racial Problems_, p. 16.

[2] Johnston: _Negro in the New World_, pp. 14-15.




II THE COMING OF BLACK MEN