of men to perpetual desolation and drought, have been shown to hold
vast inland seas, deep navigable rivers, and to be teeming with
animal life, populous with men and faithful of all the products
of tropical luxuriance. So Africa begins to be known; by-and-by it
will be opened up, made ready, we think, to link its history with
a people on the other side of the ocean.

Leaving the point as proved, that the blacks are to remain, at least
for an indefinite period in this country, (we do not say that it
will be forever, but of this we shall speak in another place,) we
naturally ask whether there is anything in the African character
that is possible of future progress and elevation. We answer
unhesitatingly, there are natural characteristics which will in a
very marked and peculiar way be a means of their speedier rise.

It has been the misfortune, if so we may call it, of the African
continent and the African people, to present their worst and most
repulsive aspects first. This is the case with the country. The
coast to which the voyager comes, for the most part lies low, and
everywhere in its teeming bottoms disease and death are lurking. If
he escapes the one he never avoids the other. The "African Fever"
on the West coast is the certain welcome of the new comer, the only
question is whether he will survive it. The incidental mention which
the missionary traveller, Livingstone, makes of his thirty-seventh
attack of fever, and Du Chaillu of his fiftieth, and the exhaustion
of the last of fourteen ounces of quinine which he had taken on
his journey, are ominous of the inhospitable reception which the
country gives. But as soon as the traveller passes inland he comes
into an entirely different region. Towering mountains, snow-capped
and forest-crowned rise before him, and down through their passes