HRIS 113 I™'*' N OUTLINE STUDY O> i~ AFRICA .Jf?\. ).J - 1 1 ' \ /' '-kJ C J * DEC 8 1906 *' BV 3500 .P37 1906 Parsons, Ellen C, 1844- Christus liberator CHRISTUS LIBERATOR UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS. VIA CHRISTI. An Introduction to the Study of Missions. Louise Manning Hodgkins. LUX CHRISTI. An Outline Study of India. Caroline Atwater Mason. REX CHRISTUS. An Outline Study of China. Arthur H. Smith. DUX CHRISTUS. An Outline Study of Japan. William Elliot Griffis. CHRISTUS LIBERATOR. An Outline Study of Africa. Ellen C. Parsons. OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. CHRISTUS LIBERATOR AN OUTLINE STUDY OF AFRICA BY ELLEN C. PARSONS, M.A. INTKODUCTION BY SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, K.C.B. AUTHOB OF "BKITIBH CENTBAL AFEICA," ETC. WeiM gork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1906 All rights reserved COPTEIGHT, 3905, By the MACMILLAN COMPANT. Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1905. Reprinted January, April, 1906. PUBLISHED FOE THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS. J. 8. Cushing- &. Co. ~ Berwick «fe Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. STATEMENT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS Increasing interest in the United Study Series and con- tinued sales ol: the four volumes already issued assure a welcome for the fifth volume from an appreciative constitu- ency. Since the publication of the first of the series in 1901, the sales of "Via Christi : An Introduction to the " Study of Missions," of Lux Christi : An Outline Study of India," "Rex Cbristus : An Outline Study of China," and " Dux Christus : An Outline Study of Japan, " have amounted to a total of 19-4,000 copies. From the study of the Great Sunrise Empire, toward which the eyes of the world have been turned the last year, attention is now directed to the Dark Continent, where through the darkness the dawn appears. "Christus Liber- ator: An Outline Study of Africa," has been written by Miss Ellen C. Parsons, author of "A Life for Africa," who is also well known as the editor of Woman''s Work. An introductory scientific chapter by Sir Harry H. Johnston adds much to the value of the book. Mrs. NORMAN MATHER WATERBURY, Chairman, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. Miss E. HARRIET STANWOOD, 70h. Congregational Uotise, Boston, Mass. Miss ELLEN C. PARSONS, Presbyterian Building, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Mrs. J. T. GRACEY, 177 Pearl Street, Rochester, N. Y. Mrs. HARRIET L. SCUDDER, Church Missions Rouse, hth Avenue and 22d Street, Xew York City« Miss CLEIMENTINA BUTLER, Secretary and Treasurer, Newton Centre, Mass. CONTENTS FAGK Statement of the Central Committee on the United Study of Missions . v AN INTRODUCTION Upon the Geography, Races, and History of Africa 1 Table A. Important Events in African History 50 CHAPTER I The Dark Continent 52 Literary Illustrations 87 Table B. Important Dates in African Dis- covery . o 89 CHAPTER II The Nile Country, Abyssinia, and North Africa 90 Literary Illustration 114 CHAPTER III West Africa 117 Literary Illustrations 164 vii viil CONTENTS CHAPTER IV PAGE East Africa 167 Literary Illustrations 199 CHAPTER V Congo State and Central Africa . 202 Literary Illustrations 238 CHAPTER VI South Africa 240 Table C. The Principal Societies maintain- ing Missions in Africa 285 APPENDIX Leading Missionary Periodicals . 293 A Short African Bibliography . • 294 Index 303 CHRISTUS LIBERATOR AN INTRODUCTION! UPON THE GEOG- RAPHY, RACES, AND HISTORY OF AFRICA The book to which this preliminary chapter is an introduction is an account of the work of Christian missions amongst the native races of Africa. From the point of view from which I shall approach this subject nothing could be happier than the title " Christus Liberator." It would seem to the writer as though many who have professed to be Christians have not sufficiently realized the work which was done by the Founder of their religion as a liberator, as one who sought to free mankind from all that was vexatious and superfluous in religion. To the African, exponents of true Christianity, of the real and simple teaching of Christ, must come as liberators from the reign of super- stition that is often cruel and nearly always silly, from customs which range from the abom- inable and devilish to the vexatious and tedious, and from the domination of lusts and indul- gences which have of themselves become a 1 The distinguished author has had personal contact with Africa for about twenty years, having filled consulate posi- tions in parts widely separated, and administered other sec- tions in "West, East, and Central Africa as an officer of the British government. — E. C. P. 2 CHBISTUS LIBERATOR slavery. There are, I know, many whose ad- miration of the work of Christian missions in Africa is balked by an inability to subscribe to this or that dogma which has been grafted on to the teaching of Christ. Admiration of the results of Christian teaching in Africa need not imply an adherence to every tenet which is promulgated as part of the Christian religion. While as regards my own opinions I would withdraw into that reserve which ought to be permitted to every one who is not sure of his beliefs, I unhesitatingly state my conviction that the Missions which have preached Christianity in Africa since, let us say, 1840 constitute the one feature of the white man's invasion of this continent which History will rank as of unques- tionable good. A portion — three-fourths, per- haps — of the white man's civilization has been necessary for the African ; since, if he was to remain in the conditions in which he was found by the first Caucasian invaders of Africa, twenty thousand, ten thousand, five thousand years ago, he would have become permanently embedded in a brutishness from which eventually he could no more be stirred than can the anthropoid apes of Malaysia and West Africa. But much of the white man's civilization has been spoilt by his own greed for gain and the vices he has superadded to inherent vices of the Negro and Negroid. Christian propaganda — at any rate since the early part of the nineteenth century — has left no bad after-taste. The first begin- ning of Christianity amongst a vain and de- INTRODUCTION 3 graded race may have assumed a ridiculous semblance; the promulgation of the new reli- gion has often bred a distasteful hypocrisy ; but after all, hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue, and it is doubtful whether the hypocrite is worse under his mask than he was before the preaching of a better religion taught him, at any rate, the decency of disguising sin. So much for my own beliefs regarding the value to Africa of sixty years of Christian propaganda. I will now proceed to my special task. THE GEOGRAPHY OF AFRICA The Area of Africa is 11,508,793 square miles. The most important detail of its geog- raphy is probably the Sahara Desert, which so markedly severs Africa of the Mediter- ranean from Africa south of the northern tropic. Mauritania (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis) is almost like a lengthy island, sur- rounded on three sides by the sea and on the south side by the sands of the desert, which irresistibly suggest a former incursion of the ocean, dotted as they are with salt lakes and the beds of dried-up lagoons. Discoveries which have been made in the central Sahara between southern Algeria and Sokoto have revealed marine fossils of at any rate the early Tertiary, showing that as recently as the Eocene, or the beginning of the Miocene, the sea penetrated from the northwest as far as Lake Chad. It is practically certain that all the Sahara 4 CHRISrUS LIBERATOR Desert region between the Red Sea and the Atlantic was not covered by the ocean at one and the same period. During the Pliocene period, at any rate, the eastern part of tlie Sahara was a well-watered country wdth an abundant fauna and flora, and later on in the Pleistocene Africa received from Asia and Europe the greater part of its mod- ern fauna, especially the big game we now associate with this continent, — its elephants, rhinoceroses, zebras, giraffes, and antelopes. During the late Pleistocene, and especially the historical period, the desiccation of the Sahara has proceeded apace. The rainfall has diminished in many places to vanishing-point, the great rivers which once ploughed through its rocks have disappeared, leaving only their dry courses with water still filtering down their beds at various depths from the surface; vegetation has disappeared, and most of the wild beasts. Mediterranean Africa has thus been more and more cut off from contact with tropical Africa. First the flora and then the fauna of Northern Africa have become assimilated with Southern Europe and Western Asia. Within the his- torical period beasts which we associate with tropical Africa were still found along the Medi- terranean coast. The African elephant lin- gered in Mauritania till the days of the Romans, and the lion, leopard, and several typically African antelopes are not yet extinct in Algeria and Tunis. But the Sahara Desert, ever intensifying in INTRODUCTION 5 its aridity, has played a great part in the history of Africa and of the races indigenous to Africa. It has served to a great extent to cut off the Negro from contact with the Caucasian in pre- historic times. Had it not been for the River Nile, these two species of humanity might have existed apart even longer before coming into contact. But from prehistoric times down through the historic period the Nile has al- ways been the Caucasian's easiest path across the Desert into fertile, well-watered, tropical Africa.