The travels of Richard and John Lander, into the interior of Africa, for the discovery of the course ... of the Niger ... with a prefatory analysis of the previous travels of Park, etc / [Robert Huish].

  • Robert Huish
Date:
[1836]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The travels of Richard and John Lander, into the interior of Africa, for the discovery of the course ... of the Niger ... with a prefatory analysis of the previous travels of Park, etc / [Robert Huish]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    DIVISION OF AFRICA. by the absence of those narrow pointed promontories, in which other continents terminate, and of those long chains of islands, which are, in fact, submarine prolongations of mountain chains extending across the main land. It is, however, not impossible, that in the centre of Africa, there may be lofty table lands like those of Quito, or valleys like that of Cashmeer, where, as in those happy regions, spring holds a perpetual reign. In regard to the population, as well as its geographical character, Africa naturally divides itself into two great portions, north and south of the mountains of Kong and the Jebel el Komar, which give rise to the waters of the Senegal, the Niger, and the Nile. To the north of this line, Africa is ruled, and partially occupied by foreign races, who have taken possession of all the fertile districts, and driven the aboriginal population into the mountains and deserts of the interior. It is consistent with general experience, that in proportion as civilization extends itself, the aboriginal race of the natives become either extinct, or are driven farther and farther into the interior, where they in time are lost, and swept from the catalogue of the human race. South of this line, we find Africa entirely peopled with the Negro race, who alone seem capable of sustaining the fiery climate, by means of a redundant physical energy scarcely com- patible with the full development of the intellectual powers of man. Central Africa is a region distinguished from all others, by its productions and climate, by the simplicity and yet barbarian magnificence of its states; by the mildness and yet diabolical terocity of its inhabitants, and peculiarly by the darker nature of its superstitions, and its magical rites, which have struck with awe strangers in all ages, and which present something inexplicable and even appalling to enlightened Europeans ; the evil principle here seems to reign with less of limitation, and in recesses in- accessible to white men, still to enchant and delude the natives. The common and characteristic mark of their superstition, is the system of Fetiches, by which an individual appropriates to himself some casual object as divine, and which, with respect to himself, by this process, becomes deified, and exercises a peculiar fatality over his fortune. The barbarism of Africa, may be attributed in part
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