Landers Travels | Page 6

salt arose,
out of which the natives constructed their houses, without any fear of
their melting beneath a shower in a region where rain was unknown.
The land became almost a desert, and was filled with such multitudes

of wild beasts, as to be considered their proper inheritance, and scarcely
disputed with them by the human race. Farther to the south, the soil no
longer afforded food even to these wild tenants; there was not a trunk
of a tree, nor a drop of water--total silence and desolation reigned.
This may be considered as the first picture on record of the northern
part of Africa; a country, which, even after the lapse of two thousand
years, presents to the eye of science, as regards its interior recesses, a
blank in geography, a physical and not less a moral problem; a dark and
bewildering mystery. The spirit of enterprise has carried our mariners
to the arctic seas, braving the most appalling dangers in the solution of
a great geographical problem; by the same power, civilization has been
carried into the primeval forests of the American continent, and cities
have arisen in the very heart of the Andes. The interior of Africa,
however, notwithstanding its navigable rivers, has been hitherto almost
a sealed chapter in the history of the globe. The deserts, which extend
from Egypt to the Atlantic, and which cover a great surface of the
interior, have proved a barrier to the march of conquest, or civilization;
and whatever science has gained, has been wrested by the utmost
efforts of human perseverance and the continual sacrifice of human life.
It must, however, be allowed that there are obstacles existing to the
knowledge and the civilization of central Africa, which cannot be
overcome by the confederated power of human genius. Extending 5000
miles in length, and nearly the same extent in breadth, it presents an
area, according to Malte Brun, of 13,430,000 square miles, unbroken
by any estuary, or inland sea, and intersected by a few long or easily
navigable rivers; all its known chains of mountains are of moderate
height, rising in terraces, down which the waters find their way in
cataracts, not through deep ravines and fertile valleys. Owing to this
configuration, its high table lands are without streams, a phenomenon
unknown in any other part of the world; while, in the lower countries,
the rivers, when swelled with the rains, spread into floods and
periodical lakes, or lose themselves in marshes. According to this view
of the probable structure of the unknown interior, it appears as one
immense flat mountain, rising on all sides from the sea by terraces; an
opinion favoured 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 compatible 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 ferocity 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
inaccessible 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