Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 | Page 6

the efforts
which they have made, by the spread of their creed and the diffusion of
their commerce, during a series of ten or twelve centuries, for
promoting the civilization of Africa. They have succeeded, they have
done infinitely more for Africa than we ourselves. They have organized
and established regular governments through all Central Africa, and
inculcated a taste for the occupation and the principles of commerce. A
great portion of this internal trade is untainted by slavery. Bornou,
Soudan, Timbuctoo, and Jinnee, exhibit to us groups of immense and
populous cities, all regularly governed and trading with one another.
They have abolished human sacrifice, which lingers in our East India
possessions to this day. They have regulated marriage and restrained
polygamy. They have made honour and reverence to be paid to grey
hairs, superseding the diabolical custom of exposing or destroying the
aged. They have introduced a knowledge of reading and writing. The
oases of Ghat and Ghadames furnish more children, in proportion, who
can read and write, than any of our English towns. The Koran is
transcribed in beautiful characters by Negro Talebs on the banks of the
Niger. The Moors have likewise introduced many common useful

trades into Central Africa. But above all, the Mohammedans have
introduced the knowledge of the one true God! and destroyed the
fetisch idols. Let us then take care how we arrogate to ourselves the
right and fact of civilizing the world. Nay, there cannot be a question, if
we would abandon Africa to the Mohammedans, and leave off our
man-stealing trade and practices on the Western Coast, the dusky
children of the torrid zones would gradually advance in civilization.
But is not the bare idea of such an alternative an indelible disgrace to
Christendom?
Mr. Cooley, in his learned work, entitled "The Negroland of the
Arabs[4]," seems to doubt if the Slave-Trade can be abolished or
civilization advanced, in Central Africa, because of the neighbourhood
of The Desert. This, however, is transferring the guilt of slavery and of
voluntary barbarism, if barbarism can be crime, from the volition of
responsible man to a great natural fact, or circumstance of
creation--The Desert; and is a style of observation perfectly
indefensible, as well as contrary to philosophy and facts. First, we
cannot limit the stretch or progress of the Negro mind any more than
that of the European intellect. Mr. Cooley himself admits that the
Nigritian people have advanced in civilization. And if they have
advanced, why not continue to advance? But so far contrary are facts to
Mr. Cooley's theory, that The Desert, instead of being an obstacle to
civilization, is favourable to it, whilst the Nigritian countries beyond
the influence of The Desert are plunged into deeper barbarism. The
reader will only have to compare my account of the Touaricks, with the
recently published account of the social state of the kingdom of
Dahomy, to convince himself how completely fallacious in application
is Mr. Cooley's theory[5]. Slaves, too, abound in thickly populated
countries as well as desert countries: witness China and India. The
Sahara, also, has its paradisical spots, or oases of enjoyment, as well as
its wastes and hardships. It is likewise, not true, that the Saharan tribes
depend for their happiness on the possession of slaves, or that life in
The Desert is galling and insupportable. Many a happy oasis is without
a slave. However this may be, it is always an extremely dangerous line
of argument, to represent moral depravity as springing necessarily from
certain physical and unalterable circumstances of creation. Finally, to

represent The Great Desert as the buttress of the Slave-Trade, is
contrary to all our experience. In deserts and mountains we find always
the free-men: in soft and luxurious countries we find the slaves. It is not
the free-born Touarick who is the slave-dealer, or the stimulator of the
slave-traffic, but the Moorish merchant, and the voluptuary on the coast
who sends him. All that the Saharan tribes do, is to escort the
merchants over The Desert; and they would still escort them over The
Desert did they not deal in slaves, carrying on only legitimate
commerce.
I may conclude by a word on Discoveries in The Sahara. It is now
twenty years or more since The Sahara was explored, or before my
present hap-hazard tour. From what I have seen since my return, and
the little encouragement given to this sort of enterprise,--the public of
Great Britain being so much occupied with railways, free-trade, and
currency questions, educational schemes, and State endowed, or
voluntary ecclesiastical establishments,--it is difficult to foresee how
and when another tour may be undertaken, or how a tourist will have
the heart to make another experiment. Unhappily, the spirit of
discovery, like Virtue's self, is difficult to be satisfied with its