GENERAL NOTES.
Africa.
—A third telegraphic cable has been laid between Marseilles and Algiers.
—Twelve International African exploring and scientific associations have recently been constituted.
—Algeria exports $5,000,000 worth of wheat annually, of oxen and sheep $3,000,000, wool $3,500,000, and grasses $2,000,000.
—It is estimated that more than three thousand slaves were brought to Egypt during the months of last June and July.
—Dr. Zuchinetti has returned from a journey among the Makarakas, the Niams-Niams, the Gouros-Gouros in Darfour, Kordofan and Nubia, where he made a special study of the manner in which they collect gold.
—Messrs. Cadenhead and Carter of the International Association were recently killed near the Tanganyika during a fight between two hostile tribes of the interior. The Sultan of Zanzibar has sent troops under Lieut. Matthews, an English officer, temporarily secured for the purpose, to quell the disturbance.
—A Sheik has recently transported over eight hundred slaves in a single week from Suakim to Jedda. In order to evade the law the negroes are given certificates of liberation when leaving the African coast, but these are destroyed by their masters when they arrive at Arabia, where they are sold. The question of appointing consular agents at Khartoum and Siout for the purpose of breaking up traffic in slaves, is agitated.
—There is an African chief named Matola, living in the Rovuma valley, East Central Africa, who speaks six languages. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about him is that he is a total abstainer. He became such from principle and has for many years never touched the native beer or any other intoxicating liquor. By his aid a church has been built to which he summons his people every Sunday, acting as interpreter when there is occasion.
—The negro Anderson, who has had great experience in travel and adventure in Western Africa, is about to undertake the training of elephants for service in Liberia. He has at his command elephant hunters from the vicinity of the Congo, who will endeavor to capture and bring to Monrovia as many of the animals as are wanted. As domestic animals in Liberia are few in number and affected badly by the climate, this new enterprise is looked upon with great favor.
—The French people have formed a gold mining company on the west coast of Africa called: “The African Company of the Gold Coast.” During the month of August, 1879, it was working actively upon a large and important gold vein, with machinery sent from Europe. The results obtained were kept secret, but it transpired on the coast that they had been surprising. A second company was formed December, 1879, by the English, called the “Effuenta Gold Mining Company,” for the immediate exploration of the rich territory named Effuenta. The gold fever actually animated the inhabitants of Wassaw as much as it did formerly the emigrants to California.
The Indians.
—Secretary Schurz has pledged himself to send fifty Indian girls to Hampton, provided they can be received and cared for. He is ready to appropriate $150 a year for each.
—Indian youth not revengeful.—General Armstrong testifies that, “in nearly two years’ experience, we have found no signs of the revengeful nature ascribed to the Indian. ‘They are like other people’ is a common remark among us, and is the sum of Indian character.”
—A full-blooded Indian chief writes to his half-brother at Hampton from Crow Creek: “I am going to write you a letter. I never forget you. Try to learn all you can while you are down there. I wish I were young so I could go down and learn too. I want you to learn all you can and come back and teach your brothers. Try to learn and talk English too. Don’t think about coming home all the time. If you do you can’t learn much. I like to have you write a letter back and tell me how you are.
Wizi—That’s I.”
—Rev. Mr. Denison of Hampton writes of the twelve captive Indian warriors from Florida received by him into the church: “We are not deceived into thinking that these Indians present a highly civilized type of piety, but after careful observation, we are forced to believe that, as regards the pith and marrow of Christianity, they are our beloved brethren, for this one thing they do if ever men did it, forgetting the things that are behind, they press toward the mark. One point in theology they understand, and only one. It is to walk the new road in the help of Jesus, and they show their faith by their works. They are patient in study. They are always found on the side of law and order. Digging in the earth is not the chief joy of an Indian warrior, but Koba writes: ‘I pray every day and hoe onions.’”
—Bed-making by Indian youth.—Mr. James C. Robbins, a colored graduate of Hampton who recently had oversight of Indian boys under Gen. Armstrong, gives the following account: “When they first began to make beds, the sheets were either tucked up under the pillow or laid on the outside. One boy was found to have seven sheets, who did not know the proper use for two. The janitor helped me carry a bedstead into the sitting-room, the boys were called in and seated in a semi-circle, and I began the process of bed-making, the boys grunting and laughing as it proceeded. When the clothes were neatly tucked in, and the pillow shaken and put into its place, I said, ‘Now boys, I will show you how to get into bed,’ which I did. Then, through the interpreter, I asked who was willing to try it. He hardly put the question when a boy who had objected to having his hair cut when he first came, stepped forward. He began where I did, and followed every movement, so closely had he observed. No sooner did he finish than there was a stunning applause. He was then asked to show us how to go to bed, and when his head touched the pillow and he drew the clothing up over him, up went another shout.”
The Chinese.
—Dr. Legge, the professor of Chinese at Oxford University, says, “If the present rate of conversion of the Chinese to Christianity continues, by the year 1913, there will be 26,000,000 of church members, and 100,000,000 of professed Christians in the Chinese Empire.”
—The Chinese government is removing the old restrictions which withheld Chinese merchants from trading with other nations, and is adopting a policy of encouragement to a wide-spread foreign commerce. The Chinese Ambassador at Washington stated that a steamer, commanded and manned by Chinese wholly, would soon appear in San Francisco laden with the products of Chinese industry.
—The Chinamen, who walk over bridges built two thousand years ago, who cultivated the cotton-plant centuries before this country was heard of, and who fed silk-worms before King Solomon built his throne, have fifty thousand square miles around Shanghai which they call the Garden of China, and which has been tilled for countless generations. It is all meadow land, and is raised but a few feet above the rivers, lakes, and canals, and is a complete network of water-communication. The land is under the highest cultivation, and three crops a year are gathered from it. The population is so dense that wherever you look you see men and women in blue clothing in such numbers that you fancy some muster or fair is coming off, and that the people are out for a holiday. Missionaries of several societies are at work in this locality.
—A Christian Chinaman at Sacramento, in California, was present at the annual festival of the Chinese school on June 4th. When asked whether Christian influence really made the Chinaman better, he replied:—
“Oh! yes, all much better men. Do not steal. Do not gamble. Do not do any bad.”
“How about smoking?”
“Oh! no opium! Some not even smoke cigars. We can tell. All other Chinamen watch Christian Chinamen. If they see him go wrong, tell us. Then we tell him. Then he stop. If he did not stop, then he must leave here.”
“But, suppose you don’t watch him. Will he be good without it?”
“Oh! yes, most times. When he is converted and believes truth, it makes him good inside, he don’t want to go wrong any more.”
“How do you like it as far as you have gone?”
“Oh! me like very well. If all Chinamen be Christians, then no more trouble about ‘must go’! All more happy and good to each other.”