Africa and the American Flag

by Andrew H. Foote

There are found separate groups of mountains, forming for the continent a broken margin on the west. There may also be an important one situated centrally between Lake Tzad and the Congo; but there appears no probability of a transverse chain, stretching continuously across this region, as has hitherto had a place on maps, under the title of the “Mountains of the Moon.”

No geological changes, except those due to the elevation of the oldest formations, appear to have taken place extensively in this continent. The shores of the Gulf of Guinea, and of the eastern regions, abound with gold, suggesting that their interior is not covered by modern rocks. The two extremities at Egypt and Cape of Good Hope, have been depressed to receive secondary and tertiary deposits. There may be other such instances; but the continent seems, during a time, even geologically long, to have formed a great compact mass of land, bearing the same relations as now to the rest of the world.

The valleys and precipices of South Africa have been shaped by the mighty currents which circulate round the promontory of the Cape; and the flat summit of Table Mountain, at the height of three thousand six hundred feet, is a rocky reef, worn and fretted into strange projections by the surge, which the southeasters brought against it, when it was at the level of the sea.

The present state of organized life in Africa tells the same tale. It indicates a land never connected with polar regions, nor subjected to great variations of temperature. Our continent, America, is a land of extremes of temperature. Corresponding to that condition, it is a land characterized by plants, the leaves of which ripen and fall, so that vegetation has a pause, waiting for the breath of spring. All the plants of southern Africa are evergreens. The large browsing animals, such as the elephant and rhinoceros, which cannot stoop to gather grass, find continuous subsistence in the continuous foliage of shrubs. America abounds with stags or deer—animals having deciduous horns or antlers. Southern Africa has none, but is rich in species of antelopes, which have true or permanent horns, and which nowhere sustain great variations of heat and cold. Its fossil plants correspond apparently in character to those which the country now bears.

Its fossil zoology offers very peculiar and interesting provinces of ancient life. These have been in positions not greatly unconformable to those of similar phenomena even now. Great inland fresh-water seas have abounded with new and strange types of organization, in character and office analogous to the amphibious forms occurring with profusion in similar localities of the present interior. These, and representatives of the secondary formations, rest chiefly on the old Silurian and Devonian series, the upheaving of which seems to have given the continent its place and outline. Coal is found at Natal, near the Mozambique Channel, but not hitherto known to be of value.

Africa still offers, and will long continue to offer, the most promising field of botanical discovery. Much novelty certainly remains to be elicited there, but it is very dilatory in finding its way abroad. Natal is the region most likely to be sedulously explored for some time. Vegetable ivory has been brought thence, and elastic, hard, useful timber abounds. Much lumber of good and varied character is taken to Europe from the western regions of the continent; but so greatly has scientific inquiry been repelled by the deadly climate, that even the species affording it are unknown, or doubtfully guessed at.

The vegetation of the south is brilliant, but not greatly useful. It affords the type of that which covers the mountains, receding towards the northeast, until they reach perpetual snow near the equator. That which is of a more tropical character, stretches round their bases and through their valleys, with its profusion of palms, creepers, and dye-woods. These hereafter will form the commercial wealth of the country, affording oil, india-rubber, dye-stuffs, and other useful productions.

The wild animals of Africa belong to plains and to loose thickets, rather than to timbered forests. There is a gradation in the height of the head, among the larger quadrupeds, which indicates the sort of country and of vegetation suitable to them.

The musket, with its “villanous saltpetre,” in the hands of barbarians is everywhere expelling from the earth its bulkier creatures, so that the elephant is disappearing, and ivory will become scarce. Fear tames the wildest nature; even the lion is timid when he has to face the musket. The dull ox has learned a lesson with regard to him; for when the kingly brute prowls round an unyoked wagon resting at night, and his growl or smell makes the oxen shake and struggle with terror, they are quieted by the discharge of firearms.

When Europeans first visited the shores of Africa, they were astonished at the tameness and abundance of unchecked animal life. The shallow bays and river lagoons were full of gigantic creatures; seals were found in great numbers, but of all animals these seem the most readily extirpated. The multitudes which covered the reefs of South Africa are nearly gone, and they seem to be no longer met with on the northern shores of the continent. The manatee, or sea-cow, and the hippopotamus, frequented the mouths of rivers, and were killed and eaten by the natives. They had never tamed and used the elephant: that this might have been done is inferred from the use of these animals by the Carthaginians. But as the Carthaginian territory was not African in the strict sense of the term, it may be doubted whether their species was that of Central Africa. This latter species is a larger, less intelligent looking, and probably a more stubborn creature than the Asiatic. The roundness of their foreheads and the size of their ears give them a duller and more brutal look; the magnitude of their tusks, and the occurrence of these formidable weapons in the female as well as in the male, are accommodated to the necessity of conflict with the lion, and indicate a wilder nature.