People of Africa

by Edith A. How

Then Europeans eat three or four times a day, and have many different kinds of food. Maize or wheat flour is made into bread or cakes. Meat is either roasted or boiled, and is often eaten with green vegetables. Sometimes meat and vegetables are cut up into small pieces and all boiled together for a long time. Then it is called soup, and is eaten with a spoon. Milk from the cattle is used to drink, and is also made into butter and cheese, which are hard, and can be eaten with bread. Europeans drink coffee like the Arabs, or tea which is made from the leaves of another plant. When mealtime comes all the family come to the big room where a large table is covered with a white cloth. The food is brought in a large bowl or dish, and the farmer or his wife puts some on a plate for each person. Europeans use knives and forks and spoons in eating food. The men and women and children all sit together round the table. On the farms as a rule there is no wood or coal to make fires, so the sweepings of the cattle-shed are made into cakes and dried in the sun. This makes very good fuel for fires.

4. How South Africa is Ruled

The Europeans on the farms do not see many other people, as the farms are very large and are long distances apart. Sometimes the men have to go to town to sell their grain or cattle and to buy other things, but they cannot leave their work very often. The children are taught to read and write at home, and sometimes when they are big enough they are sent away to school in some town. There they will live with children from many other parts of South Africa, and will learn that their farm is only a little part of a very big country. Europeans are Christians, and the children are taught that they must love and help their country and other people always. It is because European children are taught to be ready to give up everything, even their lives, to help their country to be good and great, that the Christian European nations have grown as strong and wise as they are. The countries of Europe learnt about Christ many hundreds of years ago.

We said that South Africa was ruled by Europeans. Their king is King George who lives in England, but he does not rule or make laws by himself. In South Africa and in each of his other countries, King George sends a Governor, because he himself is so far away. Then the people of South Africa choose someone in each district to go and help the Governor to rule wisely. When all these men from different parts meet together it is called a Parliament. This Council or Parliament decides everything about ruling the country, and tells the Governor what it is best to do for all the people in South Africa.

So in thinking of South Africa we have to think of a nation of people, each doing one particular kind of work which is needed both by himself and by everyone else. Everyone's work is useful to the whole nation, whether he works in a town, or on a farm, or on a railway. The great towns are where people sell what they have made and buy what else they need. The farm families live far away from one another, growing food or wool for the nation. But they, too, meet from time to time, and they read newspapers about what is done in the great towns. Then, when the time comes to choose the men for the Parliament to help the Governor, farmers and townsmen in each district say which man they wish to go to it. In this way everyone can help the nation by his work, and everyone can help to keep peace and justice in the country and to prevent bad people hurting the weaker ones.

VIII
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CONCLUSION

Now our book is finished, and we have read about some of the other people who also live in our country of Africa. There in the north are the Bedouin and the traders, always moving from waterspring to waterspring across the sand of the great Sahara, ever on the watch against robbers. Next there are the Egyptians living on the great River Nile: some in towns with shops and trades; some very poor in the villages, planting their seed when the river rises. All these Northern people are Mohammedans and the men marry several wives, and the women are veiled and live apart.

Farther south it is very hot, and is a land of great lakes and rivers. Here we read about the Baganda, the dark-skinned Africans who learned to make a strong nation where all the people helped each other and obeyed their king. These are now Christian, and are quickly learning other things from the Christian European nations who trade with them. Then we read about the tribes farther west in the land of the River Congo. These people still move their villages from time to time, and each man makes only what he needs in his own home. There is often fighting between the tribes, and many people are killed. These Congo people have learnt very little, and some eat the flesh of men and women, and the little Pigmies do not even live in villages, but each family by itself.

Farther south still is the great country of South Africa. Here it is not so hot, and Europeans have made their homes in it. There are Africans living in tribes and villages, but learning to be peaceful and to help each other by their work. Many of these at times go to work in the mines to find useful things deep down in the ground. There are also the Europeans: some in towns, some in farms, all European and African bound together in the great nation of South Africa, each doing his own part of the nation's work.

So that in this great land of Africa we have people living very different kinds of life, in the deserts, in the forests of the Congo, in Uganda and on the Nile, in the mines of South Africa, and on the great farms on the veld and in the great towns. The country itself is different in different parts: the sand in the north; Central Africa, with its hot sun and its lakes and rivers and mountains and forests; South Africa, with its great grassy plains, and the mines and towns joined by the railways which make it easy to get quickly to places far away. Yet, although the people of Africa have such different homes, we must remember that they are very much like ourselves. They wear other clothes and speak other languages, but all love their families, and each is doing his best to make his home a happy place in which he can live.