“Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”
Psalm LXVIII., v. 31.
In the foregoing pages of this work, attention has been drawn to the capabilities which East Africa offers, on its coast line, for the production of the finest cotton, by the fact of its whole sea-board being washed by that great ocean-current which subsequently, in its course on the east coast of America, obtains the name of the Gulf Stream. The wonderful effect which the heat contained in this great body of water has on the climate of England, and other more torridly-situated countries, is a fact too well attested to be disputed. For my present purpose it will be simply necessary for me to state that the long and beautiful staple of the sea-island cotton is produced by the warm yet humid atmosphere arising from the Gulf Stream, accompanied by the saline breezes on the islands and coast of America; and similarly that cotton of the sea-island quality may be likewise produced on the east coast of Africa, and the islands of the Ethiopian archipelago, bathed by this great oceanic current. In proof of which, I would point to the cotton now grown on the Seychelles, and also to that produced on the coast line of the British colony of Natal.
Labour along the whole of the east sea-board of Africa has, for more than three hundred years, been found in such abundance that it has been forcibly transported to the great continent of America and the neighbouring Antilles.
So permanent and profitable has this supply of labour been to the western inter-tropical portion of the earth, that the Europeans, Arabs, and Asiatics, located on the east sea-board of Africa, have neglected to develop the resources of the country where nature is so prolific, and have confined their attention to speedily enriching themselves, and retiring to more healthy parts of the globe, to enjoy those riches which they have rapidly amassed by supplying labour for less densely populated portions of the world.
Since 1834, when England so resolutely took her stand at the head of the nations progressing in humanity and civilization, by paying twenty millions sterling for the liberation of her slaves, a gradual but visible change for the better has taken place in the state of the natives of Eastern Africa and the neighbouring archipelago.
In Mauritius slavery has entirely ceased, so also in its dependency of the Seychelles.
Madagascar has had the gospel of Jesus Christ preached on its soil; the germ of civilization has been planted in that extensive island; and the slave-trade is no longer tolerated among the Malagasy people.
In the African dominions of the Imâm of Muskat the slave-trade is forbidden; spice-gardens have arisen, the cocoa-nut is cultivated, and large exports of simsim seed annually take place.