The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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of the pilgrims are standing by its mouth waiting to be served, or walking
round the Caaba, or stooping to kiss the stone, other scenes may be
observed in the cloisters and the square; and, as in the Temple at
Jerusalem, these are not all of the most edifying nature. Children are
playing at games, or feeding the wild pigeons whom long immunity has
rendered tame. Numerous schools are going on, the boys chanting in a
loud voice, and the masterβs baton sometimes falling on their backs. In
another corner a religious lecture is being delivered. Men of all nations
are clustered in separate groupsβthe Persian heretics, with their caps
mounting to heaven and their beards descending to the earth; the Tartar,
with oblique eyes and rounded limbs and light silk handkerchief tied
round his brow; Turks with shaven faces and in red caps; the lean Indian
pauper, begging with a miserable whine; and one or two wealthy Hindu
merchants not guiltless of dinners given to infidels, and of iced
champagne. At the same time an active business is being done in sacred
keepsakesβrosaries made of camel bone, bottles of Zemzem water, dust
collected from behind the veil, tooth-sticks made of a fibrous root such as
that which Mohammed himself was wont to use, and coarsely executed
pictures of the Caaba. Mecca itself, like most cities frequented by
strangers, whether pilgrims or mariners, is not an abode of righteousness
and virtue. As the Tartars say of it, βThe Torch is dark at its foot,β and
many a pilgrim might exclaim with the Arabian Ovid;
βI set out in the hopes of lightening my sins,
And returned, bringing home with me a fresh load of transgressions.β
But the very wickedness of a holy city deepens real enthusiasm into
severity and wrath. When Abd-ul-Wahhab saw taverns opened in Mecca
itself, and the inhabitants alluring the pilgrims to every kind of vice;
when he found that the sacred places were made a show, that the mosque
was inhabited by guides and officials who were as greedy as beasts of
prey, that wealth, not piety, was the chief object of consideration in a
pilgrim, he felt as Luther felt at Rome. The disgust which was excited in
his mind by the manners of the day was extended also to the doctrines
that were in vogue. The prayers that were offered up to Mohammed and
the saints resembled the prayers that were once offered up to the
Daughters of Heaven, the intercessors of the ancient Arabs. The
pilgrimages that were made to the tombs of holy men were the old
journeys to the ancestral graves. The worship of one God, which
Mohammed had been sent to restore, had again become obscured; the
days of darkness had returned. He preached a Unitarian revival; he held
up as his standard and his guide the Koran, and nothing but the Koran; he
founded a puritan sect which is now a hundred years of age, and still
remains an element of power and disturbance in the East.
Othman Dan Fodio, the Black Prophet, also went out of Mecca, his soul
burning with zeal. He determined to reform the Sudan. He forbade, like
Abd-ul-Wahhab, the smoking of tobacco, the wearing of ornaments and
finery. But he had to contend with more gross abuses still. In many
negro lands which professed Islam, palm wine and millet beer were
largely consumed; the women did not veil their faces nor even their
bosoms; immodest dances were performed to the profane music of the
drum; learned men gained a livelihood by writing charms, the code of the
Koran was often supplanted by the old customary laws. Dan Fodio sent
letters to the great kings of Timbuktu, Haoussa, and Bornu, commanding
them to reform their own lives and those of their subjects, or he would
chastise them in the name of God. They received these instructions from
an unknown man, as the King of Kings received the letter of Mohammed,
and their fate resembled his. Dan Fodio united the Fulah tribes into an
army which he inspired with his own spirit. Thirsting for plunder and
paradise, the Fulahs swept over the Sudan; they marched into battle with
shouts of frenzied joy, singing hymns and waving their green flags on
which texts of the Koran were embroidered in letters of gold. The empire
which they established at the beginning of this century is now crumbling
away, but the fire is still burning on the frontiers. Wherever the Fulahs
are settled in the neighbourhood of pagan tribes they are extending their
power, and although the immediate effects are disastrousβvillages being
laid in ashes, men slaughtered by thousands, women and children sold as
slavesβyet in the end these crusades are productive of good. The
villages are converted into towns; a new land is brought within the sphere
of commercial and religious intercourse, and is added to the Asiatic
world.
The phenomenon of a religious Tamerlane has been repeated more than
once in Central Africa. The last example was that of Oumar the Pilgrim,
whose capital was Segou, and whose conquests extended from Timbuktu
to Senegal, where he came into contact with French artillery and for ever
lost his prestige as a prophet. But we are taught by the science of history
that these military empires can never long endure. It is probable that
Mohammedan Sudan will in time become a province of the Turks.
Central Africa, as we have shown, received its civilisation not from Egypt
but from the grand Morocco of the Middle Ages. Egypt has always lived
with its back to Africa, its eyes and often its hands on Syria and Arabia.
Abyssinia was not subdued by the caliphs because it was not coveted by
them, and there was little communication between Egypt and the Sudan.
Mohammed Ali was the first to re-establish the kingdom of the Pharaohs
in Ethiopia, and to organise negro regiments. Since his time the Turkish
power has been gradually spreading towards the interior, and the
expedition of Baker Pasha, whatever may be its immediate result, is the
harbinger of great events to come. Should the Turks be driven out of
Europe, they would probably become the emperors of Africa, which in
the interests of civilisation would be a fortunate occurrence. The Turkish
government is undoubtedly defective in comparison with the
governments of Europe, but it is perfection itself in comparison with the
governments of Africa. If the Egyptians had been allowed to conquer
Abyssinia there would have been no need of an Abyssinian expedition,
and nothing but Egyptian occupation will put an end to the wars which
are always being waged and always have been waged in that country
between bandit chiefs. Those who are anxious that Abyssinian
Christianity should be preserved need surely not be alarmed, for the Pope
of Abyssinia is the Patriarch of Cairo, a Turkish subject, and the aboona
or archbishop has always been an Egyptian. But the Turks no longer
have it in their power to commit actions which Europeans would
condemn. They now belong to the civilised system; they are subject to the
law of opinion. Already they have been compelled by that mysterious
power to suppress the slave-making wars which were formerly waged
every year from Kordofan and Sennaar, and which are still being waged
from the independent kingdoms of Darfur, Waday, Bagirmi, and Bornu.
Wherever the Turks reign a European is allowed to travel; wherever a
European travels a word is spoken on behalf of the oppressed. That word
enters the newspapers, passes into a diplomatic remonstrance, becomes a
firman, and a governor or commandant in some sequestered province of
an Oriental empire suffers the penalty of his misdeeds. It should be the
policy of European Powers to aid the destruction of all savage kingdoms,
or at least never to interfere on their behalf.
It has now been shown that a vast region within the Dark Continent, the
world beyond the sandy ocean, is governed by Asiatic laws and has
attained an Asiatic civilisation. We must next pass to the Atlantic side,
and study the effects which have been produced among the negroes by
the intercourse of Europeans. It will be found that the transactions on the
coast of Guinea belong not only to the biography of Africa but also to
universal history, and that the domestication of the negro has indirectly
assisted the material progress of Europe and the development of its
morality. The programme of the next chapter will be as follows: The rise
of Europe out of darkness; the discovery of Western Africa by the
Portuguese; the institution of the slave-trade, and the history of that great
republican and philanthropic movement which won its first victory in the
abolition of the slave-trade in 1807, its last in the taking of Richmond in
1865.
LIBERTY
THE history of Europe in ancient times is the history of those
lands which adjoin the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond the Alps lay a
vast expanse of marsh and forest, through which flowed the
swift and gloomy Rhine. On the right side of that river dwelt
the Germans; on its left, the Celtic Gauls. Both people, in
manners and customs, resembled the Red Indians. They lived in
round wigwams, with a hole at the top to let out the smoke.
They hunted the white maned bison and the brown bear, and
trapped the beaver, which then built its lodges by the side of
every stream. They passed their spare time in gambling,
drunkenness, and torpor; while their squaws cut the firewood,
cultivated their garden-plots of grain, tended the shaggy-headed cattle, and the hogs feeding on acorns and beech-mast,
obedient to the horn of the mistress, but savage to strangers
as a pack of wolves. At an early period, however, the Gauls
came into contact with the Phoenicians and the Greeks; they
served in the Carthaginian armies, and acquired a taste for
trade; they learnt the cultivation of the vine, and some of the
metallic arts; their priests, or learned men, employed the
Greek characters in writing. But the Gauls had a mania for
martial glory, and often attacked the peaceful Greek merchants
of Marseilles. The Greeks at last called in the assistance of
the Romans, who not only made war on the hostile tribes, but on
the peaceful tribes as well. Thus began the conquest of
Gaul. It was completed by Caesar, who used that country as an
exercise-ground for his soldiers, and prepared them, by a
hundred battles, for the mighty combat in which Pompey was overthrown.
Military roads were made across the Alps, Roman colonies were
dispatched into the newly conquered land, Italian farmers took
up their abode in the native towns, and the chiefs were
required to send their sons to school. Thus the Romans obtained
hostages, and the Celts were pleased to see their boys neatly
dressed in white garments edged with purple, displaying their
proficiency on the waxen tablets and the counting board. In a
few generations the Celts had disappeared. On the banks of the
Rhone and the Seine magnificent cities arose, watered by
aqueducts, surrounded by gardens, adorned with libraries,
temples, and public schools. The inhabitants called themselves
Romans, and spoke with patriotic fervour of the glorious days
of the Republic.
Meanwhile the barbarians beyond the Rhine remained in the
savage state. They often crossed the river to invade the land
which had ripened into wealth before their eyes: but the
frontier was guarded by a chain of camps; and the Germans,
armed only with clumsy spears and wooden shields, could not
break the line of Roman soldiers, who were dressed in steel,
who were splendidly disciplined, and who had military engines.
The Gauls had once been a warlike people; they now abandoned
the use of arms. The empire insured them against invasion in
return for the taxes
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