Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of ContentsLord, John
Philosophy
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of Contents
Lord, John
History
Let us glance at a few of Livingstone's discoveries and form our own
conclusions as to whether his sublime faith in the future of Africa has
thus far been justified by events. In the depths of the wilderness he
discovered the large lake, Mweru, through which the Upper Congo flows.
Though white influences have reached that remote region only within the
past two or three years, a little steamboat now plies those waters. A
photograph of Mpweto, one of the white settlements on the lake, shows
the commodious quarters of the Europeans, two long lines of cabins in
which the native workmen live, and well-tilled gardens extending for a
half-mile along the shore. Livingstone brought to light the coal fields
of the Zambesi, the only coal yet known in tropical Africa. While these
lines are being written, the British of Rhodesia are preparing to open
mines along these deposits. He told the world of the Victoria Falls of
the Zambesi, the largest known, a mile wide and twice as high as
Niagara. The installation of an electrical plant at this great source of
power is now in progress, and it is hoped within three years to
transmit electrically all the power required to work the large copper
mines in the north, the coal fields in the east, and to move trains on
the Cape to Cairo Railroad for a distance of three hundred miles. The
recent improvements in long-distance transmission of power encourages
the belief that the Victoria Falls may some day possess large industrial
utility for a wide region around them. Coffee plantations on the hills
overlooking the long expanse of Nyassa, the splendid freshwater sea
which Livingstone revealed in its setting of mountains, are selling
their superior product in London at a high price. The town of Blantyre,
among the Nyassa highlands which Livingstone first described, has a
newspaper, telegraphic and cable communication with all the world, and
industrial schools in which the manual arts are taught to hundreds of
natives. Here is the large brick church, now famous, built by native
craftsmen, who before Livingstone's time had never seen a white man, and
lived in a state of barbarism; an edifice that would adorn the suburbs
of any American city, and of which the explorer, Joseph Thomson, said:
"It is the most wonderful sight I have seen in Africa." The natives made
the brick, burned the lime, sawed and hewed the timbers, and erected the
building to the driving of the last nail. They had the capacity, and it
was evoked by the genius of one of the most remarkable men in Africa,
Missionary Scott of Blantyre. Steamboats are afloat on five of the six
important seas of the great lake region of Central Africa; on two of the
three which Livingstone discovered. Only a beginning has been made, for
the field stretches from ocean to ocean; but the man who, in 1873--the
year of Livingstone's death,--should have predicted one-half of the
achievement of the present generation would have been laughed at as a
crack-brained visionary.
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