But you are trying, you tell us, an experiment—a point which we concede as readily as you offer it. But in what way are you trying? You are experimenting with the circle of darkness drawn close up around you; for in that darkness, beyond your vision, every experiment which you are attempting has been tried a hundred, and possibly a thousand, times before. For almost countless centuries, in the high antiquity of the past—as is now shown by monumental Egypt—the negro mingled with the people of the Nile; but was then, as he has ever since been, until madness overthrew modest nature, the slave of a higher order of men. Rome, at a remove of not less than three thousand years further down the stream of time, and two thousand above the period on which we now stand, also sought his elevation—bore him to the land of the learned; but failed, as all others failed, both before and since, to force the light of civilization and self-supremacy through the thick skull which encompassed his little brain. The Moors, also, midway between the Romans and the English theorists and their American apes, bore him in triumph to conquered Spain; but failed, as all others failed, to crowd him a single round further up the ladder of light. Here reason would have been content. But darkness again drew her circle in contraction around the European mind—shut out the light of history—and, accordingly, a new brood of “experimenters” revived the old struggle with patient old Nature’s laws. A religious change had come upon the world, and, as living gods are always more powerful than dead ones, Africa, it was conceived, could be moved by the power of the Cross, where Isis burned her fires in despair, and Jove’s thunders fell harmless at the negro’s feet. Accordingly Portugal, about four centuries ago—then wild with the pomp of a fancied greatness, and stimulated with papal attention (a bull from Pope Martin V)—dashed forth in what she vainly conceived to be a new enterprise in the affairs of the world. It may, in its origin, have been the outshoot of philanthropic desire, but in its continuance, like all other movements of its kindred, swelled with the impulses of fanatical thought, and grew in its energy with the emotions which ultimately gave it force. Expedition after expedition was sent forth—missionaries provided, salaried and commissioned, and “school-marms” drawn from Lisbon, as they are now drawn from the “Hub of the Universe,” to teach the negro idea how to shoot. But, after a long and determined effort, nature over vanity prevailed. African mentality still clung to its old level—instincts ran in their old channels; the white man died, or returned to his native Europe, and all that now remains of the gigantic enterprise are a few moldering ruins, overgrown with brambles, yet to be seen near the mouth of the Congo river.