The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873: Continued By A Narrative Of His Last Moments And Sufferings, Obtained From His Faithful Servants Chuma And SusiLivingstone, David
History
The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873: Continued By A Narrative Of His Last Moments And Sufferings, Obtained From His Faithful Servants Chuma And Susi
Livingstone, David
Africa, Central -- Description and travel
Whilst speaking of the stone age I may add that in Africa I have never
been fortunate enough to find one flint arrowhead or any other flint
implement, though I had my eyes about me as diligently as any of my
neighbours. No roads are made; no lands levelled; no drains digged; no
quarries worked, nor any of the changes made on the earth's surface that
might reveal fragments of the primitive manufacture of stone. Yet but
little could be inferred from the negative evidence, were it not
accompanied by the fact that flint does not exist in any part south of
the equator. Quartz might have been used, but no remains exist, except
the half-worn millstones, and stones about the size of oranges, used for
chipping and making rough the nether millstone. Glazed pipes and
earthenware used in smelting iron, show that iron was smelted in the
remotest ages in Africa. These earthenware vessels, and fragments of
others of a finer texture, were found in the delta of the Zambesi and in
other parts in close association with fossil bones, which, on being
touched by the tongue, showed as complete an absence of animal matter as
the most ancient fossils known in Europe. They were the bones of
animals, as hippopotami, water hogs, antelopes, crocodiles, identical
with those now living in the country. These were the primitive fauna of
Africa, and if vitrified iron from the prodigious number of broken
smelting furnaces all over the country was known from the remotest
times, the Africans seem to have had a start in the race, at a time when
our progenitors were grubbing up flints to save a miserable existence by
the game they might kill. Slave-trading seems to have been coeval with
the knowledge of iron. The monuments of Egypt show that this curse has
venerable antiquity. Some people say, "If so ancient, why try to stop
an old established usage now?" Well, some believe that the affliction
that befel the most ancient of all the patriarchs, Job, was small-pox.
Why then stop the ravages of this venerable disease in London and New
York by vaccination?
But no one expects any benevolent efforts from those who cavil and carp
at efforts made by governments and peoples to heal the enormous open
sore of the world. Some profess that they would rather give "their mite"
for the degraded of our own countrymen than to "niggers"! Verily it is
"a mite," and they most often forget, and make a gift of it to
themselves. It is almost an axiom that those who do most for the heathen
abroad are most liberal for the heathen at home. It is to this class we
turn with hope. With others arguments are useless, and the only answer I
care to give is the remark of an English sailor, who, on seeing
slave-traders actually at their occupation, said to his companion,
"Shiver my timbers, mate, if the devil don't catch these fellows, we
might as well have no devil at all."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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