The subject of Africa and its people has recently become a most interesting and popular one. We are but now beginning to realize the size and importance of Africa, as we are reminded that it contains nearly one-fourth part of the land area of the world; that it has mountains at least 1,000 feet higher than the most lofty American peaks; that the known extent of the Nile and the Congo now make them the rivals of the Yang-tse-Kiang and the Mississippi as the longest rivers in the world; that its central regions, instead of the great desert blank so long shown on our maps, is a rich and beautiful elevated region, having upon its heights a splendid collection of fresh-water lakes or inland seas, fertilizing by their outflowing streams the whole continent; and that it is known to contain over 250,000,000 people, or about one-seventh part of the world's population. It is called the "dark continent:" rather should it be called the "new world," in which our interest and responsibility--political, commercial and social--is rapidly growing. For purposes of general description, there are three great divisions of the African continent and its peoples and affairs: _The northern division_, stamped and characterized--men, manners and things--by the orientalism of its conquering settlers, so intimately blended by blood, religion and character with the natives as to have become essentially African, its original peoples so thoroughly influenced by the incoming foreigners as to be now essentially oriental; _The southern division_, overrun in more modern times by foreigners of other races, and having its own peculiar civilization and characteristics due to that influx; and {239} _Central Africa_, including all that portion of the continent lying between, say, the Albert Nyanza and the river Zambesi, and Zanzibar and the Congo mouth, and which, although no part now remains of it that is not nominally the territory either of the Congo Free state or some European power, is still almost entirely in the possession and occupation of its lawful owners, the native uncivilized tribes.