this had been the family temple of a wealthy Chinaman, whose life had been saved during the Boxer insurrection by the Mufti Wa-Ahonad (ʻAbd al-Raḥmān); as a token of his gratitude, he embraced the faith of his deliverer. [1017] Turkish and other Muslim missionaries have in recent years been visiting China and endeavouring to stir up among the Chinese Muslims a more thorough knowledge of their faith and to awaken their zeal, but their efforts seem so far to have borne but little fruit. [1018] In 1867 a Russian writer, [1019] in a remarkable work on Islam in China, expressed the opinion that it was destined to become the national faith of the Chinese empire and thereby entirely change the political conditions of the Eastern world. Nearly half a century has elapsed since this note of alarm was sounded, but nothing has occurred since to verify these prognostications. On the contrary, it would appear that Islam has been losing rather than gaining ground during the last century, since the wholesale massacres that accompanied the suppression of the Panthay risings in Yunnan from 1855 to 1873 and the Tungan rebellion in Shen-si and Kan-su in 1864–1877 and 1895–1896, reduced the Muhammadan population by millions. [1020] The establishment of the new Republic has given to the Chinese Muslims a freedom of activity unknown under any preceding government, but it is too early yet to discover how far they are likely to avail themselves of the opportunities offered by the altered conditions of life. The proselytism that still goes on, restricted as its sphere may be, indicates a still cherished hope of expansion. Though four centuries have elapsed since a Muslim traveller [1021] in China could discuss the possibility of the conversion of the emperor being followed by that of his subjects, it was still possible for a Chinese Muslim of the present generation to state that his co-religionists in that country looked forward with confidence to the day when Islam would be triumphant throughout the length and breadth of the Chinese empire. [1022] CHAPTER XI. THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA. The history of Islam in Africa, covering as it does a period of well-nigh thirteen centuries and embracing two-thirds of this vast continent, with its numerous and diverse tribes and races, presents especial difficulties in the way of systematic treatment, as it is impossible to give a simultaneous account in chronological order of the spread of this faith in all the different parts of the continent. Its relations to the Christian Churches of Egypt and the rest of North Africa, of Nubia and Abyssinia have already been dealt with in a former chapter; in the present chapter it is proposed to trace its progress first among the heathen population of North Africa, then throughout the Sudan and along the West coast, and lastly along the East coast and in Cape Colony. [1023]