Notwithstanding their rudimentary estate, the people of Africa have the beginnings of all the more characteristic things that make up the life of civilized man. They have a national amusement, the dance; a national musical instrument, the drum; a national drink, _pombé_; a national religion, the fear of evil spirits. Their chamber of justice is a council of head-men or chiefs; their court of appeal, the _muavi_, or poison cup. No new thing is found here that is not in some form in modern civilization; no new thing in civilization but has its embryo and prophecy in the simpler life of these primitive tribes. To the ignorant these men are animals; but the eye of evolution looks on them with a kindlier and more instructed sense. They are what we were once; possibly they may become what we are now. What, then, is to become of this strange people and their land? With the glowing figures of a very distinguished traveller in our minds, are we to expect that the Shiré and Congo routes have but to be connected with New York and Manchester to cause at once a revolution among the people of Africa and in the commerce of the world? We hear two criticisms upon that subject. One complains that while Mr. Stanley emphasizes in the most convincing way the thousands of miles of cloth the African is waiting to receive from Europe, he is all but silent as to what Europe is to get in return. A second remark is that Africa has nothing to give in return, and never will have. The facts of the case briefly, as it seems to me, are these:-- First, The only thing of value the interior of Africa produces at present in any quantity is ivory. There is still, undoubtedly, a supply of this precious material in the country--a supply which may last yet for fifteen or twenty years. But it is well to frame future calculation on the certainty of this abnormal source of wealth ceasing, as it must do, in the immediate future. Second, Africa already produces in a wild state a number of vegetable and other products of considerable commercial value; and although the soil can only be said to be of average fertility, there is practically no limit to the extent to which these could be developed. Wild indigo--the true _indigofera tinctoria_ is already growing on the hills of the interior. The Londolphia, an indiarubber-bearing creeper, is to be seen on most of the watercourses; and a variety of the _Ficus elastica_, the well-known rubber plant, abounds on Lake Nyassa. The orchilla weed is common. The castor-oil plant, ginger, and other spices, the tobacco-plant, the cotton-plant, and many fibre-yielding grasses, are also found; and oil-seeds of every variety and in endless quantity are grown by the natives for local use.