This savage scene is reflected in the
comparatively civilised stations all down the West African coast, where
the inexperienced and ardent philanthrope is apt to suppose that the lazy,
feckless habits are not nature-implanted but contracted by contact with a
more advanced stage of society.
Again, in many parts of Africa the richest lands, and those most
favourably situated, are either uninhabited or thinly peopled, the result
of intestine wars or of the export slave-trade. Mr. Administrator
Goulsbury, of Bathurst, during his adventurous march from the Gambia to
the Sierra Leone River, crossed league after league of luxuriant ground
and found it all desert. He says, [Footnote: Blue Book of 1882, quoted in
Chap. X.] 'I think the fact has never been sufficiently recognised that
Africa, and especially the west coast of the continent, is but very
sparsely populated.... It is not only very limited, but is, I believe, if
not stationary, actually decreasing in numbers.... I commend this fact to
the consideration of those who indulge in day-dreams as to the almost
unlimited increase of commerce which they fondly imagine is to be the
result and reward of opening up the interior of the country.
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