(5.) It is fitting, furthermore, that we consider the character and condition of the people of this domain. As to their physical proportions, we have reason to believe that back of the malarial belt they are well formed, muscular and endowed with powers of great endurance. The tribes of the interior drive down the inhabitants of the forest range into the lowland, where the law of the survival of the unfittest obtains on account of malaria leaving alive the coarse, muscular men of the coast. Of the mental capacity of these people a good illustration was seen in Barnabas Root, a real heathen, who came to this country and was graduated at a Western college and also at the Chicago Theological Seminary, ranking among the best scholars of his class at both institutions.
The capacity of this people is also indicated by some splendid achievements on African soil. A native among the Vey people invented an alphabet with two hundred characters, in which communications could be sent by letter and the language preserved in books. Still another contrived an instrument before the invention of the telegraph, called an _eleimbic_, for conveying sound, and by means of which messages could be sent for several miles. Native women manufacture cloth, woven in different colors; they also make a species of twine as delicate and useful as any in the world. Clay vessels that hold water, iron axes and implements of utility of native manufacture, also abound.
Timbuctoo, the queen city of the Desert, at the north-eastern boundary of the country we are considering, contains 20,000 inhabitants, and is laid out with regular streets and well-built houses. Here is found a great mosque with nine naves and a tower 286 feet high and 212 wide, while other mosques of great age and importance greet the eyes in this wonderful city. These indications of skill are found among native Africans, even if due, especially in Timbuctoo, to the Mohammedan faith. Cities and towns in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and further along the coast, are the result in part of a foreign civilization, but still in some measure attest the capacity of the real heathen.
These people not only evince capacity for the development of material wealth, but for the science of government. They evidently believe in experiments in governmental civilization. For example, the king of Dahomey selects the most robust of his wives for a body-guard and organizes regiments of amazons. These are said to be most courageous soldiers and absolutely devoted to their calling. He also displays his appreciation of object lessons in temperance reform by keeping a drunkard on rum, that his hideous aspect might deter the people from that vice; while the boys who act as porters on the coast promote the observance of Sunday laws by charging for their services on the Lord’s day sixpence extra for breaking the Sabbath.