Land of Ethiope! whose burning centre seems unapproachable as the frozen
Pole!
Land of the unicorn and the lion, of the crouching panther and the
stately elephant, of the camel, the camel-leopard, and the camel-bird!
Land of the antelopes, of the wild gemsbok, and the gentle gazelle, land
of the gigantic crocodile and huge river-horse, land teeming with animal
life, and, last in the list of my apostrophic appellations--last, and
that which must grieve the heart to pronounce it, land of the slave!
Ah; little do men think, while thus hailing thee, how near may be the
dread doom to their own hearths and homes! Little dream they, while
expressing their sympathy--alas! too often, as of late shown in England,
a hypocritical utterance--little do they suspect, while glibly
commiserating the lot of thy sable-skinned children, that hundreds, ay
thousands, of their own colour and kindred are held within thy confines,
subject to a lot even lowlier than these--a fate far more fearful.
Alas! it is even so. While I write, the proud Caucasian, despite his
boasted superiority of intellect, despite the whiteness of his skin, may
be found by hundreds in the unknown interior, wretchedly toiling, the
slave not only of thy oppressors, but the slave of thy slaves!
Let us lift that curtain which shrouds thy great Saara, and look upon
some pictures that should teach the son of Shem, while despising his
brothers Ham and Japhet, that he is not master of the world.
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Dread is that shore between Susa and Senegal, on the western edge of
Africa--by mariners most dreaded of any other in the world. The very
thought of it causes the sailor to shiver with affright. And no wonder;
on that inhospitable seaboard thousands of his fellows have found a
watery grave; and thousands of others a doom far more deplorable than
death!
There are two great deserts: one of land, the other of water--the Saara
and the Atlantic--their contiguity extending through ten degrees of the
earth's latitude--an enormous distance. Nothing separates them, save a
line existing only in the imagination. The dreary and dangerous
wilderness of water kisses the wilderness of sand--not less dreary or
dangerous to those whose misfortune it may be to become castaways on
this dreaded shore.
Alas! it has been the misfortune of many--not hundreds, but thousands.
Hundreds of ships, rather than hundreds of men, have suffered wreck and
ruin between Susa and Senegal. Perhaps were we to include Roman,
Phoenician, and Carthaginian, we might say thousands of ships also.
More noted, however, have been the disasters of modern times, during
what may be termed the epoch of modern navigation. Within the period of
the last three centuries, sailors of almost every maritime nation--at
least all whose errand has led them along the eastern edge of the
Atlantic--have had reason to regret approximation to those shores, known
in ship parlance as the Barbary coast; but which, with a slight
alteration in the orthography, might be appropriately styled
"Barbarian."
A chapter might be written in explanation of this peculiarity of
expression--a chapter which would comprise many parts of two sciences,
both but little understood--ethnology and meteorology.
Of the former we may have a good deal to tell before the ending of this
narrative. Of the latter it must suffice to say: that the frequent
wrecks occurring on the Barbary coast, or, more properly on that of the
Saara south of it, are the result of an Atlantic current setting
eastwards against that shore.
The cause of this current is simple enough, though it requires
explanation: since it seems to contradict not only the theory of the
"trade" winds, but of the centrifugal inclination attributed to the
waters of the ocean.
I have room only for the theory in its simplest form. The heating of
the Saara under a tropical sun; the absence of those influences,
moisture and verdure, which repel the heat and retain its opposite; the
ascension of the heated air that hangs over this vast tract of desert;
the colder atmosphere rushing in from the Atlantic Ocean; the consequent
eastward tendency of the waters of the sea.
These facts will account for that current which has proved a deadly
maelstrom to hundreds, ay thousands, of ships, in all ages, whose
misfortune it has been to sail unsuspectingly along the western shores
of the Ethiopian continent.
Even at the present day the castaways upon this desert shore are by no
means rare; notwithstanding the warnings that at close intervals have
been proclaimed for a period of three hundred years.
While I am writing, some stranded brig, barque, or ship may be going to
pieces between Bojador and Blanco; her crew making shorewards in boats
to be swamped among the foaming breakers; or, riding three or four
together upon some severed spar, to be tossed upon a desert strand, that
each may wish, from the bottom of his soul, should prove uninhabited!
I can myself record a scene like this that occurred not ten years ago,
about midway between the two headlands above named--Bojador and Blanco.
The locality may be more particularly designated by saying: that, at
half distance between these noted capes, a narrow strip of sand extends
for several miles out into the Atlantic, parched white under the rays of
a tropical sun, like the tongue of some fiery serpent, well represented
by the Saara, far stretching to seaward; ever seeking to cool itself in
the crystal waters of the sea.