Oh! Africa, mysterious Land!
Surrounded by a lot of sand
And full of grass and trees,
And elephants and Afrikanders,
And politics and Salamanders,
And Germans seeking to annoy,
And horrible rhinoceroi,
And native rum in little kegs,
And savages called Touaregs
(A kind of Soudanese).
And tons of diamonds, and lots
Of nasty, dirty Hottentots,
And coolies coming from the East;
And serpents, seven yards long at least
And lions, that retain
Their vigour, appetites and rage
Intact to an extreme old age,
And never lose their mane.
[Illustration ** Military officer, possibly German, staring into
the distance in front of a sign for German East Africa,
with a snake wrapped around the sign post.]
Far Land of Ophir! Mined for gold
By lordly Solomon of old,
Who sailing northward to Perim
Took all the gold away with him,
And left a lot of holes;
Vacuities that bring despair
To those confiding souls
Who find that they have bought a share
In marvellous horizons, where
The Desert terrible and bare
Interminably rolls.
Great Island! Made to be the bane
Of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.
Peninsula! Whose smouldering fights
Keep Salisbury awake at nights;
And furnished for a year or so
Such sport to M. Hanotaux.
Vast Continent! Whose cumbrous shape
Runs from Bizerta to the Cape
(Bizerta on the northern shore,
Concerning which, the French, they swore
It never should be fortified,
Wherein that cheerful people lied).
[Illustration ** The Negus, the Sultan facing us and a third man
with his back towards us.]
Thou nest of Sultans full of guile,
Embracing Zanzibar the vile
And Egypt, watered by the Nile
(Egypt, which is, as I believe,
The property of the Khedive):--
Containing in thy many states
Two independent potentates,
And one I may not name.
(Look carefully at number three,
Not independent quite, but he
Is more than what he used to be.)
To thee, dear goal, so long deferred
Like old Æneas--in a word
To Africa we came.
We beached upon a rising tide
At Sasstown on the western side;
And as we touched the strand
I thought--(I may have been mistook)--
I thought the earth in terror shook
To feel its Conquerors land.