A STREET PARADE.
A band of Negro musicians playing a popular air, was passing through the
street on which Dorlan resided. He was in the act of going out of the gate
as the procession got opposite to him, and paused to allow it to pass.
There was a great concourse of Negro boys and girls, men and women,
following the band of musicians. Their clothes were unclean, ragged and
ill-fitting. Their faces and hands were soiled and seemed not to have been
washed for many a day. The motley throng seemed to be utterly oblivious of
its gruesome appearance, and all were walking along in boldness and with
good cheer.
"Now those Negroes are moulding sentiment against the entire race," thought
Dorlan, as his eye scanned the unsightly mass. "Be the requirement just or
unjust the polished Negro is told to return and bring his people with him,
before coming into possession of that to which his attainments would seem
to entitle him. It is my opinion that there must be developed within the
race a stronger altruistic tie before it can push forward at a proper gait.
The classes must love the masses, in spite of the bad name the race is
given by the indolent, the sloven and the criminal element." Taking another
survey of the throng he said, "Ah! the squalor and misery of my poor
voiceless race! What we see here is but a bird's-eye view. The heart grows
sick when it contemplates the plight of the Negroes of the cities."
Dorlan's eye now wandered from the people to the band. In the midst of the
musicians he saw a cart pulled by five dogs hitched abreast. In the cart
stood a man holding aloft a banner which bore a peculiar inscription.
Dorlan read the inscription on the banner and looked puzzled. Coming out of
his gate he kept pace with the procession, never withdrawing his eye from
the banner. He read it the second, third, fourth and fifth times. At length
he called out, "Hold! here am I." The occupant of the cart leapt up and
gazed wildly over the throng, endeavoring to see the person that had
spoken.
"Here," said Dorlan. The man looked at Dorlan, jumped from his cart and
rushed through the crowd and ran to Dorlan's side. Taking a knife from his
pocket he quickly made a slit in Dorlan's clothes just over the muscular
part of his left arm. The purposes of the man were so evidently amicable
that Dorlan interposed no objection. The man seemed to be satisfied with
what he saw. He now threw himself at Dorlan's feet and uttered loud
exclamations of joy. Arising he turned to pay and dismiss the band.
The throng by this time was thoroughly excited over the curious antics of
the stranger, and had clustered around Dorlan wondering what it was that
had caused such an abrupt cessation of the open air concert which they were
enjoying. The stranger now locked his arm in that of Dorlan and the two
returned to Dorlan's home. The crowd followed and stood for a long time at
Dorlan's gate hoping that the two would return and afford an explanation.
As this did not happen, they at length dispersed.
When Dorlan and the stranger entered the former's room and were seated,
they looked at each other in silence, Dorlan awaiting to be addressed and
the stranger seeking to further assure himself that he was not mistaken. He
arose and again looked at the markings on Dorlan's arm. He now spoke some
words in a strange tongue. Dorlan readily replied in the same language.
The stranger now felt safe in beginning his narrative. Said he, in English,
"My name is Ulbah Kumi. I hail from Africa. I am one of an army of
commissioners sent out by our kingdom into all parts of the world where
Negroes have been held in modern times as slaves. We are hunting for the
descendants of a lost prince. This prince was the oldest son of our
reigning king, and was taken captive in a battle fought with a rival
kingdom. He was sold into slavery. The royal family had a motto and a
family mark. You recognized the motto on the banner; you have the royal
mark. You also look to be a prince. Tell me your family history and I will
make to you further disclosures."
Dorlan now told of his father and his grandfather. His grandfather had
always claimed to be the heir to an African throne, had imbued his,
Dorlan's father, with that thought. The father had taught the same to
Dorlan. A certain formula, said to be known to no others on earth, was
cherished in their family.
"Now! Now!" said Kumi when Dorlan recited that fact. "That formula is no
doubt a key that will unfold the hiding place of treasures that will make
you the richest man in the world. Here is an inventory of what is to be
found in that hiding place."
Dorlan took the reputed inventory. The enormous value of the items cited
staggered his imagination. "This is incredulous," said Dorlan. "How could
Africans, unlearned in the values of civilized nations, know how to store
away these things."
"Easily explained," said Kumi. "A white explorer spent years in our kingdom
collecting these things. We deemed them worthless, gave them to him readily
and called him fool. He took sick in our country and saw that he was going
to die. He called your great grandfather, our king, to his bedside, told
him that civilization would make its way into Africa one day, and urged him
at all hazards to preserve and secrete the treasures that he had collected.
Our king was led to believe that these treasures would make him one of the
greatest rulers of earth, and he obeyed the dying man's injunction. The
white man left this inventory and a document giving the location of his
European home, the names and family history of his kin, asking that our
king remember them in the day of his affluence.
"Our king gave the formula that leads to the hiding place to your
grandfather, your grandfather told it to your father, your father has, I
see, no doubt, told it to you.
"As a further proof that I speak the truth I hand you now a few specimen
stones that were reserved to prevent this affair from being classed as a
myth." He now took from a pocket a box of costly stones and handed them to
Dorlan.
"How these things would grace Morlene," thought Dorlan, as his eye passed
from one sparkling jewel to another.
It now occurred to Dorlan that the acceptance of this fortune might entail
upon him a sacrifice of which he was incapable. It might involve his
leaving this country, a step that he could not even contemplate in view of
the fact that Morlene was now free. The looming of this contingency before
his mind caused him to drop the jewels as though they had suddenly become
hot. Kumi looked up at him in great astonishment.
Dorlan's face now wore a pained expression. He had always been profoundly
interested in Africa and was congratulating himself on the opportunity now
offered to convert the proffered kingdom into an enlightened republic. It
now seemed that his own interests and those of his ancestral home were
about to clash. He cannot endure the thought of putting an ocean between
Morlene and himself. Nor can he with equanimity think of allowing Africa to
remain in her existing condition.
"When am I expected to go to Africa?" enquired Dorlan in serious tones.
"You may not have to come at all, and yet serve our purpose."
"How so?" asked Dorlan, arising and drawing near to Kumi.
The latter began: "We Africans are engaged in a sociological investigation
of many questions. We are seeking to know definitely what part the climate,
the surface, the flora and the fauna have played in keeping us in
civilization's back yard. Huxley thinks that our woolly hair and black
skins came to us only after our race took up its abode in Africa. He holds
that it was nature's contribution to render us immune from the yellow fever
germs so abundant in swampy regions.
"He thinks that those of our race who did not take on a dark hue and woolly
texture of hair were the less adapted to life in the tropics and eventually
died out, leaving those that were better adjusted to survive.
"He thinks that these beneficial modifications were preserved and
transmitted with increasing strength from generation to generation until
our hue and our hair or the physical attributes for which they stand
rendered us immune from yellow fever. I may add that Livingstone says of
us, 'Heat alone does not produce blackness of skin, but heat with moisture
seems to insure the deepest hue.'
"Now, nature, in thus protecting us against yellow fever, by changing our
color from the original, whatever it was, has painted upon us a sign that
causes some races to think that there is a greater difference between us
and them than there really is. So much for our color and the ills that it
has entailed."
Dorlan interrupted Kumi to remark very feelingly:
"I am truly glad that you are not inoculated with that utterly nonsensical
view to be met with in this country, which represents that the Negro's
color is the result of a curse pronounced by Noah upon his recovery from a
drunken stupor. Please proceed."
Kumi resumed his remarks. "Mr. Herbert Spencer holds that our comparative
lack of energy is due to heat and _moisture_. He states that 'the earliest
recorded civilization grew up in a hot and dry region--Egypt; and in hot
and dry regions also arose the Babylonian, Assyrian and Phoenician
civilizations.' He points out that all 'the conquering races of the world
have hailed from within or from the borders of the hot and dry region
marked on the rain map 'rainless districts,' and extending across North
Africa, Arabia, Persia, and on through Thibet into Mongolia.'
"He, therefore, would ascribe our backwardness principally to a woful lack
of energy, a condition brought on by our hot and moist climate.
"When our investigation of these questions is complete," continued Kumi,
"we will know just what has brought us where we are and can determine
whether artificial appliances sufficient to counteract existing influences
can be discovered and instituted.
"Mr. Benjamin Kidd seems to think that the tropics can never develop the
highest type of civilization. In the event that the government of the
tropics is to be conducted from the temperate zones, we tropical people
will desire Negroes to remain in the temperate zones, to advocate such
policies and form such alliances as shall be for our highest good.
"So, it may turn out to be the best for you, our king, to remain here, for
our welfare, owing to our peculiar environments, depends, just now, as
much upon what others think of us as upon what we ourselves may do. The
question of your going to Africa is not, therefore, a pressing one, yet."
"That leaves me somewhat free to deal with a question that _is_ pressing,
and pressing hard," said Dorlan, clasping Kumi's hand in joy, now that the
way was clear for him to serve without conflict his own heart and the home
of his fathers.
Kumi looked at Dorlan puzzled as to what question it was that was pressing
for a settlement. Dorlan did not enlighten him on the subject, however.
But we know, do we not, dear reader?