The African sketch-book . air to Government Houseand receive their pay ; and thus, without a soldier beingstationed outside the Peninsula, a large region of theinterior is to all intents and purposes under British is not the money that these chieftains care for, butthe honour of an alliance with the white man. Thissystem is also self-supporting, for the expenses of pay-ment are more than defrayed by the development oftrade and the revenues thence received. In this mannerAfrica might be conquered, by money, not by arms. The Senegal divides the Sahara from the Soudan. Onthe one side, as
The African sketch-book . air to Government Houseand receive their pay ; and thus, without a soldier beingstationed outside the Peninsula, a large region of theinterior is to all intents and purposes under British is not the money that these chieftains care for, butthe honour of an alliance with the white man. Thissystem is also self-supporting, for the expenses of pay-ment are more than defrayed by the development oftrade and the revenues thence received. In this mannerAfrica might be conquered, by money, not by arms. The Senegal divides the Sahara from the Soudan. Onthe one side, as Cadamosto related long ago, are thebrown men of the desert, the tawny Moors, with leanhaggard faces, hawk-like startled eyes, wandering withcamels from well to well; in the dry season approachingthe river, in the rains retiring to the desert, which thenhas a green season, brief as the summer of the ArcticCircle. On the other side, are the black, stout, comelyJaloffs, dwelling in fixed towns, and cultivating fieldsof Book III] MOSLEM AFRICA 311 THe trade of this region is chiefly in gum, whichexudes from a kind of acacia growing in copses on theborder of the desert. The Senegal rises in rainy mountains, and floods itslow-lying lands in an extraordinary manner. Here andthere the summit of a hill alone appears above the water,and becomes an island. But the short stunted trees arecompletely covered by the water, and a commander of agunboat assured me that he had once steamed over aforest. Now, if my friends vessel had run aground andthe waters had suddenly abated, the singular spectaclewould then have been observed of a steamer dry-dockedin the upper branches of a tree. In these floods the wild beasts are often driven tostrange straits. Swimming in all directions, they takerefuge on floating trees or on the island-hilis. Toomuch alarmed by the flood to follow their amiable in-stincts and dine on one another, lions, leopards, jackals,antelopes, serpents, and monkeys are often
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