A MAN FROM AFRICA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1269, 26 October 1911, Page 8

A MAN FROM AFRICA.

* DR. KARL KUMM WELCOMED. THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO,

CHRISTIAN OR MOSLEM? There arrived from Sydney by tho Ulimaroa yesterday Dr. Karl Kumm, explorer, geographer, and anthropologist, and also director of the Soudan Uluted Mission. Dr. Kumm is a German by birth and education—his degree of Doctor of Philosophy was obtained at a German university—but ho is a Britisher by naturalisation. He was interested in exploration and anthropology beioro he became interested in missions, and especially he was interested in the black peoples of Africa. Ho decided at length that if these peoples were to have a jtuturo at all, they must first bo taught to embrace Christianity, and he made up his mind to become a missionary. He oliercd himself as such to tho United Mission, but they refused to send him into the tield, preferring to reserve him to find men and mouey for tho work, and to organiso generally. So it is that he is here in Zealand, to stimulate interest in foreign missions, and to find men and mouey. Ho is still a young man, probably no more than '10 years of age, and powerfully but sparely built. A reception was held lor Dr. Kumm in tho Council Chamber yesterday, under the auspices of tho Y.W.C.A. Mr. J. G. W. Aitken presided, and Archdeacon Harper, for the Anglican Church, and the Rev. Dr. Gibb and the Rev. Kennedy Elliott for the Presbyterian Church, cordially welcomed tho visitor. Briton and Boer, Dr. Kumm delivered a short address, altogether about things which interest him in Africa. Wellington, he said, reminded him of Pretoria. Some ten or twelve years ago New Zealand joined with tho other parts of tho British Empiro to help in establishing a permanent place in South Africa. In Pretoria, where he had been about three months ago, he had found, to his great astonishment, that in less than ten years those who had been in arms one against another had become fast friends. Ho had visited South Africa five years ago, and he found things very low aiid depressed there. Also there was a good deal of ill-feling. Ho had been back in South Africa a few months ago; he had visited 35 towns and cities; he had been privileged to meet most of the leaders of the people; and ho had found that there was pcaco in South Africa to-day. And there would bo peace in tho future, for he did not think there would be another trouble between the Africanders and the English in South Africa. Referring to the war in Tripoli lie said he did not think it would give rise to any Mohammedan fanatical or religious outbreak. Italy would quietly occupy Tripoli, and there would bo very little fighting. For there was no food in -the interior for the Turkish troops. In fact, the town of Tripoli was little more than an oasis in the Sahara, and yet in tho time of Constantino the country boasted great and rich cities, where were now only small oases. The population had been reduced from ten millions to less than half a million. Wherever Mohammedanism had gone, and been allowed to work its will, with it had gone stagnation, depopulation, and retrogression in many ways. One of the first acts of the Mohammedans after their arrival in North Africa was to burn the greatest library in the world at Alexandria. Ruined by Islam. Before the Mohammedans came there we.ro in North Africa 1000 bishoprics, and the population of Egypt was 25 millions. When the British went into Egypt there were fivo millions left, and since then the population had doubled. Under Mohammedan rulo all these bishoprics had been swept awav, and nine-tenths of the population with all their wonderful educational institutions had disappeared. When Europe first went into tho North of Africa again, 40 or 50 years ago, the land had become a waste howling wilderness. That was the effect of Mohammedanism, and Mohammedanism had set itself to take in all the African races. The destiny of the whole negro race was involved in tho struggle between Moslem and Christian. Wars had been waging in tho North of Africa between the great Sultans of the Sudan, for the Sudan was a vast territory, containing many largo and rich cities, cities where Christian missionaries had never been. In the eleventn century Christianitv was driven out of Nuhia, and the Christians were driven into the Switzerland of Africa, Abyssinia. Some of the straight-haired black peoples embraced Mohammedanism, but tho negroes would not. The Koran said: "If thy neighbour will not be converted, enslave him," and so great armies of Moslems marched down into those regions to enslave the negroes. The wars so begun 500 years ago came to an end only about 12 years ago, at the battlo of Omdurman, when Great Britain took possession of the Nile Vallev. What tho Mohammedans had failed 'to do by force, they wero now trying to do in a peaceful way, aad tribo after tribo were going over to Mohammedanism. Child-folk and their Future. Dr. Kumm went on to tell what manner of peoplo thci-Q trills were. They wero the children in the human family—in the same state as our own forefathers were 2000 years ago. They had even the rudimentary elements that might make them a great peoplo ono day, but meantimo the steries they told round their camp fires wero just such fairy tales as children told to children in our homes. Ho went on to tell some of tho stories, given in answer to a question from him as to why there were black people and white people in the w;orld. Ono tribo had a story about a murderer in the original human family, who turned white with l'car when the Great Spirit was angry. It was from this murderer that tho white peoplo sprang. And if one saw what the white peoplo had done in Central Africa, in tho Congo, for instance, one could scarcely be astonished that the natives should thing tho white men belonged to a family of murderers. Another tribe had some theory very like Darwin's natural selection idea. Still another told a story about some of the peoplo crossing a river to a land of riches, but tho water of tho river was witch-vater, 'uul it made them white. Where these stories came from no ono could tell, for the people who had them were thousands of miles from anywhere. But these children peoples had a future, a future which might be good or bad, and they lived in tho countries which had been last to como under the threefold cross of tho Union Jack. These children wore standing at the cross-ways, but for the lack of Christian teachers they wore going over to tho religion of Mohammedanism.