t of learned opinion regarding Africa and the
Africans only a comparatively short time ago may be gained from the
following article, which appeared in a Berlin journal in 1891.[1] The
article, in part, runs:

"With regard to its Negro population, Africa in contemporary
opinion offers no historical enigma which calls for a solution,
because from all the information supplied by our explorers and
ethnologists, the history of civilization proper in the continent
begins, as far as concerns its inhabitants, only with the
Mohammedan invasion.

"Before the introduction of a genuine faith and a higher standard
of culture by the Arabs, the nations had neither political
organization nor, strictly speaking, any religion, nor any
industrial development. None but the most primitive instincts
determine the lives and conduct of the Negroes who lack every
kind of ethical inspiration. Every judicial observer and critic
of alleged African culture must once for all make up his mind to
renounce the charm of poetry and wizardry of fairy lore, all
those things which in other parts of the world remind us of a
past fertile in legend and song; that is to say, must bid
farewell to the attractions offered by the Beyond of History, by
the hope of eventually realizing the tangible impalpable realm
conjured up in the distance which time has veiled within its
mists, and by the expectation of ultimately wresting some relics
of antiquity every now and again from the lap of the earth.

"If the soil of Africa is turned up today by the colonist's
plough share, no ancient weapon will lie in the furrow; if the
virgin soil be cut by a canal, its excavation will reveal no
ancient tomb; and if the ax effects a clearing in the primeval
forest, it will nowhere ring upon the foundations of an old world
palace. Africa is poorer in record history than can be imagined.
'Black Africa' is a continent which has no mystery, nor history!"

But now this view of Black Africa and its peoples so widespread and
well established a generation ago is being slowly dissipated and a new
and revolutionary view of the mysterious contents is building itself
in its stead. The facts and forces bringing about this great change
fall into three main classes; they are of an historical,
archaeological and ethnological character.

The real beginning