Show IN DARKEST AFRICA 500000 Worth of Our Cheap Colored Cottons for the Moslem It Is pleasing to turn from the rc oltlng spectacle of some of the West Vfrican tribes who had been bestialized b y their devotion to trade gin to the picture which travelers draw of the V great Hausa states of the Sudan under un-der Mohammedan dominion for a con ury where such a thing as a bottle of spirits Is never seen For a hundred ears the Mohammedans of North Af rica have V been pushing across the Sahara and the Sudan bringing nil the V barbarOus peoples they have met under he Influence of Islam Thus Moham V me anlsm has far more profoundly af ected the lives of many millions of black Africans thanthe Christian In fUtenccs which are only just beginning V tO make large headway It cannot be said that this influence of Islam Js V vholly salutary though many observers V observ-ers like the learned Dr Blyden of LI cria regard Islam as the greatest clv llzlng agency yet introduced liijo Af rica but these Moslem proselytes have made the natives better than they found them and have stimulated for elgut rude with darkest Africa to a cmarkable extent When Stanley and V other explorers began to penetrate equatorial regions they suld v These tribes around the lakes V who V dress Jn long garments madeof bark fiber arc beginning to discard their llmsy native cloth and are swathing their bodies with fold after fold of vhlte cottons from England and Amer ca The Arabs among them dress in hcso cloths and have convinced the natives of their advantage over the homemade cloth A great future Is coming for the cloth trade hiMhner Africa V 1 V s V VV The trade is growing every year V Scores of tribes in Central Africa are eager to buy Mericanl as V they call ho cottons made in America which traders now bring to their villages About October In every yean the great caravan that crosses the Sahara from Morocco to Timbuktu starts on its way The caravan always numbers ibout 10000 camels and A fiflh of them are laden with white American and British cottons and blue and other colors col-ors The greatest Imports of Tripoli which is the other great center of the desert caravan trade are cotton cloths and most of them are sent to the desert ases and the fertile Sudan beyond White cottons arc among the largest V Imports of Xauzibaivand many of them are sent inland to the natives who never nev-er saw these manufactures till the Arabs appeared among them in their white garments England has the larg est share In this trade but 500000 worth of our clieap unoolored cottons were sent Into the wilds of Africa last year V and It Is the Moslem who has V opened these new markets for the textiles tex-tiles of the Infidel nations But the Mohammedans have done more than to open these new markets They have stimulated textile manufac tures In the very heart of Africa to such an extent that cloth made In the Sudan Is now for sale In Mediterranean cities The town of Kano only a few days journey from Lake Tchad has been well called The Manchester nf Central Africa for the cloth It weaves from the native cotton clothes more than half th < j people of the central Su dan Fanatical followers of Islam cannot can-not keep out of touch with the rest of the world though they may for years Wall cities like Timbuktu and Harrar and seal up great regions like the V Egyptian Sudan against every white race They may proclaim war on the Infidel while at the same time their very tastes and aptitudes are opening ways through which foreign commerce enters atWater Invades a leaking ship Cyrus C A darns In Alnslees |