But, On The Other Hand, I
Do Not Believe That He Will Be Called Upon To Try, For Under The
Present conditions white control will not become very thorough; and
in the event of an European war, governmental attention will
Be
distracted from West Africa, and the African will then do what he
has done several times before when the white eye has been off him
for a decade or so, - sink back to his old level as he has in Congo
after the Jesuits tidied him up, and as he must have done after his
intercourse with the Phoenicians and Egyptians. The travellers of a
remote future will find him, I think, still with his tom-tom and his
dug-out canoe - just as willing to sell as "big curios" the debris of
our importations to his ancestors at a high price. Exactly how much
he will ask for a Devos patent paraffin oil tin or a Morton's tin, I
cannot imagine, but it will be something stiff - such as he asks
nowadays for the Phoenician "Aggry" beads. There will be then as
there is now, and as there was in the past, individual Africans who
will rise to a high level of culture, but that will be all for a
very long period. To say that the African race will never advance
beyond its present culture-level, is saying too much, in spite of
the mass of evidence supporting this view, but I am certain they
will never advance above it in the line of European culture.
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