Chapter VIII

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CONCLUSION

Now our book is finished, and we have read about some of the other people who also live in our country of Africa. There in the north are the Bedouin and the traders, always moving from waterspring to waterspring across the sand of the great Sahara, ever on the watch against robbers. Next there are the Egyptians living on the great River Nile: some in towns with shops and trades; some very poor in the villages, planting their seed when the river rises. All these Northern people are Mohammedans and the men marry several wives, and the women are veiled and live apart.

Farther south it is very hot, and is a land of great lakes and rivers. Here we read about the Baganda, the dark-skinned Africans who learned to make a strong nation where all the people helped each other and obeyed their king. These are now Christian, and are quickly learning other things from the Christian European nations who trade with them. Then we read about the tribes farther west in the land of the River Congo. These people still move their villages from time to time, and each man makes only what he needs in his own home. There is often fighting between the tribes, and many people are killed. These Congo people have learnt very little, and some eat the flesh of men and women, and the little Pigmies do not even live in villages, but each family by itself.

Farther south still is the great country of South Africa. Here it is not so hot, and Europeans have made their homes in it. There are Africans living in tribes and villages, but learning to be peaceful and to help each other by their work. Many of these at times go to work in the mines to find useful things deep down in the ground. There are also the Europeans: some in towns, some in farms, all European and African bound together in the great nation of South Africa, each doing his own part of the nation's work.

So that in this great land of Africa we have people living very different kinds of life, in the deserts, in the forests of the Congo, in Uganda and on the Nile, in the mines of South Africa, and on the great farms on the veld and in the great towns. The country itself is different in different parts: the sand in the north; Central Africa, with its hot sun and its lakes and rivers and mountains and forests; South Africa, with its great grassy plains, and the mines and towns joined by the railways which make it easy to get quickly to places far away. Yet, although the people of Africa have such different homes, we must remember that they are very much like ourselves. They wear other clothes and speak other languages, but all love their families, and each is doing his best to make his home a happy place in which he can live.

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