itself; at the way it ignores one spot upon the earth's surface, and
upon another, several thousand miles away, heaps its blessings and
its tyrannies. Having settled in a place one might suppose the
"influences of civilization" would first be felt by the people
nearest that place. Instead of which, a number of men go forth in a
ship and carry civilization as far away from that spot as the winds
will bear them.

When a stone falls in a pool each part of each ripple is equally
distant from the spot where the stone fell; but if the stone of
civilization were to have fallen, for instance, into New Orleans,
equally near to that spot we would find the people of New York City
and the naked Indians of Yucatan. Civilization does not radiate, or
diffuse. It leaps; and as to where it will next strike it is as
independent as forked lightning. During hundreds of years it passed
over the continent of Africa to settle only at its northern coast
line and its most southern cape; and, to-day, it has given Cuba all
of its benefits, and has left the equally beautiful island of Hayti,
only fourteen hours away, sunk in fetish worship and brutal
ignorance.

One of the places it has chosen to ignore is the West Coast of
Africa. We are familiar with the Northern Coast and South Africa. We
know all about Morocco and the picturesque Raisuli, Lord Cromer, and
Shepheard's Hotel. The Kimberley Diamond Mines, the Boer War,
Jameson's Raid, and Cecil Rhodes have made us know South Africa, and
on the East Coast we supply Durban with buggies and farm wagons,
furniture from Grand Rapids, and, although we have nothing against
Durban, breakfast food and canned meats. We know Victoria Falls,
because they have eclipsed our own Niagara Falls, and Zanzibar,
farther up the Coast, is familiar through comic operas and rag-time.
Of itself, the Cape to Cairo Railroad would make the East Coast
known to us. But the West Coast still means that distant shore from
whence the "first families" of Boston, Bristol and New Orleans
exported slaves. Now, for our soap and our salad, the West Coast
supplies palm oil and kernel oil, and for automobile tires, rubber.
But still to it there cling the mystery, the hazard, the cruelty of
those earlier times. It is not of palm oil and rubber one thinks
when he reads on the ship's itinerary, "the Gold Coast, the Ivory
Coast, the Bight of Benin, and Old Calabar."

One of the strange leaps made by civilization is from Southampton to