ghly crushing the Arab movement which
they have provoked in Tunis, and which will in all probability be
extended next summer to Morocco and Tripoli, the beginning of the next
century will see what is left of the Barbary Coast in their possession,
or in that of Spain or Italy; and the greater part of the cultivable
lands fronting the Mediterranean occupied by their immigrants. What
France has done or attempted to do in Algiers her two neighbours may
possibly achieve with even more success in Morocco and western Tripoli,
for the Spaniards and Italians are both eminently colonizing races, and
the hill country of Barbary is little different in climate from their
own. Tripoli, on the break up of the Ottoman Empire, will certainly
tempt Italian statesmen, and Spain has already a footing on the African
coast in Tetuan. It is therefore conceivable that the better lands on
the seaboard will receive a flood of such agriculturists from either
country as now seek their fortunes on the River Plate and elsewhere.
Should such be the case, the Mohammedan population may be ousted from
their possession of the soil, and driven southwards, at least for a
time, and a considerable decrease of the political strength of Islam be
witnessed in that quarter. I do not, however, conceive that Europe will
ever obtain a sure colonial footing south of the Atlas, or that the
Mussulmans of the Sahara will lose anything of their present religious
character. At worst, Southern Morocco and Fezzan will always remain
independent Mohammedan States, the nucleuses of religious life in
Barbary, and links between the Mussulmans of Northern and Central
Africa, while further east the growing influence of Egypt will make
itself felt intellectually to the advantage of believers. It is,
however, to Central Africa that Islam must in the future look for a
centre of religious gravity westwards. There, in the conversion of the
negro race of the Tropics, already so rapidly proceeding, she has good
prospect of compensation for all losses on the Mediterranean coast; and,
screened by the Sahara and by a climate unsuited to European life, she
may retain for centuries her political as well as her religious
independence. The negro races will not only be Mohammedanised; they will
also be Arabised; and a community of language and of custom will thus
preserve for Soudan its connection with Mecca, and so with the general
life of Islam. The losses, then, to Islam in Africa will be rath