MISSION TO CENTRAL AFRICA
The committee to whom this subject was referred, beg
leave to report in favor of the measure, and recommend to the
Board as speedily as practicable, to organize a mission to Central
Africa.
Having come unanimously to this decision, and being fully
persuaded that the mission ought to be attempted, we deem it
proper to set before you, somewhat at large, the considerations
which have influenced our minds. We have surveyed the field,
with reference to its fitness for missionary operations, and the
probabilities of success in conducting them, and our conviction of
the importance and practicability of the measure has increased, at
every step of our progress.
Soodan, Beled El Sudan, “the country of the blacks,” is a
term applied by the Arabs to the interior of Africa. It is employed
more definitely by the geographers of Europe, to designate all the
countries along the southern edge of the Sahara, from Senegambia
and Sierra Leone on the west, to Dar Fur, ( Dar Foor,) on the east.
This region extends from 10° W. longitude to 25° E. longitude; is
2400 miles in length, and contains an area of 880,000 square miles,
which is more than four times the area of France. It is superior to
every other part of Africa, “in fertility, cultivation, and population,
not excepting the countries situated along the Mediterranean or
even Egypt,” [Penny Cyclopedia, Art. Soodan, vol. xxii: pp. 246,
253. With respect to the orthography and accentuation of the
names of places, which appear in this report, we have followed the
Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer, by Thomas Baldwin,
Philadelphia, Lindsay & Blakiston, 1845.] “The interior country of
Africa watered by the Quorra — a river which, from its source in
the Long Mountains down to Timbuctoo, is called the Jol-i-ba, or
‘great river:’ and thence to its outlet, the Quorra, but is known to
Europeans as the Niger — by the tributaries to the Tchad, and by
other unknown streams that probably exist, may be in general
described as a fertile region, well suited to the habitation of man,
and apparently not possessing a climate unfavorable to life, either
for the natives, or for Europeans who know how to take care of
themselves,” [Penny Cyclop, vol. I, p. 190.]
A portion of this region, called Western Soodan,
comprehending the county west of the Quorra, from Timbuctoo to
its entrance into the Delta at Abbazaca, and distinguished
