THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
AFRA, SAINT: An early female martyr, concerning whom all that can be confidently asserted is that she suffered at Augsburg. This fact is attested by Venantius Fortunatus (Vita Martini, iv. 642-643) and the mention of her name in the older martyrologies, and there is no reason to question it since the importance of Augsburg makes the early introduction of Christianity there probable. Her.4rfa (ed. B. Krusch, MGH, Script., Rer. Merov., iii., 1896, 41-64) consist of two independent parts, Conversio and Passio, of which the latter is
the older. It is said that she was dedicated by her mother to the service of Venus and lived an immoral life in Augsburg until she was converted by a bishop and deacon, who, in time of persecution, took refuge in her house, not knowing her character. She boldly confessed her faith in a general onslaught on the Christians and died by fire Aug. 5.
Bibliography: Rettberg, KD, i. 144-149; Friedrich, KD, i. 186-199, 427-430, ii. 653-654; L. Duchesne, Ste. Afra d'Augsbourg, in Bulletin critique, ii. (1897) 301-305.
I. The Continent as a Whole.
1. Geographical Description.
2. The Races of Africa.
3. The Opening of Africa.
The Arabs and Portuguese (§ 1). The General European Invasion (§ 2).
AFRICA.
The Prohibition of the Slave-Trade
(§3). Later Explorations and the Partition of Africa (§ 4). 4. Religion and Missions. II.
Native Religions (§ 1). III.
Mohammedanism (§ 2). Protestant Missions (§3). Colonists and Missions (§ 4). The "Ethiopian Movement " (§ 5). The Political Divisions of Africa. African Islands.
I. The Continent as a Whole : 1. Geographical Description: Africa extends southward from the Mediterranean Sea nearly 5,000 miles. The equator crosses it nearly in the middle of its length; but by far the greater part of its mass lies north of the equator, the breadth of the continent from Cape Verde to Cape Guardafui being about 4,600 miles. Its area is about 11,500,000 sq. miles; and the adjacent islands add to this 239,000 more. Easily accessible to Europe by the Mediterranean Sea through 2,000 miles of its northern coast, and touching Asia at the Isthmus of Suez, this continent has ever invited investigation, and has received notable influences from both of its active neighbors. The Sahara Desert, however, severing the Mediterranean coast regions from the southern and equatorial regions of the continent, has proved for centuries a bar to extended intercourse. " Had it not been for the River Nile," says Sir H. H. Johnston, " the negro and the Caucasian might have existed apart even longer without coming into contact." In fact, the great rivers of Africa are quite as important as aids to foreign intercourse in these days as the Desert has been an obstruction to it in the past. The greatest of the African rivers are the Nile, the Kongo, the Niger, and the Zambesi. Closely connected with the rivers, again, are the great lakes of central Africa, namely, Victoria, Tanganyika, and Nyassa, which belong, respectively, to the Nile, the Kongo, and the Zambesi systems. A further characteristic of the continent, noteworthy for all who seek entrance to its interior districts, is the insalubrity, one might say the deadliness, of the climate of its coasts both east and west throughout its tropical zone. The low-lying coast regions, extending in some cases 200 miles inland are sown with the graves of white men, germs of strange and fatal fevers lying in wait as it were for all strangers who venture to set foot unprepared upon that black and seething soil. The greatest mountains of Africa are all in its east central section. Kilima- Njaro in German East Africa, east of the Victoria Nyanza, is 19,600 feet high; Mweru, close by, is about 16,000 feet; and Ruwenzori, west of the Victoria Nyanza and on the border of the Kongo Independent State, is over 20,000 feet. Among the high lands of the interior the most notable
section is a broad causeway of elevated plateaux which stretches from Abyssinia southward almost to Cape Colony, and which offers to the white man an almost ideal residence at a height of from 5,000 to 6,000 feet through a long range that is hardly broken save by the Zambesi River.
2. The Races of Africa: The puzzle of the races in Africa which the casual visitor classes under the comprehensive term negroes is insoluble at this day. But the key to the puzzle may probably be found in the repeated mingling of Asiatic and European blood in varying degrees and at divers distinct epochs with the blood of the African of the projecting jaw and the woolly locks. The history of Africa is practically the history of Egypt and then of her Carthaginian rival until well toward the Christian era. Only then did the Mediterranean coast of North Africa begin to have a tale of its own. The mention of this is significant; it suggests the repeated entrance of Asiatics into Africa through the whole period when Egypt was a world power, and of various sorts of Europeans into North Africa during a thousand years before the Mohammedan era.
The races now inhabiting Africa are a perpetual subject of discussion and theory because of the difficulty of accounting for the resemblances as well as the differences between them. Along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa the Arab race rules; but in all the countries of this coast from the west frontier of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean the Berber race forms the larger part of the population, and even extends into the Sahara. A little further south , negroes of a low and degraded type are found on the west of the Nile; and they appear at different points throughout the continent as far west as the Atlantic coast. In Egypt the larger part of the population is a mixture of Arabs with the ancient Egyptian race, commonly classed as Hamites. This name distinguishes this people from the Semitic races, without throwing light on their origin. Arabs appear also at intervals along the coast of East Africa as far south as Portuguese East Africa in considerable numbers. In the northern section of this coast, along with the Arabs is found a race of negroes commonly called Nubians, the result apparently of mixtures of Arab, Egyptian, and