The Lure of Africa

Book excerpt: The rapidity of the Mohammedan movement in its sweep westward is highly significant. A succession of conquerors came to the front-their names need not bother us-and by 668 what is now Tripoli was a Moslem state. Algeria went down with little resistance and the Arab hordes swept onward to the Pillars of Hercules. The story is told that Akba, who raided Morocco, rode his horse far out into the surf and cried, "Great God, if I were not stopped by this raging sea, I would go to the nations of the west, preaching the unity of they name and putting to the sword those who would not submit."-from Chapter II: "Strongholds of Mohammedanism"When missionary Cornelius Patton returned to Boston from an extended trip to Africa just before World War I, his friends and colleagues assumed he would write a book about his trip. "That," Patton assures us in the "Personal Word" that opens The Lure of Africa, "is exactly what I shall not do." Fortunately, Patton's friends and colleagues prevailed, and in 1917, he published this account of his journey, a lyrical and introspective work that hints at the conflicts this white man abroad on the Dark Continent may have felt. For 21st-century readers, it is a fascinating and unexpected look at a man who found Africa "horribly heathenish but mighty interesting" but nevertheless sought to mold this exotic land into something comfortable and familiar.OF INTEREST TO: students of the history of Christianity in Africa, armchair travelersAUTHOR BIO: American writer CORNELIUS HOWARD PATTON (1860-1939) is also the author of Business of Missions (1924), Eight O'Clock Chapel (1927), and God's Word (1931).