ABSTRACT
The steady and continuous spread of Islam in the western portion of the Dark Continent is a fact which no one acquainted with the subject will attempt to deny. It is, indeed, so well established that to specialise particular instances where it has been observed would be a needless undertaking. It is everywhere palpable, striking, impressive. It can no more be disguised or ignored than the concurrent circumstance of relative failure on the part of Christian missions. While Mohammedanism continues to gain converts far and wide; to absorb whole tribes; to filter down the rivers to the ocean; to pierce the forest belt, with hardly a check—save here and there, as, for example, among the Ibos on the Niger—Christianity makes no headway in the interior; and even in its confinement to the coastwise region, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, some of the Europeanised towns on the coast, its progress is slow, so slow, indeed, that well-informed observers are not wanting who believe that it is losing rather than gaining ground. At any rate, it is not, I venture to think, an exaggeration to say, Christianity is maintaining itself with difficulty among heathen communities in West Africa, and beats in vain against the strong tide of Mohammedanism. *
