Читать книгу From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North - Ewart Scott Grogan - Страница 10

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Though very loath to leave our happy hunting-grounds, we had to tear ourselves away and make preparations for the long march north, so went down to Durban to lay in a few necessaries, an extra .303 in case of accidents, and to obtain the time and rate of our chronometer from the observatory.

On our return to Beira we embarked on the Peters for Chinde, finding as fellow-passengers the Congo Telegraph Expedition under Mr. Mohun--six white men, one hundred Zanzibaris, thirty donkeys, and a few cows, etc.

To our horror, on disembarking the next day, we found that all our heavy luggage, tents, etc., had been put on the wrong boat at Beira, and were on their way to Delagoa Bay. As the telegraph line is generally in a state of collapse, owing to the white ants eating the posts, and to vagaries on the part of the Portuguese or natives, it took some days to inform the agent.

Chinde offers no attractions except to those who are waiting for a home-going boat, so we made up our minds to go on to Chiromo, and have a little shooting till our things turned up, and we could proceed on our journey.

The African Lakes Corporation, to whom we had consigned a splendid full-plate camera, denied any knowledge of it. We afterwards found that it had passed through their hands, and had been stowed on a sunny and rain-swept verandah for three months, with a result that may be imagined. They had also inadvertently overlooked thirty of our cases of provisions, which we found at the last moment in their store.

Having borrowed a tent from Mr. Mohun, and being tired of sardines as a staple article of diet, we made a start up-river, only to find ourselves worse off afloat than we had been ashore, the Company we had the misfortune to travel by having apparently realized how to provide the minimum of comfort with the maximum of charge.

On each side of the steamer a barge was made fast, so progress was not rapid. It was the dry season. The river was very low, and intervals of rest on sandbanks were of frequent occurrence. The banks being very high, one very rarely saw the neighbouring country. No game was ever to be seen, while on the broad river only an occasional native canoe or a gunboat, bustling down-stream, broke the monotony.

Every night the boat tied up to lay in a supply of wood, sometimes near a native village, and occasionally near a sugar plantation; at the latter we were generally given some green vegetables, which were a great boon.

The water is pumped up from the river and distributed by channels over the cane-swamps, and in the time to come, as more of the river-banks are taken up by these Sugar Concessions, this drain on the water will make a considerable difference to navigation in the dry season.

Amongst the legitimate productions of the cane, they here manufacture Scotch whisky, the labels and bottles being imported from the home markets in large quantities. The most important estate is managed by a French company, superintended by ten Europeans (mainly French). The system of irrigation is very complete, and the work of cleaning is done by steam-ploughs, managed, of course, by Scotchmen. Mills are in course of erection, and the bottles, thistle and all complete, will soon be in requisition. Three hundred hectares are already planted, and the Company intend immediately planting five hundred more.

There is another important Sugar Company, owned by the Portuguese and managed by a Scotchman. The output from its extensive plantations during the season, which lasts three months, amounts to one hundred and twenty tons a week.

It is a dreary, hot, monotonous journey.

The river is most uninteresting, of great breadth, with low grass-covered banks and destitute of trees, except near the delta, where there are some thriving cocoanut plantations. The stream is cut up by numerous islands and sandbanks, haunted by vast flocks of geese, pelicans, and flamingoes.

At Senna there are a few miserable huts, and a few yet more miserable Portuguese, and at Songwe there is an Indian settlement, where there is some trade from the interior.

On reaching the Shiré we were transferred to an animated tea-tray, by courtesy called a steamer, which carried us to Chiromo. The food for five Europeans for two and a half days consisted of one ancient duck, three skinny fowls, and a few tins of sardines. There was no bread, butter, milk, or Worcester sauce, without which life, or rather native cookery, is intolerable. Luckily, at the villages on the way we were able to buy fowls, eggs, and tomatoes.

Before reaching Chiromo we put in at the first B.C.A. post, Port Herald, where dusky Napoleons ponder over wild orgies of the past. A broad road planted with shade trees leads up to the collector's house, and cross-roads, similarly planted, give quite a pleasant appearance to the place, backed in the distance by a high mountain.

Chiromo is laid out at the junction of the Ruo and Shiré rivers, while on the north-west side the station is hemmed in by the vast Elephant Marsh, now a closed game preserve, owing to the inconsiderate slaughter in time past. Lions can be heard almost every night, and the day previous to our arrival a lion appeared in the town in broad daylight, and carried off a native. Though the available population turned out to slay, he escaped untouched. Many shots were fired at him from many varieties of guns, and the range varied from five to five hundred yards. But still he wandered round, the least excited individual in the place. Eventually the Nimrod of Chiromo, who arrived late, hurt his feelings by tumbling off a tree on to his back. This was too much, and he majestically stalked off into the Marsh, wondering at the inscrutable ways of men.

Leopard spoor was also a common sight in the street in the morning, while in the Ruo the crocodiles lived an easy life, with unlimited black meat at their command near the bathing-places.

From its position, the town is the inland port of British Central Africa, and with the fast-growing coffee industry will become a place of considerable importance. Already the building plots command a high price, and stands are being eagerly bought up by the African Flotilla Company and Sharrers' Transport Company, who are rapidly ousting the African Lakes Corporation from their position of hitherto unquestioned monopolists. There are also several German traders who display considerable activity, apparently with satisfactory results, and there are rumours of a coffee combination, financed by a prominent German East Coast firm, making their headquarters here.

A large estate on the right bank of the Shiré, called Rosebery Park, is owned by the African Flotilla Company, which makes excellent bricks, and opposite the town a fibre-extracting company has started work. The company has obtained Foulke's patent fibre-cleaning machine, and a concession of the fibre-gathering rights over all Crown lands, and another similar concession in the Portuguese territory.

The plant employed is Sanseveira, of which there are about twenty varieties, the most common in the neighbourhood being S. cylindrica and S. guiniensis; the former, owing to the greater ease with which it can be worked, being the most valuable. The length of leaf is 3 to 6 ft., and the diameter about ¾ in. I found it growing in immense quantities on the plains round Chiperoni.

The treatment is very simple. The green stuff is put over rollers, which take it past a rapidly revolving brush under a strong jet of water. The resulting fibre is then dried in the shade, tied into bundles, and is ready bleached for the market. Consequently the cost of production is very low. The fibre is fine, strong, and clean, and the waste is very small, the proportion of fibre to reed being 4 per cent. The strength is estimated at two and a half times that of the best manilla.

The cost of fuel (wood) to run one engine for a day is only four shillings, and as the fibre needs no cleaning, only one process is necessary.

Mr. H. MacDonald, the Collector and Vice-Consul, royally entertained us at his house, the only cool spot in Chiromo. His method of providing fish for dinner was to fire a round from his .303 into the edge of the river, when one or two fish would rise stunned to the surface.

The climate of the vicinity is very trying to Europeans; the heat is intense, and, being a moist heat, is at times insufferable. We repeatedly registered 115° and 120° in the shade, and owing to the amount of vapour held suspended in the air, there was very little diminution of temperature at night.

Periodical waves of fever prostrate the population when the wind blows from the Elephant Marsh, and the death-rate assumes alarming proportions. A form of Beri-Beri is also prevalent.

Large numbers of natives frequently apply for permission to come over from the Portuguese country and settle in British territory, and the population is thus becoming very dense, and food is easily obtainable in large quantities.