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.