Through South Africa / His Visit to Rhodesia, the Transvaal, Cape Colony, Natal

by Henry M. Stanley

While being instructed in the hopes and ambitions of several of the local people, my knowledge of how other young countries, such as the States, Canada, Australia, had been affected by the extension of the railway into parts as thinly inhabited as Rhodesia, induced me to cast my glance far beyond Rhodesia, that I might see what was likely to be its destiny, whether it was to be a Free State like Orange, self-sufficient and complacent within its own limits, or broadly ambitious like Illinois State, of which Chicago is the heart. Assuming that the energy which has already astonished us be continued, there are enormous possibilities in view. Bulawayo is 1360 miles from Cape Town, but it is only 1300 miles of land travel from Cairo, for the rest of the distance may be made over deep lakes and navigable rivers; it is but 1300 miles to Mossamedes, in Angola, which would bring the town within fifteen days from London; it is only 450 miles from Beira, on the East Coast, which would give it another port of entry open to commerce from the Suez Canal, India, Australia, and New Zealand; it is but 350 miles from N’gami; it must tap British Central Africa and the southern parts of the Congo State.

That is the position acquired by Bulawayo by the railway from Cape Town. Chicago, less than 60 years ago, had far less pretensions than this town, and yet it has now a million and a half of people.

Something of what Chicago has become Bulawayo may aspire to. The vast coal fields to which the new railway is to run, the stone, granite, sandstone, trachyte, the woods, minerals, gold, copper, lead, and iron, the enormous agricultural area, are valuable assets which must nourish it to an equal destiny. Then the Victoria Falls, larger than Niagara, what mighty electrical power lies stored there! I merely mention these things hap-hazard with the view of assisting my readers to understand the significance of these festivities. Many men will think and meditate on them, and new confidence, courage, and energy will be begotten to stimulate them to greater designs and larger effort.

The Founding of Rhodesia will cause a Re-Shaping of Policies.

But how does the scene at Bulawayo affect the political world? It seems to me to have great importance for all South African and British politicians for the way it affects Germany, Portugal, the Congo Free State, and Cape Colony. It will cause people to revise their opinions, and to clear their minds of all previous policies. Any influence that Germany may have hoped to exercise on South African politics has received a check by the insuperable barrier that has been created by those slender lines of steel between its South-West African Colony and the Dutch Republics. The Bechuana Crown Colony and Protectorate, through which they run, must receive a percentage of all immigrants to Rhodesia. These last two are far in advance of the German Colony, and each day must see them strengthened, so that they will become formidable obstacles in the way of German aspirations. These colonies lying along the length of the western frontier of the Transvaal State are four times larger than the Transvaal, and their grand stock-raising areas and agricultural plains having now become easily accessible, cannot remain long unoccupied. I fancy, therefore, that the ambition of Germany to rival our claims to the paramountcy will become wholly extinguished now, and that her thinkers, like wise men, will prepare their minds for the new problems which must be met in a not remote future.

The Lesson for Portugal.

The populating of Rhodesia by mixed races of whites of a superior order to any near it must exercise the Portuguese, whose territory lies between Rhodesia and the Indian Ocean. The iron road leading to it cannot be closed. The future of the country is no longer doubtful. We have tested its climate ourselves; we have heard the general conviction that these lofty plains, 4500 feet above the sea, suit the constitution of the white race; we have seen a hundred English children going from Bulawayo to a picnic to celebrate the arrival of the railway, and assuredly that would have been impossible on a tropical day in any other tropical country I know of. We have seen scores of infants on the streets, in the suburbs, on the plains outside, in arms, and in perambulators, and they all looked thriving, pink, and happy. The market of Bulawayo each day shows us English vegetables fresh from the garden. We have seen specimens of the cereals. Well, then, it appears to me certain that there will be a masterful population in this country before long, which it would be the height of unwisdom to vex overmuch with obsolete ordinances and bye-laws such as obtain in Portuguese Africa, and burdensome taxes and rates on the traffic that must arise as this country grows in wealth and population. It may be hoped that intelligent Portuguese will do all in their power to promote concord and good feeling with their neighbour, to check refractory chiefs from doing anything to disturb the peace, for nothing could make the people of Rhodesia more restless than interruption to traffic, and a sense of insecurity. If they do that the Portuguese territory must become enriched by the neighbourhood of Rhodesia.

Lessons to Northern Neighbours.

The Congo State will doubtless recognise its profit by the advent of the railway to Bulawayo and the extension of the line towards its southern borders, and the arrangements of the Government will be such as to ensure respect for boundaries and to teach the native tribes that transgression of such will be dangerous.

The British Government have a valuable object lesson for the development of African colonies. For over two hundred years the West African colonies have been stagnating for lack of such means of communication. They have been unable to utilise their resources. Their natural pretensions to the hinterlands have been grievously curtailed, and what ought to have been British is now French. Nyasaland has also too long suffered from Imperial parsimony. The function of government should comprise something more than police duty or the collection of taxes. The removal of causes injurious to health and life, and the establishment of communication as required by circumstances of climate, and needful to augment commerce, are just as urgent as the prevention of lawlessness and the collection of imposts. The climate of Nyasaland has slain more valuable men than the assegais of the Angoni. Against the latter the Government sent their Sikhs; against the former they have done nothing. Many of the sick colonists might have been saved, if, when weakened by anaemia, a little railway past the Shire Rapids had taken them quickly through the malarious land. If it be worth while to retain and administer Nyasaland, it is surely worth while to supply the population with certain means to send the fruits of their industry to the world’s markets, and to enable them to receive the necessaries of existence without endangering their lives in the effort or risking the loss of their goods. Therefore, to a Government that has shown such dread of constructing an insignificant railway a hundred miles in length, the enterprise of the Chartered Company in constructing one five hundred miles long—and starting immediately upon an extension two hundred and twenty miles—at the cost of one and three-quarter millions, must be exceedingly stimulative. The antique and barbarous method of porterage should be abolished in every British colony, more especially in tropical colonies, where exposure to sun and rain means death to white and black.