THE AUTHOR IN BUSH COSTUME
I have seldom seen so many long faces as in those days, when the news of the sudden dissolution of the Reichstag burst like a bomb in the comfortable, well-to-do official circles of the town. It seemed as though every single European, down to the lowest subordinate, had been personally affected by the event; all the mess-rooms were loud with the dismal prognostications of the croakers as to the black future—or rather the want of any future—before the colony, whose inglorious end seemed placed beyond doubt, as each of us foresaw that the General Election in January would admit at least a hundred Socialists to the Reichstag. “And of course it is all up with the railways,” was the stereotyped refrain of all these lamentations, which the mourners duly drowned in a sea of whisky and soda. Personally I am convinced that things will not be as bad as that, but that the next Reichstag will show at least as much feeling for the colonies as its predecessor, or, indeed, it is to be hoped, still more. On January 25th our steamer is to arrive at Genoa; on that date the elections will be over, and on the following day we shall be able to get a general survey of the results, and form some idea as to the fate of our colonies in the immediate future.
I left Dar es Salam on December 20th by the Admiral, a splendid boat, almost new, and rolling far less even than the Prinzregent. It was also more comfortable than the latter; it was no wonder, therefore, that all the cabins were full. We had still more English on board than in the spring; many from Cape Town, and still more from Johannesburg. Accordingly, the prevailing style of dress was noticeably luxurious. This time I was able to go ashore at Tanga, and even see something of the Usambara railway. Captain Doherr, with his usual foresight, had (probably remembering the managerial functions which he had been called upon to perform a few months previously, in the service of the eight Deputies) arranged for a special train to be ready for the passengers, or at least for such as wished to avail themselves of it. With this we made the run to Muhesa, where the expedition was brought to a halt by means of enormous dishes of sandwiches and trays of whiskies and sodas. Something is really being done in the north-east of the colony, as one can see even from the train; it is true that not all the land is yet under cultivation, but every bit of it is already in the hands of a permanent owner, even far beyond the rail-head.
There were grand doings at Tanga in the evening. This town enjoys a whole series of advantages. In the first place, it is the nearest to the mother country of all our East African ports, and thus constitutes the gateway to the colony. In the second place, the harbour is tolerably good; the bay, indeed, is not land-locked to the same extent as that of Dar es Salam, but, like the latter, it has sufficient anchorage within a short distance of the shore. The most important point, however, is its nearness to Usambara, the choicest part of our territory as regards climate and soil. Usambara has but one fault: it is not large enough to accommodate all would-be settlers. It is said that even now the available land has been allotted, and there is no chance for later applicants. Many of these are now staying at Tanga, or on their way south to seek new fields for their energies: in fact, the boom at Lindi was in great part caused by the congestion in the north. The economic centre of gravity, therefore, for our whole colonial activity lies at present in this north-eastern district. This, by the bye, is evident from the whole aspect of European life at Tanga. After passing many months on end in the Usambara mountains, with no opportunities for social intercourse, the planter suddenly feels the need of society, and in a few hours’ time we may behold him seated in the club at Tanga.
Where there are Germans, there is also music. Dar es Salam enjoys the advantage of two bands—that of the sailors from the two cruisers, and that of the askari. Both are under official patronage, but I cannot say much for the proficiency of the native performers: in any case, their music was accompanied by a great deal of noise. At Tanga it is not in economic matters only that the residents assert their independence—even the Boys’ Band of that town is a purely private enterprise. Tanga is a scholastic centre par excellence, hundreds of native children being instructed in the elements of European knowledge and initiated into the mysteries of the German tongue, which, indeed, one finds that all the little black imps can speak after a fashion. The more intelligent, in whom their teachers discover, or think they discover, any musical gift, are admitted to the famous Boys’ Band. This is just now in excellent training. When the passengers from the Admiral presented themselves in the evening on the square in front of the Club, the band turned out to welcome them, and the playing was really remarkably good.
CHAPTER XX
RETROSPECT
At the Entrance to the Red Sea.
Christmas and New Year’s Eve were passed at sea, with the usual festivities; the latter, on which the dancing was kept up with equal enthusiasm and energy by German and English passengers, was also the eve of our arrival at Suez.
About noon on the first day of January, 1907, I set foot on the soil of Egypt, which I have only just left, after a stay of nearly three weeks. I had a great desire to study the relics of ancient Egyptian culture on the spot, and therefore left Cairo and its neighbourhood as speedily as possible for Upper Egypt—Luxor, Karnak and Deir el Bahri. From a climatic point of view, also, Cairo was not well adapted for an intermediate station between the tropics and the winter of Northern Europe. One after another of our passengers remaining behind for a tour in Egypt became indisposed. Some, therefore, took the next boat for Germany, arguing that their colds “would cost less at home,” while others made off up the Nile by train de luxe, in order to accustom themselves slowly and carefully in the glorious desert air of Assuan to the sub-arctic climate of Ulaya.
The Assuan dam is historically a piece of Vandalism, technically a meritorious piece of engineering, economically a truly great achievement. The narrow-gauge railway winds up the Nile in sharp curves between Luxor and Assuan. Sometimes the Nile flows in immediate proximity to the track—sometimes there is a narrow strip of alluvial level between the sacred stream and the new unholy iron road. All this time one is oppressed by the narrowness of the country; it seems as if the first high wind must blow the sand right across it and bury it altogether. Suddenly the bare hills on the left retreat: a wide plain opens out before us, only bounded in the far distance by the sharp contours of the hills in the Arabian Desert. The plain itself, too, is a desert—but how long will it remain so? Turn to the right and consider the great block of buildings which meets your eye. It is neither Egyptian nor Arabian, there is none of the dirt of Fellah barbarism about it; on the contrary, it represents the purest Anglo-American factory style. The tall chimney crowning the whole, and emitting a dense cloud of smoke, forms an incongruous contrast with its surroundings—the silver Nile with its border of green fields, running like a ribbon across the boundless sands of the desert to east and west. Look before you at the straight canal crossing the plain and lost to sight in the distance and the ditches and channels by which it distributes the Nile water in all directions, with perfect regularity. The building is a pumping-station, established to restore the desert plain by irrigation to its former fertility. Now it is still perfectly bare: in a few months’ time, it will be a sea of waving corn with stalks bearing fruit a hundredfold.