With the exception of a good sea wall, there is little of the substantial about Beira—only a few frame buildings, and others of corrugated iron. Arab merchants are numerous, and where they have become established there is very little money for the white man, few modern customs being in evidence.
One of my cabin mates was a Trappist priest. Born in Ohio, he went to Africa in his early years, and had been teaching natives for a quarter of a century. He was a chaplain in the Boer War, and his intimate knowledge of that interesting country was so general as to break set rules for bedtime when listening to his experiences.
The ship's whistle blows and we are off again, traveling through what is known as the Mozambique Channel, that stretch of water separating Madagascar, a French possession, from Portuguese-East Africa. The latter country is 750 miles in length and 200 miles wide. The seashore all along is as free of ruggedness as the shores of a lake located in a level plain.
Negro melodies and popular airs were reeled off their musical instruments by the two Americans at intervals of a few nights between. We had a congenial lot of passengers, and every one was enjoying the voyage.
Three more stops were made in Portuguese-East Africa, but no enterprise was apparent. Few white people were to be seen, while Indians, Arabs and natives were as thick as flies. At Ibo, the last stop, the cargo was brought from shore to the ship in what are called dhows, with ragged sails, scaly hulks, chipped masts, frazzled ropes—the sort of vessels that have been used in Asia for 2,000 years. Rubber trees grow in that section and, together with copra, comprise the exports.
CHAPTER II
Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of German-East Africa, was, after leaving Ibo, the next place where the vessel put in. What a difference is observable in the make-up and general appearance of this German town to those in Portuguese-East Africa! Some very imposing stone and cement buildings, with others under construction; good streets, clean surroundings, and a sprinkling of white people, were a very welcome change from the poorly built and almost totally black-populated places we had left behind.
The railway station, freight cars and locomotives, good wharves and paved streets brought to mind old scenes. For nearly 800 miles the railroad pierces westward through a black-populated and wild-beast inhabited country to the shore of Lake Tanganyika, this body of water, 420 miles long and 10 to 60 miles wide, being the boundary of this German possession and the Belgian Congo. Rubber and coffee plantations have been laid out, particularly at the western end of the railroad line; and from the great native passenger traffic, and bringing of supplies to these and to races far beyond the western terminus, good returns are assured. The area of this German possession is 384,000 square miles.
Unlike Beira, motor cars and bicycles were in evidence in Dar-es-Salaam, but no horses were to be seen, as in Beira. In the South African notes mention was made of the miserable breed of horse in Durban, also of horses being unable to live in some parts of that country. So, on the East Coast of Africa, where horses cannot live, and the life of Europeans is measured by but a short number of years, there must be something radically wrong with the climate.