6. Leaving out of sight the still unsettled problem of the mineral wealth of these territories, they are in other respects one of the most promising parts of South Africa. I have remarked that as regards pasture and agriculture they are superior to the inland parts of Cape Colony. They are in these points also superior to the Transvaal, and still more plainly superior to the neighbouring possessions of Germany and Portugal. Portuguese East Africa is fever-stricken. German East Africa is in many places barren and almost everywhere malarious. German South-west Africa is largely desert, much of it an arid and irreclaimable desert.
To the English race in South Africa the acquisition of these regions, or at least of the parts south of the Zambesi, has been an immense political and economic advantage. It has established their predominance and provided a security against any serious attempt to dislodge them. A philosophic observer without predilections for any one state or people would, it is conceived, hold that the English race is more likely to serve what are termed the interests of civilization in this part of Africa than is any other race. The Portuguese have neither energy nor capital. The Germans, with energy and with capital, have not the requisite practice in independent colonization, nor perhaps the taste for it. The South African Dutch Boers, who have within the last seventeen years been more than once on the point of occupying the country, are, with all their good qualities, a backward people, who, had they prevailed, would have done little more than squat here and there over the country with their cattle, and carry on an incessant desultory war with the natives. Whether it is really desirable that the waste lands of the world should be quickly brought under settled order and have their resources developed with all possible speed, is a question on which much might be said. But assuming, as most men, perhaps too hastily, do assume, that this sudden development is desirable, the English are the people most likely to carry it out effectively, and the strong and strenuous man who, with little encouragement from the government of his country, founded the British South Africa Company and acquired these territories for his countrymen, took one of the most fateful steps that statesman or conqueror has ever taken in the African continent.
CHAPTER XVIII
THROUGH NATAL TO THE TRANSVAAL
There are two ways of reaching the Witwatersrand goldfields, now the central point of attraction in South Africa, from the south-east coast. One route starts from Delagoa Bay, a place of so much importance as to deserve a short description. It is a piece of water protected from the ocean by Inyack Island, and stretching some twenty miles or more north and south. At the north end, where two rivers discharge their waters into it, is an almost landlocked inlet, on the east side of which stands the town of Lourenço Marques, so called from the Portuguese captain who first explored it in 1544, though it had been visited in 1502 by Vasco da Gama. The approach to this harbour is long and circuitous, for a vessel has to wind hither and thither to avoid shoals; and as the channel is ill-buoyed, careful captains sometimes wait for the tide to be at least half full before they cross the shallowest part, where there may be only twenty feet of water at low tide. Within the harbour there is plenty of good deep anchorage opposite the town, and a still more sheltered spot is found a little farther up the inlet in a sort of lagoon. The town, which is growing fast, but still in a rough and unsightly condition, runs for half a mile along the bay front, while behind a suburb is built up the slope of a hill facing to the west. The site looks healthy enough, though it would have been better to plant the houses nearer to the high point which shields the anchorage. But behind the town to the east and north there are large swamps, reeking with malaria; and the residents have, therefore, though of course much less in the dry season, to be on their guard against fever, which, indeed, few who remain for a twelvemonth escape. The Portuguese Government is unfortunately hard pressed for money and has not been able to complete the projected quays, nor even to provide a custom-house and warehouses fit to receive and store the goods intended for the Transvaal, which are now discharged here in large quantities. In November, 1895, everything was in confusion, and the merchants loud in their complaints. Business is mostly in English and German, scarcely at all in Portuguese, hands. With better management and the expenditure of a little money, both the approach to the harbour and the town itself might be immensely improved; and although the country round is not attractive, being mostly either sandy or marshy, the trade with the Transvaal goldfields seems so certain to develop and maintain itself that expenditure would be well bestowed. It has often been suggested that Great Britain should buy or lease the place (over which she has a right of pre-emption), but the sensitive pride of Portugal might refuse any offer. Nevertheless, it needs no great boldness to foretel that some day it will come into British hands.
The other port which now competes for the Transvaal trade with Delagoa Bay is Durban, the largest town in the British Colony of Natal. It stands on a sandy flat from which a spit of land runs out into the sea between the open ocean and the harbour. The harbour is commodious, but the bar on the channel connecting it with the ocean formerly made it unavailable except for vessels of light draft. Although much had been done by the Colony to deepen the channel, the largest steamers were (in 1895) still forced to lie out in the ocean a mile or two away, and as there is usually a swell, in which the little steam-tenders pitch about pretty freely, the process of disembarkation is trying to many passengers. There is, however, good reason to hope that the bar difficulties may ultimately be overcome, as they have already been greatly reduced: and the harbour, once you are within it, is perfectly sheltered.
Durban is a neat and, in some parts, even handsome town, incomparably superior to Lourenço Marques, with wide and well-kept streets, to which the use of slender jinrickshas (drawn by active Zulus or Indians) instead of cabs, as well as the number of white-clad coolies in the streets, gives a curious Eastern touch, in keeping with the semi-tropical vegetation. The climate is sultry during three months, but very agreeable for the rest of the year. Many of the whites, however,—there are 14,000 of them, and about the same number of Kafirs and immigrants from India, live on the hill of Berea to the north of the town, where the sea breeze gives relief even in the hottest weather. This suburb of Berea is one of the prettiest spots in South Africa. The name, of which the origin seems to have been forgotten by the citizens of to-day, comes from a missionary settlement planted here in very early days, and called after the Berea mentioned in Acts xvii. 10, 11. It has been skilfully laid out in winding roads, bordered by tasteful villas which are surrounded by a wealth of trees and flowering shrubs, and command admirable views of the harbour, of the bold bluff which rises west of the harbour, and of the ocean. The municipality bought the land, and by selling or leasing it in lots at increased prices has secured a revenue which keeps local taxation at a very low figure, and has enabled many town improvements to be made and many enterprises to be worked for the benefit of the citizens. Durban has been a pioneer of what is called, in its extremer forms, municipal socialism; and enjoys the reputation of being the best managed and most progressive town in all South Africa. It possesses among other things a fine town-hall with a lofty tower, built by the exertions of the present mayor, a deservedly respected Scotch merchant.
East of Durban a low and fertile strip of country stretches along the coast, most of which is occupied by sugar plantations, tilled by coolies brought from India, because the native Kafir does not take kindly to steady labour. North of the town the country rises, and here the patient industry of other Indians has formed a great mass of gardens, where sub-tropical and even some tropical fruits are grown in great quantities, and have now begun to be exported to Europe. Across this high ground, and through and over the still higher hills which rise farther inland, the railway takes its course, often in steep inclines, to the town of Pietermaritzburg, eighty miles distant, where the Governor dwells, and a small British garrison is placed. Durban was from the first an English town, and the white people who inhabit it are practically all English. Maritzburg was founded by the emigrant Boers who left Cape Colony in the Great Trek of 1836, and descended hither across the Quathlamba Mountains in 1838. Its population is, however, nowadays much more British than Boer, but the streets retain an old-fashioned half-Dutch air; and the handsome Parliament House and Government Offices look somewhat strange in a quiet and straggling country town. Its height above the sea (2500 feet) and its dry climate make it healthy, though, as it lies in a hollow among high hills, it is rather hotter in summer than suits English tastes. The surrounding country is pretty, albeit rather bare; nor is the Australian wattle, of which there are now large plantations in the neighbourhood, a very attractive tree.