I think I have said enough to illustrate the position in which Bulawayo
has been placed by the arrival of the railway. At present its broad
avenues and streets give one an idea that it has made too much of
itself. When the avenues are about 90 feet wide and the streets 130
feet wide, naturally the corrugated-iron one-storeyed cottages and the
one-storeyed brick buildings appear very diminutive; and the truth is
that, were the streets of proportionate width to the height of the
buildings, the town would appear very small. The plain upon which it
stands gives an idea of infinity that renders poor one-storeyed Bulawayo
very finite-looking indeed. The town, however, has laid itself out for
future greatness, and the designers of it have been wise. Winnipeg, in
Manitoba, which Bulawayo reminds me of by the surrounding plain, was
laid out on just such a spacious plan; but ten years later six-storeyed
buildings usurped the place of the isolated iron hut and cottage, and
the streets were seen to be no whit too wide. Ten years hence Bulawayo
will aspire higher towards the sky, and when the electric trams run in
double lines between rows of shade trees, there will be no sense of
disproportion between buildings and streets. On the walls of the Stock
Exchange I found hanging plans and elevations of the brick and stone
buildings already contracted for. They are not to be very lofty, none
over two storeys, but architecturally they are most attractive. These
new buildings will, perhaps, stand for about five years, for, according
to my experience, it is not until the tenth year that the double storey
becomes the fashion. At the twentieth year begins the triple storey; at
thirty years the fourth storey begins to appear.
East of the town area devoted to commerce is a broad strip of park. It
occupies a gentle hollow in the plain, watered by a crooked ditch,
called spruit here, running through a rich, dark, and very thirsty
earth. It contains a few puddles here and there along its course. Only
a portion of the park is laid out as yet, and that has been well and
carefully done. Its plots contain a few hundreds of grape vines, which
look like currant bushes. There are also about a hundred very young
orange trees, a few flowers, shrubs, etc. A stone column to the memory
of Captain Lendy occupies an eminence in it. The whole park has a
sombre appearance, owing to the dark soil and ironstone freely
sprinkling it. But as the bushes, shrubs, and flowers have only been
lately planted, and as around the forcing houses there is a large number
of young plants in tins and pots, soon to be transplanted, a couple of
years will make an immense difference in the appearance of the
pleasaunce.
Beyond and east of the park is the residential part of Bulawayo, divided
into two avenues and nine streets running east and west, and eight roads
running north and south, named respectively Townsend, Lawley,
Livingstone, Pauling, Clark, Duncan, and Heyman, and Park Road, parallel
with the park.