It must have struck even the most unobservant of our guests how the land
improved as we travelled northward. How the ungrateful looking Karroo
of Cape Colony was presently followed by expansive plains covered with
dwarf shrubs; how the plains became more promising after we passed the
Hart River: how the rolling grassy prairie-like country of Southern
Bechuana was followed by the acacias and mimosas of Northern Bechuana;
and how as we neared Rhodesia these trees in a few hours of travel rose
from 10 feet to 20 feet in height; how the land became more compact, and
lost much of its loose porous texture, and consequently the grasses were
higher and water might be found at a lesser depth. That improvement, I
am told, continues as we go northward towards Salisbury, even though we
may keep on a somewhat uniform level, that is on the tableland
separating the river flowing eastward, south to the Limpopo and
north-west to the Zambesi. So rapid is the effect of a lower altitude,
and consequent greater heat and moisture, that about 80 miles from
Bulawayo to the north-west a magnificent forest of teak has been found,
from whose grand timber we saw several specimens of furniture, such as
tables, desks, and bureaus, a log of 20 feet long and a foot square,
besides a quantity of planks.
Rhodesia's Fine Climate.
Now, this Rhodesia consists of Matabeleland and Mashonaland, and covers
about a quarter of a million square miles. It is the northern portion
of the Great South African tableland, and its highest elevations run
north-east and south-west, varying from 4000 to nearly 6000 feet above
the sea. This height declines on the eastern, southern, and
north-western sides, as it slopes along with the rivers flowing from
them. This high land, which is eminently suitable for European
families, is about 70,000 square miles in extent, of solid, unbroken
agricultural country as compared with Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
Those who remember what countries of similar superficial area in Europe
can contain in population may be able to gauge what numbers of the white
race may exist in Rhodesia. Outside the limit I have mentioned the
resident must expect to be afflicted with malarial fevers, and the lower
one descends towards the sea, the more frequent and severe will they
become. There is this comfort, however, that long before the upper
plateau is over-populated, population will have made a large portion of
the malarious districts healthy and inhabitable--at least, it has been
so found in every land that I have visited. On the upper lands, the
resident who has come by way of the Cape and Bechuanaland need have no
fear of malaria. I regard my own oft-tried system as a pretty sure
indicator of the existence of malaria, for a very few hours' residence
in a country subjected to this scourge would soon remind me of my
predisposition to it; but during the whole of the time I have spent in
Rhodesia I have not felt the slightest symptom. I have seen white women
driving their babies in perambulators on the plain outside Bulawayo in a
sun as hot as any in the Egyptian or Moroccan desert, and, though I felt
they were unwise, it was clear to me that in such a climate a sufficient
head protection was the only thing necessary to guard against a
sunstroke or the feverish feeling which naturally follows a rash
exposure to heat.
The Rainy Season.
Rhodesia has been visited by us during what is generally said to be its
worst period. The rainy season begins in November and ends in March.
We arrived November 4, and, though we have been here only a week, we
have had four showers and one all-night downpour. The rainfall during
the season amounts to as much as 45 inches. I fancy few men have had
larger experience of the pernicious effects of cold rains alternating
with hot suns than I, and the composure of the Bulawayo population under
what seems to promise four months of such weather strikes my
imagination, and is to me a strong testimony of the healthfulness of the
climate.
No Stint of Vegetables.
The park of Bulawayo, the grounds of Government House, and especially
the advanced state of Mr Colenbrander's charming gardens, afforded to
me valuable proofs that the soil responded very readily to civilised
treatment; but the most conclusive proof to me of the capacity of the
soil was furnished by a large market garden laid out in a depression
just outside of the town. From end to end the garden, supplied with
water by a windpump from a well, was a mass of robust European
vegetables, whence cabbages weighing 30 pounds each, and tomatoes of
extraordinary size, have been sent to market. At the Palace Hotel the
hundreds of guests made large demands for vegetables, and there was no
stint of them. Further on towards old Gubulawayo we were attracted by
native women hoeing in a field, and our attention was drawn to the
native fields, which showed by the old corn-stalks that the Matabele
must have found the black earth of the plains gracious to their toils.
Here and there in these villa gardens, market gardens, public
pleasaunces, and ornamental grounds we found sufficient evidences that,
given water, the soil of Rhodesia was equal to supplying anything that
civilised man with his fastidious taste and appetite could possibly
demand.
The Gold of Rhodesia--Something to Satisfy an Anxious Mind.
The next thing to do was to find out something relating to the precious
metal, whose presence in Rhodesia was the immediate cause of the
railway. I remember last session having heard in the Smoking Room of
the House of Commons the most disparaging views regarding the prospects
of Rhodesia and the quality of the reefs. The gold of Rhodesia was said
to be "pocket" gold, and that the ancients, whose presence long ago in
this land is proved by the multitude of old workings and disused shafts,
were too clever to have left any for us moderns. Not knowing how to
controvert such statements, I had left them unanswered, half believing
that they were true. Sir James Sivewright, in his speech on the first
festal night, said that Bulawayo was built upon faith, and the majority
of the guests I discovered held the most doubtful views, and I must
confess little was needed to confirm the scepticism which had been
planted in me in England. But when I heard that there was an exhibition
of ores to be seen in the Hall of the Stock Exchange, I felt that the
Reception Committee had provided for us something more valuable than
banquets--something which should satisfy an anxious mind. Within a
well-lighted, decent-sized hall, on an ample shelf ranged around it, a
few of the mining companies of Rhodesia had sent various specimens of
the ores. Above these shelves hung admirably-drawn maps to illustrate
the reefs whence they were taken. I had noticed, as I went in, other
specimens of Rhodesian products ranged along the passages--bulky lumps
of coal from the Zambesian coal district, a coal that is said to give
only from 8 per cent, to 12 per cent, of ash; fine red sandstone blocks,
a stone closely resembling that of which most of the houses on Fifth
Avenue, New York, are built; blocks of grey sandstone, to which
substance I had already been attracted, it being so much used for
lintels and doorways of Bulawayan houses; and rough and polished granite
blocks, which reminded me of the famous Aberdeen stone, besides several
limestone briquettes.