compelled to travel back to Bulawayo from Victoria Falls, and remain
there from 7:30 A. M. until 10:30 P. M. We devoted the day to an
automobile ride, and visited the Khami ruins, fifteen miles from the
town.... Many centuries ago, Africa was inhabited by a race far
superior in intelligence to the present native negroes. These people
left the country hurriedly, for some reason, and it was one of their
deserted towns we visited today. Some learned investigators say the
ruined and deserted cities were built long before the Christian era,
probably in the time of Solomon, and that the gold with which Solomon’s
temple was adorned, amounting in value to ten million dollars, was
mined in Africa. There seems to be no doubt that the gold mines in
Rhodesia were worked many centuries ago; the workers in the mines today
find unmistakable evidence of previous occupation.... The ruins we
visited are scattered over a good many acres, along a river in which
there is only stagnant water. Some of the more extensive buildings seem
to have been used for defense. These are of stone, without mortar,
and hundreds of feet of the walls are in as good condition as they
ever were. There are great cisterns for holding water and grain, and
modern builders say the cement was probably made on the ground, by
a process of which they have no knowledge. Some of the cisterns, if
cleaned out, would probably hold water today. Many relics have been
picked up about the place, which may be seen in a museum at Bulawayo,
and these indicate that the inhabitants were nearly as far advanced
as the ancient Egyptians; they were able to smelt metals, and they
had various kinds of domestic utensils, pottery, implements of war,
etc. The people of Khami knew something of dentistry, of medicine, and
of astronomy. Five hundred ruins or vestiges of former buildings are
found in Rhodesia, extending over an area 800 by 700 miles, and all
these are undoubtedly much older than Columbus, and probably older
than Christ.... Recently ruins have been found in Thibet very
much older than the ruins in Egypt, and, as investigations are more
carefully made, the fact becomes more apparent that no one has yet been
able to realize how old the world actually is.... In going to the
Khami ruins, we passed hundreds of negro women walking into Bulawayo
and carrying vegetables, chickens, firewood, etc. They were all naked
above the waist, and invariably carried their loads on their heads;
one woman carried a watermelon in this unusual way. The chickens were
carried in rough home-made baskets.... The ruined city of Khami is
in a wild and desolate country. On the way there, we saw only one or
two farm-houses occupied by white men, and not many native huts. The
country looked dry and worthless, and the roads were badly washed by
torrential rains. The ruins are located in hills, and the day was so
hot that we did not climb up to several of the most extensive-looking
fortresses. Nothing is positively known about Khami; who the people
were who built the town, when it was built, how long occupied, or when
deserted, is pure conjecture.
FRIDAY, APRIL 4.—We should have left Bulawayo last night at 10:30, but
the train was late, and we did not get away until after 1 o’clock this
morning. By the time we got our beds made, it was almost time to get up
for breakfast. This is the first time we have found a train more than
a few minutes late in either Australia, New Zealand, or Africa....
I awoke at daylight in the prettiest country we have seen in Africa;
a country as handsome as the prairies of Illinois must have been a
hundred years ago. Thousands of acres of gently rolling prairie land,
but it looks better than it really is. In 1896 the dreaded rinderpest
killed all the cattle and game in this section, and carts stood idle
in the roads because there were no oxen to move them; the air was
rendered offensive by the stench from dead animals. Whether you try to
raise stock, fruit or corn here, you have pests to deal with, and they
seem to be more persistent and numerous than pests are elsewhere. We
hear of great drouths, and of the people paying a shilling a gallon
for water. Some of the towns have built electric-light plants, but
often there is no water for the engines, and people use candles for
illuminating. Enterprising men build modern hotels in the towns, but
frequently there is no water for the modern baths, and the guests do
well to get enough water to drink.... Another pest here is white
ants. They kill forest trees, and undermine the foundations of houses;
they devour furniture and clothing—yet the country is so fair that
it seems a pity to turn it over to desolation. On the line between
Bulawayo and Salisbury there are a good many towns, including one
built around the best gold mine in Rhodesia. And how the people turned
out to see the train come in! At one place we estimated that there
must have been five hundred around the station. Trains travel over
the line only two or three times a week, and people seem to come from
great distances in the country to see the trains go by. But between
the stations there were millions of acres of land as wild as it was in
the days of Adam.... Early in the morning our English passengers
walked about in pajamas when we stopped at stations; Englishmen love
that sort of thing. At Victoria Falls they visited the Rain Forest in
pajamas, and in Johannesburg I was told that on Sundays and holidays,
pajamas are worn around houses and yards until lunch-time. Englishmen
show their pajamas so much that I cordially hate that particular form
of night-dress; Englishmen have the same passion for running around
in pajamas that American boys have for running around in baseball
suits.... In spite of occasional calamities such as 115 in the
shade, and drinking-water selling at a shilling a gallon, Rhodesia is
progressive, and encourages every enterprise. I have been frequently
told here that the United States agricultural bulletins are the best
in the world, and that they are read with interest in Rhodesia.
Another statement you hear frequently in Africa: “They have adopted
the American method;” but the trouble is, they haven’t the American
means to work with.... A London man told me today that he buys
_Harper’s Magazine_ regularly for two cents, although Americans are
asked thirty-five cents for it. A good many of the American magazines
sell their surplus copies in London at ridiculously low prices....
The negroes in the most civilized portions of Africa practice
witchcraft, and the authorities are compelled to closely watch the
native doctors and priests, to prevent outrages and murders.... We
arrived in Salisbury at 5:30 in the evening, and remained there four
hours; railroad trains make long stops at stations here without any
apparent reason, unless it is that the engineer, station-master and
guard cannot agree on starting. The first preliminary for starting a
train in Africa is for the station-master to ring a hand-bell. Next
the guard blows a tin whistle, to indicate that he is ready, and the
engineer then blows a blast on the steam whistle. I have heard these
preliminaries gone through with a dozen times before the train finally
started; when the station-master is ready, the engineer isn’t, and when
both these officials are ready to start, the guard isn’t. When the
guard is ready, the engineer and station-master seem to conclude to
let him wait awhile. And so, after a time, they begin all over again,
and, in the course of fifteen minutes, finally get away.... There
is an English woman on the train who is leaving Africa because of bad
health. Her husband is also an invalid, as a result of the fever; in
addition, he lost everything he brought to the country. This woman says
there is a plague for everything in Africa. We walked about Salisbury
with her, while waiting for the train to depart at 9:30 P. M., and the
town seemed as disconsolate as our traveling acquaintance.... I ate
dinner in Salisbury at a little restaurant, and shall always remember
the place, because of two very pretty girl waiters, and because of the
large number of young men who came in to flirt with them.
SATURDAY, APRIL 5.—Soon after breakfast this morning, we passed out
of Rhodesia into Portuguese East Africa, at a little town the name of
which I have forgotten. A Portuguese customs officer came on board,
but did not bother us, beyond asking if we had either pistols or
guns in our luggage. Being assured that we had not, he bowed very
politely, and departed. The governor of Portuguese East Africa joined
us at this station, traveling in a private car with his wife and a
party of friends. A number of ladies and gentlemen had gathered to
say good-by to the governor and his lady, and I shall never forget
the politeness of these people. Our compartment was within a few feet
of the observation end of the private car, but the Portuguese never
saw us, while other people on the train stared at us as though we
were very odd specimens of humanity.... Soon after passing into
Portuguese territory, the railroad ran through mountains, and the
ride was interesting all the way to Beira, which town we reached at
9:30 P. M. This section is tropical, and bananas and cocoanuts grow
in profusion. Near one town we saw hundreds of acres of growing corn;
and it was much better corn than we had been seeing in Rhodesia and
other parts of South Africa. It wasn’t such corn as we grow, but it
was probably half as good as an ordinary crop in eastern Kansas. I
estimated one field I saw at four or five hundred acres; there were
several others of fifty to a hundred acres. But the fields were
widely separated. In eastern Kansas every foot of the land is devoted
to crops, or pasture, or orchard, but here the occasional fields of
corn were separated by miles of wild land. There is more rain in this
section than in the vicinity of Bulawayo or Victoria Falls, and the
stations on the railway more numerous.... As evening approached,
we noticed that in the native villages, pots were boiling at open
fires in front of the huts. Cook-stoves are unknown among the natives,
and they have very little to eat except corn-meal mush. They make an
intoxicating liquor out of corn-meal, and their holidays are largely
devoted to revelry. The natives nearly all have cows, and drink a good
deal of milk, first letting it sour, and become what we call clabber.
Some of the greatest scientists claim that the free use of clabber-milk
will preserve life well beyond a hundred years. The primitive races
which live longest are liberal users of sour milk, which is claimed
to destroy an intestinal bacteria very fatal to human life....
The line of railroad to the sea at Beira was built to get cattle to
market from the fly district, Natal and the Cape having quarantined
against cattle in Rhodesia and other districts subject to disease.
The line from Bulawayo is seven hundred miles long, and operated
through Portuguese territory by special concession. It passes through
as interesting a country as we have seen in Africa.... At seven
o’clock in the evening we passed into a swampy country, and mosquitoes
became a pest. These were the dangerous mosquitoes, and we fought them
viciously. And all day the weather had been oppressively hot....
At 9:30 P. M. we reached Beira, and had to pass our baggage through
the custom-house. This ceremony concluded, we went to the Savoy Hotel
in what they call a “trolley” here. A narrow-gauge street-railway has
been laid all over Beira, but cars are not operated either by electric
or horse power. Every citizen owns his own car, a small, light affair
pushed by negro men. On the principal streets there are three tracks,
and there is a system by which traffic is regulated. When we went
up-town in a passenger trolley, the hotel porter came along behind,
with our baggage on a freight trolley. Freight of every kind is carried
to every part of Beira by these street-railway lines, and there are
little steam locomotives which handle heavy freight at night. Beira
is a Portuguese town, and passing through it at night on a trolley
pushed by two negro men, was an unusual experience. When we reached the
postoffice, the mail trolleys were unloading, and we were compelled to
wait several minutes.... Reaching the Savoy Hotel, which is modern
and comfortable, we went out on the veranda in front of our rooms, and
saw the German ship “Burgermeister,” brilliantly lighted up, lying in
the harbor. We shall go on board tomorrow, and remain twenty-four days,
until we reach Naples, in Italy.
SUNDAY, APRIL 6.—This morning we took a ride around Beira on a trolley
pushed by a negro man. The site of Beira is a sandbar reclaimed from
the sea, and there is not a horse in the town; indeed, there is not a
horse within a hundred and fifty miles of Beira, owing to the horse
disease. There are no mule or ox-drawn vehicles, and no automobiles,
owing to the streets of sand, so the queer street-railway supplies all
transportation. There are cement sidewalks, but in the middle of the
street the sand is ankle-deep.... The town looks like Manila, in a
way, except that it is not so large. Banana and cocoanut trees grow
everywhere in dooryards, as do the bright red flowers common in the
tropics. Every house is raised six or seven feet above the ground, for
additional coolness, and under many houses we saw natives cooking meals
at open fires. In front of nearly every house was a private trolley;
we saw hundreds of them during the ride. They were usually for two
passengers, and covered, for the sun is always very hot here. I should
say the average private trolley costs fifteen or twenty dollars, and
has four light iron wheels. One man may easily lift a trolley off
the track, which is the manner of disposing of them when not in use.
As the town grows, the street-railway tracks are extended, and many
house-owners build private lines to their premises. It is the most
curious thing I have seen on the trip; I had never before seen
street-railways of this kind, or heard of them. There is a bathing-beach
here, and it can be reached only by these peculiar hand-pushed cars.
The street-railway lines extend not only to every residence section,
but to every business section, and to the railroad yards as well as to
the ship docks. The lines were built by the city, and were not very
expensive, as the rails are light. The up-keep is provided for by an
annual tax paid by every trolley-owner for the privilege of using
the tracks. Many business men have several trolleys; one or more for
their own use, one or more for the use of their families, and one or
more for freight purposes. Although the streets of Beira are composed
entirely of sand, the sand is heavy, and does not blow about as dust.
The weather last night was cool, but the days are very hot....
The Savoy Hotel at Beira overlooks the sea, and its grounds would be
flooded at high tide but for the protection afforded by a sea-wall.
One might sit on the back porches of the hotel, and fish in the sea.
The waiters are native boys wearing white coats, and dresses such as
women wear. A black man wearing a coat and dress is a queer sight, and
I know of nothing in towns more unusual than Beira. It is thoroughly
Portuguese, and everything is quaint and picturesque. Beira has a
very bad reputation; you hear up the line that everything that is
disagreeable will happen to you there, but we rather liked the place.
The hotel was good, and the people polite; we encountered nothing
disagreeable at Beira except tremendously hot weather.... We went
aboard the “Burgermeister” at 2 P. M., and sailed two hours later. A
Cape Town theatrical man named Sam Marks, had a letter of introduction
to us from traveling acquaintances, and secured us seats at table with
his wife and three other English-speaking people. So everything was
very pleasant until Adelaide went down to her room to dress for dinner.
She found that she had been assigned to a cabin with a Portuguese
woman and a little baby. The woman cannot speak English, and has a
Kaffir man nurse for the baby. The Kaffir man is in the woman’s room
most of the time looking after the baby, and was there when Adelaide
went down to dress. The chief steward, when the matter was called to
his attention, was sorry, but proposed no other remedy than to keep
the negro boy out. We then took the matter up with the captain, who
speaks very good English, and he arranged it by giving Adelaide a room
to herself.... No religious services were held on board in honor of
the day, but a dance was held on deck, in the evening. The ship band
plays a concert every morning at 10:30, and every evening at 9 the
orchestra plays.... When we left Beira, the sea was as smooth as a
millpond. At 10 P. M. a wireless telegram announced that a bad storm
was raging there. For several days we have had intensely hot weather,
but at sea we found a delightfully cool breeze, and Captain Ulrich says
that at this season we should have smooth seas and agreeable weather
all the way to Naples.... The passengers are mainly Germans, as this
is a German ship. There are a few English, a few Colonials, and a few
Portuguese, but we are the only Americans. In the steerage there is
a great mingling of races, including Hindus, negroes and Arabs. These
people bring their own bedding, and do their own cooking. As soon as
the freight was stored away, and the forward hatchway covered, the
steerage passengers settled down for the night, and produced their
bedding and cooking utensils. Some of them eat rice, and some of them
eat corn-meal mush, but all of them eat with their fingers. Somewhere
a fire is provided where they may cook their food, and plenty of water
may be had at a convenient faucet. The firemen are Arabs, and they
mingle with the steerage passengers. I had always imagined that an Arab
was fond of ease, and lazy, but Captain Ulrich says they are the most
reliable firemen to be had, and the most efficient.
MONDAY, APRIL 7.—We have spent a good part of this day lying off
Chindi, a decaying town at the mouth of the Zambesi river. We arrived
at 9 A. M., and anchored in the open sea, where we rolled and pitched
gently until 4:30 P. M. It seems the “Burgermeister” is ahead of time,
and the tender did not come off until 2:30 P. M. It brought two hundred
negro boys, sixteen to eighteen years old, and entirely naked except
that each one wore a cloth about the loins. These boys had been sent
to work on sugar plantations by labor agents, who received a pound
each for finding them. But the boys soon contracted dysentery, and
are being sent home. When the tender came alongside, many of the boys
were seasick, and some of them crying. They were transferred from the
tender to the ship in a huge basket, ten or twelve at a time. Many of
the boys had sore feet, having walked to Chindi from the plantations
where they were employed. All of them were thin in flesh, and nine out
of ten had no baggage; nothing to eat out of, and nothing to sleep on:
no possession whatever except a loin-cloth, and some of these were
made of grass, or of old matting. The slaves of olden days could not
have presented a much worse spectacle. These boys worked on the sugar
plantations at $1.75 per month. Counting interest on money invested,
and taking into consideration the fact that old slaves must be cared
for, that is cheaper than owning slaves.... Ten white passengers
also came out on the tender, and of course these were brought on board
before the negroes. The passenger basket is a huge wicker affair in
which six to ten persons are locked. Then it is hoisted, by means of
a donkey engine, from the tender to the deck of the ship, or _vice
versa_. Sometimes, when passengers are disembarking, and the basket
is being lowered to the deck of the tender, the waves send the tender
upward quickly, and the passengers get a bad jolt. In the open sea,
the small tenders roll and knock about so much that this method of
handling passengers is necessary. Several children were brought on
board, and in every case they screamed with fright. But if the tackle
holds, the method is safe enough.... The “Burgermeister” is the best
ship we have been on since leaving home. The food is abundant, and well
cooked, and the service excellent in all respects. Captain Ulrich is
the youngest captain I have ever seen on a steamship; he is not more
than forty years old, and probably under that age. He is a famous man
on the line because of the dignified interest he takes in passengers.
He told me last night that during the present trip he hadn’t had an
hour of bad weather; and he left Hamburg February 25, and came through
the dreaded Bay of Biscay and the stormy English channel.... Chindi
is the port of entry for Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, and the
Zambesi river enters the ocean there. Small boats ply on the river,
and there are sugar plantations in the interior. It is generally
believed that Chindi will be greatly harmed by a new railroad to be
built from Beira.... Nyasaland is one of the modern achievements in
colonization. Although in the heart of the Dark Continent, and given
over only a few years ago to the most appalling barbarism, it now has
a railway service, settlements lit by electricity, vast tracts of land
under scientific cultivation, an improved wagon-road 100 miles long, a
stable government, and cheap land, on which may be grown corn, cotton,
and tobacco. I hear even at this distance of one planter who made
$10,000 in one year from tobacco.... In order to reach Nyasaland at
present, travelers leave ships five miles off Chindi, being transferred
to tenders in baskets. At Chindi they take small boats for Port Herald,
two hundred miles up the Zambesi river. The negro engineers on these
steamboats get $3.75 a month. The captain of the boat is a white man,
and an engineer, but natives have learned his trade, and now do all
the work in the engine-room. This is true all over Africa: the white
men show the negroes, and the negroes pick up all the trades. At
Port Herald begins a railroad one hundred and thirteen miles long,
with very stiff grades, running into the interior. There are only
four white men employed on the line: the general manager, the traffic
superintendent, the chief accountant, and the locomotive foreman.
All the telegraphers are negroes, and do their work well for $2.50 a
month. In order to become telegraphers, it was necessary for them to
learn to read and write English. The head boy in the general offices of
the railway, a very capable clerk, gets $3.75 a month. The locomotive
engineers are Hindus, and receive $30 a month; but the firemen are all
negroes, and receive but $3.75 a month. All the firemen are capable of
running engines, and do run them at times. It is only a question of a
few years until negroes succeed the high-priced Hindus as locomotive
engineers. The section reached by the railroad is devoted largely to
tobacco and cotton. One planter has five hundred acres in tobacco,
and employs eight hundred natives; it is estimated there that tobacco
requires a man and a half to every acre. These natives receive $1.25
a month and board, but their board costs only two cents a day; they
eat only corn-meal, which costs a dollar a hundred pounds as a rule.
That amounts to less than $2 a month for a good workman. A tobacco
planter in Nyasaland is satisfied if he gets five hundred pounds of
cured tobacco per acre, one-third of the yield in the United States,
and he sells it on an average for seven or eight cents a pound. You
would think his freight bill would eat up his profits, but he pays
only half a cent a pound for transporting his crop to London. The
rate is purposely made very low, to encourage tobacco-growing. It is
not equally low on second-class merchandise in other parts of Africa;
that rate from Capetown to Bulawayo, a merchant told me, is four
cents a pound.... Food is very cheap in the interior of Africa. In
Nyasaland, a half-dozen chickens may be bought for twenty-four cents.
A young man on board is an employee of the Eastern Telegraph Co., and
is being transferred to Zanzibar. He says he has chicken so frequently
that he despises it; his associates lately joined him in a protest to
the company against chicken. The chickens here are small and tough:
every native raises chickens, which are compelled to pick up a living:
they are not fed. The natives do not eat them, but carry them great
distances to market.... The whisky used by the natives is made of
corn, by a very simple process. They crush the grains of corn, pour
water over the mass, and allow it to ferment. Then they add water,
and put it away in earthen jars until needed.... One of the most
interesting men on board is an official of the British company which
built the railroad from Port Herald, two hundred miles up the Zambesi
river from Chindi, into Nyasaland. He is going to England for his
vacation; the ships are all crowded now, as this is the favorite season
for the exiles to go home. He says the English cotton and tobacco
planters in Nyasaland are not very prosperous; they make a living, but
not much more. They are pioneers, and pioneers rarely make a great
deal of money. This man is named Metcalf, and had an attack of the
African fever today. He dosed himself with quinine, and, going to bed,
covered himself with blankets. There he perspired and suffered until
the attack wore off. Many of the passengers of the “Burgermeister” are
invalids going home to recuperate after an experience with the climate
of Africa.