Part 29

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.