Front matter (continued 7)

“That woman became lost, and fourteen of us spent half of one night hunting her.”

The paths around the hotel and falls are very well defined, but travelers may easily become confused after nightfall.

TUESDAY, APRIL 1.—On a public desk at the Victoria Falls Hotel is kept a book marked “Suggestions.” Visitors are expected to write in it how they liked the falls, and suggest improvements of the service. I suggest that the average visitor does not care to spend four days here, as he is now compelled to do. I have found the last two days hanging heavily on my hands. The hotel at the falls is excellent, considering that it is a long way from its source of supplies, but trains are slow, and the cars dusty and crowded. The average train is composed of compartment cars, with a corridor running along one side. These corridors are so narrow that two persons cannot pass in them, and it is quite a task to go through a train in reaching the dining-car. I have never in my life seen such dirty cars as they have in South Africa, but this is partly owing to the terrible dust which prevails everywhere; another explanation is that, as a rule, one porter is expected to clean all the cars, and in some cases there is no porter. But the trainmen are always polite, and the tracks good. The dining-cars would be satisfactory were they not overcrowded. Traveling in South Africa has been easier than I expected, and the hotels better, but some of the dust in the railway cars might be easily removed; the addition of one Kaffir and one broom to each train would prove a great help.... Near the railway station live two men who deal in curios. Both are hunters, and both are interesting, and I spend a good deal of time with them; but they hate each other in a way that is scandalous. There never was such a thing as rivals in business getting along. They try hard not to say anything against each other, but their enmity crops out in every conversation. One of them is married, and has his wife and baby here, and a bishop will arrive tomorrow to baptize the baby. The other man is a bachelor, and is trying hard to catch a leopard while I am here, in an American steel trap. Leopards prowl about the hotel every night, and several hunters have told me that a leopard is a more dangerous animal than a lion. A leopard is like a bulldog: he hasn’t sense enough to know about danger.... The dreaded tsetse-fly is found in this vicinity, and cases of sleeping sickness are not unknown. I had always imagined that a man suffering with sleeping sickness became drowsy, and slept a great deal, but residents say that, while the patient is drowsy, he cannot sleep, and is very restless. They describe sleeping sickness as resembling consumption in many ways.... In the vicinity of the curio shop is a police camp, in charge of a corporal. The police patrol this district, and this morning I saw a white soldier start out on a trek to last two weeks. He rode a mule, as horses do not thrive in this country. Two pack donkeys were led by two natives; one a cook, and the other an enlisted police officer. The two natives will walk during the entire journey, and one of them will carry a gun. The patrol officer told me he would travel about eighteen miles a day, starting every morning about five, resting from nine to three, and then traveling from three until nightfall. He rarely makes more than three miles an hour, as the donkeys are slow, and the sand deep. Wherever you walk here, you are compelled to wade through sand; sand is the soil in most parts of Africa.... The patrol officer calls at every house he encounters, and asks the owner to report any disorder in his neighborhood. The patrol officer did not carry a tent, and I asked him why. “Because,” he answered, “we don’t need it; there will be no rain.” After the short rainy season, the welcome patter of rain is not heard for nine months.... The engineer who attends to the electric-light plant at the Victoria Falls Hotel is an intelligent young fellow who, with a brother, tried farming in a remote district in Rhodesia. They are about starving; they would have starved had not this brother gone to work. The other brother lives alone on the farm, and at intervals comes to the hotel for supplies provided by his brother. They will eventually desert their farm, without much doubt.... The young soldiers at the police camp are industrious hunters, and one of them says he lately killed a crocodile on the railroad bridge which crosses the Zambesi river below the falls. Crocodiles often travel considerable distances from the river; in returning to water, this one by accident struck the railroad track, and was following it across the bridge. The soldiers at the camp have all sorts of pets, including monkeys, which they pick up when young, and tame. They irrigate a considerable garden with water carried from the river by natives. This section must be a terrific place when the weather is at its worst; it is at its best now, and we stand it with difficulty.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2.—We said good-by to Victoria Falls this afternoon at 1:10, and left by train for the East Coast. Captain Moseley came to the station to see us, bringing all his hunting-dogs with him. Tomorrow morning at 3 o’clock he leaves for his new station in the interior, traveling in a wagon drawn by eight yoke of oxen and driven by two negroes. One of the negroes will sit up all night, to watch the grazing cattle, and guard the camp, and every afternoon he will sleep in the wagon. Ox teams travel very slowly, and the captain will walk most of the way, and hunt as he goes along. A negro servant accompanies him as cook, and will remain with him at the new station. His nearest white neighbors will be sixty miles away, and he does not expect to receive mail more than once in three months.... The train is not crowded, for a wonder, and we were given a double compartment thrown into one. Our traveling acquaintances, Mrs. Meek and her daughter Bettie, are still with us, and they have equally good accommodations. The South-African railway men take good care of you when it is possible.... The Bishop arrived at the Falls this morning, and baptized the photographer’s baby. A young curate came with him, and sat on the veranda and drank five highballs in quick succession. But the incident, like women smoking cigarettes in public, attracted no comment here. The Bishop is a genial man, and was soon surrounded by the women. The women dearly love an ordinary preacher, but to talk to a Bishop is an event in a church-worker’s life she never forgets.... During the dry season, full-grown cattle may be bought in parts of South Africa at $10 a head.... When I went into the hotel dining-room for breakfast this morning, the head waiter informed me in a whisper that a few fresh eggs had just been received from the hotel farm, and advised me to order soft-boiled eggs. This head waiter was born in the West Indies, and some of the men under him are Hindus, some of them negroes, and some of them Portuguese.... This is written on a piece of railroad track seventy-four miles long without a single curve, which is not a very big story: in Argentine, South America, there is a similar piece of track twice as long.... Possibly the reader imagines that ‘way over here I am a stranger in a strange land. As a matter of fact, I know nearly every passenger on this train; also, the conductor, and the waiters in the dining-car. I came up with the trainmen, and I spent four days with the passengers at Victoria Falls. All of them are either English or Colonials; no Americans except ourselves. Awhile ago, the conductor came into my compartment to visit awhile. He is an Englishman, but astonished me by saying that he likes German ships better than English ships. On English ships, he says, visitors are looked at with suspicion, whereas visitors are always welcome on a German ship. The conductor will go through with us to Beira, from Bulawayo, and has promised to do his best for us in the way of securing accommodations on the train. Englishmen who live out here soon have their sharp edges worn off, and become more agreeable.... There are certain American things that seem to be universal. Wherever we go, we see Eastman’s kodaks, National cash registers, Selig’s moving pictures, Colgate’s perfumes and soap, Chamberlain’s cough syrup, the Ladies’ Home Journal, Robert Chambers’s books, and Mr. Rockefeller’s gasoline.... It costs a good deal of money to have washing done over here, and we are wondering over the fact that the most reasonable laundry bill we have paid was at the Victoria Falls Hotel, where we expected nothing but highway robbery. When we registered at that hotel, the manager said he had two rooms reserved for us. They were double rooms, excellently located. Mrs. Meek and her daughter slept in one room, on two small beds, and they are grumbling because they were charged exactly what we were charged. It is so unusual for me to get the best of it that I am rather enjoying their indignation.... I have often heard of the extreme brightness of the nights in Africa. I cannot see that they are any brighter than the nights at home, except that there are a good many more prominent stars. In the north, we hear a great deal of the Southern Cross. We see it every night, but consider it insignificant. We are on the opposite side of the earth from Kansas, and the constellations we see there cannot be seen here. Pope, the Englishman, in describing great distance, wrote: “Far as the polar walk or milky way.” The people in Africa don’t understand the sentence: the milky way cannot be seen here, nor is our big dipper visible.... Tonight at ten o’clock, before going to bed, I went forward into the dining-car to get a drink of water, and found the car full of men drinking; a custom more common in this country than at home. The English laugh at our American habit of drinking ice-water. There is a certain Hot Water much worse, known as John Barleycorn, and Englishmen drink too much of it.... Poor Mrs. Atterbury, who has lived in South Africa nineteen years without a sight of her old home in St. Joseph, Missouri, says she longs to go home in order that she may again see pretty girls and babies. Mrs. Meek, our traveling acquaintance, who has always lived in the Transvaal, admits that pretty girls and babies are scarce here. They do not seem to thrive in this climate. Another peculiarity is that nearly all the women have black hair; a blonde with blue eyes is a great rarity in Africa. When a woman’s hair isn’t black in Africa, it is a fiery red.... The country between Victoria Falls and Bulawayo seems to be better developed than the country between Bulawayo and Mafeking. This afternoon, eighty or a hundred miles from the falls, we stopped at quite a coal-mining town, and saw great rows of coke ovens.

THURSDAY, APRIL 3.—In order to reach the sea at Beira, we were 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.

TUESDAY, APRIL 8.—It is fortunate I am not seasick, and laid up, for my cabin window looks out on the deck where the steerage passengers are. Early this morning I heard a babel of voices, and supposed all the negro boys were on deck, and talking at the same time. Looking out of my window, I discovered that fifteen or twenty Hindus were doing all the talking, while the two hundred negro boys were sitting around in perfect silence. The steerage passengers can look into my room, if so disposed, and often do. Before I finished dressing, the two hundred negro boys were fed. Each was given three ship biscuits, and weak tea was provided for those who could get to it. When the boys gathered around the teakettle, they reminded me of pigs around a swill-trough. The stronger boys drank the tea from cups made out of the hollow of their hands, and the weaker ones, or runts, got none. Several of the boys were living skeletons, and had evidently been very ill. I threw an apple to one of the runts, but he had never seen that kind of fruit before, and I was compelled to inform him by means of signs that it was good to eat.... Six of the boys sat together, and divided everything given them. I was told that they were brothers, although there wasn’t a year’s difference in their ages. Their father probably has a dozen wives, as polygamy is practiced by nearly all the natives.... While the negro boys were scrambling for the scant food provided by the steamship company, the other deck passengers were eating breakfasts of their own providing. In one place, six Hindu men were eating, seated in a circle; they seemed to be traveling together. In every party of Hindus, one of the number seems to be a half-servant, and he waits on the others. Several of the negro passengers are dressed like the Hindus, and do not seem to know any other language than Hindu. Other parties of diners on the deck were Arabs, and all ate with their fingers. Yesterday, as soon as the ship anchored off Chindi, the Hindus began fishing, the pastime of lazy people everywhere. All of them had hooks and lines in their baggage, and the cook provided them with fresh meat for bait. A dozen or more fish were caught, of a variety resembling our catfish. One Hindu family caught three fish, which were “cleaned” for dinner in the dirtiest manner imaginable. I saw the Hindu mother finally prepare the fish for the fire, and this was the way she did it: Each piece of fish was dusted with curry powder before going in the pot, as we dust fish in cracker-meal for frying. Then she put in a few pieces of potato and onion, and a crushed mass of some sort of vegetable. The woman’s hands being covered with curry and the crushed vegetable referred to above, she washed them in water, and poured the water into the pot with the fish. Then the half-servant took the pot away, and evidently placed it on the stove of the crew cook. In an hour he brought it back, and the mess was allowed to cool, after which the six members of the family gathered around, and ate with their fingers. The mother made a drink in the following manner: A little condensed milk was poured into a dirty washbasin nearly full of water. Sugar was added, and this beverage was passed about, and drank with a relish. One member of the family was a girl of fourteen, rather pretty, but dirty beyond description. A boy of eleven was also very good-looking. The mother, after dinner, lit a cigarette, and handed it occasionally to her husband, who took a few puffs, and handed it back to his wife.... Speaking of smoking cigarettes, last evening Adelaide and I sat with a party on deck to drink coffee after dinner. There were five ladies in the party, and Adelaide was the only one who did not smoke a cigarette with the coffee.... The poorer class of Hindus seem to be the laziest class of people in the world; the poverty of the people of India is due more to shiftlessness than to British oppression.... The weather has been superb all day, and land in sight nearly all the time.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9.—Shortly after breakfast this morning, we went ashore at the old Portuguese town of Mozambique, and wandered about until the big ship whistle warned us, at 1 P.M., to go on board. When we went down the ship’s side to enter the small boats which carry passengers ashore at a shilling each, we were mobbed by the Arab boatmen, who were quarreling over our patronage. They fought viciously, and many of them fell into the sea, but we had had no excitement for several days, and rather liked the commotion. There were certainly two boatmen for every passenger, and the noise they made was tremendous.... Mozambique is Moorish in design, and I greatly enjoyed my visit there. The streets are narrow and crooked, and the houses hundreds of years old; in some of them may still be seen the windows of mica with which they were originally fitted. Everywhere are the most delightful little parks, and wherever you go in the town you cannot see your way out, as the streets are crooked, and you see only queer old houses with thick walls of stucco. In most towns the streets are straight; there are long rows of houses on either side, and the streets end in a distant view of the country. But Mozambique apparently tries to hide the fact that it is a small town, so no street runs straight for more than a block or two, when it turns; thus you are constantly in a maze of houses. The streets are not more than thirty feet wide, and as all doors are open, owing to the intense heat, the visitor gains an intimate idea of the habits of the people. The Portuguese are related to the Spanish, so their houses have interior courts, and these are provided with gardens or fountains, when water can be had. I have never seen anything more quaint than the shops of Mozambique; it is a small, dull town, and its people are therefore polite. Seven out of ten of the inhabitants are negroes, but the negroes live in a location to themselves, and their houses are almost as unusual as the houses in the white town, for they differ from all the other negro huts I have seen in Africa.... Mozambique has an old fort, and the stones with which it is built were brought from Portugal in the rude ships of three or four hundred years ago. Its cannon are falling to pieces from rust, and I doubt if there is a big gun in the place that could be fired; but a Portuguese garrison is maintained there, and we were compelled to give up our cameras before going in—the soldiers feared we might take pictures of the fortification and sell them to their enemies. Portugal is the weakest of all nations, and has always been kicked about. It is unprogressive and poor, and people out here have very little more respect for the Portuguese than they have for the Kaffirs. Brazil once belonged to the Portuguese, and it became such a prosperous country that the court left Lisbon and located in Rio de Janeiro; the colony became greater than the mother country. But the inevitable revolution soon came, and Brazil is no longer a Portuguese colony, although there are more Portuguese there than in Portugal. Portuguese East Africa will become independent as soon as it wants independence.... The old fort in Mozambique has been assaulted and captured by the Arabs many times. This section was formerly the center of the slave trade. The Arabs began stealing the natives of East Africa and selling them as slaves, but the Portuguese saw that the traffic was profitable, and the two rivals for supremacy in what became a world industry, often clashed. It is related that on one occasion the Arabs besieged Mozambique fort many months, and when the garrison surrendered, only three of its defenders were left. There are no better fighters than the Arabs; they made up the armies with which Mahomet and his successors almost captured the world. The Mohammedan influence is still strong here; everywhere we see black men wearing the red cap which indicates the Mohammedan. Occasionally the red fez is supplanted by a white embroidered cap, indicating that its owner has visited Mecca, the holy city. On the ship, most of the deck passengers are Mohammedans, and we often see them at their prayers. A Mohammedan is as proud of his religion as a Salvation Army man, and when he is not praying, he reads the Koran with as much interest as a Christian Scientist reads “Science and Health.” As Christians say of the Bible, and Christian Scientists say of Mrs. Eddy’s book, every reading of the Koran displays new beauties.... Among our deck passengers, the only one who has been to Mecca is a big negro, and he is as devout as a Methodist class-leader. He has a prayer-rug, and seems to loan it to the Indians. Both the negroes and Indians should be ashamed to accept the Mohammedan religion, for it is a mark left on them by conquerors. Mohammedan Indians associate freely with negroes, but the Indians who have remained true to Hinduism do not.... In the history of the human race, probably more cruelty was practiced in the slave trade between Mozambique and Zanzibar than anywhere else in the world. And the negroes in the interior do not seem to be any more capable of defense now than they were when anyone was at liberty to enslave them. Human slavery is no longer practiced, either because of civilization among the stronger races, or because it doesn’t pay. Why should a planter go to the expense of buying slaves when he can hire a black laborer for $2 a month, and confine him to quarters, and make him work as many hours as he chooses? This is done in British territory all over Africa.... In Mozambique we visited the public market, and found that many of the negro women had their faces whitened like circus clowns, in order to look like white people. Adelaide weighs only a hundred pounds, and has rather a small waist, and all the negro women thought her waist was disgracefully small. One of them asked if she might measure it with a string. Permission being granted, and the measurement made, the string was passed around, and attracted a babble of disgusted comment from black ladies with the middle-age spread.... Young chickens were sold at the market at eighteen cents each, and everything else was equally cheap. Mozambique is built on a coral island, three miles from the mainland, and everything is brought in by boats.... The Englishman is a grave sort of person, and has little sense of humor, but Sammy Marks, the theatrical man, made me laugh today. In walking about Mozambique, we came across a school in which forty children of all races were reciting in chorus to an Arab teacher seated on the floor. “Children,” Mr. Marks said to them, “don’t you know this is a free day? Sammy Marks is in town, and you can take your books and go home.” Some of the children understood the words “free day,” apparently, for after a little preliminary chatter, every child in the room dashed out the front door, leaving the teacher to wonder what had happened. The English are great in commerce and war, but I never before knew one who had a real sense of humor.... One of the passengers on the “Burgermeister” is a Frenchman, and as he sits at our table, we know him very well. He is an old traveler, and knows how to handle ship servants. He eats more food, and drinks more wine, than any other human being I have ever been acquainted with. But he is a very polite man, and speaks German as well as French, so that he is of the greatest assistance when I get into difficulty with the German waiters. He is always buying champagne, and has five or six boxes of cigars in his cabin. He usually has not only his waiter hovering over him when in the dining-room, but the chief steward as well, and his capacity for getting what he wants is so great that he amuses me, although an electrical engineer at the same table is mad at him, and talks about a personal encounter.... I visited Mozambique with Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager from Capetown, and theatrical men are usually able to get what is coming to them. But Sammy Marks could not find a ricksha for hire in Mozambique. We saw plenty of rickshas, but were told that they were privately owned. Just as we acknowledged that rickshas were an impossibility in Mozambique, along came the Frenchman in one. Learning that Mrs. Marks and Adelaide were very tired, he gallantly turned his vehicle over to them. He went away for a few minutes, but soon came back riding in another ricksha, and continued with us in it until we returned to the boat-landing. Mrs. Marks speaks French like a native, having been born in Paris, and when I make a remark at table that interests her, she translates it to the Frenchman. One day I was asked to tell an “American story,” and it happened to greatly amuse Mr. and Mrs. Marks. The Frenchman did not catch the “story,” saying I talked too fast in telling it. Thereupon Mrs. Marks translated it, and the Frenchman was convulsed with laughter. Mrs. Marks telling my “story” in French, and the Frenchman listening seriously and intently, was a very amusing experience to me.... When we were ready to return to the ship, we found the tide out, and the Arab boatmen carried us to their boats. One boatman, in carrying a very fat woman, stumbled and fell in the water, and the fat woman was soaked.... Arriving at the “Burgermeister,” my boatman demanded 800 reis for carrying two of us to the town and back. The amount startled me, but it turned out that 800 reis amounts to only ninety-six cents in American money.... A Portuguese gentleman became a passenger on the “Burgermeister” at Mozambique, and a number of friends came aboard to say good-by. They were so busy drinking in the smoking-room that they did not note the whistle which blew for visitors to depart; so when we were a mile out, we were compelled to stop, and signal for a tug to come after them. As the visitors departed each one embraced his friend again, with great deliberation. Meanwhile Captain Ulrich was walking the bridge, swearing like a pirate. Just when it was thought the captain would explode with indignation, he was told that the mail had not been sent on board, and he was actually compelled to turn the huge ship around and return to the harbor, where we whistled ten minutes before the sleepy Portuguese put off in a boat to see what the noise was about. We were delayed an hour and a half by the sleepy Portuguese, and nearly everyone on board is cursing them. The Portuguese are everywhere regarded as slow and unenterprising, and countries controlled by them do not prosper.... I shall long remember Mozambique as the quaintest town I have ever visited. I had never heard of it, therefore it was a surprise.

THURSDAY, APRIL 10.—I awoke very early this morning, and found unloading in progress at Port Amelia. The deck passengers were up, as it was necessary to disturb them in order to remove the hatches and get at the cargo. But when we are at sea, the deck passengers divide the space over the forward hatch, and make rooms for themselves with bundles and boxes. Some of them have carpets in their bundles, and nearly all of them have bedding. A tarpaulin forms a covering over them, and at night their quarters are lighted by a bunch of electric lights. It is surprising how well these deck passengers get along, and how comfortable they are. They may buy supplies of the ship steward, and seem to have plenty to eat. Most of them are going back to India, which is not far away from this coast. It was from India that the small Arab boats came, after the Mohammedan conquest, and made slaves of hundreds of thousands of the people of the East Coast of Africa.... Here is an exact description of a dinner I saw six Indians eat yesterday evening: They squatted around a large pan of rice, which had been cooking most of the afternoon on the galley stove. In the centre of the rice was placed a small pan containing a yellow liquid; probably curry. In the curry-pan was a spoon, and the diners used this spoon to ladle out the curry into the rice. Each man covered the portion of rice in front of him with curry, and then stirred up the mass with his fingers, in order that the curry might be thoroughly mixed with the rice. The diners were very polite; when one of them used the spoon, he passed it on to the man next to him. The rice and curry being thoroughly mixed, the diners made it into balls with their fingers, and put it in their mouths. During the meal they discussed the gossip of the day in the most animated manner, as do diners who have many articles of food, served with plate and silver. One old Hindu in the party doesn’t seem to be very well, and he soon retired from the circle, and three others followed him not long after, but two young fellows remained until both pans were scraped clean. Civilized men eat a great variety of food, but the more primitive races do not seem to care for it.... Port Amelia is located in the finest harbor I have seen in Africa, but it is in the wilds, and does not amount to much. The place was founded by a major in the English army, who had been cashiered for bad conduct. He sold his rights to a British company, which secured a franchise for a railroad to Lake Nyanza, and hopes to finally be able to finance the venture. Any story of the American frontier may be duplicated in Africa; adventurers are bold, and capital timid. Several Arab boats which seemed to be hundreds of years old, came off after cargo. These boats do not exceed sixty or seventy feet in length, and sail all along the coast and to India. Several of the passengers accompanied Captain Ulrich ashore before breakfast. The captain is an enthusiastic photographer, and takes pictures in natural colors with an ordinary camera. Anyone may do it by using the special plates which are sold in most trade centres. The captain sells his pictures in Germany for very good prices.... Port Amelia was a short horse, and soon curried, and by 10 A.M. we were out at sea again, being entertained by a Hindu fakir who obtained permission to come up on our deck. This man has been my neighbor ever since I came aboard at Beira; he is camped on deck, with his family, in front of my window. He has a wife, a daughter of fourteen, a son of twenty, and a son of nine, and an old retainer who seems to be half cook and half assistant. My neighbor proved to be the cleverest man of his class I had ever seen. The collection amounted to only $2.50, and the old man was considerably disappointed, saying he did better in the second-cabin the day before. The son of twenty attempted a trick, but failed to do it, and was hooted by the passengers. Then the father attempted it, and succeeded without any difficulty. The old fakir knew me, having seen me in my room many times, from his quarters on deck, and addressed most of his conversation to me while doing his tricks. He talks a little of half a dozen languages, and Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager, says the old fellow would prove a drawing card at any theatre.... There is a woman on board who is said to resemble the late Queen Victoria. I think she started the story herself, as she seems very proud of the alleged resemblance.... The people on this ship are much politer, and much quieter, than were the passengers on the English ship “Anchises,” on which we sailed from Australia to South Africa. The English go crazy about ship sports, and greatly annoy those who want to be quiet, but the Germans are more considerate of others.

FRIDAY, APRIL 11.—We have spent this day in the open sea. Usually we are in sight of land, but if there has been any in sight today I have not seen it. There was a rain-storm this morning, but it soon passed away. This is our fifth day out, but the sea has been remarkably smooth; I have never seen it equally gracious, either on the Pacific or the Atlantic. We have not had enough motion to disturb the weakest stomach, and I shall always remember the Indian ocean with gratitude. The weather has been hot, but usually we can find enough breeze to be comfortable. A good many slept on deck last night, finding their cabins stuffy.... The leader of the band and orchestra is a waiter in the dining-room. I cannot understand why a man able to lead a very good orchestra with a violin, and a very good band with a cornet, is compelled to work as a waiter. The bass player in both organizations is our table steward, and he is very capable, although he cannot speak a word of English.... There are eight at our table. One was born in France, one in Alsace-Lorraine, one in Scotland, one in England, one in Wales, one in Spain, and two in America. One of the ladies traveled three years in India and two in Australia, with a circus owned by her husband, and did a riding act. She is now a widow, and conducts a riding-school in Johannesburg. One of the men is a Johannesburg electrical engineer, on his way to America to study late developments in the science. Another is Sammy Marks, a theatrical manager, who will shortly open a new theatre at Nairobi, British East Africa. This town is 350 miles inland from Mombasa, and on the way there he will pass by rail through as good a game country as there is in Africa. His wife looks and talks like an American girl, and, being accused of it by me, replied that she was glad of it. She was born in Paris, but has lived in Africa since she was a little girl. Still another man at our table is the Frenchman before referred to, one of the politest and oddest characters I have ever known. He is an automobile agent, and told me that on his present trip he sold eighty-five machines in Africa. He doesn’t like the Germans on the ship, and makes them all the trouble he possibly can. One day at dinner he ordered fish, and six different kinds of meat, which he nibbled at, and sent away. He always drinks two kinds of wine at dinner, and sometimes three. He keeps the waiter so busy that the others at the table complain of neglect. The food on the “Burgermeister” is surprisingly good and abundant.... I suppose there was never a chief steward on an ocean-going vessel who was not a mean man. He it is who must say “no” when passengers become unreasonable. When a woman complains to a retail grocer of one of his clerks, the grocer sides with the woman, but at heart he believes the clerk was right. It is the same way when a passenger complains to the captain of the chief steward: the captain is sympathetic, but believes the steward is right. Our chief steward is a big, good-natured man, and while we are all in league against him, we are disposed to like him. The captain is not only the youngest man I have ever seen in command of a ship, but the best-looking. The chief officer is not over thirty years old. All the members of the crew are young, and speak enough English to “get along” after a fashion with the English passengers. One woman ordered a cup of tea, and the waiter brought her two bottles of whisky, opened. Another woman ordered a plate of crackers, and the waiter brought her a whisky and soda. These are cases you hear of; I have had no trouble, and congratulate myself that I chose a German ship instead of an English one. There is a quiet gentility about the passengers I greatly admire. I heard before coming on board that there would be no English-speaking passengers. Nearly all of them speak English, and the bill of fare is printed in English, as well as in German. The African trip is not an advisable one, owing to the great distances, but anyone who makes it in spite of my advice to the contrary, should go home by the East Coast in a German boat.... There are a large number of young men on board, and all of them well-behaved. There are only two girls on board, and only ten women altogether. The orchestra plays every night, and there is usually dancing; the five dancing women receive a lot of attention.... The feeling between the English and Germans is more intense than I expected to find it. When an Englishman asked me what would be the attitude of the United States in case of war between Germany and England, I was amused, but since then a dozen have asked me the same question. They all seem to think the United States should assist the English. On one of the ships of the German East Africa line, a few weeks ago, there was an incident which might have precipitated the long-talked of war between Germany and England. Among the passengers were several Englishmen; one of them with a title. On this line it is a habit among the women to drink coffee after dinner in the smoking-room. The Englishmen did something that was considered offensive by the German women, and, the captain hearing of it, he promptly called the Englishmen to account. The Englishmen were furious; particularly the one with a title. He said the women had no business in the smoking-room; that he had done nothing offensive, and would not be corrected by anyone, captain or no captain. The captain also had a temper, and he replied that if a titled Englishman didn’t know the ordinary rules of politeness, he would teach him. The two men glared at each other a few moments, and the incident was closed, but it might easily have resulted in serious trouble; if the captain had put Sir Thomas in irons, an international complication might have arisen speedily. The Germans have hasty tempers, and are slow to apologize; the same thing may be said of the English, and both have a very good opinion of their fighting ability; with Germany rather in the lead in conceit, since the Boer war.... This morning the band played a selection which closed with “God Save the King.” Two Englishmen who sat near me, arose to their feet, and stood until the hymn was finished. Yesterday the band played “The Watch on the Rhine,” but the Germans paid no attention to it; they did not even applaud. Last night the band played “The American Patrol,” closing with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but the two Americans on board paid the air no special attention.... A printed notice was placed on the bulletin board this afternoon, stating that Law mass will be celebrated in the ladies’ parlor next Sunday, at 10:30 A.M. There was great curiosity to know the meaning of Law mass. Being a printer, and accustomed to the mistakes of printers, I was able to solve the riddle: the printer should have set up the word “low” instead of “law.” The mystery was nothing more than a typographical error.... There is a bride and groom on board, and the fact that one or the other is sulking most of the time has attracted a good deal of attention.... One passenger has attracted everyone’s admiration because he is a fine walker. Most people walk in a very awkward manner, but this man, a Portuguese count, walks with so much grace as to attract compliments.... At 9 o’clock tonight we came to Zanzibar, and were at once surrounded by the usual crowd of screaming boatmen. Near us was anchored the steamer for Bombay, and the Hindu deck passengers packed up and departed. I shall miss them every morning when I look out of my window; they came to know me, I was so close a neighbor. The Hindu juggler was my favorite: he had a far-away look that would have become a mystic. The big negro Mohammedan who took so much pride in his prayers also stood high in my estimation, as he was a very dignified and quiet man. I went down to the gang-plank, and said good-by to these two as they disembarked carrying their pans and pots, and boxes and bundles.... Some of the passengers went ashore, but I remained and listened to the band concert, and watched the unusual scene of activity about the ship. The men engaged in unloading are mainly Mohammedan negroes, and they make more noise and do less work than any other workmen I know anything about. They not only scream all the time, but keep up a sort of song. At intervals they all quit the work on which they are engaged and clap their hands in unison.

SATURDAY, APRIL 12.—Zanzibar is unusual in many ways, but not as unusual as I expected it to be. I measured several of its streets this morning, and found them nine feet wide. These were mainly residence streets; the principal business streets are a little wider, and automobiles run in them. I met a gentleman named Hay in Zanzibar, an official of the cable company, and called at his home several times. He lives in the queerest house I have ever seen. It fronts on the sea, and was built and occupied many years by an Arab gentleman. The house is enormous in size, and some of its rooms must be thirty or forty feet square; it amused me immensely to see a dining-table, set for two, in the centre of the enormous dining-room; Mr. Hay has no children, and he and his wife are the sole occupants of the big house, except that four native servants slip about as quietly as mice. In the centre of the house is an enormous court, open to the sunlight, and when I visited the place we used to run across this, to avoid sunstroke. The bath-room of the house is another large room, with a depression and drain in the cement floor; every floor in the house is of cement and the walls of rough stucco plastered outside and inside. The water for bathing is carried to the Hay home by negro women, and for this service they receive three shillings a month, or seventy-two cents. The women carry the water on their heads, in Standard Oil tins, and have the best figures in the world, because of their habit of carrying loads on their heads. In the Hay house, as in all the other homes in Zanzibar, there is a roof garden, where the dwellers go when the nights are excessively hot. The Hay servants receive $1.25 a month, and board themselves. Mr. Hay told me they were great thieves; most of the other white people I met in Africa spoke highly of the honesty of the blacks. The approach to the house is a crooked street nine feet wide, and the front door an elaborate affair of bronze. An Arab invests a great deal of his money in his front door, as river pilots are said to invest most of their money in watch chains. This queer, rambling house rents for $20 a month. While sitting on its veranda, looking out to sea, a warship lying only a few hundred yards away fired a salute of a dozen guns, and caused Adelaide to scream, as the guns were pointed directly at us.... Mr. Hay has lived on the edge of the east fifteen or twenty years, as an employee of the cable company, and says that in his bachelor days he never shaved or put on socks except when a ship was expected in the harbor. The arrival of a ship in these far-away places is a big event to the white residents, as they nearly always dine aboard, and hear gossip from home.... Zanzibar, the town, is not as large as I expected to find it. I don’t know how many blacks are scattered over Zanzibar island, which is 50 miles long and 25 broad, but the total white population amounts to less than one hundred and fifty. Of white women and girls, there are only fifteen; and all of them smoke cigarettes, one citizen told me. When I meet a woman over here who smokes cigarettes, I am usually told that her husband is coaxing her to quit the habit. While in Zanzibar, the subject of women smoking cigarettes came up, and several men said to me: “My sisters never smoke; they would as soon think of cutting their throats.” I have rarely known a woman cigarette-smoker who did not tell me that her husband objected. Nice women smoke, but they would be nicer if they didn’t. Cigarette-smoking in women seems to be associated more or less with drinking: I sat in a party one night, at one of our stopping-places, and one woman drank five highballs, in addition to smoking nearly a box of cigarettes.... There is one narrow, crooked street in Zanzibar which is occupied entirely by Hindus. The street is so narrow that a carriage cannot be driven through it, and the shops of the tradesmen are very small; a merchant may sit in the middle of his shop, and reach everything it contains. Many of the occupants of the street are jewelers, and manufacture very wonderful articles with very simple tools. Leading off the street referred to are other narrow streets, and there is nothing more curious in Cairo or Delhi. Prices are actually very high in Zanzibar, unless you haggle with the merchants. One woman who was asked $35 for a cat’s-eye, finally paid $5 for it; another was asked $7.50 for an opal, and got it for $1.25. A professional horse-trader might do well as a shopper in Zanzibar, but the ordinary traveler is robbed. In San Francisco are curio stores displaying eastern goods five times larger than any similar store in Zanzibar. And in San Francisco the one-price system prevails. There are still larger stores in New York for the sale of curious things of Japanese, Indian or Chinese manufacture, and the merchants are reliable, whereas if you attempt to buy anything in Zanzibar, you usually deal with a rogue.... I had an automobile ride in Zanzibar I shall always remember. We drove across the island, a distance of twenty-four miles, and were almost constantly passing through native villages. The natives of Zanzibar seem to be more prosperous than the other negroes we have seen, and they have adopted all the customs of the strange races they meet here. Everywhere we saw negro women hiding their faces behind veils, a custom learned from the Hindus. We also saw negro women with gold buttons in their noses, rings on their toes, and bracelets on their ankles; they had seen these customs practiced by other women, and adopted them, without any particular reason.... I believe I saw more cocoanut trees on Zanzibar island than I ever before saw anywhere; and everywhere the people were preparing copra, the dried meat of the cocoanut. Copra produces an oil used in soap-making, and is in brisk demand. Wherever we go here we get the disagreeable smell of copra; it reminds one of very rancid butter.... We also passed through many miles of clove trees. Ninety per cent of all the cloves produced in the world are raised on Zanzibar island, where conditions are just right. Cloves are widely used in the manufacture of perfumes; in nearly every perfume is a little of the oil of clove. The clove trees are eighteen to twenty-five feet high, and do not look unlike orange trees. The crop is gathered by native women and children, and finds its way to every portion of the world. The island of Zanzibar is not unlike the island of Ceylon, of which it reminded me. Rice is extensively grown, and the banana and mango flourish, as do mosquitoes, malaria, donkeys, goats, and the inclination to go naked all the year ’round. Returning from the automobile trip, we were late, and the driver, a Hindu, tore like mad through the streets of the native villages. We lit our lamps at a native village, and entered Zanzibar after nightfall. Riding through the narrow streets of this old town after night, in an automobile, was an experience I shall always remember, for Zanzibar reminds every visitor of the towns described in “The Arabian Nights.” It is a typical Arabian town, and there seems to be a mystery and a romance behind every door. The town was ruled for hundreds of years by a Sultan, until the English took charge. There is still a sultan, who receives a salary from the English government, but some day he will be deposed, and there will be no further pretense of a Sultan having anything to do with the government. The old palace of the Sultan—an ugly affair which looks like a boarding-house—is used for offices by the British. Near the palace is the harem, now deserted, since the present Sultan has but one wife. The Sultan who had trouble with the English was educated in England, and spent much of his time, and all of his revenues, in Paris. One day an English gunboat sailed into the harbor, and the captain told the gay Sultan that he had been ousted. The Sultan resented the high-handed proceeding, and sent word to the defenders of his dignity to sink the English gunboat and put the insolent captain in the dungeon. There was an old fort near the palace, on the walls of which were mounted a few rusty iron cannon. The defenders of the Sultan tried to fire these at the English gunboat, but they burst, one by one, and almost wiped out the Sultan’s defensive force. The captain of the English gunboat then began dropping shells into the palace, and, with one solid shot, sank the Sultan’s navy: a small vessel which carried four guns. The last remnants of this wreck were being removed from the harbor the day I was at Zanzibar.... Near the middle of the town is a place called “The Gardens.” It was formerly the bathing resort of the wives of the Sultan. The place is now used as a town hall, and I went there with Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager, who wished to engage it for an attraction. He paid twelve shillings for the use of the hall. Dances are also held in the hall; the bathing-pool is covered with planks when the hall is rented. On other days, the bathing-pool, formerly the resort of the Sultan’s wives, is used by the school-boys, and scattered around the hall I saw a good many pieces of gymnastic apparatus.... Our summer weather is never as hot as the hot weather of Africa. Whenever we go ashore we carry a sunshade, and, with that protection, suffer more from heat than we ever suffer at home.... After our return from the automobile trip, Mr. and Mrs. Hay were our guests for dinner on the ship. They remained until nearly midnight, listening to the band concert, and “visiting.” Their boatman was anxious to go ashore, but Mr. Hay dared him to; there is a law here that a native boatman who takes a passenger out to a ship, must wait until the passenger is ready to return.... This afternoon we drank tea with an English official on the other side of the island. The official invited in several other Englishmen and their wives. The Englishmen were very polite, but I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life. I didn’t know when we started on the automobile ride that there was to be a function; it was arranged as an agreeable surprise by Mrs. Hay. I am sure the polite Englishmen enjoyed the parting as much as we did.... Dozens of native guides came on board last night and this morning, offering their services. Most of them had big names; one called himself George Washington, another Abraham Lincoln, another Oliver Cromwell, etc. But one quiet, modest negro said to the passengers:

“Me Poor Charley.”

And Poor Charley was a favorite; everyone who needed a guide tried to engage him.

SUNDAY, APRIL 13.—England and Germany are not far apart in East Africa. We left Zanzibar, which is in British territory, at 5 A.M. this morning. Four hours later we were in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of German East Africa. I shall remember this place particularly because the ship entered its harbor through an entrance which did not seem to be more than two hundred feet wide in one place, and because of the great number of Germans who came aboard, and remained all day, and nearly all night, drinking beer and singing songs. Most of our German visitors wore uniforms; Germany uses more uniforms than any other country in the world, population considered. We went ashore at 9 A. M., and found a very pretty modern town with the usual fifty blacks to one white. There is a hotel at this place which is considered a wonder, and a good many of the passengers went there for lunch or dinner.... All the time we were walking about, black ricksha boys followed us, and finally they proved a blessing when a rain came up; we entered the vehicles, and went to the hotel, where we found a lot of our passengers drinking beer on the verandas.... Cocoanut trees grow in great profusion here, and on one I counted fifty-four nuts. I have always had a notion that four or five nuts is a pretty good average for a cocoanut tree.

MONDAY, APRIL 14.—We have been in three different towns today: Dar-es-Salaam, Zanzibar, and Tanga. We left Dar-es-Salaam at daylight, and stopped at Zanzibar for the mails at about 10 A. M., remaining an hour. Several of our friends came on board, but none of the passengers went ashore. Dozens of Indian merchants came out to the ship, and worked rapidly, as they expected the whistle to blow any moment. The passengers also shopped rapidly, having heard that goods might be had at low prices during this brief shopping period. Hundreds of purchases, mostly of useless trifles, were made. Most travelers are as particular to buy presents for all their friends as they are to remember them at Christmas-time. When the whistle finally blew, there was a scramble of merchants and their assistants to get into the little boats, and one man was compelled to jump and swim for it. Many of the passengers ordered clothing of the Zanzibar tailors, on Saturday, which was delivered today. A pants and coat of white duck, so generally worn here, cost $2.50 for the best quality, and as low as $1.75 a suit for lighter material. The ladies also ordered skirts, and the charge was $2.25.... At 11 A.M. we left Zanzibar, and six hours later were at Tanga, also in German East Africa. We have made very little progress in the last three days, our time being devoted to loading freight. But I think we took on most of all at Tanga. All through the night the steam winches were going, and they did not cease work until after breakfast. One gang of men slept while the other worked. The forward winches are not many feet from my cabin window, and all through the night there was a tremendous racket, but, greatly to my surprise, I slept fairly well.... The usual uniformed Germans came on board at Tanga, and visited our officers. At Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga every vacant berth on the ship was filled with a German, and several are sleeping in the music-room. Five of the new passengers are babies, and several of the others are Kaffir nurses. One of these nurses is a man with whiskers, and certainly six feet high. To see him caring for a baby is very amusing. Still another new passenger is a Kaffir girl, a nurse, but she is so scantily dressed that she has been refused the run of the upper decks.... A young German girl left the ship at Tanga, and we hear she is engaged to the ship doctor. Their love affair has been the subject of much gossip, and when the girl left for shore in a small boat she wept bitterly. Bets of two to one are freely offered that the engagement will not result in marriage.... There is general relief because a young bull, which has been on board ever since we left Beira, departed on a scow at Tanga, after being lifted over the sides by the steam winches. The bull seemed to understand that he was about to get rid of his long confinement in a narrow box, and behaved very decently while being unloaded.... The trip up the east coast of Africa is distinguished because of its many stops, but this makes it a long trip. We are becoming tired, and did not go ashore at Tanga.

TUESDAY, APRIL 15.—There must be a tremendous amount of cargo on this boat. We ceased loading at Tanga at 9 o’clock this morning, and at 5 P.M. began again at Mombasa. At 5:15 we went down the stairway at the side of the ship, and a fight began among the boatmen over our patronage. The negro crew of row-boat No. 5 won, and we went ashore, stopping on the way at the “Adolph Woerner,” lying in the harbor. Landing, we walked a block to the street-railway, which is one of the queer affairs called a “trolley” over here, although there is no trolley. The street-railway runs from the port, called Killindini, to Mombasa, a mile and a half away, and only handcars, pushed by native men, are operated. There is a double track, with branches to every important section of Mombasa. Every citizen of importance owns one or more handcars, called “trolleys,” and these are lifted off the track when not in use, and you see them standing everywhere about the town. The fare up-town by trolley is not five cents, as is the case in the United States, where the people are mercilessly robbed by the corporations; the fare is forty-eight cents per passenger, after 6 P. M., and twenty-four cents during the day. Three men pushed our trolley, and, when they came to a piece of down-hill track, they all rode. We had employed a black boy as guide at the landing, at thirty-six cents an hour, and when we struck an up-hill piece of track, the guide also helped push. Thus with four men we got along very well, and were soon in the heart of old Mombasa, said to have been besieged oftener than any other town in the world; which is a pretty good story, if true, for there is fairly accurate authority for the statement that Jerusalem has been besieged and taken fifty times.... The trolley system of Mombasa stops at the postoffice; we left our car there, and walked into the old part of the town. In Zanzibar the streets were crooked, but in the old section of Mombasa the buildings seem to have been built without any order whatever. There are no streets; only spaces between the buildings, and these are very narrow. The inhabitants of the section through which we passed at about 6 P.M. are mainly people from India, and thousands of children were playing about the narrow passages, or in the quaint shops, which were almost as small as shops set up by children at play. It was almost dark, and the usual illumination in the average shop was a lantern. The shopkeepers wore turbans, and all sorts of strange clothing, and there was a touch of every country except the country I am most familiar with. I could not have named one-tenth of the articles displayed in the shops, and in one place a phonograph was playing Hindu airs as strange to me as the old town of Mombasa. We went to a market where hundreds of people were quarreling over food prices, and where the people seemed to come out of foreign books rather than out of real life. Occasionally we came across a wholesale house, and in the offices of these we saw Hindus working at typewriters. Drinking-shops abounded, and out of these came drunken men who leered at us impudently and curiously. There were a good many native hotels with guests sitting idly about. Mothers ran everywhere hunting their children, and the streets, not much wider than our sidewalks, were crowded with jabbering, gesticulating men and women who seemed to us to be rather ill-natured.... We passed an old fort which looked as large as Edinburgh castle, in Scotland; Mombasa is a big town, and prosperous, and its institutions are on a large scale. The guide said there was a still more interesting fort fifteen minutes away, and we went there by trolley. The fort is situated on the seashore, and only a ruin, but it looked very interesting in the moonlight. The old cannon used in defense of the place, I don’t know how many centuries ago, were still looking grimly out of ruined portholes, and just below the portholes the waves were tumbling noisily, as if anxious to climb up the rocks and complete the ruin of the place. Near the old fort was a lighthouse, flashing its signals out to sea, and directly in front of the lighthouse was the wreck of a steamship. The tide was out, and we went on board for a few minutes. There is probably nothing which so completely depicts ruin and desolation as a wrecked ship, lying on its side, and stripped of everything of value by vandals and the sea. We also climbed up to the lighthouse tower, and the keeper showed us the mechanism. It was the first lighthouse I have ever inspected at close quarters; usually they are located on rocks hard to get to.... When we went back to town, neither English nor German money would satisfy the trolley-boys, so I went into the shop of a money-changer, and paid twelve cents for enough Indian rupees to satisfy my creditors. The three trolley-boys who had taken us to the old fort took us to the landing, at a breakneck speed. One of the three rode all the time, and they relieved each other at the work of pushing. When the grade was down hill, they all rode. Down one long hill we must have traveled at the rate of thirty miles an hour. When we left the trolley, we were seized upon by a boatman who had wandered from the landing to get the first chance at ship passengers returning from town.

“Promise me, master,” he said; “me No. 67.” We promised, and followed him to the landing. Other boatmen constantly joined our procession, and we were soon in the center of a howling, fighting mob, but we had promised No. 67, and were faithful to him. At first, he was one to a hundred, but as we neared the landing, his three companions came to his assistance, and we were finally able to go aboard No. 67. I sat in the stern, and handled the tiller-ropes, and the ride out to the ship was cool and enjoyable.... Arriving at the ship, we found it surrounded with freight barges, and loading in furious progress. Eight steam winches were at work, four forward and four aft, and hundreds of screaming natives were swarming over the barges and down in the hold where the freight was being stored. A man who lives in this part of the world, and is familiar with it, says that when the natives are talking, they are at work; when they are quiet, he stirs them up with a stick, for he knows they are loafing. The loading on the forward deck was not ten feet from my cabin, and the quartermaster assured me it would go on all night. At 10: 30 there was a short rest, and the native workers swarmed up from below, and over from the barges, to be fed. The crew cook gave them pans of either rice or corn-meal mush, I could not tell which, and the men sat around in groups, and ate it with their fingers. The deck passengers, who have comfortable quarters over the hatchway when we are at sea, scatter everywhere when the hatches are uncovered, and loading is in progress.... I was much interested in a negro man who had two wives. The women had little babies of about the same age, and the husband seemed as fond of one wife as of the other. The husband was a young man, perhaps twenty-five, and his wives were still younger. The black babies were much better behaved than the white ones in the first-cabin. Since the arrival of the five white babies, the “Burgermeister” has been turned into a nursery. Some mothers are disposed to be apologetic when their children annoy others, but the mothers on the “Burgermeister” look at the other passengers as though they are a mean lot for not assisting in taking care of the babies. When a baby cries in my presence, I somehow feel as though I made it cry. I learned the various processes of caring for babies in bringing up my own, but had I not learned the art long ago, I might learn it all on board the “Burgermeister,” from intimate association with it. All the babies are German, except one Portuguese.... I was more interested in Mombasa than in Zanzibar. It is larger, and has better public buildings of every kind. The general impression is that Mombasa has a bright future, while Zanzibar seems to be as large as it can ever hope to be.... The known history of Mombasa began a thousand years ago, but many say this section was settled, and was the scene of fierce wars, long before the Christian era. It has been Portuguese territory and Arab territory, and they quarreled and fought over it constantly until the British took possession, and told both contending factions to behave themselves. If the old forts in Mombasa could talk, they might tell tales of bloodshed and cruelty that would startle modern mankind.... Mombasa is the port of entry for the vast territory of Uganda, a name which calls up memories of Livingstone, Speke, Grant, and Stanley. The railroad beginning here runs to Victoria Lake. It was this railroad on which Roosevelt made his trip into the interior, riding on the cowcatcher much of the way, and being in constant sight of big game. I have seen no wild game except one pheasant, and a good many baboons, but it is all around us, a few miles in the interior.... Imaginative writers draw beautiful word-pictures of this country and its future, but the facts are that it is a country beset with many pests and difficulties. I have talked with men from many sections of it, but they do not tell stories of wonderful prosperity. On the contrary, they tell stories of hot weather, of natural difficulties to be overcome, and of hard pioneering. Whoever lives here must not expect health; he must “go home” as frequently as possible, to recuperate, as do our soldiers in the Philippines. There are as many undeveloped “natural resources” in the Philippine Islands as in Africa; the greatest difference is that the African natives are better workers than the Filipinos, and not so much attention is paid to their liberties as we are paying to the liberties of the Filipinos.... This section is known locally as “British East.” Some say British East Africa is a better country than Cape Colony or Natal, or the Transvaal, or the Orange Free State, but the general evidence is that it is not.... The “Burgermeister” has a wonderful cargo in its hold. This morning I saw a lot of ivory come on board, and asked an official what else we carried to the markets of the world. We have rubber, cloves, Colombo roots, ginelda wood for tanning, chrome ore, a great lot of copper ore, gum copal, copra, cocoanut fiber, carianda seeds, great quantities of bullock and goat hides, ostrich feathers, wool, raw cotton, coffee, tobacco, cotton seed, cotton-seed oil in barrels, etc. A great deal more freight was offered than the ship could accommodate, and much was left in the barges after the “Burgermeister’s” hold was full. This freight comes from the interior, and was brought to the coast by rail, by river, and by bullock team; it does not represent the product of a section, but of a continent.... We were told on coming on board last night that an American and his wife had been added to the passenger list during our absence. I looked the man over, and at once offered to bet two to one that he was not an American. He wore a green hat, with the brim turned down all the way ’round. No American ever wore a green hat, or wore it with the brim turned down in that fashion. Besides, he smokes a pipe all the time, and carries a bag of tobacco attached to his belt; an English custom.... We lost nearly all of our friends at Mombasa. Many of the passengers are new, and we must start all over in becoming acquainted. Nine out of ten are Germans; there is an English line of boats plying on the East Coast, and the English prefer their own ships. Whoever travels out here will notice friction between the English and Germans.... In spite of every cabin on the ship being full, and in spite of the long delays in loading freight, the chief steward feeds us well; it is not too much to say that the food is as good as may be had on the best ships of the fine Atlantic fleet. While in port, we have so many visitors that we are crowded, but at sea, we settle down, and do very well.... There are several cases of the plague at Mombasa, but not much attention is paid to them. The plague is always a pest here, and occasionally it gets a big start; not long ago, Zanzibar was a closed port for six months, and visitors were compelled to remain there until the quarantine was raised. The Zanzibar hotel is a very bad one, and a good many of the visitors hired houses and cooks, and lived very comfortably.... Nearly all the natives of Mombasa are Mohammedans, and when we passed through the town just after darkness set in, it seems to me I saw thousands of men praying in the mosques. I have never seen a Mohammedan woman praying; with people of that faith, it seems to be the men who are religious. Among Protestants, you will find ten religious women to one religious man.... The old fort at Mombasa was once besieged thirty-three months, and when the garrison finally surrendered the victors found only eleven men and three women to butcher.... The Uganda State Railway begins at Mombasa, and runs to Lake Victoria, source of the river Nile. On the way is Niarobi, probably the most promising town in British East Africa. It was to Niarobi Sammy Marks was going, to open a new theatre. Nearly all the way to the lake, big game is constantly in sight from the railway carriages. Lake Victoria is the second largest in the world, only Lake Superior being larger. A trip of five days is provided on Victoria Lake, in large and comfortable ships, which are occasionally out of sight of land. It is in this section where ten thousand natives died within a year from the terrible sleeping sickness, which is so fatal that the government is now forcing the blacks to leave the infected district.... On the railroad to Victoria Lake is Tsavo station, where a pair of man-eating lions devoured thirty-three natives during the construction work. Colonel Patterson wrote a book about “The Man Eaters of Tsavo,” and its fame is worldwide. The terror of the native workmen on the railway finally became so great that work was suspended for a time. Then one of the engineers fixed up an iron cage, and spent five nights in it. The second night he shot one of the lions, another the third night, and the last one the fifth night. A good many hunters in Africa laugh at the Tsavo story as greatly exaggerated; indeed, I have heard it openly stated here that the Lion Lie is one of the greatest jokes in Africa. Every hunter, the African people say, takes home a fierce lion lie, and the world has come to believe thousands of big stories about these animals that are ridiculous.