RHODESIA AND ITS PEOPLE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 890, 9 August 1910, Page 4

RHODESIA AND ITS PEOPLE.

COUNTRY GOOD; BUT LIVING DEAB. . Describing Ehodesia' and its people to a Wellington resident in a recent letter, Mr. Harry Floyd (who is training Dick Arnst, the champion ■ sculler, for his forthcoming match on , the Zambesi) has something interesting to say on. a number of matters. ,''".■ After relerring to the excellence of the climate. which llhodesia enjoys, Mr. Floyd goes on to say that the country improves in quality all tho way up from >' Kiinberloy. "In" many.places," he. says, "it is just like a park and many orchards come in view. One, does not .see much stock nor signs of cultivation. The best land we have seen in South Africa is undoubtedly in Rhodesia where the grass is eight inches high, but very coarse. During some parts of the journey from, the Cape the diist nuisance was much in evidence. Everything was very dear. Meals on ,'tho train cost 3s. M. When one of tho passengers found that a brandy v and soda would cost 25., he . nearly dropped dead. No drinks here less than Is. j a medium beer r'uus into Is. Gd. Accommodation at the hotel costs 15s. per day; in New Zealand just as good, could, bo had for a third of that amount. "Little is > produced here, and I don'tseo how it could be otherwise as. ono requires a lot of money to come here. Ii you want to shoot anything worth shooting it costs .£25 for a license, so I don't think we will do much of it. There ore about 200 whites here, and native- labour is the only thing that is cheap—that is: they think so, bnt we can't seo where it comes in. Ono decent navvy would do inoro in one , day than they do in a weelc. Without doubt the whites havo got tho natives well under. It does not seem quite tho thing for the white man to come along and take their country as he is doing. When you pass one of the natives on the street now, if lw has any sort of a hat on he has to take it off until you go by. Some of them nve very fine stamps of. men—but nntliing like the Zulus. "No donlit." concludes Ifr. Floyd, "the river and falls are a very fine siffht. The Ifnlls are n quarter of a mile across, and | then they rfroii into mute a narrow (rorcp over which the railway brid?o cros-w;. Outside of this there arc no other =ichts to see. There is a continuous slmwer | of snrnv risinsr from the falls like a big white cloud. You enn sp» it miles away. It mil's-pnp in'mmd of Waimangu geyser, as it'used to be."