DODOMA

Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1929, Page 7

DODOMA

VILLAGE THIO PRINCE HAS MADE FAMOUS. DODOMA, (Tanganyika Territory,) November 2. This iemote hamlet which has so suddenly become a centre of world in terest owing to the visit of the Prince of Wales, is a mere strip of dusty road less than 800 yards long, with tinrailway station on one side and on tinother a tiny hotel owned by a Greek. IJeside the hotel is the post office and immediately beyond it the “Bonin’ the iGerman-built (fortress-like headquarters of the administration of the Central Province, which contains the residence of Mr H. Hignell, the Provincial Commissioner, that of Mr Wilkins, the District Officer, and the local court Treasury and other offices.

It is a high, four-square structure of dressed granite, with the second story loopholed for rifle and machinegun fire. At the top enrance two massive gates of 3-inch timber reinforced with iron bars lead into the courtyard where in the days of the German administration natives slept in readiness to repel a sudden attack by hostile tribesmen.

Three steep concrete stairways lead from the courtyard to the broad upper galleries, also of concrete, with parapets, while one corner of the building is actually a bastion, giving a field of fire in three directions over the open country.

Behind the Boma is a new building occupied by the staff of the Geological Survey. The hotel, a one-story building of tbe bungalow type, has ten bedrooms and a little bar. The bar is a rendezvous for transport drivers and other travellers and the highway between Kenya, Nyasaland, and . Rhodesia. Behind is a new bungalow fo concrete owned by Georciu, the proprietor and erected by him as an annexe to the hotel. It was completed only a few days before the arrival of the Prince and was first occupied by him. It'remains his base while lie is on safari and its temporary occupant is Major G. St. J. Orde-Brown, Commissioner of the Labour Department of the territorial Government who has had charge of all the arrangements for the Prince’s journey while in the Tanganyika Territory. WORK EVEN ON HOLIDAY. There are three bedrooms, a bathroom and a dining-room, all on one floor, and there is a wide veranda, where the Prince had,, a table placed so that he could attend to his correspondence during a brief interval of leisure between the end of the official ceremonies and his departure for his camp at Buhati last Friday afternoon. He looked out on the hack-yard of the hotel, where fowls were constantly scratching the dust and Negro waiters in cotton singlets and khaki trousers busied themselves in preparing the simple meals of the day.

For the rest Dodoma consists of iron bungalows occupied by employees of the railway, the house of the European doctor, the gaol and the native lunatic asylum, which serves an entire territory extending miles beyond the settlement.

On the other side of the railway which skirts it is the native bazaar of ramshackle wooden huts occupied by Indian traders. It faces the square, with its primitive well—the only source of water for the neighbourhood. Wagogo tribesmen who have walked many miles from their fields and flocks saunter past the shops, followed by the touts of the tradesmen, who try to pilot them to the ware of their employers. The Indian merchants receives these wild customers with a courtesy which would be exaggerated even in Bond-street, insisting that the prospective buyer shall sit on a chair while tinned foodstuffs and such alluring toys as mirrows, clocks, gramophones, and Manchester coloured goods for the bashful women are displayed and prais ed with extreme fervour.

The wide plain surrounding the town with its curious solitary hills of earth and granite, is covered with dry scrub A strong wind blows across it almost constantly driving the dust against the screened windows of Dodoma. Usualy the sun shines with hard brilliance.

There is no European club and there are only two lawn tennis courts. The principal relaxation of the European residents is shooting. They can go live or ten miles out and get any amount of game.

Only one train arrives from the coast weekly. It steams in at daylight and then the majority of the Europeans—and invariably all the women—gather at llie station in the expectation of speing some lriend passing through ot of picking up bits of news from the world outside.