THE CALL OF THE WILD.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 157, 4 November 1926, Page 3

THE CALL OF THE WILD.

MR. LIVINGSTONE’S LETTERS. A Keen Observer. The following are further notes from the letters of Mr. W. Livingstone, who, with his brother, Mr. D. B. Livingstone, is on a big game hunting expedition in Africa:— BIG COAL CONSUMPTION. “ Left Durban on July 9 for Mombasa by steamer. They tell me that 25,000 tons of coal come in to Durban every day, for overseas shipping and local use. House coal is bought for 2is a ton. A SANGUINARY STRIKE. “ In the last big- strike at Johanesburg, there were 600 killed, mostly rrish and Welsh. PENGUIN EGGS. “ There are two small islands between Durban and Delagoa Bay let by the Government at a price between £38,000 and £40,000 per annum, for Penguin eggs. These eggs, when cooked, taste just like fish. “ WHISKY 2/- A NIP.” “We stopped a day and night at Delagoa Bay. The place has gone back very much. The Portuguese seem a happy-go-lucky lot. There is a great Kaffir and Indian coolie population. The native quarters are under the Durban rules and laws. Everything is very dear. Whisky costs 2s a nip, and beer Is 6d. I am told that although the place is held under the Portuguese Government, the English hold nearly all the ground. STATE LOTTERIES. “ State lotteries are in full swing, and gambling is quite the order of the day. I doubt if there is any place in the world where there are so many hotels; some are the most up-to-date that could possibly be obtained. To show hoc the paper currency here has dropped, a paper note that used to be worth five shillings, is now worth 1 id. Their money has always been paper, issuing down to a farthing, which now has no value. LABOUR AGITATORS. “As in S.A., the manual work is all done by Kaffirs; on the boat travelling to Mozambique, by Indian coolies. The Labour agitators get a short shift in this country; one has been put in prison and others deported. DUTCH FARMERS BITTER. “ It was always understood in New Zealand that after the Boer war the British Government fully compensated the Dutch farmers for their losses of stock and homesteads, but I .find on inquiry that all they received was £7O per £IOOO for damage done. The Dutch , people are still very bitter against the British. MOZAMBIQUE. “ Went ashore at Mozambique, Portuguese country. The town is like nothing that I have ever seen. Built on an island, which is a most unhealthy country,, fever all the year round, only a few white people, Engish; the rest are natives and Portuguese. The old fort, built about 100 years ago, is a very interesting place, part of which is used as quarters for the native soldiers, and part for a jail. ZANZIBAR. “ Zanzibar, the next port, is a very pretty island with oranges, cocoanuts, cloves and all tropical fruit. There are miles of paths through the plantations, and the smell of cloves is really nice. The clove tree is one of the most handsome trees one could see. A MU CPI MARRIED MAN. “ The Sultan, who receives £3OOO a year from the Home Government, has a very fine palace. No one seems to know exactly how many wives he has got—anyhow, he has a nice place to keep them in. BUSINESS HOURS. “ We saw a lot of ivory which came from Portuguese East Africa, some very big tusks among them. The island is teeming with population, and grows anything and everything all the year round. The business hours are from 8 till 11 a.m., and 2 p,m. till 4 p.m., then all the young Indians play games of one sort or another—cricket, football, tennis, hockey and golf—only the whites play tennis and golf. MOMBASA. “ Our next port, Mombasa, was very green with grass, and tropical trees, and had a very pleasing look on going up the harbour. There was good accommodation at hotels; always have to sleep with mosquito netting covering. The weather is much better than our summer in Ncvv Zealand. ; ... . kj

MEMORIES OF LIVINGSTONE. “ A few miles down the coast from Moxibasa there is an old native who was present when Livingstone died, and heipfed to carry his body out to hie coast for shipment to England. I will have a photo of the old man taken when we come back to Mombasa. LATE BATTLE GROUND. “ Tanganyika is one of the prettiest places we have yet come to. The Germans and English had a tough go here; a great number of men on both sides being killed. There are a lot of Germans coming back to settle here again, and are given every inducement. “ The streets are much better than Mombasa, with palm, cocoanut and other trees, quite thick all through the town. The business is ail carried on by Germans and Indians, not a single Englishman having a shop of any kind. No manual labour. One sees a waggon with one native at the pole and five pushing behind, and will take a ton anywhere on the flat. Owing to the natives being smaller here it takes two to pull a rickshaw instead of one as in other places. RUBBER PLANTATIONS. “ After leaving Tanganyika, we travelled through rubber and sisal plantations for 70 miles. Millions have been spent by Germans on these plantations. The plantations were all run by separate German companies, and as far as I can gather, none of them ever paid. Since the war, these plantations have been sold by the British and are now in British possession. THE NATIVE HEMP. “ The sisal is a very paying business. The methods of working the sisal plantations are: The life of the plant is four years, and to keep their output up to working strength, one-third is planted every year in rows at about six feet apart, and three feet between each plant. “ Tram lines are run every 400 yards through the plantations, with a main line running up the centre to the factory, which, in some cases, runs night and day, all by black labour except the engineers, managers and overseers. It is treated in much the same way as our New Zealand flax. We stopped for , a few days with one of the under-managers, who showed us over the estate. This estate has 10,000 acres under sisal, and employs 1000 natives, cutting, planting and cleaning the plants. The rubber trees, on account of the fall in rubber, are not worked. A great deal of the natives’ time is taken up in keeping the grass and growth out of the sisal. WONDERFUL FERTILITY. “ The land is most fertile and rich, right from Tanganyika to Arusha, 300 miles. I have seen no land in New Zealand or Australia that could compare with it in any way; the vegetation is most luxurious. One can buy oranges at Is per 100 from the natives on the stations, as he goes along the line, and other tropical fruit in proportion. THE COFFEE PLANTATIO_NS. “ On arrival at Moshie, the terminus of the rail, one has the first look at the highest mountain in Africa, Killimanjaro, 19,000 feet. The small township is right underneath the mountain, with coffee plantations all along the foothills. The finest coffee in the world comes from here, but the growers are not so sure of their annual harvest as the sisal owners are. If it comes a dry season, the coffee is more or less a failure, and the weather does not affect the sisal plants on account of their being of the cactus group. THE FIELDS OF COTTON. “There is here at Moshie, very large areas in cotton which has to be planted every year, and picked about August. Cotton is a crop very liable to insect pests. I consider cotton one of the prettiest crops that I have ever seen growing. “ We will be camped on a shamble (farm) which has 12,000 acres in cotton and 400 acres in maize. WANDERING LIONS. “ The white population is German, Dutch and a few English, not many though. The natives here are much smaller than in Southern Africa, and wear very little dress of any kind. Game is very plentiful here; lions wander through the township at night time. Two were killed a few nights ago. The township is really standing in the centre of a huge forest of trees and undergrowth. THE HONEY INDUSTRY. “ This is a great country for bees. The natives hang long cylinder hives, made of bark and timber, high up in the highest forrest trees, and the bees go into them of their own accord. When they are full of honey the natives let the hives down to the ground and take the honey. The reason for putting them so high is to stop the honey bear from robbing the hives.