fun, I. 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



53(^ 



jsgaiM l 



the help of some of his old comrades, a new attempt wa8 

 resolved upon in the jear 1878. Mr, E. D. Young a 

 gunner in the Royal Navy and Livingstone's factotum 

 had seen just where the breaking point lay previously 

 and when he was invited to assist in resuscitating 

 plans all tending to relieve the natives of the Shire 

 highlands from the incubus which lay upon them, he 

 rendered invaluable service. Sent out by the Royal 

 Geographical Society to investigate the story of Living- 

 stone's reported murder in 1866, he was able to try 

 tho oughly the experiment of transporting boats in 

 sections. "Mild steel" was then in jts infancy, and, if 

 we are not mistaken, Mr. Young's boat, the "Search," 

 was the first vessel of any kind constructed of this 

 material. She was put together at Chatham under 

 the supervision of the Admiralty authorities, and 

 proved a perfect success during Mr. Young's well- 

 known and most successful adventure. With the 

 experience of this last trip in hand Mr. Young 

 received a commission from the Established and Free 

 Churches of Scotland to provide them with a steam 

 vessel made of the same -material. Mr. Yarrow built 

 the Ilala under Mr. Young's immediate directions, and 

 agciin with undaunted perseverance he placed her on 

 Lake Nyassa at the service of the missionaries who 

 accompanied him. It is right to mention this because 

 we now hear of steam vessels on most of the great 

 inland seas of Africa, and notably the Congo river, but 

 to Mr. Young's energy is due the fact that the llala led 

 the way in 1876, Sir Samuel Baker's steamers were 

 second in order on the Albert Nyanza in General 

 Gordon's service. It speaks well for the future when 

 we now learn that Emin Pasha has tlie abovenamed 

 vessel still afloat. The Ilala is reported "tight as a 

 bottle " after ten years of amateur and professional 

 seamanship, during which she had to weather many a 

 heavy gale and many a bump. 



The African Lakes Company took shape in 187S, 

 not as a mere trading venture, but to assist the 

 various missions which were then established, and to 

 work out Livingstone's schemes. It had its ups and 

 downs, its days of small things and its successes. Now 

 it can boast of steady development through all. 

 Twenty-five Europeans are dotted about at trading 

 stations stretching from Quillimane on the coast to 

 a point half-way between the Lakes Nyassa and 

 Tanganyika. These stations are 12 in number, and 

 three steamers ply on lake and river with very great 

 regularity. At a pinch the company has shown itself 

 equal to conveying a steam vessel in sections across 

 from Lake Nyassa by the Stevenson road (of the 

 eompany's engineering), and she is now on Lake 

 Tanganyika with the staff ot the London Missionary 

 Society. But the point which the compauy lias settled 

 is this : — During the eight years in which it has ex- 

 tended the ramification of its trade over this immense 

 distance, it has proved that it is possible to trade in 

 indiarubbe>-, wax, oilseeds, and in ivory to an enormous 

 amount, without defiling the list of their barter goods 

 with a single keg of trade rum, or the all-representative 

 " square face" of the West Coast trade. It is some- 

 thing to have established proof before us that it is ncft 

 necessary to carry ruin and desolation headed up in 

 Hamburg casks and Dutch gin bottles to a new 

 country before you can hope to see tusks and dividends. 

 The Messrs. Moir, who are intrusted with the concerns 

 of the company, testify that they have alrea^ly ex- 

 ported (Decamber, 1885j 40,815 lb. of ivory, and not 

 imported a glass of spirits. We can only trust that 

 when some of the ventures which are in the air take 

 form and shape, either on the Congo or in the Soudan, 

 this invaluable precedent may encourage or shame as 

 occasion may require. 



Little short of romfvntic arc some of the incidents 

 connected, with the company's progress. Making very 

 bad weather of it for many years, two little stunted 

 coffee plants led a miserable existence in the Edin- 

 burgh Botanical Gardens. It was a happy and kindly 

 thought a ways when the Curator asked Mr. 

 John Moir to tnke them away with hiui to the 

 Shire liighlands. In due time they arrived; 

 the fittest survived. Too much happiness, perhaps, 

 killed tlio olhev. 'f'lio survivor took a new lease of 



life, struck deep roots into the warm, red soil of 

 the hills, and hurst out with berries and cuttings 

 in the glorious air of the highlands. Photographs 

 lie before us in which plantations filled with heavy- 

 laden coffee trees are depicted. The gardens on 

 Mount Zomba, of the Buchanan Brothers, are a 

 thing to see, and it was stated in The Times some 

 years since that samples of their produce had been 

 priced very highly in Mincing-lane. But to this 

 old patriarch of the Edinburgh Gardens is every 

 berry traceable. It is computed that 100,000 trees 

 claim direct descent from him, and Scotland may 

 claim to have put Some of her own energy and 

 pluck into his fibre. Nothing seems to be such a 

 favourite article of barter with the natives as 



occasion, the Lakes Company 

 both soap and candles for 



already exists. They express 

 it is from 

 But the com- 



soap. Equal to the 



contemplate making 



the market which 



abundant oil for their steamers as 



ground-nuts, which do not pay to export 



pany pride themselves on the alteration they are bring- . 

 ing about in the ivory trade of the interior. Hitherto it 

 has been the custom of the Arabs to buy, or more often 

 to seize, such stores of ivory as they know of in the 

 country. The tusks are generally borne to the coast by 

 unfortunate slaves, who after a tramp of several hund- 

 red miles are got rid of for what they will fetch. The 

 burden tho man has carried may bring in from £25 to 

 £30 ; the bearer may change hands for $5. Now the 

 trading stations of the Lakes Company " cut " this 

 traflSc balf-way ; the Arabs are glad to dispose of their 

 ivory midway at the lake. We much regret that it is not 

 in our power to report any diminution in the traffic 

 in slaves across Lake Nyassa, coastwards bound. On 

 the contrary, it seems that it is increasing largely. The 

 slave trade is in the hands of Arab agents and powerful 

 lake chiefs, with whom the company has no licence, 

 even if it had the power, to interfere. 



The very existence of the large mission stations of 

 the Scotch Churches and the Church of England on and 

 around the lake depends on communication with tho 

 outer world, and this becomes only a second charii:e on 

 the company's exertions. To keep up with requirements 

 under this heading a large sternwheel steamer is just 

 being put together on the Zambesi, whither she has 

 been borne in sections from the Clyde. It would be 

 very interesting to point to the work, both industrial 

 and evangelical, which is being carried out in these regi- 

 ons, but it hardly comes within bounds, nor can we do 

 more than mention again the fact that, with the com- 

 pany's operations as a basis, some very excellent 

 Scotch farmers and engineers have founded a flourish- 

 ing settlement on Mount Zomba — perhaps one of the 

 healthiestand most picturesque spots in Central Africa. 

 With abundant streams and a network of irrigation, 

 not only do they dispose of their coffee, sugar, and oil 

 seeds to the Company, but some of the rarer drugs 

 and spices are being Ijrought under hand. Surely the 

 very spirit of Livingstone must wander now and 

 again through those regular lines of coffee trees ^ He 

 dared to dream and to talk of such possibilities in his 

 lifetime; his bard-headed, energetic countrymen have 

 indeed given a backbone to his visions since he died 

 on the shores of the neighbouring lake. But a 

 great deal too much harm has been done already 

 by picturing tropical Africa as the coming colony 

 fur Europeans of all classes. It is murderous 

 folly to entice men on to its alluvial lands and 

 swamps to dig and delve, to plough and sow. Only 

 here and there can such things be done ; even 

 then the white man must manage and direct alone. 

 But, rightly understood, this very fact tells in favour 

 of the natives. Born cultivators are they; no new dis- 

 covery this, as Cuba, Brazil, and the Southern States 

 of old can tell ; but heads for such details as the mer- 

 chant's ledger requires will not ache over figures for a 

 generation or two. Then there is no prospect of the 

 African being elbowed off his own land by the incoming 

 settler, be he of the '' Ma Dutchi " tribe (as the na- 

 tives already call tho Germans) or from Ireland, 

 England, or Sweden. The natives must conunaud 

 their own price ; they do now at the company's 

 stations and on Mount Zomba, but it is Tiot in rum, wi- 

 repeat. 



