Fes. 1906.] | FLORA OF PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA. 169 
five hundred miles, very irregular, with numerous inland bays 
extending from four to eight miles. The rivers flow from 
the watershed of the Rhodesian border, east and south-east, 
into the Indian Ocean. 
Beira is situated in a Jand-locked basin at the mouth of 
the Pungue and Busi rivers, and the influence of the tidal 
wave extends for forty milesinland. Proceeding southwards, 
the first large bay is Sofala—a place long noted in history as 
a station frequented by the Phcenicians, passing into the 
auriferous regions of Africa. Sofala is one of the first forts 
erected by the Portuguese on this coast, early in the 
sixteenth century; now fallen into decay. It is worth 
mentioning that they conveyed the stones from Portugal. 
Timber they found in abundance, good hard red woods, of 
acacia and bruguiera, which resist the termites (white 
ants). Stones are not to be found on this coast suitable for 
building purposes. Numerous islands abound by the river 
mouths and inland creeks, almost of sand formation; and 
the vegetation denotes them of a not far removed period. 
Chiloane is one of the largest islands, about fifty miles from 
Beira; it was the first Portuguese settlement, possessing a 
fort and governor’s residence, but all that power has long 
passed away. The island is about one mile wide and six 
miles long, and consists of cocoanut gardens and native 
habitations, and is also the residence of the Portuguese 
official known as Commandant. 
The whole territory is divided into districts, and presided 
over by commandants, who administer civil and judicial 
control over the inhabitants. The natives on the seaboard 
are a strange mixture of races: Portuguese, Mahomedan 
Indians, and Cafirs; law-abiding and childlike in their 
habits, but very vain, and fond of wearing European clothing 
of gaudy colours. The natives of the interior are a much 
finer race, and have not yet acquired the vices of the Western 
races. From ages of a pastoral and hunting life, they do not 
take kindly to mining and agricultural labour when their 
white brother calls them to handle the pick and hoe. 
Nature has provided them abundantly with roots, fruits, 
seeds, cereals, and spirituous drink, each following in due 
season; so that it is only in the failure of any one of these 
products through a dry season that they are compelled to 
