212 MOZAMBIQUE 



but the same wage as a weaker brother who 

 cannot shovel so many tons of gravel as he can, 

 or lay so many bricks. But with East Africans 

 the reverse is the case, and you cannot please a 

 gang of labourers more than by overlooking in- 

 dividual shortcomings. 



The European system has come to stay now ; 

 the native himself would tolerate no other ; but 

 we should yet remember that all races of the 

 world have been cradled under the patriarchal 

 system and that the African is still in his cradle. 



The native's predilection for intoxicants is also 

 the subject of complaint amongst employers and 

 also officials. It is generally considered to be 

 evidence of the degenerating iniluence of contact 

 with civilization. If not that, then it is a vice 

 which if not checked will lead the native on to 

 destruction. In the cocoanut belt it is palm wine, 

 further south cashew and cane. In Mozambique 

 generally it is the Portuguese wine, in Nigeria 

 gin. There are, of course, a hundred things from 

 which the native ferments his beer or distils his 

 alcohol. Visitors occasionally arrive at Delagoa 

 Bay, spend a couple of days in the town, and then 

 shriek out in the papers that the Portuguese are 

 demoralizing the natives through selling their 

 cheap wines to them. 



