AFRICA, SOUTHERN, COLONIES IN. 



authority of the king, at any rate as long as the 

 whites remained in the country. A month after 

 the visit of Schalk Burger the king died from 

 some cause and the queen suddenly acceded to 

 power. She nominated her son Isitoso to be king 

 in succession to Ngwane, and immediately began 

 to kill off her old adversaries and all possible rivals 

 to her son in order to secure his position against 

 the coming of the British. Ngwane succeeded his 

 father in 1889, and under white tutelage consid- 

 erable advancement toward civilization was made 

 during his reign. After his death the queen estab- 

 lished herself in the royal kraal about 9 miles 

 from Bremersdorp, the capital, assumed absolute 

 power, and after her enemies were disposed of 

 revived all the savage customs that existed many 

 years before. 



Rhodesia. The order in Council published on 

 Nov. 25, 1898, transferred the government of 

 Southern Rhodesia, formerly intrusted to the 

 British South Africa Company, to a Resident 

 Commissioner, appointed by the British Colonial 

 Secretary, assisted by an Executive Council, con- 

 sisting of the Resident Commissioner, the Ad- 

 ministrators of the two provinces, and not fewer 

 than 4 members appointed by the British South 

 Africa Company with the approval of the Secre- 

 tary of State. There is a Legislative Council, of 

 which the Senior Administrator is president, com- 

 posed of the Administrator of Matabeleland, the 

 Resident Commissioner, 5 members appointed by 

 the British South Africa Company and confirmed 

 by the Secretary of State, and 4 members elected 

 by the registered voters. The legislative period 

 is three years. Ordinances of the Legislative Coun- 

 cil obtain the force of law when approved by the 

 High Commissioner, but may be annulled within 

 a year by the Secretary of State. There is a 

 Secretary for Xative Affairs appointed by the 

 High Commissioner, and under the direction of 

 this secretary are native commissioners. The 

 military police are under the direct control of the 

 High Commissioner for South Africa. 



The area of Southern Rhodesia is 174,728 square 

 miles. It is divided into the province of Matabele- 

 land, w r hich has an extent of 60,728 square miles, 

 with a population of about 155,000, and the prov- 

 ince of Mashonaland, which has an estimated area 

 of 114.000 square miles and an estimated popula- 

 tion of 270,000. A railroad from Vryburg to Bulu- 

 wayo is being extended to Gwelo and across the 

 Zambesi to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, 

 whence it will run northward through German 

 East Africa into Uganda, and eventually connect 

 with the Egyptian line from Cairo to the Soudan. 

 The Rhodesian Railroad is operated by the Cape 

 Government. The net earnings for the year 1898 

 were 99,290, not including a subsidy of 20,000 

 from the Imperial Government and 10,000 from 

 the British South Africa Company. Another rail- 

 road enters Mashonaland from the Portuguese 

 port of Beira and has been completed to Salisbury, 

 with an extension to Buluwayo in progress. The 

 Rhodesian post office in 1899 dispatched 706,751 

 letters and postal cards to places in South Africa 

 and 253,662 to foreign destinations, besides 247,311 

 newspapers and parcels and 38,857 registered arti- 

 cles. The postal receipts were 18,197; expenses, 

 20,364. The telegraph system of Rhodesia em- 

 braces 2,536 miles of line. The number of private 

 telegrams received in 1899 was 79,955, including 

 5,652 from over sea; dispatched, 79,798, including 

 6,156 cable messages. The revenue from telegraphs 

 was 23,278 : expenses, 40,000. 



The British South Africa Company, which has 

 issued 4,375,000 of capital stock and 1^250,000 

 of debentures, derives revenue from mining, trad- 



ing, and professional licenses, leases of stands, and 

 postal and telegraph services. The estimated re- 

 ceipts for the year ending March 31, 1900, were 

 381,000; expenditures, including supplementary 

 estimates, 793,066. 



The charter of the British South Africa Com- 

 pany included in the territory given over for its 

 administration the British sphere north of the 

 Zambesi, with the exception of the British Central 

 Africa Protectorate in the vicinity of Lake Nyasa. 

 These regions, known as Northern Zambesi, com- 

 prise all of Central Africa south of the Congo Free 

 State and German East Africa excepting the pos- 

 sessions of Portugal on the Atlantic and Pacific 

 coasts. The area is estimated at 251,000 square 

 miles and the population at 650,000. Only about 

 350 Europeans are found in the whole territory. 



The Administrator of Mashonaland, who is the 

 Senior Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, is 

 W. H. Milton. Capt. A. Lawley is Administrator 

 of Matabeleland. Robert E. Codrington, residing 

 at Fort Jameson on the Tanganyika plateau, is 

 Deputy Administrator for Northeastern Rhodesia, 

 and Major R. T. Coryndon, staying at Lialui, the 

 kraal of the King of the Barotse, represents the 

 British South Africa Company in the western 

 division of Northern Rhodesia. 



British Central Africa Protectorate. The 

 protectorate on the southern and western shores 

 of Lake Nyasa grew out of a missionary settle- 

 ment established as a refuge for the natives pur- 

 sued formerly by Arab slave raiders. The area is 

 42,217 square miles and the population is about 

 900,000, with 377 Europeans and 250 Indians. In 

 the Shire highlands Europeans have plantations 

 where coffee of superior quality is grown 700 tons 

 in 1899 besides rice, wheat, oats, barley, and 

 other products. Horses thrive there also. The 

 administration is in charge of a Royal Commis- 

 sioner, who is responsible to the Foreign Office in 

 London. The present Commissioner is Alfred 

 Sharpe. The value of imports in 1899 was 99,290; 

 exports, 35,623. The principal articles of export 

 are ivory, coffee, and rubber. The revenue for 

 1899 was 24,538; expenditure, 65,715. A Sikh 

 force of 215 men and a native force of 1,070 men 

 trained by Sikh drill sergeants preserve order in 

 the protectorate and in the northeastern part of 

 the British South Africa Company's territory. A 

 battalion of 1,048 natives under British officers 

 was raised and trained for service abroad and sent 

 to do garrison duty in Mauritius, but came into 

 collision there with the inhabitants and had to 

 be withdrawn. They were kept on shipboard till 

 many of their number died, and were then sent 

 to do garrison duty in British Somaliland. There 

 is a force of 200 civil police in the protectorate, 

 also an artillery force of 2 mountain guns and 2 

 Maxims. On the upper Shire river and in Lake 

 Nyasa 3 gunboats are kept, while British gunboats 

 patrol the lower Shire and the Zambesi. The 

 boundary between the protectorate and German 

 East Africa, from the mouth of the Songwe on 

 Lake Nyasa to the mouth of the Kilambo on Lake 

 Tanganyika, has been delimited by a joint com- 

 mission.' The white settlers in the protectorate 

 have requested the Imperial Government to make 

 regulations prohibiting the emigration of laborers 

 attracted by the higli wages offered for native 

 labor in Beira and in the gold mines of Southern 

 Rhodesia, taking them away from the coffee plan- 

 tations for long terms of work south of the Zam- 

 besi, where they are tempted to spend their wages 

 in drinking and other vices and are no better off 

 in the end than if they remained in their villages 

 earning the accustomed low wages of agricultural 

 laborers and carriers in Central Africa. 



