REACHING OUR RENDEZVOUS 



One thing strikes the traveller in these parts, and 

 that is the English shipping companies have been slow 

 in recognizing the volume of trade on this coast, which 

 the Germans, having once succeeded in getting, will 

 continue for many reasons to hold for some years to 

 come. How many English passenger and cargo boats 

 on the east coast can boast of half a dozen men with a 

 knowledge of German, Swahili, or Portuguese ? Board 

 any German boat you may see running up the coast, 

 that boat caters for the different nationalities met with 

 up the east coast. It is much nicer for the German to 

 travel on a boat where he can be understood, can mix 

 with the people and will not be regarded as a fool because 

 he cannot speak English. Our people are the fools for not 

 seeing that in every case the purser, at least, should be able 

 to converse with the people, as he is supposed to do, and 

 not strut about the first-class deck trying to look pretty. 

 Another thing that strikes all Englishmen unpleasantly 

 is that the Germans are bringing out railway material 

 for British contracts on British boats under the German 

 flag. At Beira I was standing on the deck chatting 

 with one of the officers when a large 10,000-ton ship 

 came into port, and as she passed us I noticed that 

 although she was an English ship and belonged to an 

 English company, she was flying the German ensign. I 

 felt a lump in my throat, a tinge of shame shot through 

 me when the German officer called my attention to the fact 

 that material made in our own country was brought out 

 by Germans on a boat hired from us. This was not an 

 isolated case, for during the next few days several other 

 British ships, flying the German ensign, came into Beira. 

 The Germans are nothing if not enterprising, they have 

 been running right round Africa for years. In and around 

 East Africa they have come to stay, and it will be some 

 years before we recover the trade which we have allowed 

 to run through our fingers or even an appreciable portion 



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