122 THROUGH ANGOLA 



I do not know if the network of twenty wire- 

 less stations in Angola will do all that my friend 

 Pole, an enthusiast on the subject, claims ; but if 

 it will render Angolan telegrams quicker than a 

 train or the post, or even a native runner, it will 

 have achieved something. Perhaps there is gall 

 in the ink as I write, but you will read a little later 

 how even the august orders of the Governor may 

 be as naught to a telegraph clerk, and a help- 

 less traveller may struggle through discomfort to 

 failure in the grip of a one-man-telegraph strike. 



Lobito has an excellent water supply, piped 

 from the Catumbella River, 8 miles to the south. 

 Everywhere there is electric power and light, 

 derived from turbine plant in the same stream. 



The steamship lines which call at Lobito 

 include cargo boats of the Elder-Dempster and 

 other lines from Liverpool, and an occasional 

 Union Castle ship from Southampton. Two 

 Portuguese lines, the Government "Transports" 

 Maritimus and the subsidized Empreza National, 

 are supposed each to send a ship a month to the 

 Angolan ports, including Lobito. An American 

 service is helping their great oil interests in Angola. 

 and Italian ships are talked of. 



But, reader, beware ! ! Listen to one who has 

 suffered grievously. Take an English ship direct 

 to Lobito if you possibly can, and if you cannot 

 find one, book your passage on the Portuguese 

 lines, weeks ahead. 



When one has come down from the hills above 

 the harbour and looks at them from the sea, they 

 appear as a line of bare limestone ridge and terrace, 



