COFFEE COUNTRIES. 267 



efficient and cheap labour may be procured close at hand in 

 Zanzibar) ; the Zambesi and the Nyassa district, Angola, Sao 

 Thorne, and Principe all Portuguese possessions, where land 

 is exceedingly cheap and life and property are secure ; the 

 Congo districts, the Gold Coast, and the Gambia, but the two 

 latter districts are well populated by aborigines and are 

 exceedingly unhealthy for Europeans. 



11 The writer is convinced that Kilimanjaro and the 

 surrounding country offers almost the finest opening for Coffee 

 planting in Africa. It is sparsely populated, near the coast, 

 endowed with a perfect climate and singularly fertile soil." 



Coffee at the Cape might have succeeded, but 

 " the Kaffirs will not work in Natal," we read in 

 " A South African Sketch Book " (Sonnenschein) 



" Coolie labour is too expensive, and English labour cannot 

 be retained. Thus Coffee cannot be said, in any sense, to have 

 flourished well in the colony. In the sub-tropical climate of 

 Natal, the plant buds, flowers, and develops its berries in the 

 most erratic manner all the year round. Double, if not treble, 

 labour is necessary in the selection of the fruit; in short, it has 

 to be gathered two or three times over. Coffee bears its berries 

 in this most inconvenient fashion. The unhappy grower whose 

 trees are budding, flowering, and bearing all at the same moment 

 is placed on the horns of a dilemma. Either he must sacrifice 

 much of his crop, or else he must submit to two outlays in the 

 way of labour. This is a very awkward position to be in, in that 

 labour is not only expensive, but often absolutely unprocurable. 

 The Kaffirs, who are under monthly terms of engagement, are as 

 likely as not to leave one at a most critical juncture, when fine 

 crops must be gathered or perish. This has too often proved 

 disastrous to the prospects of the Coffee and sugar planters. 

 What kind of luck would our hop farmers call it if, in 

 addition to all the other risks to which they are exposed, 

 they were finally checkmated entirely, by having to whistle 

 for labour when the burr had become fully ripe and ready to 



