62 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



Tete is a town of half-castes. In every office, 

 administrative and commercial, woolly heads and 

 dark, olive faces peer at or interrogate you. 



But what does that matter? Tete has a 

 prosperity peculiarly its own, a slumbering, 

 seductive comfort such as you will only find 

 where the palm tree grows and the wind is warm 

 with the breath of the tropics. 



Providence seems to guard the place and 

 guide its laboured, lazy footsteps as carefully 

 and miraculously as the steps of a drunken 

 man are guided. There are no sanitary laws in 

 Tete, yet the town boasts a bill of health which 

 many cities in South Africa might envy. Around 

 Tete large numbers of fat, flourishing cattle may 

 be observed, yet there is nothing for them to 

 eat — at least, the eye fails to detect any pastur- 

 age. The place may well be congratulated on 

 its good fortune ; but I have always noticed that 

 good luck comes more readily to the easy-going 

 and irresponsible than to the striving and 

 strenuous. 



The good people of Tete would no doubt be 

 wroth were any taint of irresponsibility to be 

 laid at their doors, for have they not a navy to 

 defend them, an army to uphold their traditions 

 of glorious memory, a fort to bid defiance to all 

 foes? In short, have they not all the responsi- 

 bilities of a military nation to respect, and have 

 they not the means of enforcing that respect? 



Of forts there are two, the river fortress com- 

 manding the Zambesi and the old land fort at 

 the back of the town. Of the latter it is related 

 that a young British naval officer, in order to 

 win a bet, stormed the battlements single- 

 handed one night, gagged the sentry, spiked the 

 guns, locked up officers and men, and pitched 



