NYASALAND AND LOWER ZAMBESI 141 



there has come a longing to see what manner 

 of place this is which lies across the troubled 

 swell of the bar. The ocean leviathan pitches 

 and rolls on the heaving waters, and a few 

 passengers are dropped unceremoniously over- 

 board in a great wicker-work cage. They alight 

 on a little, tossing tug-boat and a human exchange 

 is effected. The cage rises and disgorges on the 

 liner's decks two or three thin, sallow-faced white 

 men, wrecks who have gone ashore on that 

 great barrier reef of sickness which binds Central 

 Africa. 



To the interested passenger these gaunt beings 

 lend added interest to the settlement, just visible 

 amidst the bush of the mainland which battles 

 yearly with river and tide, and, like Canute of 

 old, has to admit its impotency against the 

 powers of the supreme. 



For Chinde, the Gateway of South Central 

 Africa, is disappearing. Countless millions of the 

 golden grains of the hot sand on which man has 

 built his feeble edifices are each year claimed 

 by the estuary. Where stores and bungalows 

 stood but a brief while ago, the flotilla of the 

 British Central Africa Company and the African 

 Lakes Corporation now ride and bask, and the 

 Zambesi and the Indian Ocean mingle in the 

 dancing sunlight. It is a pretty picture seen 

 through the spectacles of health, the variegated 

 roofs of the township, the mangrove patches, 

 and the tender hues of the bush all blending 

 with river, sea, and sky, and giving to it the 

 torpid touch of the tropics, the master-brush of 

 creation's artist. How different does it all appear 

 when disease has fretted away fancy, and malady 

 has steeped one's very bones in a vindictive 

 flight of thought against all Nature ! Pass 



