NYASALAND AND LOWER ZAMBESI 143 



of this little East Coast port, which stands a 

 sentinel at the entrance to the vast, and peeps 

 out on the spangled surf of the illimitable. 



Great Britain has her tenement of commerce 

 here, just as God has His acres for the worn-out 

 bodies of those who made that commerce 

 possible. 



A small strip of land bounded by a palisade 

 stretches down to the river front. This is the 

 British Concession, where all goods for and from 

 British Central Africa are landed and stored 

 free of duty. 



One day, perhaps, Quilimane will be the 

 metropolis of this part of Africa, and will boast 

 of a railway station and a big port, the terminus 

 of the extended Shire Highlands Railway. But 

 that can only come to pass after the patchwork 

 on the map of Africa has been remended into a 

 more harmonious piece of cloth. And so it is 

 that Chinde, where the lazy Portuguese police 

 sleep in the sandy streets, and the British trader 

 watches with anxiety the irresistible advance of 

 ocean tide and river wavelet, plumes itself with 

 the mock feathers of a meagre commerce. 



For twenty years a little band of officials, 

 traders, and adventurers have held the gateway 

 against malady and miasma, sand and sea, and 

 that is Chinde. 



Some day a ragged line of painted tin shanties 

 will proclaim to the few who have reason to 

 visit Timbwe island, to which Chinde clings, 

 that here was a place where a few adventurers 

 of commerce tried to maintain a port of entry 

 into the heart of Africa. 



God has set His seal of doom on this place. 

 Each little wavelet has its apportioned task to 

 do, and the day is not far distant when Chinde 



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