152 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



wildfowl that fly the rivers at dusk. A few 

 minutes later and the stone arm of the fort was 

 just discernible stretching out sombre and gaunt 

 into the darkened waters. The last lingering 

 embroidery of the sunlight hung for a moment on 

 the spire of the cathedral, and seemed to bless 

 its worshippers. And then it was night, and 

 that silence which can only fall over the world's 

 byways stifled even the lap-lap of the water 

 babies. 



Mozambique of memory ! Mausoleum of 

 mariners who dared the sea when the world was 

 thought to be a molehill ! It is a sorry shame to 

 see you vassal at the tables of commerce, you 

 who once were king of conquest, a city militant 

 on a littoral of the Latin lords. Si diis placet, 

 you may regain some day the proud place you 

 possessed in the names of Eastern Africa. But 

 it will be a fame vastly different from that which 

 the picturesque pirates of an age that is for ever 

 past won as yours. For this is an age in which 

 the bank clerk is a far more important personage 

 than the buccaneer. 



It is 568 miles by sea from Mozambique to 

 Zanzibar, a couple of days' journey. Zanzibar 

 and its tributary of Pemba— those two beryl 

 islets that blaze in a sapphire setting— hke 

 Mozambique, have had a momentous past. For 

 they, too, have shared in the strife and turmoil 

 of East Africa. But Zanzibar of to-day is a 

 vastly different place from Mozambique where 

 Morpheus reigns. That all-pervading Mozam- 

 bique atmosphere of sweet far niente has 

 been broken at the Isles of the Sultan by trade 

 winds wafted from Kutch and Goa and the 

 Persian Gulf. Lazier breezes blow down and 



