THE EAST COAST 167 



aglow with the hghts of shipping and the purple 

 dusk mingles with the dying sunlight, to look over 

 the sea-front and see Tanga harbour is as fair 

 a sight as one can wish for. Some way inland 

 are high hills, and from these may be seen the 

 great peak of Kilimanjaro, for ever robed in 

 snow. On the mainland, in the vicinity of 

 Tanga, a good deal of sisal is grown, and 

 altogether Tanga may be reckoned a port of 

 considerable importance. 



That it is to become a place of far greater 

 worth in the years about to come is the nightly 

 prayer of every good German resident. It can 

 scarcely hope to out-rival Dar-es- Salaam, for that 

 is the headquarters of everything Imperial and 

 ambitious in this vast territory, 384,000 square 

 miles in extent, which Germany got through 

 Carl Peters, certain merchants who became 

 active on the East Coast in the 'eighties, and 

 the Heligoland Convention. Germany paid the 

 Sultan of Zanzibar the paltry sum of £200,000 

 for these mainland territories, and she has 

 sunk millions in pursuance of a Colonial policy 

 which she fully intends shall expand and 

 progress. 



If Germany ever gratifies her African ambitions, 

 Dar-es-Salaam will be a possession of well- 

 nigh dominating power, for it has been founded 

 by an iron will and erected on basement stones 

 of solidity, with military mortar to bind the 

 blocks of government together. And if this 

 East Coast possession ever does become but one 

 littoral of a sea-to-sea Empire, there will shine 

 a great glory on that well-built, offensively 

 modern place called Dar-es-Salaam, which means 

 in Arabic, the Door of Peace, and in German, the 

 Gateway of a AVarring Empire. 



