1891. ] Matabeleland.—Facts and Figures. Mi 
settlement by Europeans and that neither on theoretical or 
empirical grounds can it be maintained that Tuli, Fort Victoria 
or Beira are of any practical value. The Highlands of Mashonaland 
and Manica are comparatively healthy ; that is all that can be 
said at present.” A glance at the map issued by the R.G.S. will 
disprove the first statements. As to the second, Victoria is from 80 to 
100 miles from the so-much-vaunted 3,00U feet contour and is itself 
_at an elevation of 3,670 feet. Surely we can hardly expect malaria 
to be carried so far inland. Again, taking the question of malaria, 
_how can we reconcile the lecturer’s statement with the fact that on 
the other edge of the plateau Mr. Phillips (to whom I shall have 
-occasion to refer later on) who lived for twenty-six years in this spot 
reared healthy children. The north-west edge is infinitely more 
treacherous (if such a term can be employed) than the south-east 
one. ‘There you have the majestic Zambesi and its numerous large 
-affluents carrying down the decayed vegetable matter, and this it is 
-which under fortuitous conditions of heat and moisture combinel 
produces miasmatic germs which give fever. 
As ‘to Beira, well! 800 men of the Portuguese Mozambique 
-expedition were encamped there for several months. Now, mind; 
these men were not natives. They were imported Lusitanians, students 
from Lisbon, men picked up heaven only knows where. They were 
living (I have this from an eye witness) in a state of abject filth 
and beastliness, and yet in this utterly worthless place, in a 
domicile absolutely unfit for Europeans, they only lost six men. 
Messrs. F. Johnson & Co. have stations at Beira and the Pungwe. 
“They are constantly navigating the river and doing so in all conditions 
-of seasons and weather. ‘They have not lost a man. This infor- 
-mation I have officially. H.M.S. Magicienne had fifteen men down 
with fever at Delagoa Bay, who on arriving at Beira improved, and 
-are now well. The crews of H.M.S. Brisk and Pigeon, numbering 
in all about 900 men, who are also stationed at Beira have not lost 
-& single man. 
I next come to the question of the size of the plateau. Mr. 
Schunke, from theoretical deductions, evidently, lays it down that 
sthe Highland is barely sixty miles broad. This map based on 
personal observations of Fry, Baines, Mohr, Mauch and Selous shows 
that the Matabeieland plateau inside the 3,000 feet contour is 200 
aniles wide!!! 
Let us pass all this by and come to perhaps the most important 
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