QUELIMAXE 317 



m the struggle for commercial supremacy. My 

 last visit to this small haven of rest, seventeen 

 years after the date at which I first beheld it, 

 showed me the small group of brightly coloured 

 houses nesthng cosily in their bower of luxuriant 

 tropic greenery, unchanged and apparently vm- 

 changing. There were many gaps in the ranks 

 of my old friends, it is true, but the new-comers 

 appeared to the full to have assimilated the 

 courteous hospitality of tradition, and thus, as I 

 have just stated, Quelimane appeared to be little 

 changed from what it was when I knew it first in 

 the distant days of the early nineties. There are, 

 I think, but few settlements situated elsewhere 

 of which the same can with truth be said. 



For the convenience of new-comers, I have 

 appended hereto a list of provisions sufficient for 

 two men of ordinary wants over a period of about 

 two months. Wines and spirits have been piu*- 

 posely omitted, as upon this point everybody has 

 his own ideas. I may perhaps add that the 

 light, harmless, and very excellent table wines of 

 Portugal, readily obtainable upon the coast at 

 most moderate prices, appear to me to be so good 

 as to render the importation of this detail from 

 Europe entirely unnecessary. 



