DEVELOPMENT 7 



or snapped up by their more fortunate rivals, who 

 are now leading lives of leisured ease on the 

 continent of Europe. 



The end came, of course, as it does to all things. 

 The volume of trade of the sixties and seventies, of 

 which it would probably be hard enough to find 

 accurate details outside the records of the traders 

 of that time, decreased and dwindled as native 

 produce diminished in quantity and became more 

 and more difficult to obtain. One by one the older 

 so-called merchants, for whom slaves were, without 

 doubt, the most profitable articles of export, but to 

 whom nothing came amiss, dropped out, sadly 

 realising that their day was over. A better type 

 of administrator was sent out from Portugal, 

 naturally demanding in his turn a better type of 

 subordinate. Companies were formed to cultivate 

 large areas, and did so ; waste lands began to 

 produce sugar, coconuts, and other commodities ; 

 and with the effective occupation by Great Britain 

 in the later eighties of those neighbouring colonies 

 now known as Nyasaland and Rhodesia, a method 

 was shown to Portugal whereby she might do 

 hkewise, and this we must do her the justice to 

 admit she has not been slow to adopt. 



Of course the activity to which the founding of 

 the protectorates I have named gave rise, was at 

 once responsible for much improvement, and this 

 was plainly visible in a very few years upon such 

 portions of the Zambezi and Shir^ Rivers as lay 

 upon the routes leading up to them. Still, im- 

 provement was a plant which throve but slowly in 

 a country only now awakening from more than 



