4 INTRODUCTORY 



hostile agencies. It is due to these triumphs, no 

 doubt, that what we have learned of the economic 

 side of Zambezia's possibihties comes to us for the 

 most part from observers who have laboured in 

 recent years. It is they who have enriched our 

 knowledge of the lands through which the Zambezi 

 flows ; to them we are indebted for data and facts 

 of interest and importance noted, it may have been, 

 in moments of heightened temperature and fevered 

 pulse. Within the last twenty years or so, the 

 somewhat supine air of laissez aller, which for so 

 long hung over the Portuguese province, has 

 slowly given way to an activity of which many of 

 my fellow - countrymen living in neighbouring 

 colonies do not dream. It is true that individual 

 effort has not yet played any very active 

 part in this improvement. It has been largely 

 brought about by the efforts of powerful adminis- 

 trative and colonising bodies such as the one to 

 which I have referred. These, placed by the 

 Portuguese Government in possession of the 

 immense areas they control, are now actively en- 

 gaged in important schemes of cultivation and 

 exploitation. In this great task, moreover, they 

 are now aided by a new class of assistant, doubtless 

 the product of the needs of the period, but still, 

 unhappily, far from numerous. I mean the class of 

 subordinate whose judgment, ripened by some years 

 of administrative employment in Africa, and gained 

 under enlightened superintendence, now offers an 

 excellent, indeed an ideal instrument for the 

 furtherance of interests of an important character. 

 For this class of man, the three principal local 



