2 INTRODUCTORY 



influential group of Portuguese and other financiers 

 formed some years ago under the style of the 

 Zambezia Company (Companhia da Zambezia), 

 with the object of working these valuable resources. 

 The district of which this great concession largely 

 consists forms also one of the administrative sub- 

 divisions of the Province of Mozambique, and has 

 as its capital the town of Quelimane, where reside^ 

 the Governor of Zambezia, and the chief officials 

 of the administration over which he presides. 

 Quelimane is, therefore, the headquarters of the 

 Zambezia Company, in whose hands, as I have 

 just stated, the economic destinies of the district 

 and its peoples have to a great extent been placed. 

 The importance of the concession mentioned will 

 perhaps be the better understood when it is explained 

 that it contains about 70,000 square miles of terri- 

 tory, and some 1,100 miles of more or less navigable 

 waterways. It is, therefore, on this basis of calcu- 

 lation, rather larger than twice the size of the 

 kingdom of Portugal. 



Bounded by the Mozambique Channel on the 

 east, and traversing some seventy miles of coast-hne 

 from the Zambezi mouth to the Likungu River, 

 the vast region covered by the Zambezia Com- 

 pany's concession occupies the whole of the enor- 

 mous area between the sea and the eastern frontiers 

 of the Nyasaland Protectorate as far north as the 

 15th degree of south latitude. Passing round the 

 southern extremity of Nyasaland, and still follow- 

 ing the Zambezi's northern margin, it again widens 

 out until its northern limits march with those of 

 North-Eastern, whilst those in the south coincide 



