98 THE GREAT COMPANIES 



at Shupanga, it would be difficult to point to 

 any spot upon the Zambezi falling beneath the 

 Mozambique Company's administration whereat 

 attempts have been made to develop existing 

 agricultural resources. In spite, therefore, of this 

 association's strenuous and not seldom well-directed 

 efforts in other portions of its fine territory, one is 

 forced to regard the sugar produced by the British 

 undertaking mentioned above as the only attempt 

 at active exploitation in the portion of their con- 

 cession which is bounded by the River Zambezi.* 



I suppose the real reason for all this unfortunate 

 want of success arises largely from the fact that, 

 with a confidence in the future upon which one 

 cannot look without sympathy, the company under- 

 took at the outset somewhat more than it had the 

 means of adequately dealing with ; thus, with a 

 capital of only one million sterling, it covenanted 

 to assume the effective administration of an 

 enormous area of country, and bound itself: 



1. To fulfil the terms of all foreign treaties and conventions. 



2. To organise an administrative system similar to that 



existing in other parts of Portuguese East Africa, and 

 to pay the officials employed. 



3. To pay half the cost of the judicial and ecclesiastical 



departments, the personnel being nominated by Lisbon. 



4. To establish primary schools in all settlements containing 



more than 600 inhabitants. 



5. To establish agricultural schools and experimental stations. 



6. To organise police forces both on land and sea. 



7. To establish, within a period of ten years, within its 



concession, 1,000 families from Portugal, and furnish 

 them with grants of land. 



* I am happy to learn that recent experiments afford the most hopeful 

 indications of success in various forms of agriculture lately attempted. 



