282 EXISTING SETTLERS 



of Africa is at present not very large perhaps, but 

 it shows, I understand, an increasing tendency. 

 I confess I do not see any wisdom in permitting 

 the recruiting of labourers in portions of the country 

 where their presence is a present necessity. There 

 are in Portuguese East Africa, in many districts even 

 as yet imperfectly known, hundreds of thousands 

 of natives who at present are mainly occupied in 

 pursuits of doubtful utility. The Nyasa Company's 

 territory, as well as the Mozambique Company's 

 concession, are good examples of this, and so is the 

 district of Mozambique to the south of the Lurio 

 River. To my mind, therefore, it were much more 

 logical to provide employment for these hitherto 

 useless savages at the mines of the Witwatersrand, 

 in preference to depopulating the Zambezi, whose 

 tribes are not only perfectly friendly and well- 

 disposed, but actually necessary to the prosecution 

 of existing industries. 



At Tete itself there are the representatives of 

 one or two European trading houses. This settle- 

 ment has now come to be regarded as the half-way 

 house to the rising colonies of North-Eastern 

 Rhodesia, North-Western Rhodesia, and one or 

 two other distant centres in the far interior where 

 Europeans are struggling to let in the light of 

 civilisation. From Tete to Fort Jameson, the 

 capital of the first-named division, a good road ex- 

 tends, and each year, I understand, shows an increase 

 in the imports carried over it. The European 

 trading houses of Tete, and especially the local 

 branch of the African Lakes Corporation, receive 

 and forward on the bulk of the cargo and passengers. 



