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The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



ous submarine cables, its European inhabitants 

 being largely English in consequence. A most un- 

 inviting spot, and would be worse were it not 

 for a few artesian wells which have enabled oases 

 of market gardening to be created here and 

 there to give a touch of colour to the p< rv ding 

 brownnens of the place. The very drinkuig water 

 has to be brought by steamer from the neigh- 

 bouring 



ISLAND OF ST. ANTON 



an island which some day or other will become a 

 formidable rival to Madeira, possessing as it does a 

 marvellous cliraateand afertile soil, with bound- 

 less possibilities in the making of a health and 

 pleasure resort. S. Thiago, a night's journey 

 further south, has a more fertile soil, and a very 

 similar climate. In fact, one of the things that 

 strikes a new arrival from India is the extreme 

 temperateness of the sun's rays, although the 

 latitude of these islands is somewhat the same 

 as that of Goa. Even in St. Thome and Principe 

 it is hard to realise, as far as sensations go, that 

 one is in the tropics at all. Praia, the chief 

 town of St. Thiago, stands high on a ridge with 

 precipitous sides, falling down to valleys low 

 and irrigated, rich in tropical cultivation. These 

 valleys, however, are comparatively limited 

 in extent, and as the phenomenon of " the 

 marvellous fecundity of the half starved" is 

 painfully evident here, the foodstuffs produced 

 are not sufficient for the mouths that have to be 

 fed. The main export of the island is the 

 purgeira, the weedy hedge-plant we have in 

 India and Burma— jatropha curcas is its botani- 

 cal name. Its seeds have a certain market 

 value, but I should fancy a low one. The town 

 ot Praia is well-paved, and regularly laid out. 

 It is clean on the whole, but though windswept 

 and cool, it has an unenviable reputation for 

 bilious remittent fever. Famines are of frequent 

 occurrence, the rainfall being uncertain. The 

 dress both of the men and the women is semi- 

 Eu opean, liktwise their housing and mode of 

 living on the Portuguese model. But they do 

 not look as if they got enough to eat, and those 

 who know them best tell me this is exactly eo. 



This suggests a digression which will bring 

 me round presently to the story of 



ST. THOME AND ITS LABOUR SUPPLY. 



On my arrival at Lisbon from Burma I was infor- 

 med by frienns connected with St. Thome that the 

 Great-British Humanitarian was again on the war 

 path, scalping knife in hand. A copy or extract 

 of a letter from the Lisbon correspondent of the 

 Times, published some time early in June, was 

 shown me. Its tone was fair and moderate 

 throughout, but it closed with the somewhat 

 ominous remark that Mr. W. H. Nevinson 

 meant to stick to his guns ; and in the Times of 

 June 5th had renewed his charges of slavery 

 against Portugal. I could do nothing in Litbon, 

 but agree to go to St- Thome and see what could 

 be done there, 1 have not yet obtained a copy 

 of the issue referred to, but that does not now 

 matter, for the Lisbon Novidades of June 7th, 

 received soon after my arrival here, has a para- 

 graph quoted from the Times of the 5th idem, 

 to the effect that a gang of "slaves" had 

 just been landed at St. Thome" in chains 

 and sold by public auction to the highest bid- 

 der ! Ihis evidently was the substance of Mr 

 Novinson's accusation, To anyone acquainted 



with the indentured labour system, the impos- 

 sibility of the sale by auction, at least, was 

 patent. As to the landing of the men in chains, 

 it waa not absolutely incredible, for they might 

 have been an unruly lot on board, but it certainly 

 did not tally with my own experience of the 

 methods of the emigration agents nor of the 

 Empreza Nacional. I had travelled all the way 

 from Lisbon with a consignment of prisoners 

 on board— men sentenced to transportation and 

 being conveyed to St. Paul de Loanda to un- 

 dergo their sentences. 1 am told these men 

 were brought on board manacled at Lisbon (and 

 rightly so); but when they first attracted my 

 attention, they were absolutely free, and were 

 entertaining themselves, dancing to the music 

 of a guitar which one of their number was 

 playing. Moreover, at Praia de St. Thiago I 

 made it a point to visit the emigration agency 

 and (with permission freely accorded me) to 

 inspect the contract-deeds and subsidiary 

 vouchers of 



A GANG OF MEN AND WOMEN 



just then being engaged for work on Principe— a 

 much worse island, by the way, than St. Thome 

 itself, being badly stricken with sleeping sick- 

 ness, from which St. Thome is free, the glos- 

 sina palpalis being abundant in the former and 

 absent from the latter island. 



A CHOICE BETWEEN DYING OF STARVATION AND 

 LIVING IN A BAD CLIMATE. 



Not only were the papers of these people in 

 perfect order according to the Portuguese Code, 

 which is an admirable one in all details, but the 

 people themselves were quite accessible. They 

 travelled by the same ship as I did, and when 

 next morning one of their number, taking me 

 for the ship's Doctor, stepped on deck leading 

 a young negress by the hand and asked me 

 to prescribe for her as she had a bad pain in 

 her inside, I passed her on the surgeon and 

 engaged the man and several others of the 

 gang who had crowded round in conversation 

 about their agreement. They fully grasped 

 the situation. Asked if they were aware than 

 probably not more than half of them would 

 ever return to Cape Verde, they asked by way 

 of reply what would happen to them if they 

 stayed at home and did not go to Principe. 

 It was a choice between dying there of star- 

 vation, and living a few years in a bad climate, 

 but well paid, well fod and well treated, with a 

 fair chance of return after all. Needless to say, 

 when that party went ashore, they did so as 

 free men, and in good spirits as any one could 

 well be. I landed there too, but found that 

 the Govornor was too ill to receive visitors, and 

 as the place was dismal and uninviting — a half- 

 ruined town built on a swampy site the solid 

 crust of which was so thin that the land-crabs 

 breaking through it on the road 3ides threw up 

 small volcanoes of watery mud from a depth of 

 perhaps six inches at the outside — a shower of 

 the chin watery rain the islanders in their cur- 

 ious hybrid dialect of Spanish-French founded 

 on Portuguese call Leche de voador (flying fish milk 

 — the resemblance being to the spray dropped 

 from the fish as it takes its first flight from 

 the water) decided me to return to the ship as 

 soon as I had exhausted my supply of films for 

 my Kodak. 



