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The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



tried both ways, but put it to the planter who 

 maintained that it was only a doctor's dodge for 

 securing patients at £10 a visit (fees are high in 

 S. Thome); that seeing that so much cinchona 

 was grown up above there, it might be a good 

 plan if the doctor and the planter could join 

 hands and set up a facture for the supply of 

 quinine for local consumption instead of son- 

 ding to London or Paris for it. " My dear 

 fellow," said my friend, "a purely globe-trotting 

 vision ! I can assure you that were it possible, 

 I'd get my breakfast and dinner from Lisbon 

 ready cooked, and score on the transaction 

 after paying freight and duty ; such is the cost 

 of service here." Anything like an industrial 

 enterprise in S. Thome is simply impossible 

 under existing conditions." 



After the viata-bichs — literally kill-thc-tvorm 

 (a quaint Moorish idea, of which readers of the 

 Bagh-6-Bahar will recall a variant in one of that 

 classical series of tales) the whole forenoon is 

 available for work, differing according to the 

 season. The midday meal generally brings with 

 it a certain number of visitors, who spend the 

 day and not infrequently stay overnight. Rogas 

 having a reputation for healthiness, if accessible 

 from the city, are generally prepared for an in- 

 vasion of week-enders, whom their hosts receive 

 with the traditional Portuguese hospitality. 

 One old lady whose roga stands high and airy, 

 about 12 miles out, makes it her aim in life to 

 seek out and invite up to her place anyone she 

 hears of as having been down with fever — to 

 come up and stay indefinitely to recruit. When 

 I called there, I found quite half-a-dozen con- 

 valescents, all as merry as sand boys,and well on 

 the way to recovery. 



In my next, which must be my last, I will tell 

 you something about the life of the poorer Euro- 

 peans and of the natives of the island, but space 

 forbids my touching on their case today. — 



IV. 



Lisbon, August 15th, 191)9. 

 Deak Sir, — Considerations of time and space 

 compelled me to end my last letter to you, that 

 of 30th ultimo, in the middle of a description of 

 life on the rogas of the islands. There is nothing 

 very exceptional in the routine of the coloured 

 folk's work. It goes on according to season on 

 much the same lines as in our own tropical pos- 

 sessions in Asia, the negro being just as listless 

 and apathetic in his manner of doing things as 

 the Tamil or Koringi cooly. To the British 

 philanthropist (especially to him of the labour 

 delegate type) the eleven hours' working day on 

 the plantations is a thing of horror. India has 

 heard his shrieks on the subject of the Bombay 

 native mill-hand and his or her working hours. 

 But it is hardly necessary to remind a circle of 

 tropical colonial readers that everything in 

 such cases depends upon the pace. Whatever 

 the Bombay cotton miller may do in the way of 

 driving, no one who knows 



THE PORTUGUESE AGRICULTURIST 



will accuse him of acting on the rule that 

 time is money. Festina lente might well be 

 taken as the motto of the whole Iberian penin- 



sula, and the planter of S. Thome knows the 

 negro too well to hustle him, he himself having 

 no inclination that way. 



If, indeed, our well-meaning compatriots must 

 meddle with the colonies of Portugal to the 

 neglect of their own (to the fervent gratitude of 

 the latter), let them leave the pampered black 

 alone and turn to the case of the poor Euro- 

 pean in S. Thomd— the immigrant employed, or 

 waiting for a job, on the rogas. I have over 

 and over again been asked by men of this class 

 whether they had anything to hope from the 

 powerful philanthropy of England. But bearing 

 in mind the history of similar hard cases in 

 Great Britain itself — the Staffordshire pottery 

 worker, the toiler in various sweated industries, 

 and the rest, I declined to hold out any pro- 

 spect of relief from that quarter. British philan- 

 thropy, through much ingenious distortion of 

 lact, and a radical incapacity for putting the 

 saddle on the right horse, seems to have firmly 

 convinced itself that the white man in IS. Thome 

 is a brutal slave-driver, deserving of no compas- 

 sion. As well might the Indian civilian, assailed by 

 the Indian anarchist, lay claim to the sympathy 

 of Paget M.P. His skin is of the wrung colour. 

 All the same, the life of the solitary European 

 in charge of a dcpcndencia, be he a peasant from 

 the remoter provinces of Portugal, a clerk or 

 artizan from one of the cities, or a graduate 

 from Coimbra in search of a short cut to 

 success, is not an enviable one. The nature 

 of his duties cuts him off from the fellowship 

 of his kind. 



the adminislrador (managing director), 

 with the ladies of his family, and the 

 numerous visitors to the roga, stay for the most 

 part at the headquarters bungalow, which, 

 according to the size and plan of the estate, 

 may be at any distance from four to fourteen 

 kilometres from his post. Communication is, 

 therefore, restricted, and most business is trans- 

 acted through the telephone. An occasional 

 party of visitors, personally conducted by the 

 Manager or a headquarters Assistant, may, once 

 in a way, pass through the subordinate's out- 

 post, and may or may not stop for a five minutes' 

 chat if the subordinate is not absent at some 

 remote corner of his charge. But anyone, who 

 has been similarly circumstanced (and most of 

 us tropical agriculturists have been) need not 

 be told how such Hashes of light serve but to 

 make the outer darkness visible. Add to this, 

 in certain portions of the islands at least, and 

 especially in the rainy season, serious diffi- 

 culties as regards food supply, public communi- 

 cations being very imporfect, owing to the high 

 cost of labour. 



But if the life of the employed European 

 Portuguese is a hard one, that of the unem- 

 ployed (including often the unemployable) 

 immigrant is tenfold worse, and would be 

 intolerable were it not for the generous hos- 

 pitality extended to him by his countrymen, 

 often but little better off themselves in the 

 town of S. Thome, Even the hotel-keepers 

 receive him on credit (raising their prices pro- 

 portionately, it is said, in the case of distin- 

 guished foreigners and other paying guests — 

 which is just as it should be). If the aspirant 



