CHAPTER I. 
Portuguese East Africa. 
P ORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA constitutes what is officially known as the Province of Mozambique, and extends along the Indian Ocean from xo° S. to 27° S., being 
bounded by Natal on the south, Swaziland, Transvaal, Rhodesia and British Central Africa on the west, and German East Africa on the north. The outline is very 
irregular, the north-eastern portion being about 40-5° E., the south western 32 0 E., while an irregular arm extends up the Zambesi as far as Zumbo, 30° E. It thus contains 
approximately 760,571 square kilometers ( = 300,000 sq. miles), and has a population estimated at 2,650,000. 
History. What its ancient history may have been hardly affects our subject, but its more recent history begins with the discovery on its coast in 1498 by Vasco de 
Gama of several bays and estuaries suitable for commerce, since which date the seaboard has remained under the Portuguese flag. Occupation by the Portuguese of various 
ports began soon after the above date, and such towns as Mozambique, Quelimane and Inhambane have been in existence for about 400 years. The hold upon the back country, 
however, was for long of a very nominal nature, and it is only within recent decades and since the adjustment of the borders, that military occupation of the outlying districts has 
been seriously taken in hand ; indeed there are places still which can hardly be said to be officially occupied, and which are almost unexplored. 
Occupation. Official occupation usually begins with the residence of a military Commandant, who exercises powers somewhat similar to those conferred under 
martial law in British colonies, and is supported by a military force composed almost entirely of natives ; this is superseded as soon as practicable by civil administration under 
the laws of the Province, the Resident then being Administratador, and supported by only a small police force. In each case the duties of keeping the peace and collecting 
taxes (hut-tax in some places, poll-tax in others) falls upon the officer in charge, who also has to have such roads cut through his district as are necessary for these purposes. 
Population. Apart from the few towns and villages, the population is almost entirely native, and except the southern districts the country can hardly be regarded 
meantime as a white man’s country, though the control of all industrial, as well as official, work and also the management of machinery, &c. is, and probably always will be, in 
European hands, the manual labour devolving upon the native. 
In some large districts meantime the few officials form the entire non-native population ; in two districts visited by me the Administratador and his clerk were the only 
such, except a few Indian traders known as Banyans. The natives are of many tribes, mostly of Bantu origin, but differing in their customs and instincts and speaking different 
languages, there being about ten distinct native languages used in the Province, besides dialects ; these, together with Portuguese (the official language), English, Dutch, 
German, Spanish, French, and various Indian and Arab languages, constitute a fair babel, out of which I have had to cull the information contained in this work, in so far as it 
is not supplied by the trees themselves. 
Physical Features. In physical features the Province may be described as a nearly level more or less sandy plain, with isolated kopjes in the north, and rising 
rather abruptly to a low mountain range on its western boundary, and crossed by numerous rivers, several of which are navigable for many miles, while others, navigable inland, 
are closed from the sea by a sand bar. The soil in such river valleys as those of the Limpopo and the Zambesi is of the richest alluvial ; elsewhere the soil is more or less sandy 
loam, except on the western hills which are of igneous rock, often fully exposed, and seldom covered with sufficient soil to support full vegetation. The underlying strata from 
Beira northward are composed of rocks corelated with the Swaziland system of the Transvaal and with the gold-bearing strata of Rhodesia. These rocks probably roughly 
correspond in age with the pre-cambrian rocks of England. South of Beira the underlying strata consist largely of rocks belonging either to the tertiary or cretaceous systems, 
in places beds of conglomerate being present-and are fringed along the western border by rhyolites. In the north this is divided from the Archaean rocks by a band of igneous 
rocks, made up of porphory, &c. In popular language the soil may be described as mud on the flats, sand elsewhere, and solid rock on the hills; surface rocks or stones are 
entirely absent on the flats, while toward the coast lakes and lagoons exist in some places, and considerable areas are more or less under water during summer, which, for cultural 
purposes, might be rendered fit by deep surface drainage. 
Vegetation. The vegetation varies with the district, but in a general way it is an open thorn-veld in the southern districts, a light bush-veld from the Limpopo 
northward, and a dense and sometimes heavy forest north of the Zambesi. Grass-veld occupies the open valleys, and in the more open thorn and bush-veld grass is abundant as 
undergrowth, the annual grass fires doing an immense amount of injury to trees ; only those of the thorn group (Acacias, &c.) endure such repeated scorching and consequently 
continue to exist where other kinds are killed out. 
A 
