148 BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
and cargo barges. The captured daus it may be noted have been repaired by 
us and are now plying in the service of the Government. 
There was of course no postal service in 1891, and letters were generally sent 
through the African Lakes Company to the Vice-Consul at Quelimane together 
with money for postage stamps, and this official stamped the letters with 
Portuguese stamps, and sent them home from the Portuguese Post Office. 
We commenced to establish a postal service in July, 1891. There are now 
eighteen Post Offices in the Protectorate, and five in the British South 
Africa Company’s sphere, while our postal service extends from Chinde at 
the mouth of the Zambezi to Tanganyika, Mweru, and the Congo Free State. 
A FOOTBRIDGE ACROSS THE MLUNGUSI (ZOMBA) 
In the month of November, 1895, which was taken as an average month, 
the total number of articles carried by our postal service in the Protectorate, 
including letters, postcards, book packets, newspapers, and parcels, inwards and 
outwards, was 29,802 as compared with 25.592 in November, 1894, and 19,383 
in November, 1893. Besides this we carry the mails of the German Government 
from Lake Nyasa to Chinde. 1 Our parcel-post service was started in 1893 
and has been extended to the South African Colonies and England and 
to Zanzibar and Aden and India. A money order system has just been 
established. 
Want of funds in 1894 compelled us to adopt a rather cheap and inferior 
1 In return for which the German subsidized steamers carry our correspondence between Chinde 
and Zanzibar 
