FOUNDING THE PROTECTORATE 
149 
issue of stamps, but by a grant from the Treasury vve have now been able 
to have a thoroughly satisfactory issue engraved by Messrs. De La Rue. 
The design of the stamps is that of the Coat of Arms of the Protectorate. 
Their values are id., 2 d, A,d., 6d., is., 2 s. 6d., 3a, 4s., £1, £10. They are used 
alike in the collection of revenue as in the payment of postal charges. 
At Chinde on the British Concession there is a Post Office of Exchange, 
at which mails are landed from or transferred to the ocean-going steamers. 
Letters or other material arriving from the outer world at Chinde are sorted 
at this Post Office of Exchange into bags for the various postal districts in 
British Central Africa, and into bags for the German territories and for the 
Congo Free State, and are then shipped up river by the various steamers plying 
between Chinde and Chiromo. At Chiromo the bags are sent overland to the 
different Post Offices of distribution between the Lower Shire and Lake Nyasa, 
being carried by native postmen who wear a special uniform of scarlet and 
white. These men travel at the rate of 25 miles a day, and are wonderfully 
faithful and careful in the delivery of their precious charges. Cases have been 
known where postal carriers have been drowned in the crossing of flooded 
rivers by their obstinacy in not parting from their mail bags, and where they 
have fought bravely and successfully against odds in an attack by highway 
robbers. The negro of Central Africa has a genuine respect for the written 
word. Of course the time will come when attendant on the growth of civiliza¬ 
tion, native postmen will probably commit robberies of registered letters, as is 
occasionally done by their European colleagues; but at the present time our 
mails are perfectly safe in their hands. 
In 1891 there was about one mile of road—that between the Mission station 
at Blantyre and the African Lakes Company’s store—over which a vehicle could 
be driven. By the end of 1896 we had constructed some 390 1 miles of roads 
suited for wheeled traffic, while another 80 miles of broad paths have been 
cleared through the bush for the passage of porters and “ machillas.” 2 
Attempts in great part successful have been made to improve the naviga¬ 
bility of the Shire by removing the snags from the approaches to Chiromo, and 
the sharp stones from the Nsapa Rapids on the Upper Shire ; and by deepening 
the bar at the entrance to Lake Nyasa. Last, and not least, the Slave trade, 
and it may almost be added the status of Slavery, have been brought absolutely 
to an end. Between 1891 and 1894, 861 slaves were released by various 
officials of the Protectorate, and between 1894 and 1896, 1700. Native labour 
is now organised in such a way as to protect the interests of both the white 
man and the negro. 
1600 acres of land were under cultivation at the hands of Europeans in 
1891, as against 5700 acres in 1896. 
In 1891 no coin was in circulation in the country, except to a very limited 
extent amongst Europeans. Transactions with natives were carried on by 
means off the barter of trade goods. In the three following years the use of 
English coinage was introduced by the Administration. We imported several 
thousand pounds’, worth of gold, silver and copper coins from the Royal Mint, 
and put them in circulation amongst the natives who immediately took to the 
1 i.e., Katunga to Blantyre, Blantyre to Zomba, Zomba to Fort Liwonde (via Domasi), Zornba to Fort 
Lister, and thence round Mlanje to Fort Anderson, Fort Anderson to Chiromo, Chiromo to Chiradzulu 
and Ntonda, Blantyre to Cholo, Karonga to the Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau, and short roads in the 
Blantyre, Zomba, South Nyasa, Central Angoniland and Marimba districts. 
2 A “machilla” it must be remembered is a hammock or wicker-work couch slung on a pole. 
