THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS 
i6 5 
into the river boats. I did not stay on the Concession, however, but on a place 
called the Extra Concession which has no privileges regarding exemptions from Customs 
dues. I put up at an hotel which is run by --—. Of course everything seems very 
rough to me who have never been farther away than Switzerland before, but fellows 
here tell me that Chinde is simply luxurious to what it was a few years ago. In 
1890 it was practically unknown to Europeans, and there was not even a hut on the 
present sandspit, which is the site of the town—everything was covered with thick 
bush ; now, although the place is horribly ugly, being built almost entirely of corrugated 
iron, it is fairly neat and clean. Most of the houses are of one story, but-’s hotel 
is not half a bad place, a sort of bungalow built of iron and wood with broad shady 
verandahs. The food is anything but good, however, as fresh provisions are scarce and 
most of the things we eat come out of tins. 
“Chinde is a great peninsula of sand intersected with marshy tracts, which projects 
into the Indian Ocean, having the sea on one side and the Chinde mouth of the Zambezi 
on the other. 
******** 
“Two days after our arrival at Chinde we started in the Lakes Company’s steamer, the 
James Stevenson , which conveyed us up river as far as Chiromo. After leaving Chinde 
we pursued a tortuous course up the Chinde River till we got into the main Zambezi. 
Here the country was very uninteresting. The Zambezi is extremely broad and you are 
never sure whether you are looking at the opposite bank or a chain of long flat islands. 
Islands and shore are equally covered at this season of the year by grass of tremendous 
height, and except an occasional fan-palm you see nothing behind the grass. Hippos 
are very scarce and shy now owing to the way they have been shot at. Occasionally 
however you see little black dots at a distance, and if you are looking through glasses you 
can distinguish a hippo raising his head and stretching his jaws, but they always duck 
when the steamer gets anywhere near. At the end of our second day we got to a place 
called Vicenti, a sort of Portuguese station. A little while before we got there we 
began to see something more interesting than the grass banks—the outline of a blue 
mountain called Morambala, which overlooks the Shire River. Morambala is the 
only hill to be seen for miles farther on beyond Vicenti. You hardly notice where you 
get into the River Shire, as the country seems to have become quite demoralised at the 
junction of the Shire with the Zambezi by 
the intersection of innumerable channels 
of water and swamps. Morambala looks 
a splendid mountain, however (about 4,000 
feet high), as it rises up above the foetid 
Morambala marsh. Beyond Morambala 
the banks are dotted with innumerable 
tall palms which I could not help thinking 
very picturesque with their lofty whitish- 
grey stems, and their crowns of elegantly- 
shaped blue-green fronds. 
* * * * 
“The first place we stopped at in 
British territory was Port Herald on the west bank of the Shire, a pretty little settlement 
with very rich vegetation. The steamer had to stop here for a day for some reason 
or other so I and two of my fellow passengers went out for a shoot. The Administration 
official at the station lent us a guide, and we had awfully good sport, coming back 
with a large male waterbuck,—a beast as big as a red deer—and two reedbuck which 
are somewhat the size of a roe and very good eating The meat of the waterbuck is no 
good, so we gave it to the natives; but as I had shot the beast 1 kept the horns which 
are very fine though not at all like a stag’s, being quite simple without branches and 
~1 
MT. MORAMBALA, FROM THE RIVER SHIRE 
