176 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
“ Continuing along the straight road, and leaving the Government buildings to the 
right, you cross the Mudi stream by a fine bridge, 1 built by the African Lakes Company. 
On the other side of the Mudi one is on the property of the African Lakes Company 
which is a large suburb, called Mandala, on rising ground, from which a fine view can be 
obtained of the Mission settlement. At Mandala there are many houses and stores and 
workshops and stables — all very 
neatly made of brick, with iron roofs. 
There are handsome roads and 
gardens and a perfect forest of 
eucalyptus. The company has ex¬ 
tensive nurseries there which extend 
down to the banks of the Mudi, and 
has had the good taste to preserve 
a bit of the old forest which covered 
the site of Blantyre when the 
missionaries first arrived. This 
forest chiefly consisted of a species 
of acacia tree which has dense dark 
green foliage in flat layers giving to 
it at a distance almost the appear¬ 
ance of a cedar. Beyond Mandala 
one joins the main road to Katunga, 
and the scenery becomes absolutely 
beautiful as you mount up towards 
the shoulder of Soche mountain. 
Here in all directions there is a 
beautiful forest, and the views in 
the direction of the Shire river 
might vie with the average pretty 
scenery of any country. There are 
still numbers of coffee plantations 
on the outskirts of Blantyre, though 
the tendency of the planters would 
naturally be to keep their future 
plantations farther away from the 
vicinity of the town. The natives of 
Blantyre are a rather heterogeneous 
eucalyptus avenue, zomba lot. The foundation of the stock 
is of Mang’anja race, crossed with 
Yao, who invaded the country some years ago; but for many years refugees from other 
parts of the Protectorate have been gathering round the Mission station, the Lakes 
Company, Sharrer’s Traffic Company, and other large employers of labour, all of whom 
have brought men down from the lakes and up from the Zambezi, who have gradually 
made their permanent homes at Blantyre. Morality is very low, and although they are 
not strikingly dishonest still they are not above petty pilfering, and the coffee plantations 
which are too near the town are apt to have their berries picked by the black Blantyre 
citizens at night, and the coffee thus acquired is sent out and sold to native planters— 
for some of the educated natives and small chiefs have started coffee plantations. 
“Unfortunately, the water supply here is very bad, though a little energy would set 
it all right. There is the Mudi stream, for instance, which flows perennially without much 
diminution, even in the dry season ; but the upper waters of the Mudi flow through 
native villages and the settlements of the missionary scholars, and all these people wash 
their clothes and persons in the river, besides emptying into it all kinds of filth. The 
1 The Mudi is crossed higher up by another bridge which the Administration has just made.—H. H. J. 
