VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 
291 
Buhl way o itself is going through the process of sitting tight. When 
I got there it was very empty, because food was scarce and the country 
unsafe. The Chartered Company had for some time actually been 
paying men to go away. 
The country was only just on the eve of settling down after the 
Matabele rising ; rumors of fresh outbreaks were constant, and a murder 
was committed on the outskirts of the town. Steps were taken then to 
re-organize the residents for defence, and superfluous natives who had 
swarmed into the town in search of food were cleared out. The native 
population of Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, and the northern Transvaal, was 
in the throes of famine and such roots as they could find, locusts, and 
rinderpest hides, were their chief means of sustenance. Mr. Rhodes 
and General Sir Frederick Carrington had started for Salisbury, to help 
to quell the Mashona rising ; which rising was still in progress though 
diminishing rapidly when I left Africa. 
As men could not go farming or prospecting, they directed their 
attention to speculating in land in Buluwayo. Stands are fetching high 
prices. At the corner which I now point out on the map there is a block 
which was sold by auction for £3,000, and offers were made to the 
purchaser within about a fortnight of £4,000. I heard yesterday that a 
block of land at Salisbury which could have been purchased for a 
hundred pounds recently, was sold during the last fortnight for seven 
hundred pounds ; such instances are common, and tend to confirm the 
view that Rhodesia will have its good days soon. 
The inhabitants certainly deserve well in the future because they have 
suffered ; necessaries are scarce, luxuries are conspicuous by their 
absence, and the prices of all things are most prohibitive. 
I reckon that it costs one, in food alone, to live in Buluwayo at the 
present minute about £25 a month. A meal costs 10s. 6d. Mealies 
(maize, Indian corn), the staple article of food, were about £14 a bag, 
and could hardly be bought as they were commandeered by the 
Government for distribution among the starving natives. 
Potatoes were sixpence each, eggs were anything from 27s. to 48s. a 
dozen. A 10-oz. loaf bread was a shilling, with £6 for carriage on a bag 
of flour. Little or no milk, vegetables, or fresh meat, it can be realized 
that life in Buluwayo has not been * a bed of roses.’ 
There was plenty of drink to be got however. Everywhere in South 
Africa there is the greatest margin allowed for drink, and no street is 
complete without drinking bars. The price of whiskey varied from 
twelve shillings and sixpence to one pound a bottle, but that did not 
seem to stop its consumption. 
It is a very thirsty country. 
Apropos of the extraordinary price of eggs, I may mention that at 
a dinner the dish of the evening, a most expensive dish, was a plain 
(very plain !) omelette. With eggs at forty-eight shillings a dozen it 
would cost a good deal to make an omelette sufficient for six people. 
The charge was made but the wily restaurateur used egg powder. 
The town is well laid out, as you see. At present there is not much 
except these broad avenues, with single rows of stores down three or 
four of the streets. Out on this side (pointing to the map) there are the 
suburban stands, the Mayfair of the future. 
The houses are fairly well built, when it is considered that everything 
has had to be taken up on wagons for 600 miles. 
Galvanized iron is rather conspicuous everywhere in South Africa, 
