They Are All Forced To Engage In Trade
For The Support Of Their Families.
Senhor Miranda had been actually engaged
against the enemy during these four years, and had been highly lauded
in the commandant's dispatches to the home government, but when he applied
to the Governor of Kilimane for part of his four years' pay, he offered him
twenty dollars only.
Miranda resigned his commission in consequence.
The common soldiers sent out from Portugal received some pay in calico.
They all marry native women, and, the soil being very fertile, the wives find
but little difficulty in supporting their husbands. There is no direct trade
with Portugal. A considerable number of Banians, or natives of India,
come annually in small vessels with cargoes of English and Indian goods
from Bombay. It is not to be wondered at, then, that there have been
attempts made of late years by speculative Portuguese in Lisbon to revive
the trade of Eastern Africa by means of mercantile companies. One was
formally proposed, which was modeled on the plan of our East India Company;
and it was actually imagined that all the forts, harbors, lands, etc.,
might be delivered over to a company, which would bind itself
to develop the resources of the country, build schools, make roads,
improve harbors, etc., and, after all, leave the Portuguese
the option of resuming possession.
Another effort has been made to attract commercial enterprise
to this region by offering any mining company permission to search
for the ores and work them. Such a company, however, would gain but little
in the way of protection or aid from the government of Mozambique,
as that can but barely maintain a hold on its own small possessions;
the condition affixed of importing at the company's own cost
a certain number of Portuguese from the island of Madeira or the Azores,
in order to increase the Portuguese population in Africa, is impolitic.
Taxes would also be levied on the minerals exported. It is noticeable
that all the companies which have been proposed in Portugal
have this put prominently in the preamble, "and for the abolition
of the inhuman slave-trade." This shows either that the statesmen in Portugal
are enlightened and philanthropic, or it may be meant as a trap
for English capitalists; I incline to believe the former. If the Portuguese
really wish to develop the resources of the rich country beyond
their possessions, they ought to invite the co-operation of other nations
on equal terms with themselves. Let the pathway into the interior
be free to all; and, instead of wretched forts, with scarcely an acre of land
around them which can be called their own, let real colonies be made.
If, instead of military establishments, we had civil ones,
and saw emigrants going out with their wives, plows, and seeds,
rather than military convicts with bugles and kettle-drums,
we might hope for a return of prosperity to Eastern Africa.
The village of Senna stands on the right bank of the Zambesi.
There are many reedy islands in front of it, and there is much bush
in the country adjacent.
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