Chapter XX: Appendix: D

The following notes have been kindly supplied by the Secretary of the British South Africa Company:—

PROGRESS IN MASHONALAND SUMMARISED FROM NOVEMBER 1891 TO MAY 1893.

HEALTH.

The rainy season of 1891 to 1892 found the settlers in Mashonaland well housed and with an abundance of provisions; in consequence, a wonderful improvement was manifested in the health of the community, proving that the insufficiency of food and shelter, necessarily associated with the initial occupation of a wild country so many hundreds of miles from a base of supply, was mainly responsible for the sickness of the rainy season of 1890–1891.

The Senior Medical Officer of the British South Africa Company reported early in 1892 that not a single case of fever had arisen among the inhabitants of Salisbury during the worst part of the wet season; in every case the patient had contracted his fever elsewhere, and there had been no deaths at all from climatic causes in Salisbury or its district. He adds: ‘Good food, good clothing, shelter from inclement weather and the sun, an abundant supply of medicines and invalid necessaries and a milder season have wrought an enormous improvement in the general health of the people, and Mashonaland of 1892 is not recognisable as Mashonaland of 1891.’

The general health has been equally good in the rainy season of 1892–3, and the experience of the last two years has shown that perfect health may be enjoyed by anyone who will avoid undue exposure and will observe a few simple precautions.

TOWNSHIPS

Progress in the townships of Salisbury, Victoria, and Umtali has been rapid.

At Salisbury 1,800 stands have been surveyed and mapped out; at Victoria 572 stands, and at Umtali 300. In July 1892 a sale of stands was held at the three places mentioned above, 70 at Salisbury being sold for 2,250l., 150 at Victoria for 6,107l., and 44 at Umtali for 1,396l., the total sum realised being nearly 10,000l. for 264 stands. It is intended to hold another sale in July of this year, where competition no doubt will be keen, as the attention of capitalists in England, as well as those on the spot, is being directed to the matter.

The public buildings at Salisbury, such as the Administrator’s Offices, the Standard Bank Offices, the Police Station, Magazine, Court House, Survey, Mines, Post and Telegraph Offices, are already completed or on the verge of completion. All the material required for these buildings has been drawn from the district itself, with the exception of wood for doors, skirting, and architraves.

A Sanitary Board has been formed at Salisbury to manage the affairs of the township with a revenue derived from one-half the stand-rents (10s. per month) and other fees, such as market dues.

A branch of the Standard Bank was opened at Salisbury on July 20, 1892, and is doing a very good business. A printed newspaper, the Rhodesia Herald, is also published there weekly.

The Mining Commissioner for Victoria reported on September 24, 1892, as follows:—

‘The township of Victoria is growing very fast, and very good buildings are being erected, the majority being composed of brick and iron or brick and thatch; they are far superior to those erected at Kimberley, Barberton, or Johannesburg. The town has only been surveyed a few months, and progress made is very good. This shows that the people have every confidence in the mining and general prospects of Mashonaland.’

Victoria also possesses a newspaper, the Mashonaland Times and Mining Chronicle.

As regards hotels, there are several most substantial buildings of brick and iron offering excellent accommodation at Salisbury, and between Victoria and Salisbury there are wayside hotels at the various post-stations. Victoria itself possesses two, and others are to be found every 20 miles or so along the 200 miles of road connecting Victoria with Tuli. At the latter place there is an excellent hotel, conducted by the Tuli Hotel Company.

On the Salisbury-Umtali Road and at Umtali wayside houses and hotels have been established, and their number will no doubt be augmented on the completion of the Beira Railway.

ROADS.

The existing roads have been kept up and improved, and under Mr. Selous’s superintendence new ones have been made in many directions connecting Fort Salisbury with the various gold-fields and with the main road to the Pungwe.

During 1892 Mr. Selous constructed an excellent road from Umtali to Chimoio, a distance of over 70 miles, to meet the head of the Beira Railway. The road will be available for heavy waggons at all seasons of the year. Two road-making parties are engaged at the present time in maintaining and improving it.

BEIRA RAILWAY.

Satisfactory progress is being made with the Beira Railway, the first section of which from Fontes Villa (about 48 miles up the Pungwe from Beira) to Chimoio, a distance of 75 miles, will be opened by the end of July.

The embankments are completed for 65 miles and the permanent way for 50, but the curves in some places, especially in the last few miles, are sharp, owing to the broken and hilly nature of the country. Special rails for these curves have had to be procured from England and are now on their way out. By the time they arrive at the end of June all the earthworks will be finished, and they will then only have to be linked to complete the railway through the fly-belt. It is this fly-belt which has hitherto opposed such an insuperable obstacle to the importation of heavy goods by this otherwise easy, cheap, and convenient route.

It is estimated that the cost of transport of goods from Cape Town to Salisbury will thus be decreased by more than 20l. per ton, and it will then be possible to import machinery &c. at rates which compare favourably with those which obtained at the Randt before the recent completion of the line to Johannesburg.

On completion of the first section, the construction of the second section as far as Salisbury will be pressed on with, transport being carried on in the meantime by services of waggons on the Chimoio-Umtali Road, alluded to above.

AGRICULTURE.

The main occupations of settlers have been gold mining and farming.

Favourable reports of the country from an agricultural and pastoral point of view have on several occasions been furnished by deputations of experienced farmers appointed at public meetings, both in the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State, to inspect and report upon the land. As the result of these reports, large ‘treks’ of farmers from those countries have already proceeded, and will be followed shortly by others, to occupy tracts of land in Mashonaland.

A recent return from the Surveyor-General’s Office at Salisbury shows that farms representing a total area of 3,178 square miles or 2,000,000 acres have been granted and located, nearly one-half having been properly surveyed in addition. Grants of land for farms of 3,000 acres in extent at an annual quit rent of 3l. were obtainable during 1892, but so many applications were received that these practically free grants have been altogether suspended, and the price of land is fixed for the present at 9d. per acre subject to the annual quit rent.

Farming operations in Mashonaland should offer special advantages, owing to the proximity of the various gold-fields, which have always afforded markets at most remunerative rates for all farm produce, and will no doubt continue to do so in the future in an even greater degree.

The most important of the deputations above referred to upon inspection estimated that in the parts of the country visited there were at least 40,000 square miles well adapted for colonising purposes. When it is remembered that the area of Mashonaland and Matabeleland is 125,000 square miles, and that not one-half of this extent of country was seen by the deputation, it will be generally conceded that their estimate, large as it is, admits of considerable amplification.

It may be incidentally mentioned, dealing with quite another part of the British South Africa Company’s territories, viz. the sphere north of the Zambesi, which amounts to upwards of 500,000 square miles, that most favourable reports of its mineral and agricultural resources have been furnished by such well-known travellers as Joseph Thomson and Alfred Sharpe.

GOLD.

The attention of the majority of the population has mainly been directed to the exploitation of the gold reefs, and in spite of difficulties arising from want of transport and from ignorance of the country, a great deal of solid development has been achieved.

Owing to various causes, it was not until July 1891 that regular workings were commenced. Since that time prospecting has been carried on in a systematic and efficient manner, resulting in the discovery of the gold-bearing districts of Victoria, Manica, Hartley Hill, Mazoe, and Lo Magondas, having a total area of 27,000 square miles. It is believed that the gold-belt starting from Umtali passes through Victoria, and will in all probability connect with the gold-belt stretching eastward from the Tati gold-fields in the western portion of Matabeleland, and on which considerable development work has been done.

Fresh discoveries on a large scale have recently been made within 15 miles of Salisbury. The latest cable intelligence states that in these new fields the reefs proved to 40 and 60 feet are as rich and as wide as at the surface. Gold-belts have also recently been discovered at Mt. Darwin, about 80 miles north of Mazoe, at points 120 miles north of Umtali (Manica) and 80 miles south of the same place, and on the Tokwe River about 30 miles west of Victoria. The gold formations at the above places are all very extensive, show visible freely, and give very rich pannings, while they cannot be said to have been developed at all up to the present. Another series of reefs, which are described as being phenomenally rich by the British South Africa Company’s Administrator, have just been discovered in the commonage at Umtali.

The immense cost of importing even the lightest stamp batteries has, of course, retarded the gold industry to an enormous extent, but the completion of the Beira Railway will work a great change in this respect. What crushings have taken place show very rich results. The average yield from several hundred tons of ore extracted from all reefs in the Victoria district, good and bad together, was 18·3 dwt. per ton, or about 73s. It has, however, been proved in practice that mining operations even under present conditions can be carried on in Mashonaland at a cost not exceeding 20s. per ton, leaving the very handsome profit of 53s. for every ton crushed in the above district.

In a cablegram recently received from the Company’s administrator on his return from a tour of inspection of the various mining districts he states that new finds were occurring everywhere daily, and that crushings were everywhere successful; that the reefs were improving with depth, and that wonderful development was proceeding in every district. As regards alluvial gold, that large deposits do exist, and that their discovery is only a question of time, is the opinion of all experienced miners. That this time has now arrived seems probable from a cable message recently received reporting that 50 oz. of alluvial gold had been brought into Salisbury, causing great excitement there. Should, however, alluvial fields, so valuable to a new country from their power of attracting a large mining population, never be discovered, it may not be too much to say—the progress that has been made in so short a time, and the enormous extent and richness of the auriferous reefs being taken into consideration—that the time cannot be far distant when Mashonaland will assume a leading position amongst the principal gold-producing countries of the world.

NOTES

[1] M’, which looks so mysterious in all African books, is supposed to express that the first syllable may be pronounced either um or mu; there are four correct ways of pronouncing the name in question, Umtali or Mutare, Umtare or Mutali. The English have adopted the first and the Portuguese the second.

[2] Vide Chap. VII.

[3] Chap. VII.

[4] Vide illustration, ch. X.

[5] Chap. X.

[6] Chap. XI.

[7] Vide Chap. IX.

[8] Encyclop. Brit.

[9] 17·17 feet is equal to 10 cubits of 20·62 inches; and as all parts of the building which we have been able to measure accurately, and all small articles which would probably be made on any scale of measure, apparently have been made in terms of a cubit of this length, it seems probable that this cubit was one of the standards of measure in use.

[10] This is not very accurately shown in the small scale plan.

[11] There are many astronomical points in these buildings still to be considered, and the results of further investigation will be published later.

[12] Vide illustration, p. 181.

[13] Vide Illustration, p. 181.

[14] Lucian, De Syriâ Deâ, p. 477.

[15] Perrot and Chipiez’s Phœnicia, p. 281.

[16] Kremer, Akademie der Wissenschaft. Wien.

[17] Herod. Bk. III. § 8.

[18] Akademie der Wissenschaft. Wien 1890.

[19] Equal to two Egyptian spans of 9·58 inches.

[20] Vide illustration, p. 194.

[21] Vide illustration, p. 216.

[22] Ezek. xxvii. 21, 22.

[23] Vide Chap. III.

[24] Vide Chap. XI.

[25] Chap. II.

[26] De Barros, De Asiâ. Lisbon, 1552.

[27] According to Ptolemy, the Romans penetrated from the north through the heart of Africa to a nation called Agizymba, south of the equator.

[28] Chap. IX.

[29] Vide illustration, p. 262.

[30] For description of ruins, vide Chap. IV.

[31] Lecture before the Colonial Institute, April 12, 1892.

[32] Chap. II.

[33] Kremer, Akademie der Wissenschaft.

[34] Chap. VIII.

[35] The heights have been obtained with aneroid and boiling-point thermometers, and with the exception of that of Zimbabwe, where we stayed some time, are only approximate.