Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/371

MOZAMBIQUE ISLAND. 297 began to be shipped at Mozambique in 1873, and in six yrarn the value of this article alone was about £00,000. But it then fell off almost more rapidly than it had increased, whole forests having been destroyed to supply the demand. In the same way the ivory trade has ceased with the almost total disappearance of the elephant from the whole region east of Nyassa. The foreign commerce, which is made almost exclusively with England and France, is in the hands of a ft w hundred whites. Portuguese of Goa, half-castes, and Banyan& As at Ibo and (^ueliinane, woven fabrics are imported almost entirely by the Bombay merchants. The bulk of the population consists of Mohammedan blacks, who are descended from various coast tribes, but who have abandoned their national customs and distinctive characteristics, and become gradually transformed to a proletariate class, such as is met in all European seaports. The current language amongst them is an extremely corrupt form of the Makua, one of the idioms of East Africa that has been most carefully studied by the missionaries. Mozambique, which has a population of over ten thousand, is one of the few places on the East African seaboard which possesses " learned societies," amongst others a geographical society. Here also are published some books and journals. On one of the neighbouring beaches is collected some salt, which people connected with this industry compare with that of Setubul, the best in Europe. * Natural deperdencics of Mozambique are the so-called Tvrraa Firmas, that is to say, the villages and settlements of the mainland situated on the shores of the bay. Amongst these is Mossoril, where the governor and European traders have their country seats, scattered with other houses to a distance of G miles to the north-west of the town towards the neck of the Cabeceira Peninsula, which pro- jects between Mossoril and Conducia Bays. The magnificent natural harbours of Mocamho to the south and Conducia to the north of Mozambique, lie completely idle, owing to the sparse population on the surrounding coastlands, and the absence of routes leuding to the inland regions. Even the group of splendid harbours lying to the north of Conducia Bay in the Gulf of Fernao Vellozo (Veloso), is, if not entirely neglected, at all events very little utilised by sea-going vessels. But the natives are well acquainted with its value, for they have given it the name of Maa^-^ima, that is to say " Perfect shelter." It penetrates some six miles into the interior of the land, and at its upper end branches off into two very deep inner havens protected from all winds. The north-western port, called Nihefjehe by the natives, and Bclmorc JIarOoiir by the English, has over 65 feet at the sill near the entrance. Nkala also, that is, the corresponding south-western basin, although shallower than the passage through which it communicates with the sea, is nevertheless deep and spacious enough to afford accommodation for whole fleets. The east side of this magnificent basin, which ramifies into several secondary inlets, is skirted by cliffs and headlands from 100 to 200 feet high, and this district appears to be sufliciently sulubrious to supply favourable sites for European colonisation. Several little watercourses fall into the basin on the west side, which is low and covered with a rich alluvial soil, where, with a little labour, heavy crops