Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/279



The town of Lourenço Marques, founded in 1867 on the site of a village that bore the same name and which had been seized by the Va-Twa Zulus in 1823, is eo designated in memory of the navigator who established the first Portuguese factory on the shores of Delagoa Bay, in the year 1544. But these waters had already been explored by Pedro Quaresma, who made no attempt to secure a footing in the district. The low houses of the present town, built of stone and disposed along the streets running at right angles to each other, present a pleasant

seaward prospect, although standing at a low level and surrounded by sluggish waters which formerly served the purpose of moats against the attacks of natives. This position of Lourenço Marques in the midst of low-lying alluvial lands, renders it insalubrious during the hot season; and it is now proposed to carry out a system of drainage and extensive plantations of the eucalyptus, in order to dry up the swamps, which at first may have seemed to constitute an advantage for the rising settlement. But in any case there are some more elevated lands in the vicinity, and a comparatively healthy upper town, inhabited chiefly by the