Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/383

 *bacco-growing. It is not equally low on second-class merchandise in other parts of Africa; that rate from Capetown to Bulawayo, a merchant told me, is four cents a pound Food is very cheap in the interior of Africa. In Nyasaland, a half-dozen chickens may be bought for twenty-four cents. A young man on board is an employee of the Eastern Telegraph Co., and is being transferred to Zanzibar. He says he has chicken so frequently that he despises it; his associates lately joined him in a protest to the company against chicken. The chickens here are small and tough: every native raises chickens, which are compelled to pick up a living: they are not fed. The natives do not eat them, but carry them great distances to market The whisky used by the natives is made of corn, by a very simple process. They crush the grains of corn, pour water over the mass, and allow it to ferment. Then they add water, and put it away in earthen jars until needed One of the most interesting men on board is an official of the British company which built the railroad from Port Herald, two hundred miles up the Zambesi river from Chindi, into Nyasaland. He is going to England for his vacation; the ships are all crowded now, as this is the favorite season for the exiles to go home. He says the English cotton and tobacco planters in Nyasaland are not very prosperous; they make a living, but not much more. They are pioneers, and pioneers rarely make a great deal of money. This man is named Metcalf, and had an attack of the African fever today. He dosed himself with quinine, and, going to bed, covered himself with blankets. There he perspired and suffered until