tackle a work of colonization not altogether different
from that which had been dealt with in the past in
America and Australia, or, to take a more exact parallel,
in the previously settled portions of South Africa. There
was indeed a large native population to be managed, but
the future prosperity of the country as a British possession
was primarily ensured by bringing in white settlers.
Rhodesia, south of the Zambezi, is, as I have already
insisted, a white man’s country; and though there is no
reason to expect the immediate disappearance of the
native, as he has disappeared in America and Australia,
it is to the white man’s work that the country looks for
its future greatness. The white man can make his home
there, and can bring up his family to succeed him. In
Nyasaland and British Central Africa generally—using
this expression to denote all the British territory north
of the Zambezi—colonization by white men is a very
different affair. Taking the country as a whole, it must
be pronounced unfit at present, and in great part likely
to remain unfit, to become the home of Europeans.
There are, it is true, certain not inconsiderable patches
of high ground where Europeans can preserve their health,
and perhaps even rear children. These districts are for
the most part over 5000 feet in altitude. They comprise,
first, the plateau of Mlanje, which rises at its greatest
elevation to 10,000 feet above sea level. The temperature
is moderate, the air bracing, and the soil suited partly
for the cultivation of European vegetables, and partly
for pasturage. The drawback is the exceedingly heavy
rainfall, which amounts to nearly 75 inches annually, and
its limited extent, which according to Sir Harry Johnston’s
calculation hardly exceeds 36,000 acres. More extensive
than this is the Nyika Plateau, which rises to an average
altitude of 7000 feet. Its extent is reckoned at 1250
square miles. This region again is well watered—not so
superabundantly as Mlanje—temperate, fertile, and hardly
inhabited by natives. These two areas, of which the first
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is situated in the extreme south-east of the territory, the
second to the west of Nyasa, almost at its head, are the
largest districts suitable for European colonization. There
are, however, several other areas of high ground dotted
here and there over the whole province, each affording
an almost ideal habitation for white men. The plateau of
Zomba is one of these, and there are several others in
the whole country westward of the lake.
But these, even taken all together, make up the very
smallest portion of the whole country. It is, perhaps,
the most remarkable feature of Sir Harry Johnston’s rule
that he recognized immediately that, so far as the rest
of the country is concerned, it is unfit for development
by white labour, and set to work to devise other means
of progress. The work of civilization he laid down clearly
from the very outset must be carried on by lower races
under European direction. This decision may be thought
a simple exercise of very ordinary common sense. But the
annals of European colonization, from Darien to Madagascar,
prove that this common sense, which in the
colonial administrator may be called a form of self-
denial, is very much rarer than might have been expected.
For the present, then, until man acquires a power over
the conditions of climate that will make him practically
independent of nature, Sir Harry Johnston looks for the
development of his Protectorate to a limited white
population perched on the high ground, and thence
controlling a large, settled, and industrious black population.
To this end the first step was to get the population
large and settled. And the first necessity was to suppress
the slave trade. Sir Harry Johnston early resolved that
the curse of Central Africa was the Arab, and that the
Arabs must be expelled. At the present day he has
virtually succeeded in expelling them. For my own
part, my experience has led me to take views perhaps
less extreme, both as to the forcible suppression of the
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