THE GERMAN IN PEACE AND WAR


"What do I think of this country, and how does the Hun of East Africa
compare with his European brother?" you ask me. Well, to begin with the
Colony, as of the greater importance, I must confess to be very taken
with it, and I hope most sincerely that our Government will never give
it back. Though it is not so suited as British East Africa for European
colonisation, there are yet great areas of sufficient elevation to allow
of white women and children living, for years, without suffering much
from the vertical sun and the fevers of the country. There are many
places where one only sees a mosquito for three months of the year, the
soil is very fertile, and labour not only willing and efficient, but
also very cheap. The European, too, has learnt to live properly in this
country, and to avoid the midday sun; all offices and works are closed
from twelve to three. If only man would learn wisdom in the amount of
beer he drinks, and the food he eats, the tale of disease would be much
less.

The colony is fully developed with excellent railways, well-built
houses, a tractable and well-disciplined native population.
Dar-es-Salaam in particular, seems to have been the apple of the German
colonial eye. There are fine mission stations in all the healthy regions
of the country, and great plantations of rubber, sisal, cotton, and corn
abound. The white women and children, though rather pasty and washed out
after at least two years' residence in the country, do not appear
debilitated after their long tropical sojourn. The planters have, as a
rule, invested all their belongings in their plantations, and make the
country more a home than our people in East Africa, who are of a more
wealthy and leisured class. Roads have been made and bridges built. In