Tropical Africa by Henry Drummond — Read

When I reached the coast to embark for England after my wanderings in the interior, the Portuguese authorities at Quilimane presented me with various official documents, which I was told I must acknowledge with signatures and money before being permitted to leave Africa. Having already had to pay certain moneys to Portugal to get into this country, it was a shock to find that I had also to pay to get out; but, as no tax could be considered excessive that would facilitate one's leaving even the least of the Portuguese East African colonies, I cheerfully counted out the price of my release. Before completing the conveyance, however, my eye fell on six words prominently endorsed on one of the documents, which instantly tightened my purse-strings. The words were, "TAX FOR RESIDING IN THE INTERIOR" -- so much. Now a day or two spent in waiting for a steamer could scarcely be construed into residence, nor could a strip of coast-line with propriety be termed the interior, so I ventured to point out the irrelevancy to the Portuguese official. Waiving the merely philological question of residence, he went at once to the root of the matter by informing me that the Portuguese definition of the word Interior differed materially from that of England. The Interior, he said, comprised the whole of Africa inland from the coast-province of Mozambique, and included, among other and larger possessions, the trifling territories of the Upper Shiré Highlands, Lake Shirwa, and Lake Nyassa. These last, he assured me, belonged to Portugal, and it became me, having therein shared the protection of that ancient flag, to acknowledge the obligation to the extent of so many hundred Reis.

Though not unprepared for this assumption, the idea of enforcing it by demanding tribute was so great a novelty that, before discharging my supposed liabilities, I humbly asked information on the following points: -- 1. Did the region described really belong to Portugal? 2. When and where was this claim recognized by England directly or indirectly? 3. Where in the Interior, as thus defined, was the Portuguese flag to be found? And 4. What protection had it ever given to me or to any other European? The replies to these queries being evasive, I took it upon myself to correct the history, the geography, and the politics of the throng of Government officials who now joined the sederunt by the following statement of facts: -- 1. The region described did not belong to Portugal. 2. Its sovereignty had never been in any way acknowledged by England. 3. The Portuguese flag was nowhere to be found there, and never had been there. 4. Not one solitary Portuguese up to that time had ever even set foot in the country -- except one man who was brought in for a few weeks under English auspices; so that no protection had ever been given, or could possibly be given, to me or to any one else. These statements were received in silence, and after much running to and fro among the officials the representative of John Bull, instead of being dragged to prison, and his rifle -- his only real escort through Nyassa-land -- poinded to pay for his imaginary protection, found himself bowed off the premises with a discharge in full of his debt to Portugal, and the unpaid tax-paper still in his pocket.