The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-02-01
DELAGOA BAY.
Some Characteristic Remarks From
 Poultney Bigelow.

Poultney BigeloW.
 It made the heart of an enterprising
 Yankee ache to look in at Delagoa Bay
 and see how swarm of little ginger
 colored officials were wasting the op-
 portunities which caprice of Provi-
 dence had placed in their path. Their
 antics suggested the behavior of monk
 eys let loose amid the costly instru-
 ments of Greenwich Observatory They
 appeared to have, in common with their
 arboreal kinspeople, the spirit of mis-
 chievous destruction largely developed;
 but very little of the sportive quality
 which makes a monkey'cage the central point of every nenagerie. Delagoa Bay owes it's great commercial, and just now strategic, importance, to two important facts:
 First, it is the nearest port to the gold fields of the Transvaal
 Secondly, it is far and away the best natural port In all South Africa.
 Both these advantages are neutralized by reason of Portuguese domination, so that, as matter of fact, on the oc- l casion of my visit QS96), many mer- chants preferred to send their goods by the longer route through Natal, via, Durban, merely because the Delagoa route offered much risk by reason of rapacious or at least very negligent management at the otherwise more fa- vored harbor
 The first glimpse of Delagoa Bay made me feel that successful Jame- son raid would be welcomed by even the most orthodox of humanitarians if 1t succeeded in expellng the present mis- rule and placing in it's stead the gov ernment of an respectable set of white people.
 | I am not here commenting piracy or brigandage In the abstract: but I will call history to witness that what we to-day call the progress of civilization has been largely made up of move ments which might roughly be likened to substituting good government in lieu of what now disgraces the neiehbor- | hood of the fairest port in South Africa. f Let me illustrate
 | On arrival at that beautiful port we anchored in midstream and were taken ashore in rowboats. Private companies had over and over begged permission to erect at their own expense wharves where vessels might load and unload with facility but this eminently pract- tical if not philanthropic request had been invariably refused because 1t might deprive the government of one more means of extracting bribes from merchants As I made my way from the landing stage to the town it was through an accumulation of merchandise which reminded me of goods rescued in haste from great fire or some other dis aster. Boxes were smashed, and stuff of the most incongruoue description lay helter skelter as though dropped from some mammoth grab-bag. Imagine the army and navy stores lifted in midair and dropped upside down on the swamby, sandy shores of tropical port-there you have the Custom House of Delagoa Bay under Portuguese rule.
 Distracted merchants or forwarding agents wandered amidst the ruins of what had been valuable ships cargo, hunting for the goods for which they waved the bills of ladings in their weary fingers. Here lay a bag of lime, beneath was a sack of rice. Their contents were making a blend which even an ostrich might have regarded a IS discouraging. Delicate electrical plant
 
 scattered in the open, while in the heavy sand were countless nuts, bolts and other parts of machinery, all rem dered valueless to the men of capital and brain waiting in vain for them at the end of the railway. Barrels of treacle were leaking into goods marked "To be kept dry" sewing machines, 1 typewriters, church organs, clothing, | blankets, furniture, tinware, and crock i ery-all were knocking about in the | open air, not merely at the mercy of ! rain, but of thieves in and outside of | the official lines.
 There is no newspaper in this beau l tiful place and for obvious reasons. If | it told the truth the governor would | send the editor to jail If it did not | discuss the scanda 'ous state of things, | it would have no support among the on ly people likely to give it subscriptions | and advertisements.
 When I speak of Delagoa Bay as a | pestferous port, I mean that it is so ] to-day, because of bad administration. Durban was unhealthy until England | drained the swamps and looked to the | sanitation of the place. The Portu-