The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-24
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and the probability is that the German steamers will have to wait until the German railroads are built.
 High Freight Rates.
 How would you like to pay $40 a ton for shipping grain or corn distance of 200 miles? That is the rate a young Eng lishman on board expects to pay to get some rice taken from Bukoba 200 miles in- land. He wants the rice to feed gang of porters who are to go with a com mission which is now outlining the new boundary between Uganda and the Congo Free State. The rice is being taken on here, and it will be unloaded at Bukoba. from where the porters will carry it across country to the boundary commission. It is packed up in boxes of 60 pounds each; and 1000 men will be re- ouired to carry it. The amount needed in only 30 tons, but 1t will take those 1000 men a month to make the journey Each porter will get four rupees or $l .3S for the work, so that the transshipment of that 30 tons of rice will cost $1333 in wages alone, not including the freight rate on the steamer from here to Bulk oba.
 The Trade of Lake Victoria.
 During my trip around the lake I am having good opportunity to learn about trade matters. There are many mill lions of natives who might be reached by this lake, and Uncle Sam should send out his drummers to show them our goods and study their wants. I have already written of American sheeting. We are landing dozen bales of them here They are sent in through Arnold, Cheney & Co., of Zanzibar, who have their traders going through this part of Africa selling goods and buying hides and ivory They get the sheeting from New York and it has to compete with goods made to initiate 1t in England and Inda and sold at much lower prices. Of late some cheap German limitations are also coming in. The natives prefer our American goods to any other, and are ready ot pay more for them. They can tell the genuine American by its smell, and. upon putting their noses to the Man. chester or Bombay goods, they will throw them aside in disgust Indeed, back in the interior our cottons have become a standard of value, and are used as money sheep, for instance, is esti- mated as worth a yard and half of Amercani, a COW is worth nine yards and a buxom young girl of 13 or IA Is valued at 60 yards or more. Contracts for. carrying goods are paid for in so many shells and so much Americani, the length in which the goods are sold being strips long enough to wind about the body of a man woman with the ac- companying folds. Such a length con- stitutes a dress pattern. The merchants buy the stuff in pieces of 30 yards each.
 The Native Markets.
 But let us go ashore and take look at the markets. It is there we can see how these people do business at home. On the way we pass several German off, flcials. They are nattily dressed in white duck and each wears white helmet Every man of them carries hippopota- mus skin whip in his hand These whips are as thick as ones finger and almost as elastic as rubber. The officials use them to keep the natives in order, and the slightest cut will draw blood. .. Going on to the market which lies just beyond the fort, we find ourselves in a court. on one side of which is ;l building covering a quarter of an acre It is open at the sides and its thatch ed roof is upheld by round white wooden pillars Upon the floors are scores of black women and men, some dressed in cottons, others in bark cloth, and not a few in cowskins They are sit ting on the ground with their wares lying before them in almost infini- tesmal piles. The poverty of the country Is such that no one can spend more than a cent or so at a time, and the average purchase Is in the fraction of cent. Here, for instance, is pea nut peddler She is a black girl with plugs in her ears The red shelled nuts are spread out on mat in bodies of ten. each pile selling for 12 cowry shells. or one tenth Of 2 cent farthei