Beira

“ The heat in Beira being too great to permit of walking—a shaded thermometer not infrequently climbs to one hundred and twenty degrees; the streets being too deep in sand for the use of vehicles; and the tsetse-fly killing off horses in a few days, those European traders and officials who are condemned to dwell in Beira get about in “trolleys” of their own. ”

“ If a dangerous sea is running, the disembarking passenger is put into a cylindrical, elongated basket, a sort of enlarged edition of those used for soiled towels in the lavatories of hotels; a wheezing donkey-engine swings it up and outward and, if the man at the lever calculates the roll of the ship correctly, drops it with a thud on the deck of the tender plunging off-side.
Built on a stretch of sun-baked sand, between a miasmal jungle and the sea, Beira is the hottest and unhealthiest place in all East Africa. ”

“ The country between Salisbury and Beira is flat and marshy, and was, till the advent of the railway, a veritable Zoological Garden as regards game of all sorts. The climate is deadly for man and beast, and mortality was high during the construction of the Beira Railway, which connected Rhodesia with an eastern outlet on the sea. Among uninteresting towns, I think Beira should be placed high on the list; the streets are so deep in sand that carriages are out of the question, and the only means of transport is by small trucks on narrow rails. ”

“ To this end had his proclamations gone forth, commanding that all the land lying between the rivers Tagus and Mondego, in short, the whole of the country between Beira and Torres Vedras, should be stripped naked, converted into a desert as stark and empty as the Sahara. Not a head of cattle, not a grain of corn, not a skin of wine, not a flask of oil, not a crumb of anything affording nourishment should be left behind. ”

“ Beira was occupied by the Companhia de Mozambique with the idea of feeding Salisbury and Buluwayo from the north, and drawing away some of the trade which at that time was monopolized by the merchants of Cape Town and Durban. But the tse-tse fly belt lay between Beira on the coast and the boundary of the Chartered Company's possessions, and as neither oxen nor mules could live to cross this, it was necessary, in order to compete with the Cape-Buluwayo line, to build a railroad through the swamp and jungle. ”

“ Vessels drawing 24 ft. can enter the port at high tide. Between the customs house and the railway terminus is the mouth of a small river, the Chiveve, crossed by a steel bridge, the centre span revolving and giving two passages each of 40 ft. The town is without any architectural pretensions, but possesses fine public gardens. It is the headquarters of the Companhai de Moçambique, which administers the Beira district under charter from the Portuguese crown. The business community is largely British.
Beira occupies the site of a forgotten Arab settlement. ”

“ The Beira Mar is the show-place of Rio and of Brazil. It is sometimes 181as if one were asked to admire a costume without seeing more than the lace along the bottom, the eagerness of its people to impress the visitor with the undoubted splendor of this glorious seaside driveway. Yet there are many other strips and corners of the city that are well-nigh as sumptuous or as picturesque; the difficulty is to hunt them out among the morros and foothills that everywhere divide the capital into almost isolated districts. ”

“ On his last trip to Somaliland he was assured by his Somalis that he would find the “Beira” on Waggar Mountain, near the south-eastern extremity of the Golis range, but he had not time to go there. On leaving Berbera, however, Capt. Swayne exhorted his men to proceed to the mountains themselves and to endeavour to procure some specimens of the Beira, offering them a handsome reward for good heads and skulls of a male and female, and leaving instructions to his agents there to pay the men and to forward the specimens. ”

“ Eventually the change was accomplished and the journey continued until arrival at the Beira station.
It was for the passengers to find out for themselves that the station was about two miles away from the only possible hotel, and the country between of the roughest kind of veld—all scrub, hillocks, bush, and ant-holes; that there were no conveyances or porters; and that it was up to every man to shoulder his own pack and foot it for home. ”

“ Beira has a warm and equable climate, except in the mountains, where the snowfall is often heavy. The soil, except in the valleys, is dry and rocky, and large stretches are covered with heath. The principal agricultural products are maize, wheat, garden vegetables and fruit. The olive is largely cultivated, the oil forming one of the chief articles of export; good wine is also produced. In the flat country between Coimbra and Aveiro the marshy land is laid out in rice-fields or in pastures for herds of cattle and horses. Sheep farming is an important industry in the highlands of Upper Beira ”

“ The two provinces of Entre Minho e Douro, and Tras os Montes, were subdued, with that part of Beira which was held by the Moorish king of Lamego, whom he constrained to pay tribute. Many thousands of Christians, who had either lived in miserable subjection to the Moors, or in desolate independency in the mountains, took shelter under the protection of Count Henry. Great multitudes of the Moors also chose rather to submit, than be exposed to the severities and the continual feuds and seditions of their own governors. ”

“ BEIRA, a seaport of Portuguese East Africa, at the mouth of the Pungwe river, in 19° 50′ S., 34° 50′ E., 488 m. N. of Delagoa Bay, in communication by railway with Cape Town via Umtali, Salisbury and Bulawayo. Pop. about 4000, of whom a third are Europeans, and some 300 Indians. The town is built on a tongue of sand extending into the river, and is comparatively healthy. The sea front is protected by a masonry wall, and there are over 13,000 ft. ”

“ The most curious feature of Beira is her private tram-car system. These cars run on tiny tracks which rise out of the [182] sand and extend from one end of the town to the other, with branch lines running into the yards of shops and private houses. The motive power for these cars is supplied by black boys who run behind and push them. Their trucks are about half as large as those on the hand-cars we see flying along our railroad tracks at home, worked by gangs of Italian laborers. ”

“ There is a striking difference of character between the inhabitants of the highlands, who are grave and reserved, hardy and industrious, and those of the lowlands, who are more sociable and courteous, but less energetic. The heir-apparent to the throne of Portugal has the title of prince of Beira. ”

“ Cloth is manufactured, and there is a flourishing local trade in cork, wine and olive oil. The administrative district of Castello Branco, which comprises the valleys of the Zezere, Ocreza and Ponsul, right-hand tributaries of the Tagus, coincides with the south-eastern part of Beira ”

“ The three northern provinces of Portugal:—The Beira, comprising most of the land between the Tagus and the Douro (except the S.W. portion) ; the Tral (or Traz) os Montes, the N.E. extremity; and the Entre Douro e Minho, the N.W. extremity of the Kingdom. Here was the cradle of the state—for the principality granted in 1095 by Alfonso VI of Leon to the free-lance, Henry of Burgundy, was entirely within the limits of these provinces, and was at first almost entirely confined to lands North of the Mondego, being composed of the counties of Coimbra and Oporto. ”

“ The country does not lack modern ways and means of communication with the adjoining ones; for there is a telegraphic connection and a postal service between all the forts and Cape Colony, and a railway is fast being constructed inland from Port Beira. ”

“ These lines, built to foster trade with countries beyond Portuguese territory, link the ports named to the British railway systems in South and Central Africa. The route for a railway to connect Beira with Sena was surveyed in 1906-1907, a route from Quilimane to the Zambezi being also surveyed. A light railway (50 m. long) goes inland from Matamba, on Inhambane Bay, serving northern Gazaland. Native caravan routes traverse every part of the country, but these are mere tracks, and in general communication is difficult and slow. ”

“ The great charm of the city, the feature which makes it incomparable among the capitals of the world, is the number of delightful excursions practicable to its enchanting suburbs. Some of these may be visited by electric car or automobile, as the length of one’s purse prescribes, others by boat, and one by cog railway.
Most persons will be tempted to improve the very first afternoon by a ride along the front of the bay, on the unrivaled Beira Mar, from the Monroe Palace on the Avenida to the foot of the Pão do Assucar, a ride without parallel, even on the shores of the Mediterranean. ”

“ Even the paid-to-be-enthusiastic author of the steamship company's glowing booklet hesitates at depicting this fever-haunted, sun-baked, sand-suffocated seaport of Mozambique, contenting himself with the noncommittal statement that “it is indescribable; it is just Beira.” The town has but three attractions: a broad-verandaed hotel where they charge you forty cents for a lemonade with no ice in it; a golf course, laid out by a newly arrived Englishman, who died of sunstroke the first day he played on it; and a trolley system which [Pg 208] makes every resident the owner of his own street-car. ”

“ The traveler who journeys to Beirut from the west is naturally impressed by its scenes of Oriental life; but to one who has come hither from Lebanon or Damascus or even from Jerusalem, it seems almost a European city. Here is a French gas company, an English waterworks, a German hospital and an American college; here are post and telegraph offices, a harbor filled with shipping, and the terminus of a busy railway system. Four lines of electric tram-cars furnish quick transportation through the main streets to the attractive suburbs, and many of the wealthier residents possess automobiles. ”

“ View along the coast north of Beirut
Looking up the western slopes of Lebanon
At the west is the expanse of the “Great Sea.” At the east, just back of the cape, are the great mountains. Everything along the shore of the Mediterranean is warm, almost tropical in its verdure, [5] and resplendent in the orient hues painted by the Syrian sun. The lower slopes of Lebanon are soft with vineyards and groves of olive, fig and mulberry. Above the green orchards and white villages are dark pine forests, and somber gorges cut deep between smooth, swelling moorlands. ”

“ As we zig-zag up the western slope of Lebanon there appear, now at our right and now at our left, a succession of beautiful panoramas which differ one from the other only in revealing a constantly widening horizon. Rich, populous valleys, lying deep between the shoulders of the mountains, slope quickly downward to the coast where, farther and farther below [61] us, the silvery-green olive orchards and golden sands of Beirut reach out into the ever-broadening azure expanse of the Mediterranean. ”

“ Small, square, and oblong houses, painted white and with red roofs, surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped hill 400 feet high, covered with green, bring to mind some resemblance to Sierra Leone and Monrovia, as seen from the sea at a distance.
Baro is 130 miles below Jebba, and was selected by Sir Percy Girouard for the terminus of the railway. The Niger is 1,000 feet across, divided into two channels by an island about two miles long, on which the native town is located. The south channel—the one nearest the railway—is only 100 feet wide, and you can walk over it, on sand, at lowest water. ”

“ Back of the dark line of protecting pines, millions upon millions of olive trees appear as one great mass of shimmering green. When Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian conqueror of Syria, looked down from Lebanon upon the country about Beirut, he exclaimed that three seas lay beneath him; the blue Mediterranean, the yellow waste of sand and the silvery surface of the olive forest which floods the fertile plain. ”

“ Lebanon, except his snowy crest, was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean gleamed like a shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the background of its mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities. The turf around our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the yellow daisies and crimson poppies that stud it. I was satisfied with what I saw, and felt no wish to leave Quarantine to-day. Our Italian friend, however, is more impatient. ”

“ We have already taken the slow, beautiful journey from Beirut across the two mountain ranges. The other railway between Damascus and the coast starts from the seaport of Haifa, at the foot of Mount Carmel, and follows at first a fairly easy grade through the historic Plain of Esdraelon to the Jordan Valley at Beisan. From here it runs northward along the river to the Sea of Galilee, [16] then in a general easterly [73] direction up the valley of the Yarmuk to the plateau of the Hauran, where the Haifa branch joins the main line of the Mecca railway. ”

“ Passing the mouth of the Nahr el-Auwâlî (ancient Bostrenus) and the Râs er-Rumeileh, the N. limit of the bay of Saida, we come to the far-projecting Râs ed-Dâmûr and the Nahr ed-Dâmûr, the ancient Tamyras, which in winter is one of the most copious rivers in the Lebanon region. Near Beirut begin the mulberry and olive groves and the vineyards of the fertile coast-plain.
We round the reddish hills of Râs Beirût (p. 483) , with the pigeons’ grottoes and lighthouse, and enter Beirut harbour (p. 481) .
470 73. From Jaffa to Jerusalem. 541⁄2 M. Railway. Two trains daily in 3 hrs. 40 min. ”