Lourenço Marques is named after a Portuguese navigator, who with a companion (Antonio Calderia) was sent in 1544 by the governor of Mozambique on a voyage of exploration. They explored the lower courses of the rivers emptying their waters into Delagoa Bay, notably the Espirito Santo. The various forts and trading stations which the Portuguese established, abandoned and re-occupied on the north bank of the river were all called Lourenço Marques. The existing town dates from about 1850, the previous settlement having been entirely destroyed by the natives. In 1871 the town was described as a poor place, with narrow streets, fairly good flat-roofed houses, grass huts, decayed forts and rusty cannon, enclosed by a wall 6 ft. high then recently erected and protected by bastions at intervals. The growing importance of the Transvaal led, however, to greater interest being taken in Portugal in the port. A commission was sent by the Portuguese government in 1876 to drain the marshy land near the settlement, to plant the blue gum tree, and to build a hospital and a church. It was not, however, until the end of the 19th century that any marked development took place in the town, and up to 1903 cargo had to be discharged in tugs and lighters. In 1873-1877 Mr Burgers, president of the Transvaal, endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to get a railway built from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay. In 1878-1879 a survey was taken for a line from Lourenço Marques to the Transvaal, and in 1883 the Lisbon cabinet granted to Colonel Edward McMurdo, an American citizen, a concession--which took the place of others which had lapsed--for the building of a railway from Lourenço Marques to the Transvaal frontier, the Boer government having agreed (1883) to continue the line to Pretoria. Under this concession Colonel McMurdo formed in London in 1887 a company--the Delagoa Bay and East African Railway Company--to construct the line. Meantime a secret agreement had been come to between President Kruger and Portugal for the concession to the Transvaal of a "steam tramway" parallel to the projected railway, should the company not complete the line in the time specified. The company, however, built the line to the frontier shown on the Portuguese maps of 1883 within the time limit, the railway being opened on the 14th of December 1888. The frontier by this date had been fixed at Komati Poort, 5 m. farther from the coast. Portugal had previously agreed to grant the company "a reasonable extension of time" to complete the line if the frontier should be traced farther inland than shown on the 1883 maps. The Lisbon government required the extension to Komati Poort to be completed in eight months (five of which were in the rainy season), an impossible stipulation. The railway not being finished, the Portuguese seized the line on the 25th of June 1889 and cancelled the concession. Portugal in so doing acted, to all appearance, under pressure from the Transvaal. Great Britain and America