Sandbanks are the bane of the navigator of this stream. On his last voyage our captain had been detained for three days on one, and we passed a Portuguese gunboat which looked as if it would remain there till the end of time. Our fate was a mild one: we were only on a bank for a few hours, until the bore came up. These sandbanks are constantly shifting, and the captain never knows where they may next appear; consequently slow speed and constant soundings are the only safeguards. Crocodiles innumerable bask on these sandbanks, and in the stream itself hippopotami raise their black heads and stare at the strange animal which has come, and which will shortly cause the extermination of their species in the Pungwe. Beira itself is the Portuguese word for a spit of sand, and is a horror of corrugated-iron domiciles on a bare shadeless sandspit at the mouth of the Pungwe. There is no drinkable water to be got within three miles of the place, and we paid half-a-crown a bucket for a very questionable quality of the precious fluid. Nobody washes himself or his clothes in anything but the sea during the dry season. On the last day of our stay at Beira (November 23) the heavens were opened and rain fell in torrents. Never was rain more welcome; pot, pan, and bucket were placed in every direction, and the extortionate water vendors had to retire from the field. Where the eye does not rest on sea or sand it wanders from Beira over miles of flat mangrove swamps. The heat was scorching; when you walked you sank ankle-deep in sand at each step. Of all places Beira is the most horrible. When a Portuguese merchant goes to his office he is borne by four tottering negroes in his mashila; the Englishman walks and does most of his own work for himself, for the very good reason that he can get nobody to do it for him. This labour question is one of vital importance in Beira, and if ever it is to be a port of note the present order of things must be altered. Yet, in spite of the fever, the heat, and the sand, Beira must go ahead, as nature has provided it with an excellent harbour, a rarity on the east coast of Africa. This is the only harbour for the proposed railway to the interior, which is to have its terminus on the opposite side of the harbour to Beira, nearer to the mouth of the Buzi, and will run along the flats between that river and the Pungwe. Until this line is made, I think few of those who have come down this road will care to return and face the discomforts of another foot journey through the fly country and the swamps. Perhaps it will be two years before this line is completed, and it must be done by the cooperation of the two interested companies, the British South Africa and the Mozambique. Between Massi-Kessi and Umtali it will cost a considerable amount of capital if the hills are to be tunnelled. On the flats the swamps will cause difficulties: fevers will play havoc with the labourers, and the rivers and the dongas will have to be bridged.