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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 72

Description of the Mashonaland and Matabeleland Plateau

Description of the Mashonaland and Matabeleland Plateau.

The elevated plateau known as Mashonaland, recently opened up to colonisation by the British South Africa Company, has an area of about 150,000 square miles situate between the Limpopo and Sabi on the south, the Zambesi on the north, and the Portuguese territories on the east, and has a general elevation of from 4,000 to 4,500 feet above sea-level. The western section of this highland is inhabited by the Matabele, the rest by the tribes known under the general title of Mashona and Makalaka. West of Matabeleland, again, is the country stretching from the Limpopo to the Zambesi, ruled over by Khama, the Chief of the Bamangwato.

The greater portion of this table-land has a climate similar to that of the Transvaal high veldt—cool, clear, and invigorating—and is well watered by a network of running streams, the sources from which these spring being in the highest portions of the downs enabling irrigation to be effectively carried out. From September till March the heat is tempered by the south-eastern breeze from the Indian Ocean, which aids in producing a temperate climate due mainly to the elevation. The temperature ranges from 34° to 93° The winter months are healthy and bracing, being coldest (and tryingly so) in June and July (midwinter in South Africa). The highest portions of the country are open, but there are bits of forest even-where—a great contrast to the timberless tracts of the Transvaal Orange Free State, and Cape Colony. The rainfall is plentiful; page 51 the country, as already stated, well watered, and, for South Africa, well timbered.

In the neighbouring country, Matabeleland, Englishmen have lived for the past twenty years, enjoying the best of health, the climate very closely resembling that of Mashonaland. Both missionaries and traders have reared families there, and it is now clearly established that European women and children can thrive in the whole of the higher portions of the table-land in South-Eastern Africa south of the Zambesi. From the middle to the end of the rainy season, lasting from November till March, fever is prevalent in the lower parts of the country, and exposure to cold or wet during that period is to be avoided. It must be borne in mind that, during the early stages of the colonisation of any new territory in South Africa, the provision of the most ordinary elements of comfort is not possible, while exposure is inevitable; but with improvement in those conditions, gradually taking place, will come improved health. Speaking generally, I believe the health of settlers will be as good in our new colony as in nearly every other part of South Africa.

The greater portion of this high plateau will produce the fruits and vegetables of Northern Europe. It has been proved that wheat, oats, barley, and vegetables such as potatoes, onions, cauliflowers, cabbages, carrots, &c., can be grown successfully. The commission appointed by the Afrikander Bund to report on the agricultural prospects of Mashonaland expressed a high opinion of the value of the country situated between Forts Charter and Salisbury, and in the latter neighbourhood they found the land most suitable for agriculture. The region between Salisbury and Manika possesses large areas of valuable grazing-ground. Of the country lying between Fort Charter and Victoria, along the Pioneer road, they entertained a very poor opinion. It certainly is a most uninviting and inhospitable tract of country, and has doubtless largely influenced the adverse opinions expressed in some quarters by visitors who have seen nothing of Mashonaland except from the main road. People who have merely been to Salisbury, or thence to Manika along the highway, can have little conception of the vast extent of the high table-land and its agricultural capabilities. Large sections of Mashonaland, away from these main roads, embrace fine tracts of country.

A feature of Mashonaland deserving special attention is that when the long summer grass is burnt off—usually in June to August—there springs up a short, sweet herbage, on which cattle page 52 and horses thrive. During the months of September and October therefore, when the Transvaal and Bechuanaland are a scorched and arid waste and the cattle poor and miserable, the Mashonaland and Matabeleland valleys are everywhere green, the streams in full force, and the cattle in good condition. No one who has not been in the interior of South Africa, and at the end of the dry season, can realise the importance of this fact.