The Times of Tuesday contains an interesting account of Mr.
Joseph Thomson's experiences in British South Africa, from which he has just returned after two years of travel and treaty-making on behalf of the South Africa Company. His account of the present. condition of Blantyre, in the Shire Highlands, the bead-quarters of the Scotch planters and missionaries, is very curious. Great progress is being made. Coffee-plantations flourish, and experiments are being carried on with sugar, tea, and tobacco. "The natives come 200 and SOO miles to work in the plantations, and are the very men who a few years ago devastated the whole region." The white population live in great comfort, possess good and sub- stantial houses, and have built a church which, Mr. Thomson says, " would do credit to many a London suburb,"—a some- what back-handed compliment. "It is like a miniature cathedral, with beautiful apse, dome, doable-towered west front, and many graceful adornments. It was built entirely by the natives, under the supervision of the whites. The natives baked the bricks, made the lime, hewed the timber, and did everything that a skilled labourer at home would do. All the materials were found on the Spot except the internal fittings, the glass, and some portions of the roofing." Mr. Thomson believes that "the problem of residence in Central Africa has practically been solved in Nyassaland, and on the same lines may be solved elsewhere ;" and also the problem of training the natives to do useful work. We trust and believe this is true of Blantyre ; but then, only a comparatively small portion of Tropical Africa is so happily situated as the Shire Highlands.
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