Lord Kimberley will have no easy post from the first,
for a disagreeable incident has occurred on the Zambesi. Under Article XI. of the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty, the British Government has the right of constructing a telegraph across Portuguese territory in Africa, and the Chartered Company were accordingly putting up one across a tongue of Portu- guese land at Tete. The Portuguese, however, objected, and apparently arrested the work by physical force, whereupon the British gunboat 'Mosquito,' then lying in the Zambesi, landed a party at Tete, and fired upon the Portuguese. The Governor of Quillimane has hurried up to the scene with gunboats and troops, and it is quite possible that by this time hostilities may be in active progress. The Portuguese assert that the right of building telegraphs cannot be delegated to a Chartered Company; but that seems nonsense, as the British Government does not put up poles and wires with its own hands. They also say they are ready to set up the telegraph themselves, but that will not do, as nobody knows what they would charge for their bit of distance, or what they would do with the messages they would read off. We see nothing for it but to go on with the line, and protect the workmen, or purchase the tongue of land from the Portuguese. They will, of course, be very eloquent on their wrongs, and perhaps attack British merchants at Oporto, but it is im- possible to yield for ever to a system of annoyance. The Portuguese on the coast are very unwise in making a deadly enemy of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who is the real builder of the telegraph line.
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