The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

21GSOUTH AND EAST AFRICA.charge on the public revenue and partly secured on the fixed property of theState.The territory of the South African Republic is divided for administrative purposesinto sixteen provinces or districts, which are, for the most part, named fromtheir respective chief towns. They are administered by a landrost, a sort ofgovernor and magistrate combined, who is invested with very extensive powersover the native populations. The districts, which before the great developmentof the gold-miuing industry numbered twelve, will be found tubulated in theAppendix.III.—Dki.ac^oaBay.This inlet on the south-east coast of the continent takes its name, not, as hasbeen said, from the fact that it was the last African port of call for Portuguesevessels bound for Goa and the East Indies, but because it presents the appearanceof a lake or lagoon (lagoa). But in any case Delagoa Bay promises one day toacquire great importance as the natural outlet of the whole Limpojjo basin and ofthe States on the South j\irican plateau. The form of the coast-line, and thedepth of this land-locked basin, which receives several streams navigable by lightcraft, give to this Portuguese possession quite an exceptional value, all the morehighly appreciated by the shippers of Natal and Cape Colony that south of thissplendid estuary there is not a single well-sheltered and commodious haven.Hence, the English colonists, as heirs of the old Dutch navigators who effected alanding here in the year 1720, and as representatives of Captain Owen, whoacquired a strip of territorj- on the coast in 1825, did not fail to claim possessionof the bay, which woidd have been in every way so convenient, and which musthave secured for them the unchallenged political and commercial supremacy overthe inland States.The priority of possession, however, was contested by Portiigal,and in 1875 became a subject of arbitration, and was decided against England byMarshal MacMahon, President of the French Republic, to whom the question hadbeen referred by the Grovernments of London and Lisbon. Delagoa Bay was consequentlyrestored to the Portuguese province of Mozambique, although from thecommercial point of view the judgment might be said to have been given infavour of the Transvaal Republic, because the bay is the natural outlet of thatState on the Indian Ocean, while it is the interest of Portugal to attract all thetraffic of the plateaux to the port of which she has acquired the possession. Butnot being yet provided with docks, piers, or other shipping conveniences, and withonly a short unfinished line of railway and undeveloped communications, with athinly peopled, unhealthy, and uncultivated territory, this port has, so to say,nothing at present to depend upon except the prospects of its futiu-e prosperitj\In fact, the whole district of which it is the capital, from the ilaputa to theLimpopo, is an unreclaimed region largely covered with primeval forests, savannahs,and marshy tracts.It has a total area of about 16,000 square miles, with an estimatedpopulation of eighty thousand, or five to the square mile.