SOUTH CENTRAL AFRICA by F. L. Mead

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 17, 1900

SOUTH CENTRAL AFRICA.

By F. L. Mead

RAILROAD connections with Cape Town have been cut off since the opening of the war in the Transvaal, so we are quite isolated. For some time after the war began, we were without any mail, but we now get it at irregular intervals via Beira and Fort Salisbury.

Owing to a close censorship on the press, we know practically nothing of the progress of the war, or of its future prospects.

While we are comfortable, and have provisions for the present, we can begin to realize what prices will soon be unless the railroad is opened for the transportation of freight. Sugar is thirty-six cents a pound; kerosene oil, $1.75 a gallon; flour, $25 a barrel; potatoes, $15 a bushel; beans, $6 a bushel; butter, $1 a pound. Provisions are completely sold out in many of the smaller stores, and soon some of the largest wholesale stores will be entirely out of goods of all kinds.

We are now having our “rainy season,” and the roads are very bad. Some of our crops, which looked quite promising, have been killed by an overabundance of water; others are being destroyed by bugs and white ants; some of the crops are doing well, and give signs of a fair harvest. The curse rests heavily upon this country and people. While the mission family are comfortably well, there is much sickness among the natives.

The week of prayer readings reached us January 26, and we are studying them with much interest. The Lord has come very near to us, and has helped us in our need, for which we praise his name.

F. L. MEAD.

Bulawayo, Jan. 30, 1900.