West Grassland Gazette (Warragul, Vic. : 1898 - 1930)
Tuesday 28 April 1908

NAUGHTY BERIA. 
[typo, should read NAUGHTY BEIRA] 

OFF THE MAIN TRACK. UNDISGUISED WICKEDNESS. 

Stanley Portal Hyatt writes in the "Imperial Review" (with which is incorporated "John Bull Over the 
Seas") :- Sand, mangrove swamps, galvanised Iron, and whisky - particularly whisky - that is Beira, 
the Portuguese settlement which Cecil Rhodes aroused from the slumber of centuries and made into the 
seaport of Mashonaland. A careless, thirsty, Improper little town, built on a strip of loose, white 
beach, into which you sink ankle deep at every step, it has no title to fame, except through its 
connection with that awful tragedy, the building of the Beira and Mashonaland Railway, the line which, 
they say, cost a human life for every sleeper laid.

German mail-boats loaf in there occasionally, but their visits confer no distinction; for they are merely 
filling in the sea-time necessary for them to draw the huge subsidies offered by a happy Fatherland. 
Their passengers never go ashore, if they are wise ; and those unfortunates for whom it is the port of 
entry hurry through as quickly as they can. 

Beira has few attractions for the passing stranger ; one needs to know the place to appreciate it. It 
Is an unbeautiful spot. Beyond the multitude of bars, its most noticeable characteristic, there is nothing 
worth a second glance. The sandspit on which the town stands, or tries to stand, is merely a tongue 
jutting out from a long line of fever-haunted mangrove swamps, the most dreary and unwholesome of landscapes. 
The buildings, mainly undistinguished-looking shanties of galvanised iron, seem to quiver and palpitate 
under that awful tropical glare. One shudders at the thought of entering them. There are no trees, no grass, 
nothing underfoot but the horrible loose shingle. Wheeled traffic is impossible, though the difficulty 
has been partially met by little narrow-gauge train lines, in which every white man runs a private car 
pushed by two stalwart and perspiring natives. The harbor is equally uninteresting. 

A steamer or two with "tramp" written unmistakably in every line may be lying at the anchorage, discharging 
part of the seemingly endless stream of material for the Cape to Cairo road. A decrepit tug, a score or 
two of small craft, a couple of decaying wrecks beached amongst the mangroves, a ruin of rusted iron 
which was once a river steamer, and half a dozen lighters - these constitute the shipping of the port. 
It looks merely prosaic at high water; but as the tide runs out and leaves a vast expanse of oozing black 
slime, to reek and swelter under the merciless sun, you begin to see why men die so quickly in Beira. 
Besides being unhealthy, Beira is always unbearably hot - hot, not with the scorching parchedness of 
the high veld, but with a moist, enervating, vicious heat, a sole-destroying torment, which, not content 
with wrecking a man physically, aims at ruining him morally as well, by driving him into every sort of 
excess. The plate never cools down day or night, winter or summer. If there is no heat coming from above, 
that abominable sand seems to have an endless reserve stock stored up within itself. 

Yet, despite all these drawbacks, Beira has a peculiar fascination of its own. It is frankly, undisguisedly 
wicked. It makes no pretence at being other-wise. It puts forward no excuses, although it might reasonably 
blame the climate, had it not got far beyond the point of self-exculpation. It sins because It finds in 
sin a relief to the tedium of existence, and because no one is expected to be good in such a sultry little 
Gehenna. But, at the same time, it manages to infuse into its misdeeds a light-hearted Southern gaiety 
which the Northern nations can never imitate. Every second building is a bar presided over by some rouged 
deity with peroxide-dyed curls. You need never be thirsty in Beira, no matter how low your exchequer, for 
they will let you sing unlimited "goodfors." You pay when you can, and you never reckon up your debts. 
Yesterday is gone, finished With. Tomorrow may bring some stroke of good fortune, or it may see the deluge; 
but today you have credit, so drink - that is the philosophy of Beira. It remembers nothing of the past, 
cares nothing for the future. It has seen so many die on that horrible East coast that it thinks only of 
the present.

The place is essentially cosmopolitan. With the exception of the dwindling Anglo-Saxon community and some 
of the higher Portuguese officials, the white Inhabitants of Beira might be taken as a perfect sample of 
polyglot rascality, male and female. They are unclean, physically and morally, lazy, dishonest, and 
altogether abominable. How they came there, why they came there, are unsolved riddles, as is also the 
means of livelihood of the majority of the men. The latter remain either because they are too poor to 
leave, or because no decent country will take them.

The eternal German is much in evidence, of course - you will find him In any colony except his own - but 
Dagos predominate. Scores of Portuguese police and soldiers loaf about the streets in ill-fitting uniforms, 
and rusty side arms, even on sentry duty puffing at the eternal cigarette. Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, 
Turks, Levantines, Armenians, an unwashed and brigand-like crew lounge round the quay, or numerous garlic
scented little eating houses. Natives from every land between Suez and Yokohama, between Cape Aghulas and 
Cairo, swarm in the streets. 

It is a very Babel, although an extremely weary and apathetic one. Even the bottles in the bars have a 
cosmopolitan look. Men soak up weird mixtures, the names of whose very ingredients sound strange to British 
ears. But absinthe Is the favourite, for that evil smelling poison is essentially a pick-me-up, and 
pick-me-ups are an ever-present need in Beira. 

Latterly the place has fallen on evil days. The rush of the railroad construction is over; business in 
Rhodesia has reached the nadir of depression, and in the Mozambique territory itself there is nothing 
being done. Consequently, the port is dull and languishing, with the air of a ball-room the morning after 
the dance, when all that remains are a few faded flowers and the unpaid bill. 

But it has not reformed. It never will reform ; and when the development of the interior brings on a 
revival of trade, Beira will blossom out again as it did in the halcyon days of the railway construction
 - thirsty, careless, rouged in the daylight, the very sink of the East coast.

Stanley Portal Hyatt