Chapter 70 Mombasa
March 11, 1867.
Mombasa is the only port in East Africa that is as famous as Dar es Salaam. It was built by Arabs in the 11th century.
Now with the signing of the Treaty of Zanzibar, Mombasa, the second most important port of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, has also fallen into the hands of the East African colonies. In order to improve the operational capacity of the Port of Mombasa, the East African colonial government has begun to transform the port's infrastructure.
Today, the highest temperature in Mombasa is 33 degrees Celsius and the lowest temperature is 22 degrees Celsius.
It is still a bit stuffy when working at the port during the day, but it is still within the bearable range.
Colonial soldiers were directing black slaves to push wheelbarrows to transport sand and gravel to and from the port area. The dredging of the port area was also done entirely by black slaves.
All these black slaves were assets of the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Because the colonial handover had not yet been completed, they were temporarily requisitioned by the East African colonies.
Apart from the soldiers and black slaves who supervised the transformation of the port, most of the rest were Chinese workers and immigrants from the Austrian Empire.
In order to renovate and repair Mombasa, an important port city, the Mombasa government in the East African colony has taken out its most valuable cement.
Currently, cement for the colonies is still shipped from Europe by ship, so the quantity is limited.
On the dock, Mitrovic, an Austrian immigrant, was directing his workers to build the buildings on the dock.
Mitrovic was a Yugoslav farmer from the southern part of the Austrian Empire. The good thing about this guy was that he had attended school for two years and had participated in the construction of a church in his hometown, so he was appointed as a foreman by the Mombasa colonial government to direct the workers in the construction.
Nowadays, farmers themselves have some skills, so some repairs are no problem for them. After all, the one or two dilapidated houses in the family can usually be passed down for four or five generations.
Therefore, cement, a new thing that the Chinese workers had never come into contact with before, was quickly mastered by the Austrian immigrants as long as they took the lead in demonstrating. It was just a matter of changing from mixing mud to mixing cement.
Several workers used iron bars to pry off the loose and rotten bricks and stones, and even some rammed earth foundations.
The staff nearby shoveled the knocked-off bricks, stones and debris onto the wheelbarrow with shovels. After the whole cart was full, it was pushed to the shore and dumped onto a temporary pile of earth. These waste materials may be used to pave the road later.
"Here, we have to build it half a meter deep," Mitrovic said to the workers.
He held the ruler, with the body facing outwards, and used his hand perpendicular to the body to cut off the mark at half a meter, drawing the attention of the Chinese workers.
"So, do you understand?" Mitrovic said.
This is the disadvantage of language barriers. Communication between the two sides requires a lot of body language. Although both parties know some German, it is not much.
Many immigrants from the Austrian Empire could speak German, but more only knew the local dialect of the Austrian Empire and only knew one or two sentences of German, which they might have heard and learned from the ruling nobles.
Chinese immigrants also received German education, mostly in temporary classes run by the colonies that taught some simple vocabulary and phrases.
However, there was not enough time, and there was no environment for applying German. After all, except for the German mercenaries, the early immigrants were basically all Chinese, and there was no place for the German language. Even students from the Hechingen Military Academy were responsible for translation work.
However, the recruitment of workers in the East African colonies was not random. They made full use of this point. Only old immigrants who also knew a little German were qualified to work in the colonies.
So the Austrian Imperial immigrants and Chinese immigrants working in Mombasa know some German, but not much.
In the colonies, the number of workers was quite small, but from the moment they left the fields, the status of Chinese immigrants was improved.
At present, there are more soldiers in East African colonies than workers, and more workers than farmers. Only those who know German (at least a little) can become workers and soldiers, otherwise they can just farm the land honestly.
The Chinese workers had reached at least the same stage as those of the Austrian Empire's immigrants who continued to work in agriculture, as reflected in their wages.
The immigrants of the Austrian Empire are not fools. If they can't get the benefits, it's hard to satisfy them with just a full meal.
They may not have the ability to resist the colonies, but they still have the courage to fight for their legitimate rights and interests.
After all, when they boarded the ship to the East African colonies, they still had a glimmer of yearning for a better life in their hearts.
The East African colonial government did not disappoint the Austrian immigrants. Although the money was little, it was stable. Moreover, there were almost no entertainment venues in East Africa at present, so they had nowhere to spend the money. Over time, the money saved would be considerable.
Of course, the colonial government has now begun to use the accounting system. After all, the East African colonial government cannot print money, so the currency in the hands of immigrants is "virtual".
When they needed it, they could withdraw money from the Hechingen Bank through the account book, but this method was only used by German mercenaries.
German mercenaries only came to East Africa to make money. Strictly speaking, they were not immigrants, so their families were in Europe, and they could also keep in touch with their families in Europe, but it took some time. Sometimes when their families needed money, they could advance their wages through the Hechingen Bank and send them to their families.
…
By dusk, more than half of the Mombasa Port had been rebuilt.
After all, there are not many products worth selling in Africa, so the cargo volume is not large, so the scale of the Port of Mombasa is not large in the world.
At most, they had some status in their small piece of land in Africa, which was why the colonial repair work progressed so quickly.
Of course, the use of slaves also played an important role. Mombasa is currently in the handover stage, and the local residents of the Sultanate of Zanzibar have not yet completely withdrawn, so the slaves looted from Uganda and other places have been temporarily requisitioned by the colonial government.
Once the ship was empty, the East African colonial government packed up the black slaves and the residents of the Sultanate of Zanzibar and sent them to Zanzibar Island.
Due to Sultan Majid's stupidity in his later years, the Port of Mombasa fell into disrepair, silt accumulated, and its transportation capacity was greatly reduced.
The most important industry in the East African colonies at present is agriculture, and food, as a bulk commodity, requires a huge amount of transportation.
Not to mention immigrants, machinery, and the docking of merchant ships from various countries, all of which required the East African colonies to prepare more excellent ports.
Africa is a continent that lacks good ports, so it is necessary to make use of the existing ports.
The Bagamoyo Port is also currently under construction. By then, the East African colonies will have four excellent ports, namely Dar es Salaam, Bagamoyo, Tanga and Mombasa, which will greatly solve the transportation capacity problem.
After the renovation of Mombasa, the port road was doubled and paved with a thick layer of gravel and construction waste.
The dock was reinforced and widened, unreasonable structures were demolished, safety hazards were gradually checked, and old facilities were replaced.
The shipping capacity of the Port of Mombasa will now be about 1.5 times that before the transformation, making it the northernmost important port in the current East African colony.
Mombasa will replace the Port of Dar es Salaam and the Port of Tanga. After the opening of the Suez Canal in the future, it will take on the task of receiving merchant ships from Europe and Asia and become the most important port with the largest shipping volume in East Africa in the future.
(End of this chapter)
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