192 
WAREHOUSES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 
which are in the outskirts of the town. In these eases the charges 
are made on the package and not on the tonnage. For instance, 
petroleum, on a case of 65 pounds, pays for handling 6 cents, and 6 
cents per month for storage and one-half per cent insurance on the 
declared value. The same rule applies to each package, barrel, keg, 
demijohn, drum, or jar, or whatever receptacle contains other dan 
gerous substances, such as ether, collodion, sulphur, etc., provided 
each does not weigh more than 80 pounds or measure more than 12 
gallons. These are the maximum weight and measure of what is 
allowed to be considered a unit. If, as is often the case, packages 
of such articles as coal tar, saltpeter, and nitrate of soda exceed the 
limit, then they pay the above charges on every 80 pounds or frac 
tion thereof. 
A third special tariff concerns certain supplementary operations 
carried out at the express request of the parties interested. These 
comprise (1) unstoring goods, (2) weighing and measuring, (3) 
re-storing, (4) presentation of goods for verification by customs, (5) 
marking, (6) repairing broken cases, (7) cooperage of leaking 
casks, (8) bunging and unbunging barrels, (9) filling up casks that 
have leaked, (10) tare, (11) removing samples from cases for trade 
purposes, and (12) declaration of invoices at the customs. 
All these services are rendered at nominal rates of from 5 to 
25 cents per case, barrel, etc., handled, with the exception of the 
declaration of invoices, which is charged 87 cents when the goods 
are of French origin, and $1.45 when other than French. This is 
the only instance in which any distinction is made between nation 
alities, but this affects the nationality of the goods and not of the 
merchants, who are all treated alike. The entire scale of charges, 
of which the above is a brief synopsis, will be found in the printed 
tariff already alluded to as having been forwarded. 
The classes of goods stored include every article and commodity 
that comes to Madagascar, but Americans have had no occasion to 
make use of these warehouses since their establishment. Goods 
rarely remain in bond more than two months, and for the most part 
are cleared within fifteen days. 
Customs officials virtually control the whole establishment, and, 
as there is a very large staff, the strictest supervision is exercised in 
every branch of the service. The custom-house officials here are, 
moreover, a very efficient body of men, and every care is used by 
them for the most rapid dispatch of business in the interests of 
merchants of all nationalities, without distinction. 
William H. Hunt, Consul. 
Tamatave, Madagascar, July 27, 1904. 
PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA. 
LOURENÇO MARQUEZ. 
(From United States Consul Hollis, Lourenço Marquez, Portuguese East Africa. ) 
The bonded warehouses in Lourenço Marquez and in the other 
leading ports of this province are of two kinds, government and pri 
vate, and they are all managed very much as are the Lourenço Mar-