PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA : LOURENÇO MARQUEZ. 
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quez warehouses, which will he the only ones treated in this report. 
The government bonded warehouses here are dilapidated structures, 
called “ King’s warehouses;” but they are little used, and will soon 
be pulled down to make room for an elaborate system of warehouses 
that are still in the paper stage. The private bonded warehouses 
are scattered all over the town, as all the leading merchants and for 
warding agents have one or more. It is impossible to give a detailed 
account of the dimensions of these warehouses, many of which are 
flimsy structures of spruce and corrugated iron, as they belong to 
scores of different owners, and an inspection of them would take days. 
The warehouse service here is very simple. Forty-eight hours 
after the clearance of any vessel all of the cargo that* she had landed 
in this port that has not been cleared or dispatched by the consignees 
or their agents must go into bond. This rule was made to prevent 
congestion of the docks, and, although local importers do not like it, 
1 think that it is a very good rule indeed. The government by high 
charges—17^ cents per ton per day—discourages the use of its lim 
ited customs warehouses for the storage of goods in bond, and prac 
tically all bonded goods go into private warehouses. The forward 
ing agents also discourage the use of bonded warehouses, preferring 
to have their clients take immediate delivery of their shipments and 
bond them if necessary in the Transvaal. 
When it is necessary to store goods in bond here, in a forwarding 
agent's store, the charges per ton are as follows: Receiving goods 
from ships' slings, $1.95; cartage and porterage when entering or 
leaving warehouses, 70 cents; warehouse rent, per month, 00 cents. 
Private warehouses are not taxed by the customs, a small registra 
tion fee, covering cost of revenue stamps, etc., on the documents, 
being charged. The doors of these warehouses have double locks, 
the proprietors retaining one set of keys and the customs authorities 
the other set. Duplicate warehouse books are kept, and there are 
occasional inspections, but there is no very strict supervision, the 
owners being put upon their honor. When discrepancies appear, 
however, the customs authorities are very severe, and, to my knowl 
edge, have a number of times inflicted fines of £1,000 ($R866) for 
such things. 
The custom-house furnishes no guards, nor the municipality any 
police protection, for these bonded warehouses. If thieves break in 
and steal, the unforutnate owner not only loses his goods, but the cus 
toms authorities make him pay duty on the stolen goods and, besides, 
inflict upon him a heavy fine. On account of the chicanery that went 
on here in the old days, and which has been described bv Mr. P. Bige 
low in one of his writings, the customs people will take no chances 
when the robbery of a bonded store is reported to them. “ How do 
we know,” they will say, “ that the owner himself did not perpetrate 
the robbery?” Thus it often happens that an innocent and upright 
merchant has to suffer not only the loss of his goods that have been 
stolen from his bonded store, but he must also lose to the customs the 
unpaid duties on the stolen goods and pay a heavy fine in the bargain. 
The whole customs bonded system.may be said to be run in a 
loose, happy-go-lucky way, the customs authorities taking little 
precaution, the municipal authorities giving poor police and fire 
protection, and the Government relying upon its system of heavy 
18762—05 13