São Tomé e Principe - Ports and Shipping
San Thome had several ports capable of sheltering vessels of modest ocean-going dimensions. The Bay of Anna de Chaves, round which the town of San Thome was built, was the principal port of call by reason of its trade and harbor f acilities. It suffered, however, from the disadvantage of exposure to hurricanes from the north-east during the months of January to March. The bay is semicircular in form, and the distance between its south-eastern and its north-western horn is slightly over 2 kilometers. The fort and lighthouse of San Sebastiao were on the former point, and a redoubt known as San Joao occupies the latter, while the Customs pier runs from the shore at the center of the bay. The bottom, which is sandy, shelves uniformly from a depth of about 2 metres at the pier to 7 metres at the entrance of the bay. Thus the pier and wharves were accessible only to small boats, launches, and lighters. Ocean-going steamers preferred to anchor opposite the fort, where there was a depth of 7 meters close in to the shore, and the lighthouse pier is more accessible. Both piers had the usual equipment of cranes and rails for wagons.
A better anchorage is that of the Angra de San Joao, near the village of Santa Cruz, 20 miles to the south; but during the Colonial period this was of little use, because suitable land communication was not available. San Miguel, a natural harbor, defended by two or three islets, lies on the west coast of the island of San Thome, almost on the same parallel as the Angra de San Joao. It was surveyed in 1892 by Commander Pinto Basto of the Portuguese gunboat Limpo Po, who brought his ship in and cast anchor in 4 fathoms not far from its inner shore. He described it as a deep bay well protected from the west, with a bottom of fine dark sand, and a width of about a qnarter of a nautical mile. This bay might come to more prominent notice if the projected railway across the island reached it, but that did not happen.
There was a man-of-war roadstead to the north of San Thome island, opposite Morro Peixe, about a mile off shore, which, as compared with the Bay of Anna de Chaves, had the advantage that the north-eastern gales blow clear out to sea and not directly on the shore. It had a sandy bottom at 7 fathoms.
Principe was better off than San Thome in the matter of harbors, a fact which doubtless weighed with the Portuguese when they transferred the seat of government to the former island in 1735, and kept it there for the following century. The Bay of Santo Antonio, in the north-eastern section of the island, gave complete shelter from all prevailing winds except the northeastern gales. This natural harbor opens out to a width of 2 kilometers between Points Capitao and Praia Salgada, north and south respectively, but had no great depth of water, and contains some sand-banks. Good anchorage is available between the outermost points, on a bottom of stiff tenacious clay, in 6 to 7 fathoms of water ; farther in was still better shelter in 4-5 fathoms between Ponta da Mina and the island of Santa Anna do Roque.
The ports of San Thome and Santo Antonio do Principe served the entire needs of their respective islands, the other harbors being merely private landing-places for the estates and villages in their vicinity. These ports were visited in 1911 by 123 merchant vessels of 317,908 tons, and in 1914 by 133 merchant vessels of 421,381 tons. The San Thome harbors were visited weeltly by a small steamer of 300 tons burden belonging to the Empreza Nacional de Navgacao, later (in 1918) reconstructed under the style of the Companhia Nacional de Navegacao. This Lisbon shipping company did most of the coasting and European trade of Portuguese Africa. The only direct and regular communication between San Thome and Principe was by the slow boats of the Companlua Nacional on their fortnightly voyages to and from Portugal. These vessels on their outward journey took cargo from the islands to Cabinda, Santo Antonio do Zaire, Ambriz, and Porto Alexandre, and on their return voyage cargo for Praia de San Thiago and Funchal.
Communication between Fernando Po and Santo Antonio do Principe was maintained by a small steamer of the Compania Trasatlantica de Barcelona, timed to connect with the outward and homeward vessels of the Compannia Nacional, to and from which it trans-shipped passengers and mail. Before the Great War, vessels of Elder, Dempster & Co. and the Woermann Linie used to call at San Thome, thus linking up the colony with Liverpool and Hamburg respectively.
The Companhia Nacional de Navegacao occupied a privileged position as regards the export trade of the islands, and to a less extent as regards their import trade also, in consequence of the legal fiction by which the navigation of the Portuguese West African colonies was treated as coasting trade, so as to exclude all but vessels under the national flag and make Lisbon an exclusive entrepot for the colonial produce. In practice, since there was no competing Portuguese line, this meant a monopoly for the Companhia Nacional. A further restriction arose from the operation of the tariff, which, by imposing heavy extra export duties on goods carried in foreign vessels, made unprofitable any attempt to open up a direct trade between the colony and a foreign country. As a result, while a certain number of vessels brought cargo for the islands from foreign ports, few if any foreign vessels ever obtained homeward cargo there.
For some years before the Great War, the carrying power of the Companihia Nacional de Navegacao had been found inadequate to Portuguese colonial requirements; and, as the trade of San Thome ranked third in order of importance, this colony had taken an active part in agitating for the removal of restrictions. After Germany's declaration of war upon Portugal, the arguments employed were reinforced by the fact that several vessels of the line had been tak:en over for military transport work:, reducing the sailings in number and regularity. Meanwhile, a new shipping company, projected to utilize the available vessels of the German interned fleet seized by Portugal in 1916, announced its main object to be transatlantic trade with Brazil, rather than service in the interests of the Portuguese African colonies.
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