There can be no better introduction to the character of colonial rule in Malawi than the view from the lip of Zomba plateau looking down on the old colonial capital. In the distance, nearly 50 miles away, rears Mulanje Mountain, a rocky massif divided from its neighbour Mchesa by the Fort Lister Gap, a pass used by slave traders in the late nineteenth century. Further to the south, on the road to Blantyre, looms the jutting eminence of Chiradzulu and, closer to Zomba, the small hill known as Magomero, once the site of the headquarters of A.L. Bruce's Magomero estate, the epicentre of the 1915 Chilembwe Rising. To the north lies Lake Chilwa, a shallow, saline expanse of water, 800 square miles in extent when water levels are high but, on occasions, shrinking to a cluster of pools. Beneath the mountain, the town of Zomba is so overhung with trees as to be only partly visible. Despite the rash of new buildings that have extended its boundaries in all directions, the physical contours of the colonial capital are easy to detect. To the right, on the road to Blantyre, stands the neat army barracks, originally constructed in 1895 with, alongside it, the King's African Rifles Memorial from the First World War and the notorious Zomba prison. Directly below, obscured by trees, is Government House (now one of the Malawi President's numerous State Houses), constructed in stages between 1898 and 1905 and the residence of successive Governors.