Chapter 157: Windmill Mills
Karatu, the capital of the Northern Highlands District.
A tall windmill started its work. With a gentle breeze stirring, its huge wooden blades slowly began to turn, and the wooden blades and drive shaft gave off squeaking sounds.
The technicians climbed down from the spiral staircase. A massive wooden gear was fixed high inside the windmill, and as the blades outside spun, the gear and other parts in the windmill also revolved. The giant wooden gear's motion was clearly visible.
"All right. From today on, this windmill mill can begin operating!" After letting the windmill run for a while, the technician announced to Karatu's residents.
This windmill mill is essentially a microcosm of the Dutch windmills they had planned to introduce. Currently, the colony has built quite a few windmills, most for water drawing and irrigation. This is the first one intended to power a mill.
"Seeing this windmill makes me feel like the East African colony is about the same as my old home in Bavaria!" said one Bavarian immigrant.
His hometown had had a windmill at the village entrance, where everyone went to grind their flour, so it left a strong impression. But comparing a Bavarian village to the capital of an East African district was quite amusing—perfectly illustrating that East Africa, in reality, is basically one big countryside.
At present, only those few coastal port cities and the very first town could compare with some smaller European towns.
"Let's throw in some wheat and see how it goes," the technician suggested.
Two people poured half a sack of wheat into the hopper above the millstone while the operator managed the ropes controlling the windmill's stones. The mill came to life, turning the grindstone. Wheat gathered toward the millstone's center, slowly swallowed up by the rotating stones. As the stone ground on, the once granular wheat became powder, bran and all, forming a yellowish, rough flour.
"All working fine. This windmill mill should basically handle local flour milling needs," the technician declared.
"That's it? Just put it in, and out comes flour?" a Chinese immigrant asked in surprise.
"Of course. Where I'm from, that's exactly how we do it. It's just that lately in the cities, people have been using steam-powered milling factories—on a large scale, producing higher-quality flour. So most city folk buy factory-made flour, but we in the countryside still rely on windmills," explained an immigrant from Bavaria.
Most Chinese immigrants had used hand- or animal-powered stone grinders, so a wind-driven mill was a curiosity.
"I saw how it can pump water by the river, so that already seemed impressive. I didn't realize it could do this too," the Chinese immigrant remarked.
With more Germans arriving and progress in adult education, many Chinese in East Africa can now speak simple German to converse with European settlers.
"I've only ever seen a windmill that served as a flour mill. In Germany, windmills for irrigation are rare," noted the Bavarian settler.
At that point, the technician chimed in: "When it comes to windmills, we Dutch are definitely second to none. They used to be our primary power source—draining water, making paper, food processing, driving machinery… We even reclaimed lots of land from the sea using windmills. But now that steam engines are widely employed, windmills aren't as important."
"You used windmills to snatch land from the sea?"
"Yes. Holland is a low-lying country bordering the sea. Back then, much of our land lay under ocean or marsh. We built dikes, then used windmills to pump out water from inside the dikes. That's how we got more farmland and living space," the Dutch technician said proudly.
To the Chinese and Bavarian immigrants, most of whom had only known small villages in their homelands, such feats seemed unimaginable. A few had indeed seen the sea only once—when they sailed out as immigrants. Until then, they had never left their villages.
"I've seen the sea once in my life, drifting in that boat. The sea seemed so vast, yet you Dutch still managed to reclaim land from it. Impressive!" said the Bavarian immigrant sincerely.
The Dutch technician reveled in their admiration. He himself had a limited education, but by knowing how to build windmills, he'd found employment in the East African colony. Yet next to these unworldly Chinese and German bumpkins, he felt quite superior.
In truth, East Africa does operate a flour factory in Bagamoyo, but that factory's product is mainly exported to Europe, rather than meeting local milling needs. Thus in every East African village or town, people still must handle their own grain processing. Previously, they depended heavily on manual labor; at first there hadn't even been enough millstones. Later, after the colony annexed the Sultanate of Zanzibar, they took over a few stoneworks, organized labor to manufacture millstones, and finally solved that problem.
As for animal-powered mills, the colony lacked enough livestock. What draft animals existed often had to pull wagons or serve the army. Hence many places had nothing but natives harnessed as if they were beasts of burden. But natives too are valued labor—needed for roadworks, digging canals, and the colony carefully controls their population. They're not exactly abundant.
Hence the new wave of windmills across East Africa at least frees more natives for other tasks. Once built, a windmill can operate for a long time; properly maintained, it can last a decade or more. More modern steam engines remain far too expensive and difficult to popularize, whereas a windmill's materials can be locally produced—such as the sails made from the colony's unsold sisal cloth, or the stone and wood that are all but limitless.
And windmills aren't even considered backward. Europe and America still use them widely, for steam engines remain costly. In America's Westward expansion, farmers also put up windmills for water supply—a hallmark of the old American farms. The difference is that those wealthy Americans often incorporate metal parts into their windmills, even metal blades, thanks to their larger steel output. East Africa can't manage that yet.
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