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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Zambesi Expedition by David Livingstone
+#2 in our series by David Livingstone
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+A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the
+Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of the
+Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa (1858-1864)
+
+by David Livingstone
+
+February, 2001 [Etext #2519]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Zambesi Expedition by David Livingstone
+******This file should be named zambs10.txt or zambs10.zip******
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+
+
+A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF DR. LIVINGSTONE'S EXPEDITION TO THE
+ZAMBESI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES AND THE DISCOVERY OF LAKES
+SHIRWA AND NYASSA 1858-1864
+
+
+
+
+TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD PALMERSTON,
+K.G., G.C.B.
+
+My Lord,
+
+I beg leave to dedicate this Volume to your Lordship, as a tribute
+justly due to the great Statesman who has ever had at heart the
+amelioration of the African race; and as a token of admiration of the
+beneficial effects of that policy which he has so long laboured to
+establish on the West Coast of Africa; and which, in improving that
+region, has most forcibly shown the need of some similar system on
+the opposite side of the Continent.
+
+DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
+
+
+
+NOTICE TO THIS WORK.
+
+
+
+The name of the late Mr. Charles Livingstone takes a prominent place
+amongst those who acted under the leadership of Dr. Livingstone
+during the adventurous sojourn of the "Zambesi Expedition" in East
+Africa.  In laying the result of their discoveries before the public,
+it was arranged that Mr. Charles Livingstone should place his
+voluminous notes at the disposal of his brother:  they are
+incorporated in the present work, but in a necessarily abridged form.
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+
+It has been my object in this work to give as clear an account as I
+was able of tracts of country previously unexplored, with their river
+systems, natural productions, and capabilities; and to bring before
+my countrymen, and all others interested in the cause of humanity,
+the misery entailed by the slave-trade in its inland phases; a
+subject on which I and my companions are the first who have had any
+opportunities of forming a judgment.  The eight years spent in
+Africa, since my last work was published, have not, I fear, improved
+my power of writing English; but I hope that, whatever my
+descriptions want in clearness, or literary skill, may in a measure
+be compensated by the novelty of the scenes described, and the
+additional information afforded on that curse of Africa, and that
+shame, even now, in the 19th century, of an European nation,--the
+slave-trade.
+
+I took the "Lady Nyassa" to Bombay for the express purpose of selling
+her, and might without any difficulty have done so; but with the
+thought of parting with her arose, more strongly than ever, the
+feeling of disinclination to abandon the East Coast of Africa to the
+Portuguese and slave-trading, and I determined to run home and
+consult my friends before I allowed the little vessel to pass from my
+hands.  After, therefore, having put two Ajawa lads, Chuma and
+Wakatani, to school under the eminent missionary the Rev. Dr. Wilson,
+and having provided satisfactorily for the native crew, I started
+homewards with the three white sailors, and reached London July 20th,
+1864.  Mr. and Mrs. Webb, my much-loved friends, wrote to Bombay
+inviting me, in the event of my coming to England, to make Newstead
+Abbey my headquarters, and on my arrival renewed their invitation:
+and though, when I accepted it, I had no intention of remaining so
+long with my kind-hearted generous friends, I stayed with them until
+April, 1865, and under their roof transcribed from my own and my
+brother's journal the whole of this present book.  It is with
+heartfelt gratitude I would record their unwearied kindness.  My
+acquaintance with Mr. Webb began in Africa, where he was a daring and
+successful hunter, and his continued friendship is most valuable
+because he has seen missionary work, and he would not accord his
+respect and esteem to me had he not believed that I, and my brethren
+also, were to be looked on as honest men earnestly trying to do our
+duty.
+
+The Government have supported the proposal of the Royal Geographical
+Society made by my friend Sir Roderick Murchison, and have united
+with that body to aid me in another attempt to open Africa to
+civilizing influences, and a valued private friend has given a
+thousand pounds for the same object.  I propose to go inland, north
+of the territory which the Portuguese in Europe claim, and endeavour
+to commence that system on the East which has been so eminently
+successful on the West Coast; a system combining the repressive
+efforts of H.M. cruisers with lawful trade and Christian Missions--
+the moral and material results of which have been so gratifying.  I
+hope to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river North of Cape Delgado,
+and, in addition to my other work, shall strive, by passing along the
+Northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the Southern end of Lake
+Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa.  In so
+doing, I have no wish to unsettle what with so much toil and danger
+was accomplished by Speke and Grant, but rather to confirm their
+illustrious discoveries.
+
+I have to acknowledge the obliging readiness of Lord Russell in
+lending me the drawings taken by the artist who was in the first
+instance attached to the Expedition.  These sketches, with
+photographs by Charles Livingstone and Dr. Kirk, have materially
+assisted in the illustrations.  I would also very sincerely thank my
+friends Professor Owen and Mr. Oswell for many valuable hints and
+other aid in the preparation of this volume.
+
+Newstead Abbey,
+April 16, 1865.
+
+
+
+
+THE ZAMBESI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+Objects of the Expedition--Personal Interest shown by Naval
+Authorities--Members of the Zambesi Expedition.
+
+When first I determined on publishing the narrative of my "Missionary
+Travels," I had a great misgiving as to whether the criticism my
+endeavours might provoke would be friendly or the reverse, more
+particularly as I felt that I had then been so long a sojourner in
+the wilderness, as to be quite a stranger to the British public.  But
+I am now in this, my second essay at authorship, cheered by the
+conviction that very many readers, who are personally unknown to me,
+will receive this narrative with the kindly consideration and
+allowances of friends; and that many more, under the genial
+influences of an innate love of liberty, and of a desire to see the
+same social and religious blessings they themselves enjoy,
+disseminated throughout the world, will sympathize with me in the
+efforts by which I have striven, however imperfectly, to elevate the
+position and character of our fellow-men in Africa.  This knowledge
+makes me doubly anxious to render my narrative acceptable to all my
+readers; but, in the absence of any excellence in literary
+composition, the natural consequence of my pursuits, I have to offer
+only a simple account of a mission which, with respect to the objects
+proposed to be thereby accomplished, formed a noble contrast to some
+of the earlier expeditions to Eastern Africa.  I believe that the
+information it will give, respecting the people visited and the
+countries traversed, will not be materially gainsaid by any future
+commonplace traveller like myself, who may be blest with fair health
+and a gleam of sunshine in his breast.  This account is written in
+the earnest hope that it may contribute to that information which
+will yet cause the great and fertile continent of Africa to be no
+longer kept wantonly sealed, but made available as the scene of
+European enterprise, and will enable its people to take a place among
+the nations of the earth, thus securing the happiness and prosperity
+of tribes now sunk in barbarism or debased by slavery; and, above
+all, I cherish the hope that it may lead to the introduction of the
+blessings of the Gospel.
+
+In order that the following narrative may be clearly understood, it
+is necessary to call to mind some things which took place previous to
+the Zambesi Expedition being sent out.  Most geographers are aware
+that, before the discovery of Lake Ngami and the well-watered country
+in which the Makololo dwell, the idea prevailed that a large part of
+the interior of Africa consisted of sandy deserts, into which rivers
+ran and were lost.  During my journey in 1852-6, from sea to sea,
+across the south intertropical part of the continent, it was found to
+be a well-watered country, with large tracts of fine fertile soil
+covered with forest, and beautiful grassy valleys, occupied by a
+considerable population; and one of the most wonderful waterfalls in
+the world was brought to light.  The peculiar form of the continent
+was then ascertained to be an elevated plateau, somewhat depressed in
+the centre, and with fissures in the sides by which the rivers
+escaped to the sea; and this great fact in physical geography can
+never be referred to without calling to mind the remarkable
+hypothesis by which the distinguished President of the Royal
+Geographical Society (Sir Roderick I. Murchison) clearly indicated
+this peculiarity, before it was verified by actual observation of the
+altitudes of the country and by the courses of the rivers.  New light
+was thrown on other portions of the continent by the famous travels
+of Dr. Barth, by the researches of the Church of England missionaries
+Krapf, Erkhardt, and Rebman, by the persevering efforts of Dr.
+Baikie, the last martyr to the climate and English enterprise, by the
+journey of Francis Galton, and by the most interesting discoveries of
+Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza by Captain Burton, and by
+Captain Speke, whose untimely end we all so deeply deplore.  Then
+followed the researches of Van der Decken, Thornton, and others; and
+last of all the grand discovery of the main source of the Nile, which
+every Englishman must feel an honest pride in knowing was
+accomplished by our gallant countrymen, Speke and Grant.  The
+fabulous torrid zone, of parched and burning sand, was now proved to
+be a well-watered region resembling North America in its fresh-water
+lakes, and India in its hot humid lowlands, jungles, ghauts, and cool
+highland plains.
+
+The main object of this Zambesi Expedition, as our instructions from
+Her Majesty's Government explicitly stated, was to extend the
+knowledge already attained of the geography and mineral and
+agricultural resources of Eastern and Central Africa--to improve our
+acquaintance with the inhabitants, and to endeavour to engage them to
+apply themselves to industrial pursuits and to the cultivation of
+their lands, with a view to the production of raw material to be
+exported to England in return for British manufactures; and it was
+hoped that, by encouraging the natives to occupy themselves in the
+development of the resources of the country, a considerable advance
+might be made towards the extinction of the slave-trade, as they
+would not be long in discovering that the former would eventually be
+a more certain source of profit than the latter.  The Expedition was
+sent in accordance with the settled policy of the English Government;
+and the Earl of Clarendon, being then at the head of the Foreign
+Office, the Mission was organized under his immediate care.  When a
+change of Government ensued, we experienced the same generous
+countenance and sympathy from the Earl of Malmesbury, as we had
+previously received from Lord Clarendon; and, on the accession of
+Earl Russell to the high office he has so long filled, we were always
+favoured with equally ready attention and the same prompt assistance.
+Thus the conviction was produced that our work embodied the
+principles, not of any one party, but of the hearts of the statesmen
+and of the people of England generally.  The Expedition owes great
+obligations to the Lords of the Admiralty for their unvarying
+readiness to render us every assistance in their power; and to the
+warm-hearted and ever-obliging hydrographer to the Admiralty, the
+late Admiral Washington, as a subordinate, but most effective agent,
+our heartfelt gratitude is also due; and we must ever thankfully
+acknowledge that our efficiency was mainly due to the kind services
+of Admirals Sir Frederick Grey, Sir Baldwin Walker, and all the naval
+officers serving under them on the East Coast.  Nor must I omit to
+record our obligations to Mr. Skead, R.N.  The Luawe was carefully
+sounded and surveyed by this officer, whose skilful and zealous
+labours, both on that river, and afterwards on the Lower Zambesi,
+were deserving of all praise.
+
+In speaking of what has been done by the Expedition, it should always
+be understood that Dr. Kirk, Mr. Charles Livingstone, Mr. R.
+Thornton, and others composed it.  In using the plural number they
+are meant, and I wish to bear testimony to the untiring zeal, energy,
+courage, and perseverance with which my companions laboured;
+undaunted by difficulties, dangers, or hard fare.  It is my firm
+belief that, were their services required in any other capacity, they
+might be implicitly relied on to perform their duty like men.  The
+reason why Dr. Kirk's name does not appear on the title-page of this
+narrative is, because it is hoped that he may give an account of the
+botany and natural history of the Expedition in a separate work from
+his own pen.  He collected above four thousand species of plants,
+specimens of most of the valuable woods, of the different native
+manufactures, of the articles of food, and of the different kinds of
+cotton from every spot we visited, and a great variety of birds and
+insects; besides making meteorological observations, and affording,
+as our instructions required, medical assistance to the natives in
+every case where he could be of any use.
+
+Charles Livingstone was also fully occupied in his duties in
+following out the general objects of our mission, in encouraging the
+culture of cotton, in making many magnetic and meteorological
+observations, in photographing so long as the materials would serve,
+and in collecting a large number of birds, insects, and other objects
+of interest.  The collections, being Government property, have been
+forwarded to the British Museum, and to the Royal Botanic, Gardens at
+Kew; and should Dr. Kirk undertake their description, three or four
+years will be required for the purpose.
+
+Though collections were made, it was always distinctly understood
+that, however desirable these and our explorations might be, "Her
+Majesty's Government attached more importance to the moral influence
+that might be exerted on the minds of the natives by a well-regulated
+and orderly household of Europeans setting an example of consistent
+moral conduct to all who might witness it; treating the people with
+kindness, and relieving their wants, teaching them to make
+experiments in agriculture, explaining to them the more simple arts,
+imparting to them religious instruction as far as they are capable of
+receiving it, and inculcating peace and good will to each other."
+
+It would be tiresome to enumerate in detail all the little acts which
+were performed by us while following out our instructions.  As a
+rule, whenever the steamer stopped to take in wood, or for any other
+purpose, Dr. Kirk and Charles Livingstone went ashore to their
+duties:  one of our party, who it was intended should navigate the
+vessel and lay down the geographical positions, having failed to
+answer the expectations formed of him, these duties fell chiefly to
+my share.  They involved a considerable amount of night work, in
+which I was always cheerfully aided by my companions, and the results
+were regularly communicated to our warm and ever-ready friend, Sir
+Thomas Maclear of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope.  While
+this work was going through the press, we were favoured with the
+longitudes of several stations determined from observed occultations
+of stars by the moon, and from eclipses and reappearances of
+Jupiter's satellites, by Mr. Mann, the able Assistant to the Cape
+Astronomer Royal; the lunars are still in the hands of Mr. G. W. H.
+Maclear of the same Observatory.  In addition to these, the
+altitudes, variations of the compass, latitudes and longitudes, as
+calculated on the spot, appear in the map by Mr. Arrowsmith, and it
+is hoped may not differ much from the results of the same data in
+abler bands.  The office of "skipper," which, rather than let the
+Expedition come to a stand, I undertook, required no great ability in
+one "not too old to learn:" it saved a salary, and, what was much
+more valuable than gold, saved the Expedition from the drawback of
+any one thinking that he was indispensable to its further progress.
+The office required attention to the vessel both at rest and in
+motion.  It also involved considerable exposure to the sun; and to my
+regret kept me from much anticipated intercourse with the natives,
+and the formation of full vocabularies of their dialects.
+
+I may add that all wearisome repetitions are as much as possible
+avoided in the narrative; and, our movements and operations having
+previously been given in a series of despatches, the attempt is now
+made to give as fairly as possible just what would most strike any
+person of ordinary intelligence in passing through the country.  For
+the sake of the freshness which usually attaches to first
+impressions, the Journal of Charles Livingstone has been incorporated
+in the narrative; and many remarks made by the natives, which ho put
+down at the moment of translation, will convey to others the same
+ideas as they did to ourselves.  Some are no doubt trivial; but it is
+by the little acts and words of every-day life that character is
+truly and best known.  And doubtless many will prefer to draw their
+own conclusions from them rather than to be schooled by us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+Arrival at the Zambesi--Rebel Warfare--Wild Animals--Shupanga--
+Hippopotamus Hunters--The Makololo--Crocodiles.
+
+The Expedition left England on the 10th of March, 1858, in Her
+Majesty's Colonial Steamer "Pearl," commanded by Captain Duncan; and,
+after enjoying the generous hospitality of our friends at Cape Town,
+with the obliging attentions of Sir George Grey, and receiving on
+board Mr. Francis Skead, R.N., as surveyor, we reached the East Coast
+in the following May.
+
+Our first object was to explore the Zambesi, its mouths and
+tributaries, with a view to their being used as highways for commerce
+and Christianity to pass into the vast interior of Africa.  When we
+came within five or six miles of the land, the yellowish-green tinge
+of the sea in soundings was suddenly succeeded by muddy water with
+wrack, as of a river in flood.  The two colours did not intermingle,
+but the line of contact was as sharply defined as when the ocean
+meets the land.  It was observed that under the wrack--consisting of
+reeds, sticks, and leaves.--and even under floating cuttlefish bones
+and Portuguese "men-of-war" (Physalia), numbers of small fish screen
+themselves from the eyes of birds of prey, and from the rays of the
+torrid sun.
+
+We entered the river Luawe first, because its entrance is so smooth
+and deep, that the "Pearl," drawing 9 feet 7 inches, went in without
+a boat sounding ahead.  A small steam launch having been brought out
+from England in three sections on the deck of the "Pearl" was hoisted
+out and screwed together at the anchorage, and with her aid the
+exploration was commenced.  She was called the "Ma Robert," after
+Mrs. Livingstone, to whom the natives, according to their custom,
+gave the name Ma (mother) of her eldest son.  The harbour is deep,
+but shut in by mangrove swamps; and though the water a few miles up
+is fresh, it is only a tidal river; for, after ascending some seventy
+miles, it was found to end in marshes blocked up with reeds and
+succulent aquatic plants.  As the Luawe had been called "West Luabo,"
+it was supposed to be a branch of the Zambesi, the main stream of
+which is called "Luabo," or "East Luabo."  The "Ma Robert" and
+"Pearl" then went to what proved to be a real mouth of the river we
+sought.
+
+The Zambesi pours its waters into the ocean by four mouths, namely,
+the Milambe, which is the most westerly, the Kongone, the Luabo, and
+the Timbwe (or Muselo).  When the river is in flood, a natural canal
+running parallel with the coast, and winding very much among the
+swamps, forms a secret way for conveying slaves from Quillimane to
+the bays Massangano and Nameara, or to the Zambesi itself.  The
+Kwakwa, or river of Quillimane, some sixty miles distant from the
+mouth of the Zambesi, has long been represented as the principal
+entrance to the Zambesi, in order, as the Portuguese now maintain,
+that the English cruisers might be induced to watch the false mouth,
+while slaves were quietly shipped from the true one; and, strange to
+say, this error has lately been propagated by a map issued by the
+colonial minister of Portugal.
+
+After the examination of three branches by the able and energetic
+surveyor, Francis Skead, R.N., the Kongone was found to be the best
+entrance.  The immense amount of sand brought down by the Zambesi has
+in the course of ages formed a sort of promontory, against which the
+long swell of the Indian Ocean, beating during the prevailing winds,
+has formed bars, which, acting against the waters of the delta, may
+have led to their exit sideways.  The Kongone is one of those lateral
+branches, and the safest; inasmuch as the bar has nearly two fathoms
+on it at low water, and the rise at spring tides is from twelve to
+fourteen feet.  The bar is narrow, the passage nearly straight, and,
+were it buoyed and a beacon placed on Pearl Island, would always be
+safe to a steamer.  When the wind is from the east or north, the bar
+is smooth; if from the south and south-east, it has a heavy break on
+it, and is not to be attempted in boats.  A strong current setting to
+the east when the tide is flowing, and to the west when ebbing, may
+drag a boat or ship into the breakers.  If one is doubtful of his
+longitude and runs east, he will soon see the land at Timbwe
+disappear away to the north; and coming west again, he can easily
+make out East Luabo from its great size; and Kongone follows several
+miles west.  East Luabo has a good but long bar, and not to be
+attempted unless the wind be north-east or east.  It has sometimes
+been called "Barra Catrina," and was used in the embarkations of
+slaves.  This may have been the "River of Good Signs," of Vasco da
+Gama, as the mouth is more easily seen from the seaward than any
+other; but the absence of the pillar dedicated by that navigator to
+"St. Raphael," leaves the matter in doubt.  No Portuguese live within
+eighty miles of any mouth of the Zambesi.
+
+The Kongone is five miles east of the Milambe, or western branch, and
+seven miles west from East Luabo, which again is five miles from the
+Timbwe.  We saw but few natives, and these, by escaping from their
+canoes into the mangrove thickets the moment they caught sight of us,
+gave unmistakeable indications that they had no very favourable
+opinion of white men.  They were probably fugitives from Portuguese
+slavery.  In the grassy glades buffaloes, wart-hogs, and three kinds
+of antelope were abundant, and the latter easily obtained.  A few
+hours' hunting usually provided venison enough for a score of men for
+several days.
+
+On proceeding up the Kongone branch it was found that, by keeping
+well in the bends, which the current had worn deep, shoals were
+easily avoided.  The first twenty miles are straight and deep; then a
+small and rather tortuous natural canal leads off to the right, and,
+after about five miles, during which the paddles almost touch the
+floating grass of the sides, ends in the broad Zambesi.  The rest of
+the Kongone branch comes out of the main stream considerably higher
+up as the outgoing branch called Doto.
+
+The first twenty miles of the Kongone are enclosed in mangrove
+jungle; some of the trees are ornamented with orchilla weed, which
+appears never to have been gathered.  Huge ferns, palm bushes, and
+occasionally wild date-palms peer out in the forest, which consists
+of different species of mangroves; the bunches of bright yellow,
+though scarcely edible fruit, contrasting prettily with the graceful
+green leaves.  In some spots the Milola, an umbrageous hibiscus, with
+large yellowish flowers, grows in masses along the bank.  Its bark is
+made into cordage, and is especially valuable for the manufacture of
+ropes attached to harpoons for killing the hippopotamus.  The
+Pandanus or screw-palm, from which sugar bags are made in the
+Mauritius, also appears, and on coming out of the canal into the
+Zambesi many are so tall as in the distance to remind us of the
+steeples of our native land, and make us relish the remark of an old
+sailor, "that but one thing was wanting to complete the picture, and
+that was a 'grog-shop near the church.'"  We find also a few guava
+and lime-trees growing wild, but the natives claim the crops.  The
+dark woods resound with the lively and exultant song of the
+kinghunter (Halcyon striolata), as he sits perched on high among the
+trees.  As the steamer moves on through the winding channel, a pretty
+little heron or bright kingfisher darts out in alarm from the edge of
+the bank, flies on ahead a short distance, and settles quietly down
+to be again frightened off in a few seconds as we approach.  The
+magnificent fishhawk (Halietus vocifer) sits on the top of a
+mangrove-tree, digesting his morning meal of fresh fish, and is
+clearly unwilling to stir until the imminence of the danger compels
+him at last to spread his great wings for flight.  The glossy ibis,
+acute of ear to a remarkable degree, hears from afar the unwonted
+sound of the paddles, and, springing from the mud where his family
+has been quietly feasting, is off, screaming out his loud, harsh, and
+defiant Ha! ha! ha! long before the danger is near.
+
+Several native huts now peep out from the bananas and cocoa-palms on
+the right bank; they stand on piles a few feet above the low damp
+ground, and their owners enter them by means of ladders.  The soil is
+wonderfully rich, and the gardens are really excellent.  Rice is
+cultivated largely; sweet potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, cabbages,
+onions (shalots), peas, a little cotton, and sugar-cane are also
+raised.  It is said that English potatoes, when planted at Quillimane
+on soil resembling this, in the course of two years become in taste
+like sweet potatoes (Convolvulus batatas), and are like our potato
+frosted.  The whole of the fertile region extending from the Kongone
+canal to beyond Mazaro, some eighty miles in length, and fifty in
+breadth, is admirably adapted for the growth of sugar-cane; and were
+it in the hands of our friends at the Cape, would supply all Europe
+with sugar.  The remarkably few people seen appear to be tolerably
+well fed, but there was a dearth of clothing among them; all were
+blacks, and nearly all Portuguese "colonos" or serfs.  They
+manifested no fear of white men, and stood in groups on the bank
+gazing in astonishment at the steamers, especially at the "Pearl,"
+which accompanied us thus far up the river.  One old man who came on
+board remarked that never before had he seen any vessel so large as
+the "Pearl," it was like a village, "Was it made out of one tree?"
+All were eager traders, and soon came off to the ship in light swift
+canoes with every kind of fruit and food they possessed; a few
+brought honey and beeswax, which are found in quantities in the
+mangrove forests.  As the ships steamed off, many anxious sellers ran
+along the bank, holding up fowls, baskets of rice and meal, and
+shouting "Malonda, Malonda," "things for sale," while others followed
+in canoes, which they sent through the water with great velocity by
+means of short broad-bladed paddles.
+
+Finding the "Pearl's" draught too great for that part of the river
+near the island of Simbo, where the branch called the Doto is given
+off to the Kongone on the right bank, and another named Chinde
+departs to the secret canal already mentioned on the left, the goods
+belonging to the expedition were taken out of her, and placed on one
+of the grassy islands about forty miles from the bar.  The "Pearl"
+then left us, and we had to part with our good friends Duncan and
+Skead; the former for Ceylon, the latter to return to his duties as
+Government Surveyor at the Cape.
+
+Of those who eventually did the work of the expedition the majority
+took a sober common-sense view of the enterprise in which we were
+engaged.  Some remained on Expedition Island from the 18th June until
+the 13th August, while the launch and pinnace were carrying the goods
+up to Shupanga and Senna.  The country was in a state of war, our
+luggage was in danger, and several of our party were exposed to
+disease from inactivity in the malaria of the delta.  Here some had
+their first introduction to African life, and African fever.  Those
+alone were safe who were actively employed with the vessels, and of
+course, remembering the perilous position of their fellows, they
+strained every nerve to finish the work and take them away.
+
+Large columns of smoke rose daily from different points of the
+horizon, showing that the natives were burning off the immense crops
+of tall grass, here a nuisance, however valuable elsewhere.  A white
+cloud was often observed to rest on the head of the column, as if a
+current of hot damp air was sent up by the heat of the flames and its
+moisture was condensed at the top.  Rain did not follow, though
+theorists have imagined that in such cases it ought.
+
+Large game, buffaloes, and zebras, were abundant abreast the island,
+but no men could be seen.  On the mainland, over on the right bank of
+the river, we were amused by the eccentric gyrations and evolutions
+of flocks of small seed-eating birds, who in their flight wheeled
+into compact columns with such military precision as to give us the
+impression that they must be guided by a leader, and all directed by
+the same signal.  Several other kinds of small birds now go in
+flocks, and among others the large Senegal swallow.  The presence of
+this bird, being clearly in a state of migration from the north,
+while the common swallow of the country, and the brown kite are away
+beyond the equator, leads to the conjecture that there may be a
+double migration, namely, of birds from torrid climates to the more
+temperate, as this now is, as well as from severe winters to sunny
+regions; but this could not be verified by such birds of passage as
+ourselves.
+
+On reaching Mazaro, the mouth of a narrow creek which in floods
+communicates with the Quillimane river, we found that the Portuguese
+were at war with a half-caste named Mariano alias Matakenya, from
+whom they had generally fled, and who, having built a stockade near
+the mouth of the Shire, owned all the country between that river and
+Mazaro.  Mariano was best known by his native name Matakenya, which
+in their tongue means "trembling," or quivering as trees do in a
+storm.  He was a keen slave-hunter, and kept a large number of men,
+well armed with muskets.  It is an entire mistake to suppose that the
+slave trade is one of buying and selling alone; or that engagements
+can be made with labourers in Africa as they are in India; Mariano,
+like other Portuguese, had no labour to spare.  He had been in the
+habit of sending out armed parties on slave-hunting forays among the
+helpless tribes to the north-east, and carrying down the kidnapped
+victims in chains to Quillimane, where they were sold by his brother-
+in-law Cruz Coimbra, and shipped as "Free emigrants" to the French
+island of Bourbon.  So long as his robberies and murders were
+restricted to the natives at a distance, the authorities did not
+interfere; but his men, trained to deeds of violence and bloodshed in
+their slave forays, naturally began to practise on the people nearer
+at hand, though belonging to the Portuguese, and even in the village
+of Senna, under the guns of the fort.  A gentleman of the highest
+standing told us that, while at dinner with his family, it was no
+uncommon event for a slave to rush into the room pursued by one of
+Mariano's men with spear in hand to murder him.
+
+The atrocities of this villain, aptly termed by the late governor of
+Quillimane a "notorious robber and murderer," became at length
+intolerable.  All the Portuguese spoke of him as a rare monster of
+inhumanity.  It is unaccountable why half-castes, such as he, are so
+much more cruel than the Portuguese, but such is undoubtedly the
+case.
+
+It was asserted that one of his favourite modes of creating an
+impression in the country, and making his name dreaded, was to spear
+his captives with his own hands.  On one occasion he is reported to
+have thus killed forty poor wretches placed in a row before him.  We
+did not at first credit these statements, and thought that they were
+merely exaggerations of the incensed Portuguese, who naturally enough
+were exasperated with him for stopping their trade, and harbouring
+their runaway slaves; but we learned afterwards from the natives,
+that the accounts given us by the Portuguese had not exceeded the
+truth; and that Mariano was quite as great a ruffian as they had
+described him.  One expects slave-owners to treat their human
+chattels as well as men do other animals of value, but the slave-
+trade seems always to engender an unreasoning ferocity, if not blood-
+thirstiness.
+
+War was declared against Mariano, and a force sent to take him; he
+resisted for a time; but seeing that he was likely to get the worst
+of it, and knowing that the Portuguese governors have small salaries,
+and are therefore "disposed to be reasonable," he went down to
+Quillimane to "arrange" with the Governor, as it is termed here; but
+Colonel da Silva put him in prison, and then sent him for trial to
+Mozambique.  When we came into the country, his people were fighting
+under his brother Bonga.  The war had lasted six months and stopped
+all trade on the river during that period.  On the 15th June we first
+came into contact with the "rebels."  They appeared as a crowd of
+well-armed and fantastically-dressed people under the trees at
+Mazaro.  On explaining that we were English, some at once came on
+board and called to those on shore to lay aside their arms.  On
+landing among them we saw that many had the branded marks of slaves
+on their chests, but they warmly approved our objects, and knew well
+the distinctive character of our nation on the slave question.  The
+shout at our departure contrasted strongly with the suspicious
+questioning on our approach.  Hence-forward we were recognized as
+friends by both parties.
+
+At a later period we were taking in wood within a mile of the scene
+of action, but a dense fog prevented our hearing the noise of a
+battle at Mazaro; and on arriving there, immediately after, many
+natives and Portuguese appeared on the bank.
+
+Dr. Livingstone, landing to salute some of his old friends among the
+latter, found himself in the sickening smell, and among the mutilated
+bodies of the slain; he was requested to take the Governor, who was
+very ill of fever, across to Shupanga, and just as he gave his
+assent, the rebels renewed the fight, and the balls began to whistle
+about in all directions.  After trying in vain to get some one to
+assist the Governor down to the steamer, and unwilling to leave him
+in such danger, as the officer sent to bring our Kroomen did not
+appear, he went into the hut, and dragged along his Excellency to the
+ship.  He was a very tall man, and as he swayed hither and thither
+from weakness, weighing down Dr. Livingstone, it must have appeared
+like one drunken man helping another.  Some of the Portuguese white
+soldiers stood fighting with great bravery against the enemy in
+front, while a few were coolly shooting at their own slaves for
+fleeing into the river behind.  The rebels soon retired, and the
+Portuguese escaped to a sandbank in the Zambesi, and thence to an
+island opposite Shupanga, where they lay for some weeks, looking at
+the rebels on the mainland opposite.  This state of inactivity on the
+part of the Portuguese could not well be helped, as they had expended
+all their ammunition and were waiting anxiously for supplies; hoping,
+no doubt sincerely, that the enemy might not hear that their powder
+had failed.  Luckily their hopes were not disappointed; the rebels
+waited until a supply came, and were then repulsed after three-and-a-
+half hours' hard fighting.  Two months afterwards Mariano's stockade
+was burned, the garrison having fled in a panic; and as Bonga
+declared that he did not wish to fight with this Governor, with whom
+he had no quarrel, the war soon came to an end.  His Excellency
+meanwhile, being a disciple of Raspail, had taken nothing for the
+fever but a little camphor, and after he was taken to Shupanga became
+comatose.  More potent remedies were administered to him, to his
+intense disgust, and he soon recovered.  The Colonel in attendance,
+whom he never afterwards forgave, encouraged the treatment.  "Give
+what is right; never mind him; he is very (muito) impertinent:" and
+all night long, with every draught of water the Colonel gave a
+quantity of quinine:  the consequence was, next morning the patient
+was cinchonized and better.
+
+For sixty or seventy miles before reaching Mazaro, the scenery is
+tame and uninteresting.  On either hand is a dreary uninhabited
+expanse, of the same level grassy plains, with merely a few trees to
+relieve the painful monotony.  The round green top of the stately
+palm-tree looks at a distance, when its grey trunk cannot be seen, as
+though hung in mid-air.  Many flocks of busy sand-martins, which
+here, and as far south as the Orange River, do not migrate, have
+perforated the banks two or three feet horizontally, in order to
+place their nests at the ends, and are now chasing on restless wing
+the myriads of tropical insects.  The broad river has many low
+islands, on which are seen various kinds of waterfowl, such as geese,
+spoonbills, herons, and flamingoes.  Repulsive crocodiles, as with
+open jaws they sleep and bask in the sun on the low banks, soon catch
+the sound of the revolving paddles and glide quietly into the stream.
+The hippopotamus, having selected some still reach of the river to
+spend the day, rises out of the bottom, where he has been enjoying
+his morning bath after the labours of the night on shore, blows a
+puff of spray from his nostrils, shakes the water out of his ears,
+puts his enormous snout up straight and yawns, sounding a loud alarm
+to the rest of the herd, with notes as of a monster bassoon.
+
+As we approach Mazaro the scenery improves.  We see the well-wooded
+Shupanga ridge stretching to the left, and in front blue hills rise
+dimly far in the distance.  There is no trade whatever on the Zambesi
+below Mazaro.  All the merchandise of Senna and Tette is brought to
+that point in large canoes, and thence carried six miles across the
+country on men's heads to be reshipped on a small stream that flows
+into the Kwakwa, or Quillimane river, which is entirely distinct from
+the Zambesi.  Only on rare occasions and during the highest floods
+can canoes pass from the Zambesi to the Quillimane river through the
+narrow natural canal Mutu.  The natives of Maruru, or the country
+around Mazaro, the word Mazaro meaning the "mouth of the creek" Mutu,
+have a bad name among the Portuguese; they are said to be expert
+thieves, and the merchants sometimes suffer from their adroitness
+while the goods are in transit from one river to the other.  In
+general they are trained canoe-men, and man many of the canoes that
+ply thence to Senna and Tette; their pay is small, and, not trusting
+the traders, they must always have it before they start.  Africans
+being prone to assign plausible reasons for their conduct, like white
+men in more enlightened lands, it is possible they may be good-
+humouredly giving their reason for insisting on being invariably paid
+in advance in the words of their favourite canoe-song, "Uachingere,
+Uachingere Kale," "You cheated me of old;" or, "Thou art slippery
+slippery truly."
+
+The Landeens or Zulus are lords of the right bank of the Zambesi; and
+the Portuguese, by paying this fighting tribe a pretty heavy annual
+tribute, practically admit this.  Regularly every year come the Zulus
+in force to Senna and Shupanga for the accustomed tribute.  The few
+wealthy merchants of Senna groan under the burden, for it falls
+chiefly on them.  They submit to pay annually 200 pieces of cloth, of
+sixteen yards each, besides beads and brass wire, knowing that
+refusal involves war, which might end in the loss of all they
+possess.  The Zulus appear to keep as sharp a look out on the Senna
+and Shupanga people as ever landlord did on tenant; the more they
+cultivate, the more tribute they have to pay.  On asking some of them
+why they did not endeavour to raise certain highly profitable
+products, we were answered, "What's the use of our cultivating any
+more than we do? the Landeens would only come down on us for more
+tribute."
+
+In the forests of Shupanga the Mokundu-kundu tree abounds; its bright
+yellow wood makes good boat-masts, and yields a strong bitter
+medicine for fever; the Gunda-tree attains to an immense size; its
+timber is hard, rather cross-grained, with masses of silica deposited
+in its substance; the large canoes, capable of carrying three or four
+tons, are made of its wood.  For permission to cut these trees, a
+Portuguese gentleman of Quillimane was paying the Zulus, in 1858, two
+hundred dollars a year, and his successor now pays three hundred.
+
+At Shupanga, a one-storied stone house stands on the prettiest site
+on the river.  In front a sloping lawn, with a fine mango orchard at
+its southern end, leads down to the broad Zambesi, whose green
+islands repose on the sunny bosom of the tranquil waters.  Beyond,
+northwards, lie vast fields and forests of palm and tropical trees,
+with the massive mountain of Morambala towering amidst the white
+clouds; and further away more distant hills appear in the blue
+horizon.  This beautifully situated house possesses a melancholy
+interest from having been associated in a most mournful manner with
+the history of two English expeditions.  Here, in 1826, poor
+Kirkpatrick, of Captain Owen's Surveying Expedition, died of fever;
+and here, in 1862, died, of the same fatal disease, the beloved wife
+of Dr. Livingstone.  A hundred yards east of the house, under a large
+Baobab-tree, far from their native land, both are buried.
+
+The Shupanga-house was the head-quarters of the Governor during the
+Mariano war.  He told us that the province of Mosambique costs the
+Home Government between 5000l. and 6000l. annually, and East Africa
+yields no reward in return to the mother country.  We met there
+several other influential Portuguese.  All seemed friendly, and
+expressed their willingness to assist the expedition in every way in
+their power; and better still, Colonel Nunes and Major Sicard put
+their good-will into action, by cutting wood for the steamer and
+sending men to help in unloading.  It was observable that not one of
+them knew anything about the Kongone Mouth; all thought that we had
+come in by the "Barra Catrina," or East Luabo.  Dr. Kirk remained
+here a few weeks; and, besides exploring a small lake twenty miles to
+the south-west, had the sole medical care of the sick and wounded
+soldiers, for which valuable services he received the thanks of the
+Portuguese Government.  We wooded up at this place with African ebony
+or black wood, and lignum vitae; the latter tree attains an immense
+size, sometimes as much as four feet in diameter; our engineer,
+knowing what ebony and lignum vitae cost at home, said it made his
+heart sore to burn wood so valuable.  Though botanically different,
+they are extremely alike; the black wood as grown in some districts
+is superior, and the lignum vitae inferior in quality, to these
+timbers brought from other countries.  Caoutchouc, or India-rubber,
+is found in abundance inland from Shupanga-house, and calumba-root is
+plentiful in the district; indigo, in quantities, propagates itself
+close to the banks of the Aver, and was probably at some time
+cultivated, for manufactured indigo was once exported.  The India-
+rubber is made into balls for a game resembling "fives," and calumba-
+root is said to be used as a mordant for certain colours, but not as
+a dye itself.
+
+We started for Tette on the 17th August, 1858; the navigation was
+rather difficult, the Zambesi from Shupanga to Senna being wide and
+full of islands; our black pilot, John Scisssors, a serf, sometimes
+took the wrong channel and ran us aground.  Nothing abashed, he would
+exclaim in an aggrieved tone, "This is not the path, it is back
+yonder."  "Then why didn't you go yonder at first?" growled out our
+Kroomen, who had the work of getting the vessel off.  When they spoke
+roughly to poor Scissors, the weak cringing slave-spirit came forth
+in, "Those men scold me so, I am ready to run away."  This mode of
+finishing up an engagement is not at all uncommon on the Zambesi;
+several cases occurred, when we were on the river, of hired crews
+decamping with most of the goods in their charge.  If the trader
+cannot redress his own wrongs, he has to endure them.  The Landeens
+will not surrender a fugitive slave, even to his master.  One
+belonging to Mr. Azevedo fled, and was, as a great favour only,
+returned after a present of much more than his value.
+
+We landed to wood at Shamoara, just below the confluence of the
+Shire.  Its quartz hills are covered with trees and gigantic grasses;
+the buaze, a small forest-tree, grows abundantly; it is a species of
+polygala; its beautiful clusters of sweet-scented pinkish flowers
+perfume the air with a rich fragrance; its seeds produce a fine
+drying oil, and the bark of the smaller branches yields a fibre finer
+and stronger than flax; with which the natives make their nets for
+fishing.  Bonga, the brother of the rebel Mariano, and now at the
+head of the revolted natives, with some of his principal men came to
+see us, and were perfectly friendly, though told of our having
+carried the sick Governor across to Shupanga, and of our having cured
+him of fever.  On our acquainting Bonga with the object of the
+expedition, he remarked that we should suffer no hindrance from his
+people in our good work.  He sent us a present of rice, two sheep,
+and a quantity of firewood.  He never tried to make any use of us in
+the strife; the other side showed less confidence, by carefully
+cross-questioning our pilot whether we had sold any powder to the
+enemy.  We managed, however, to keep on good terms with both rebels
+and Portuguese.
+
+Senna is built on a low plain, on the right bank of the Zambesi, with
+some pretty detached hills in the background; it is surrounded by a
+stockade of living trees to protect its inhabitants from their
+troublesome and rebellious neighbours.  It contains a few large
+houses, some ruins of others, and a weather-beaten cross, where once
+stood a church; a mound shows the site of an ancient monastery, and a
+mud fort by the river is so dilapidated, that cows were grazing
+peacefully over its prostrate walls.
+
+The few Senna merchants, having little or no trade in the village,
+send parties of trusted slaves into the interior to hunt for and
+purchase ivory.  It is a dull place, and very conducive to sleep.
+One is sure to take fever in Senna on the second day, if by chance
+one escapes it on the first day of a sojourn there; but no place is
+entirely bad.  Senna has one redeeming feature:  it is the native
+village of the large-hearted and hospitable Senhor H. A. Ferrao.  The
+benevolence of this gentleman is unbounded.  The poor black stranger
+passing through the town goes to him almost as a matter of course for
+food, and is never sent away hungry.  In times of famine the starving
+natives are fed by his generosity; hundreds of his own people he
+never sees except on these occasions; and the only benefit derived
+from being their master is, that they lean on him as a patriarchal
+chief, and he has the satisfaction of settling their differences, and
+of saving their lives in seasons of drought and scarcity.
+
+Senhor Ferrao received us with his usual kindness, and gave us a
+bountiful breakfast.  During the day the principal men of the place
+called, and were unanimously of opinion that the free natives would
+willingly cultivate large quantities of cotton, could they find
+purchasers.  They had in former times exported largely both cotton
+and cloth to Manica and even to Brazil.  "On their own soil," they
+declared, "the natives are willing to labour and trade, provided only
+they can do so to advantage:  when it is for their interest, blacks
+work very hard."  We often remarked subsequently that this was the
+opinion of men of energy; and that all settlers of activity,
+enterprise, and sober habits had become rich, while those who were
+much addicted to lying on their backs smoking, invariably complained
+of the laziness of the negroes, and were poor, proud, and despicable.
+
+Beyond Pita lies the little island Nyamotobsi, where we met a small
+fugitive tribe of hippopotamus hunters, who had been driven by war
+from their own island in front.  All were busy at work; some were
+making gigantic baskets for grain, the men plaiting from the inside.
+With the civility so common among them the chief ordered a mat to be
+spread for us under a shed, and then showed us the weapon with which
+they kill the hippopotamus; it is a short iron harpoon inserted in
+the end of a long pole, but being intended to unship, it is made fast
+to a strong cord of milola, or hibiscus, bark, which is wound closely
+round the entire length of the shaft, and secured at its opposite
+end.  Two men in a swift canoe steal quietly down on the sleeping
+animal.  The bowman dashes the harpoon into the unconscious victim,
+while the quick steersman sweeps the light craft back with his broad
+paddle; the force of the blow separates the harpoon from its corded
+handle, which, appearing on the surface, sometimes with an inflated
+bladder attached, guides the hunters to where the wounded beast hides
+below until they despatch it.
+
+These hippopotamus hunters form a separate people, called Akombwi, or
+Mapodzo, and rarely--the women it is said never--intermarry with any
+other tribe.  The reason for their keeping aloof from certain of the
+natives on the Zambesi is obvious enough, some having as great an
+abhorrence of hippopotamus meat as Mahomedans have of swine's flesh.
+Our pilot, Scissors, was one of this class; he would not even cook
+his food in a pot which had contained hippopotamus meat, preferring
+to go hungry till he could find another; and yet he traded eagerly in
+the animal's tusks, and ate with great relish the flesh of the foul-
+feeding marabout.  These hunters go out frequently on long
+expeditions, taking in their canoes their wives and children,
+cooking-pots, and sleeping-mats.  When they reach a good game
+district, they erect temporary huts on the bank, and there dry the
+meat they have killed.  They are rather a comely-looking race, with
+very black smooth skins, and never disfigure themselves with the
+frightful ornaments of some of the other tribes.  The chief declined
+to sell a harpoon, because they could not now get the milola bark
+from the coast on account of Mariano's war.  He expressed some doubts
+about our being children of the same Almighty Father, remarking that
+"they could not become white, let them wash ever so much."  We made
+him a present of a bit of cloth, and he very generously gave us in
+return some fine fresh fish and Indian corn.
+
+The heat of the weather steadily increases during this month
+(August), and foggy mornings are now rare.  A strong breeze ending in
+a gale blows up stream every night.  It came in the afternoon a few
+weeks ago, then later, and at present its arrival is near midnight;
+it makes our frail cabin-doors fly open before it, but continues only
+for a short time, and is succeeded by a dead calm.  Game becomes more
+abundant; near our wooding-places we see herds of zebras, both
+Burchell's and the mountain variety, pallahs (Antelope melampus),
+waterbuck, and wild hogs, with the spoor of buffaloes and elephants.
+
+Shiramba Dembe, on the right bank, is deserted; a few old iron guns
+show where a rebel stockade once stood; near the river above this,
+stands a magnificent Baobab hollowed out into a good-sized hut, with
+bark inside as well as without.  The old oaks in Sherwood Forest,
+when hollow, have the inside dead or rotten; but the Baobab, though
+stripped of its bark outside, and hollowed to a cavity inside, has
+the power of exuding new bark from its substance to both the outer
+and inner surfaces; so, a hut made like that in the oak called the
+"Forest Queen," in Sherwood, would soon all be lined with bark.
+
+The portions of the river called Shigogo and Shipanga are bordered by
+a low level expanse of marshy country, with occasional clumps of
+palm-trees and a few thorny acacias.  The river itself spreads out to
+a width of from three to four miles, with many islands, among which
+it is difficult to navigate, except when the river is in flood.  In
+front, a range of high hills from the north-east crosses and
+compresses it into a deep narrow channel, called the Lupata Gorge.
+The Portuguese thought the steamer would not stem the current here;
+but as it was not more than about three knots, and as there was a
+strong breeze in our favour, steam and sails got her through with
+ease.  Heavy-laden canoes take two days to go up this pass.  A
+current sweeps round the little rocky promontories Chifura and
+Kangomba, forming whirlpools and eddies dangerous for the clumsy
+craft, which are dragged past with long ropes.
+
+The paddlers place meal on these rocks as an offering to the
+turbulent deities, which they believe preside over spots fatal to
+many a large canoe.  We were slily told that native Portuguese take
+off their hats to these river gods, and pass in solemn silence; when
+safely beyond the promontories, they fire muskets, and, as we ought
+to do, give the canoe-men grog.  From the spoor of buffaloes and
+elephants it appears that these animals frequent Lupata in
+considerable numbers, and--we have often observed the association--
+the tsetse fly is common.  A horse for the Governor of Tette was sent
+in a canoe from Quillimane; and, lest it should be wrecked on the
+Chifura and Kangomba rocks, it was put on shore and sent in the
+daytime through the pass.  It was of course bitten by the tsetse, and
+died soon after; it was thought that the AIR of Tette had not agreed
+with it.  The currents above Lupata are stronger than those below;
+the country becomes more picturesque and hilly, and there is a larger
+population.
+
+The ship anchored in the stream, off Tette, on the 8th September,
+1858, and Dr. Livingstone went ashore in the boat.  No sooner did the
+Makololo recognize him, than they rushed to the water's edge, and
+manifested great joy at seeing him again.  Some were hastening to
+embrace him, but others cried out, "Don't touch him, you will spoil
+his new clothes."  The five headmen came on board and listened in
+quiet sadness to the story of poor Sekwebu, who died at the Mauritius
+on his way to England.  "Men die in any country," they observed, and
+then told us that thirty of their own number had died of smallpox,
+having been bewitched by the people of Tette, who envied them
+because, during the first year, none of their party had died.  Six of
+their young men, becoming tired of cutting firewood for a meagre
+pittance, proposed to go and dance for gain before some of the
+neighbouring chiefs.  "Don't go," said the others, "we don't know the
+people of this country;" but the young men set out and visited an
+independent half-caste chief, a few miles to the north, named
+Chisaka, who some years ago burned all the Portuguese villas on the
+north bank of the river; afterwards the young men went to Bonga, son
+of another half-caste chief, who bade defiance to the Tette
+authorities, and had a stockade at the confluence of the Zambesi and
+Luenya, a few miles below that village.  Asking the Makololo whence
+they came, Bonga rejoined, "Why do you come from my enemy to me?  You
+have brought witchcraft medicine to kill me."  In vain they protested
+that they did not belong to the country; they were strangers, and had
+come from afar with an Englishman.  The superstitious savage put them
+all to death.  "We do not grieve," said their companions, "for the
+thirty victims of the smallpox, who were taken away by Morimo (God);
+but our hearts are sore for the six youths who were murdered by
+Bonga."  Any hope of obtaining justice on the murderer was out of the
+question.  Bonga once caught a captain of the Portuguese army, and
+forced him to perform the menial labour of pounding maize in a wooden
+mortar.  No punishment followed on this outrage.  The Government of
+Lisbon has since given Bonga the honorary title of Captain, by way of
+coaxing him to own their authority; but he still holds his stockade.
+
+Tette stands on a succession of low sandstone ridges on the right
+bank of the Zambesi, which is here nearly a thousand yards wide (960
+yards).  Shallow ravines, running parallel with the river, form the
+streets, the houses being built on the ridges.  The whole surface of
+the streets, except narrow footpaths, were overrun with self-sown
+indigo, and tons of it might have been collected.  In fact indigo,
+senna, and stramonium, with a species of cassia, form the weeds of
+the place, which are annually hoed off and burned.  A wall of stone
+and mud surrounds the village, and the native population live in huts
+outside.  The fort and the church, near the river, are the
+strongholds; the natives having a salutary dread of the guns of the
+one, and a superstitious fear of the unknown power of the other.  The
+number of white inhabitants is small, and rather select, many of them
+having been considerately sent out of Portugal "for their country's
+good."  The military element preponderates in society; the convict
+and "incorrigible" class of soldiers, receiving very little pay,
+depend in great measure on the produce of the gardens of their black
+wives; the moral condition of the resulting population may be
+imagined.
+
+Droughts are of frequent occurrence at Tette, and the crops suffer
+severely.  This may arise partly from the position of the town
+between the ranges of hills north and south, which appear to have a
+strong attraction for the rain-clouds.  It is often seen to rain on
+these hills when not a drop falls at Tette.  Our first season was one
+of drought.  Thrice had the women planted their gardens in vain, the
+seed, after just vegetating, was killed by the intense dry heat.  A
+fourth planting shared the same hard fate, and then some of the
+knowing ones discovered the cause of the clouds being frightened
+away:  our unlucky rain-gauge in the garden.  We got a bad name
+through that same rain-gauge, and were regarded by many as a species
+of evil omen.  The Makololo in turn blamed the people of Tette for
+drought:  "A number of witches live here, who won't let it rain."
+Africans in general are sufficiently superstitious, but those of
+Tette are in this particular pre-eminent above their fellows.  Coming
+from many different tribes, all the rays of the separate
+superstitions converge into a focus at Tette, and burn out common
+sense from the minds of the mixed breed.  They believe that many evil
+spirits live in the air, the earth, and the water.  These invisible
+malicious beings are thought to inflict much suffering on the human
+race; but, as they have a weakness for beer and a craving for food,
+they may be propitiated from time to time by offerings of meat and
+drink.  The serpent is an object of worship, and hideous little
+images are hung in the huts of the sick and dying.  The
+uncontaminated Africans believe that Morungo, the Great Spirit who
+formed all things, lives above the stars; but they never pray to him,
+and know nothing of their relation to him, or of his interest in
+them.  The spirits of their departed ancestors are all good,
+according to their ideas, and on special occasions aid them in their
+enterprises.  When a man has his hair cut, he is careful to burn it,
+or bury it secretly, lest, falling into the hands of one who has an
+evil eye, or is a witch, it should be used as a charm to afflict him
+with headache.  They believe, too, that they will live after the
+death of the body, but do not know anything of the state of the
+Barimo (gods, or departed spirits).
+
+The mango-tree grows luxuriantly above Lupata, and furnishes a
+grateful shade.  Its delicious fruit is superior to that on the
+coast.  For weeks the natives who have charge of the mangoes live
+entirely on the fruit, and, as some trees bear in November and some
+in March, while the main crop comes between, fruit in abundance may
+easily be obtained during four months of the year; but no native can
+be induced to plant a mango.  A wide-spread superstition has become
+riveted in the native mind, that if any one plants this tree he will
+soon die.  The Makololo, like other natives, were very fond of the
+fruit; but when told to take up some mango-stones, on their return,
+and plant them in their own country--they too having become deeply
+imbued with the belief that it was a suicidal act to do so--replied
+"they did not wish to die too soon."  There is also a superstition
+even among the native Portuguese of Tette, that if a man plants
+coffee he will never afterwards be happy:  they drink it, however,
+and seem the happier for it.
+
+The Portuguese of Tette have many slaves, with all the usual vices of
+their class, as theft, lying, and impurity.  As a general rule the
+real Portuguese are tolerably humane masters and rarely treat a slave
+cruelly; this may be due as much to natural kindness of heart as to a
+fear of losing the slaves by their running away.  When they purchase
+an adult slave they buy at the same time, if possible, all his
+relations along with him.  They thus contrive to secure him to his
+new home by domestic ties.  Running away then would be to forsake all
+who hold a place in his heart, for the mere chance of acquiring a
+freedom, which would probably be forfeited on his entrance into the
+first native village, for the chief might, without compunction, again
+sell him into slavery.
+
+A rather singular case of voluntary slavery came to our knowledge:  a
+free black, an intelligent active young fellow, called Chibanti, who
+had been our pilot on the river, told us that he had sold himself
+into slavery.  On asking why he had done this, he replied that he was
+all alone in the world, had neither father nor mother, nor any one
+else to give him water when sick, or food when hungry; so he sold
+himself to Major Sicard, a notoriously kind master, whose slaves had
+little to do, and plenty to eat.  "And how much did you get for
+yourself?" we asked.  "Three thirty-yard pieces of cotton cloth," he
+replied; "and I forthwith bought a man, a woman, and child, who cost
+me two of the pieces, and I had one piece left."  This, at all
+events, showed a cool and calculating spirit; he afterwards bought
+more slaves, and in two years owned a sufficient number to man one of
+the large canoes.  His master subsequently employed him in carrying
+ivory to Quillimane, and gave him cloth to hire mariners for the
+voyage; he took his own slaves, of course, and thus drove a thriving
+business; and was fully convinced that he had made a good speculation
+by the sale of himself, for had he been sick his master must have
+supported him.  Occasionally some of the free blacks become slaves
+voluntarily by going through the simple but significant ceremony of
+breaking a spear in the presence of their future master.  A
+Portuguese officer, since dead, persuaded one of the Makololo to
+remain in Tette, instead of returning to his own country, and tried
+also to induce him to break a spear before him, and thus acknowledge
+himself his slave, but the man was too shrewd for this; he was a
+great elephant doctor, who accompanied the hunters, told them when to
+attack the huge beast, and gave them medicine to ensure success.
+Unlike the real Portuguese, many of the half-castes are merciless
+slave-holders; their brutal treatment of the wretched slaves is
+notorious.  What a humane native of Portugal once said of them is
+appropriate if not true:  "God made white men, and God made black
+men, but the devil made half-castes."
+
+The officers and merchants send parties of slaves under faithful
+headmen to hunt elephants and to trade in ivory, providing them with
+a certain quantity of cloth, beads, etc., and requiring so much ivory
+in return.  These slaves think that they have made a good thing of
+it, when they kill an elephant near a village, as the natives give
+them beer and meal in exchange for some of the elephant's meat, and
+over every tusk that is brought there is expended a vast amount of
+time, talk, and beer.  Most of the Africans are natural-born traders,
+they love trade more for the sake of trading than for what they make
+by it.  An intelligent gentleman of Tette told us that native traders
+often come to him with a tusk for sale, consider the price he offers,
+demand more, talk over it, retire to consult about it, and at length
+go away without selling it; next day they try another merchant, talk,
+consider, get puzzled and go off as on the previous day, and continue
+this course daily until they have perhaps seen every merchant in the
+village, and then at last end by selling the precious tusk to some
+one for even less than the first merchant had offered.  Their love of
+dawdling in the transaction arises from the self-importance conferred
+on them by their being the object of the wheedling and coaxing of
+eager merchants, a feeling to which even the love of gain is
+subordinate.
+
+The native medical profession is reasonably well represented.  In
+addition to the regular practitioners, who are a really useful class,
+and know something of their profession, and the nature and power of
+certain medicines, there are others who devote their talents to some
+speciality.  The elephant doctor prepares a medicine which is
+considered indispensable to the hunters when attacking that noble and
+sagacious beast; no hunter is willing to venture out before investing
+in this precious nostrum.  The crocodile doctor sells a charm which
+is believed to possess the singular virtue of protecting its owner
+from crocodiles.  Unwittingly we offended the crocodile school of
+medicine while at Tette, by shooting one of these huge reptiles as it
+lay basking in the sun on a sandbank; the doctors came to the
+Makololo in wrath, clamouring to know why the white man had shot
+their crocodile.
+
+A shark's hook was baited one evening with a dog, of which the
+crocodile is said to be particularly fond; but the doctors removed
+the bait, on the principle that the more crocodiles the more demand
+for medicine, or perhaps because they preferred to eat the dog
+themselves.  Many of the natives of this quarter are known, as in the
+South Seas, to eat the dog without paying any attention to its
+feeding.  The dice doctor or diviner is an important member of the
+community, being consulted by Portuguese and natives alike.  Part of
+his business is that of a detective, it being his duty to discover
+thieves.  When goods are stolen, he goes and looks at the place,
+casts his dice, and waits a few days, and then, for a consideration,
+tells who is the thief:  he is generally correct, for he trusts not
+to his dice alone; he has confidential agents all over the village,
+by whose inquiries and information he is enabled to detect the
+culprit.  Since the introduction of muskets, gun doctors have sprung
+up, and they sell the medicine which professes to make good marksmen;
+others are rain doctors, etc., etc.  The various schools deal in
+little charms, which are hung round the purchaser's neck to avert
+evil:  some of them contain the medicine, others increase its power.
+
+Indigo, about three or four feet high, grows in great luxuriance in
+the streets of Tette, and so does the senna plant.  The leaves are
+undistinguishable from those imported in England.  A small amount of
+first-rate cotton is cultivated by the native population for the
+manufacture of a coarse cloth.  A neighbouring tribe raises the
+sugar-cane, and makes a little sugar; but they use most primitive
+wooden rollers, and having no skill in mixing lime with the extracted
+juice, the product is of course of very inferior quality.  Plenty of
+magnetic iron ore is found near Tette, and coal also to any amount; a
+single cliff-seam measuring twenty-five feet in thickness.  It was
+found to burn well in the steamer on the first trial.  Gold is washed
+for in the beds of rivers, within a couple of days of Tette.  The
+natives are fully aware of its value, but seldom search for it, and
+never dig deeper than four or five feet.  They dread lest the falling
+in of the sand of the river's bed should bury them.  In former times,
+when traders went with hundreds of slaves to the washings, the
+produce was considerable.  It is now insignificant.  The gold-
+producing lands have always been in the hands of independent tribes.
+Deep cuttings near the sources of the gold-yielding streams seem
+never to have been tried here, as in California and Australia, nor
+has any machinery been used save common wooden basins for washing.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+Kebrabasa Rapids--Tette--African fever--Exploration of the Shire--
+Discovery of Lake Shirwa.
+
+Our curiosity had been so much excited by the reports we had heard of
+the Kebrabasa rapids, that we resolved to make a short examination of
+them, and seized the opportunity of the Zambesi being unusually low,
+to endeavour to ascertain their character while uncovered by the
+water.  We reached them on the 9th of November.  The country between
+Tette and Panda Mokua, where navigation ends, is well wooded and
+hilly on both banks.  Panda Mokua is a hill two miles below the
+rapids, capped with dolomite containing copper ore.
+
+Conspicuous among the trees, for its gigantic size, and bark coloured
+exactly like Egyptian syenite, is the burly Baobab.  It often makes
+the other trees of the forest look like mere bushes in comparison.  A
+hollow one, already mentioned, is 74 feet in circumference, another
+was 84, and some have been found on the West Coast which measure 100
+feet.  The lofty range of Kebrabasa, consisting chiefly of conical
+hills, covered with scraggy trees, crosses the Zambesi, and confines
+it within a narrow, rough, and rocky dell of about a quarter of a
+mile in breadth; over this, which may be called the flood-bed of the
+river, large masses of rock are huddled in indescribable confusion.
+The drawing, for the use of which, and of others, our thanks are due
+to Lord Russell, conveys but a faint idea of the scene, inasmuch as
+the hills which confine the river do not appear in the sketch.  The
+chief rock is syenite, some portions of which have a beautiful blue
+tinge like lapis lazuli diffused through them; others are grey.
+Blocks of granite also abound, of a pinkish tinge; and these with
+metamorphic rocks, contorted, twisted, and thrown into every
+conceivable position, afford a picture of dislocation or
+unconformability which would gladden a geological lecturer's heart;
+but at high flood this rough channel is all smoothed over, and it
+then conforms well with the river below it, which is half a mile
+wide.  In the dry season the stream runs at the bottom of a narrow
+and deep groove, whose sides are polished and fluted by the boiling
+action of the water in flood, like the rims of ancient Eastern wells
+by the draw-ropes.  The breadth of the groove is often not more than
+from forty to sixty yards, and it has some sharp turnings, double
+channels, and little cataracts in it.  As we steamed up, the masts of
+the "Ma Robert," though some thirty feet high, did not reach the
+level of the flood-channel above, and the man in the chains sung out,
+"No bottom at ten fathoms."  Huge pot-holes, as large as draw-wells,
+had been worn in the sides, and were so deep that in some instances,
+when protected from the sun by overhanging boulders, the water in
+them was quite cool.  Some of these holes had been worn right
+through, and only the side next the rock remained; while the sides of
+the groove of the flood-channel were polished as smooth as if they
+had gone through the granite-mills of Aberdeen.  The pressure of the
+water must be enormous to produce this polish.  It had wedged round
+pebbles into chinks and crannies of the rocks so firmly that, though
+they looked quite loose, they could not be moved except with a
+hammer.  The mighty power of the water here seen gave us an idea of
+what is going on in thousands of cataracts in the world.  All the
+information we had been able to obtain from our Portuguese friends
+amounted to this, that some three or four detached rocks jutted out
+of the river in Kebrabasa, which, though dangerous to the cumbersome
+native canoes, could be easily passed by a steamer, and that if one
+or two of these obstructions were blasted away with gunpowder, no
+difficulty would hereafter be experienced.  After we had painfully
+explored seven or eight miles of the rapid, we returned to the vessel
+satisfied that much greater labour was requisite for the mere
+examination of the cataracts than our friends supposed necessary to
+remove them; we therefore went down the river for fresh supplies, and
+made preparation for a more serious survey of this region.
+
+The steamer having returned from the bar, we set out on the 22nd of
+November to examine the rapids of Kebrabasa.  We reached the foot of
+the hills again, late in the afternoon of the 24th, and anchored in
+the stream.  Canoe-men never sleep on the river, but always spend the
+night on shore.  The natives on the right bank, in the country called
+Shidima, who are Banyai, and even at this short distance from Tette,
+independent, and accustomed to lord it over Portuguese traders,
+wondered what could be our object in remaining afloat, and were
+naturally suspicious at our departing from the universal custom.
+
+They hailed us from the bank in the evening with "Why don't you come
+and sleep onshore like other people?"
+
+The answer they received from our Makololo, who now felt as
+independent as the Banyai, was, "We are held to the bottom with iron;
+you may see we are not like your Bazungu."
+
+This hint, a little amplified, saved us from the usual exactions.  It
+is pleasant to give a present, but that pleasure the Banyai usually
+deny to strangers by making it a fine, and demanding it in such a
+supercilious way, that only a sorely cowed trader could bear it.
+They often refuse to touch what is offered--throw it down and leave
+it--sneer at the trader's slaves, and refuse a passage until the
+tribute is raised to the utmost extent of his means.
+
+Leaving the steamer next morning, we proceeded on foot, accompanied
+by a native Portuguese and his men and a dozen Makololo, who carried
+our baggage.  The morning was pleasant, the hills on our right
+furnished for a time a delightful shade; but before long the path
+grew frightfully rough, and the hills no longer shielded us from the
+blazing sun.  Scarcely a vestige of a track was now visible; and,
+indeed, had not our guide assured us to the contrary, we should have
+been innocent of even the suspicion of a way along the patches of
+soft yielding sand, and on the great rocks over which we so painfully
+clambered.  These rocks have a singular appearance, from being
+dislocated and twisted in every direction, and covered with a thin
+black glaze, as if highly polished and coated with lamp-black
+varnish.  This seems to have been deposited while the river was in
+flood, for it covers only those rocks which lie between the highest
+water-mark and a line about four feet above the lowest.  Travellers
+who have visited the rapids of the Orinoco and the Congo say that the
+rocks there have a similar appearance, and it is attributed to some
+deposit from the water, formed only when the current is strong.  This
+may account for it in part here, as it prevails only where the narrow
+river is confined between masses of rock, backed by high hills, and
+where the current in floods is known to be the strongest; and it does
+not exist where the rocks are only on one side, with a sandy beach
+opposite, and a broad expanse of river between.  The hot rocks burnt
+the thick soles of our men's feet, and sorely fatigued ourselves.
+Our first day's march did not exceed four miles in a straight line,
+and that we found more than enough to be pleasant.
+
+The state of insecurity in which the Badema tribe live is indicated
+by the habit of hiding their provisions in the hills, and keeping
+only a small quantity in their huts; they strip a particular species
+of tree of its bitter bark, to which both mice and monkeys are known
+to have an antipathy, and, turning the bark inside out, sew it into
+cylindrical vessels for their grain, and bury them in holes and in
+crags on the wooded hill-sides.  By this means, should a marauding
+party plunder their huts, they save a supply of corn.  They "could
+give us no information, and they had no food; Chisaka's men had
+robbed them a few weeks before."
+
+"Never mind," said our native Portuguese, "they will sell you plenty
+when you return, they are afraid of you now, as yet they do not know
+who you are."  We slept under trees in the open air, and suffered no
+inconvenience from either mosquitoes or dew:  and no prowling wild
+beast troubled us; though one evening, while we were here, a native
+sitting with some others on the opposite bank was killed by a
+leopard.
+
+One of the Tette slaves, who wished to be considered a great
+traveller, gave us, as we sat by our evening fire, an interesting
+account of a strange race of men whom he had seen in the interior;
+they were only three feet high, and had horns growing out of their
+heads; they lived in a large town and had plenty of food.  The
+Makololo pooh-poohed this story, and roundly told the narrator that
+he was telling a downright lie.  "WE come from the interior," cried
+out a tall fellow, measuring some six feet four, "are WE dwarfs? have
+WE horns on our heads?" and thus they laughed the fellow to scorn.
+But he still stoutly maintained that he had seen these little people,
+and had actually been in their town; thus making himself the hero of
+the traditional story, which before and since the time of Herodotus
+has, with curious persistency, clung to the native mind.  The mere
+fact that such absurd notions are permanent, even in the entire
+absence of literature, invests the religious ideas of these people
+also with importance, as fragments of the wreck of the primitive
+faith floating down the stream of time.
+
+We waded across the rapid Luia, which took us up to the waist, and
+was about forty yards wide.  The water was discoloured at the time,
+and we were not without apprehension that a crocodile might chance to
+fancy a white man for dinner.  Next day one of the men crawled over
+the black rocks to within ten yards of a sleeping hippopotamus, and
+shot him through the brain.  The weather being warm, the body floated
+in a few hours, and some of us had our first trial of hippopotamus
+flesh.  It is a cross-grained meat, something between pork and beef,-
+-pretty good food when one is hungry and can get nothing better.
+When we reached the foot of the mountain named Chipereziwa, whose
+perpendicular rocky sides are clothed with many-coloured lichens, our
+Portuguese companion informed us there were no more obstructions to
+navigation, the river being all smooth above; he had hunted there and
+knew it well.  Supposing that the object of our trip was accomplished
+we turned back; but two natives, who came to our camp at night,
+assured us that a cataract, called Morumbwa, did still exist in
+front.  Drs.  Livingstone and Kirk then decided to go forward with
+three Makololo and settle the question for themselves.  It was as
+tough a bit of travel as they ever had in Africa, and after some
+painful marching the Badema guides refused to go further; "the
+Banyai," they said, "would be angry if they showed white men the
+country; and there was besides no practicable approach to the spot,
+neither elephant, nor hippopotamus, nor even a crocodile could reach
+the cataract."  The slopes of the mountains on each side of the
+river, now not 300 yards wide, and without the flattish flood-channel
+and groove, were more than 3000 feet from the sky-line down, and were
+covered either with dense thornbush or huge black boulders; this deep
+trough-like shape caused the sun's rays to converge as into a focus,
+making the surface so hot that the soles of the feet of the Makololo
+became blistered.  Around, and up and down, the party clambered among
+these heated blocks, at a pace not exceeding a mile an hour; the
+strain upon the muscles in jumping from crag to boulder, and
+wriggling round projections, took an enormous deal out of them, and
+they were often glad to cower in the shadow formed by one rock
+overhanging and resting on another; the shelter induced the
+peculiarly strong and overpowering inclination to sleep, which too
+much sun sometimes causes.  This sleep is curative of what may be
+incipient sunstroke:  in its first gentle touches, it caused the
+dream to flit over the boiling brain, that they had become lunatics
+and had been sworn in as members of the Alpine club; and then it
+became so heavy that it made them feel as if a portion of existence
+had been cut out from their lives.  The sun is excessively hot, and
+feels sharp in Africa; but, probably from the greater dryness of the
+atmosphere, we never heard of a single case of sunstroke, so common
+in India.  The Makololo told Dr. Livingstone they "always thought he
+had a heart, but now they believed he had none," and tried to
+persuade Dr. Kirk to return, on the ground that it must be evident
+that, in attempting to go where no living foot could tread, his
+leader had given unmistakeable signs of having gone mad.  All their
+efforts of persuasion, however, were lost upon Dr. Kirk, as he had
+not yet learned their language, and his leader, knowing his companion
+to be equally anxious with himself to solve the problem of the
+navigableness of Kebrabasa, was not at pains to enlighten him.  At
+one part a bare mountain spur barred the way, and had to be
+surmounted by a perilous and circuitous route, along which the crags
+were so hot that it was scarcely possible for the hand to hold on
+long enough to ensure safety in the passage; and had the foremost of
+the party lost his hold, he would have hurled all behind him into the
+river at the foot of the promontory; yet in this wild hot region, as
+they descended again to the river, they met a fisherman casting his
+hand-net into the boiling eddies, and he pointed out the cataract of
+Morumbwa; within an hour they were trying to measure it from an
+overhanging rock, at a height of about one hundred feet.  When you
+stand facing the cataract, on the north bank, you see that it is
+situated in a sudden bend of the river, which is flowing in a short
+curve; the river above it is jammed between two mountains in a
+channel with perpendicular sides, and less than fifty yards wide; one
+or two masses of rock jut out, and then there is a sloping fall of
+perhaps twenty feet in a distance of thirty yards.  It would stop all
+navigation, except during the highest floods; the rocks showed that
+the water then rises upwards of eighty feet perpendicularly.
+
+Still keeping the position facing the cataract, on its right side
+rises Mount Morumbwa from 2000 to 3000 feet high, which gives the
+name to the spot.  On the left of the cataract stands a noticeable
+mountain which may be called onion-shaped, for it is partly conical
+and a large concave flake has peeled off, as granite often does, and
+left a broad, smooth convex face as if it were an enormous bulb.
+These two mountains extend their bases northwards about half a mile,
+and the river in that distance, still very narrow, is smooth, with a
+few detached rocks standing out from its bed.  They climbed as high
+up the base of Mount Morumbwa, which touches the cataract, as they
+required.  The rocks were all water-worn and smooth, with huge
+potholes, even at 100 feet above low water.  When at a later period
+they climbed up the north-western base of this same mountain, the
+familiar face of the onion-shaped one opposite was at once
+recognised; one point of view on the talus of Mount Morumbwa was not
+more than 700 or 800 yards distant from the other, and they then
+completed the survey of Kebrabasa from end to end.
+
+They did not attempt to return by the way they came, but scaled the
+slope of the mountain on the north.  It took them three hours' hard
+labour in cutting their way up through the dense thornbush which
+covered the ascent.  The face of the slope was often about an angle
+of 70 degrees, yet their guide Shokumbenla, whose hard, horny soles,
+resembling those of elephants, showed that he was accustomed to this
+rough and hot work, carried a pot of water for them nearly all the
+way up.  They slept that night at a well in a tufaceous rock on the
+N.W. of Chipereziwa, and never was sleep more sweet.
+
+A band of native musicians came to our camp one evening, on our own
+way down, and treated us with their wild and not unpleasant music on
+the Marimba, an instrument formed of bars of hard wood of varying
+breadth and thickness, laid on different-sized hollow calabashes, and
+tuned to give the notes; a few pieces of cloth pleased them, and they
+passed on.
+
+The rainy season of Tette differs a little from that of some of the
+other intertropical regions; the quantity of rain-fall being
+considerably less.  It begins in November and ends in April.  During
+our first season in that place, only a little over nineteen inches of
+rain fell.  In an average year, and when the crops are good, the fall
+amounts to about thirty-five inches.  On many days it does not rain
+at all, and rarely is it wet all day; some days have merely a passing
+shower, preceded and followed by hot sunshine; occasionally an
+interval of a week, or even a fortnight, passes without a drop of
+rain, and then the crops suffer from the sun.  These partial droughts
+happen in December and January.  The heat appears to increase to a
+certain point in the different latitudes so as to necessitate a
+change, by some law similar to that which regulates the intense cold
+in other countries.  After several days of progressive heat here, on
+the hottest of which the thermometer probably reaches 103 degrees in
+the shade, a break occurs in the weather, and a thunderstorm cools
+the air for a time.  At Kuruman, when the thermometer stood above 84
+degrees, rain might be expected; at Kolobeng, the point at which we
+looked for a storm was 96 degrees.  The Zambesi is in flood twice in
+the course of the year; the first flood, a partial one, attains its
+greatest height about the end of December or beginning of January;
+the second, and greatest, occurs after the river inundates the
+interior, in a manner similar to the overflow of the Nile, this rise
+not taking place at Tette until March.  The Portuguese say that the
+greatest height which the March floods attain is thirty feet at
+Tette, and this happens only about every fourth year; their
+observations, however, have never been very accurate on anything but
+ivory, and they have in this case trusted to memory alone.  The only
+fluviometer at Tette, or anywhere else on the river, was set up at
+our suggestion; and the first flood was at its greatest height of
+thirteen feet six inches on the 17th January, 1859, and then
+gradually fell a few feet, until succeeded by the greater flood of
+March.  The river rises suddenly, the water is highly discoloured and
+impure, and there is a four-knot current in many places; but in a day
+or two after the first rush of waters is passed, the current becomes
+more equally spread over the whole bed of the river, and resumes its
+usual rate in the channel, although continuing in flood.  The Zambesi
+water at other times is almost chemically pure, and the photographer
+would find that it is nearly as good as distilled water for the
+nitrate of silver bath.
+
+A third visit to Kebrabasa was made for the purpose of ascertaining
+whether it might be navigable when the Zambesi was in flood, the
+chief point of interest being of course Morumbwa; it was found that
+the rapids observed in our first trip had disappeared, and that while
+they were smoothed over, in a few places the current had increased in
+strength.  As the river fell rapidly while we were on the journey,
+the cataract of Morumbwa did not differ materially from what it was
+when discovered.  Some fishermen assured us that it was not visible
+when the river was at its fullest, and that the current was then not
+very strong.  On this occasion we travelled on the right bank, and
+found it, with the additional inconvenience of rain, as rough and
+fatiguing as the left had been.  Our progress was impeded by the tall
+wet grass and dripping boughs, and consequent fever.  During the
+earlier part of the journey we came upon a few deserted hamlets only;
+but at last in a pleasant valley we met some of the people of the
+country, who were miserably poor and hungry.  The women were
+gathering wild fruits in the woods.  A young man having consented for
+two yards of cotton cloth to show us a short path to the cataract led
+us up a steep hill to a village perched on the edge of one of its
+precipices; a thunderstorm coming on at the time, the headman invited
+us to take shelter in a hut until it had passed.  Our guide having
+informed him of what he knew and conceived to be our object, was
+favoured in return with a long reply in well-sounding blank verse; at
+the end of every line the guide, who listened with deep attention,
+responded with a grunt, which soon became so ludicrous that our men
+burst into a loud laugh.  Neither the poet nor the responsive guide
+took the slightest notice of their rudeness, but kept on as
+energetically as ever to the end.  The speech, or more probably our
+bad manners, made some impression on our guide, for he declined,
+although offered double pay, to go any further.
+
+A great deal of fever comes in with March and April; in March, if
+considerable intervals take place between the rainy days, and in
+April always, for then large surfaces of mud and decaying vegetation
+are exposed to the hot sun.  In general an attack does not continue
+long, but it pulls one down quickly; though when the fever is checked
+the strength is as quickly restored.  It had long been observed that
+those who were stationed for any length of time in one spot, and
+lived sedentary lives, suffered more from fever than others who moved
+about and had both mind and body occupied; but we could not all go in
+the small vessel when she made her trips, during which the change of
+place and scenery proved so conducive to health; and some of us were
+obliged to remain in charge of the expedition's property, making
+occasional branch trips to examine objects of interest in the
+vicinity.  Whatever may be the cause of the fever, we observed that
+all were often affected at the same time, as if from malaria.  This
+was particularly the case during a north wind:  it was at first
+commonly believed that a daily dose of quinine would prevent the
+attack.  For a number of months all our men, except two, took quinine
+regularly every morning.  The fever some times attacked the believers
+in quinine, while the unbelievers in its prophylactic powers escaped.
+Whether we took it daily, or omitted it altogether for months, made
+no difference; the fever was impartial, and seized us on the days of
+quinine as regularly and as severely as when it remained undisturbed
+in the medicine chest, and we finally abandoned the use of it as a
+prophylactic altogether.  The best preventive against fever is plenty
+of interesting work to do, and abundance of wholesome food to eat.
+To a man well housed and clothed, who enjoys these advantages, the
+fever at Tette will not prove a more formidable enemy than a common
+cold; but let one of these be wanting--let him be indolent, or guilty
+of excesses in eating or drinking, or have poor, scanty fare,--and
+the fever will probably become a more serious matter.  It is of a
+milder type at Tette than at Quillimane or on the low sea-coast; and,
+as in this part of Africa one is as liable to fever as to colds in
+England, it would be advisable for strangers always to hasten from
+the coast to the high lands, in order that when the seizure does take
+place, it may be of the mildest type.  Although quinine was not found
+to be a preventive, except possibly in the way of acting as a tonic,
+and rendering the system more able to resist the influence of
+malaria, it was found invaluable in the cure of the complaint, as
+soon as pains in the back, sore bones, headache, yawning, quick and
+sometimes intermittent pulse, noticeable pulsations of the jugulars,
+with suffused eyes, hot skin, and foul tongue, began. {1}
+
+Very curious are the effects of African fever on certain minds.
+Cheerfulness vanishes, and the whole mental horizon is overcast with
+black clouds of gloom and sadness.  The liveliest joke cannot provoke
+even the semblance of a smile.  The countenance is grave, the eyes
+suffused, and the few utterances are made in the piping voice of a
+wailing infant.  An irritable temper is often the first symptom of
+approaching fever.  At such times a man feels very much like a fool,
+if he does not act like one.  Nothing is right, nothing pleases the
+fever-stricken victim.  He is peevish, prone to find fault and to
+contradict, and think himself insulted, and is exactly what an Irish
+naval surgeon before a court-martial defined a drunken man to be:  "a
+man unfit for society."
+
+Finding that it was impossible to take our steamer of only ten-horse
+power through Kebrabasa, and convinced that, in order to force a
+passage when the river was in flood, much greater power was required,
+due information was forwarded to Her Majesty's Government, and
+application made for a more suitable vessel.  Our attention was in
+the mean time turned to the exploration of the river Shire, a
+northern tributary of the Zambesi, which joins it about a hundred
+miles from the sea.  We could learn nothing satisfactory from the
+Portuguese regarding this affluent; no one, they said, had ever been
+up it, nor could they tell whence it came.  Years ago a Portuguese
+expedition is said, however, to have attempted the ascent, but to
+have abandoned it on account of the impenetrable duckweed (Pistia
+stratiotes.)  We could not learn from any record that the Shire had
+ever been ascended by Europeans.  As far, therefore, as we were
+concerned, the exploration was absolutely new.  All the Portuguese
+believed the Manganja to be brave but bloodthirsty savages; and on
+our return we found that soon after our departure a report was widely
+spread that our temerity had been followed by fatal results, Dr.
+Livingstone having been shot, and Dr. Kirk mortally wounded by
+poisoned arrows.
+
+Our first trip to the Shire was in January, 1859.  A considerable
+quantity of weed floated down the river for the first twenty-five
+miles, but not sufficient to interrupt navigation with canoes or with
+any other craft.  Nearly the whole of this aquatic plant proceeds
+from a marsh on the west, and comes into the river a little beyond a
+lofty hill called Mount Morambala.  Above that there is hardly any.
+As we approached the villages, the natives collected in large
+numbers, armed with bows and poisoned arrows; and some, dodging
+behind trees, were observed taking aim as if on the point of
+shooting.  All the women had been sent out of the way, and the men
+were evidently prepared to resist aggression.  At the village of a
+chief named Tingane, at least five hundred natives collected and
+ordered us to stop.  Dr. Livingstone went ashore; and on his
+explaining that we were English and had come neither to take slaves
+nor to fight, but only to open a path by which our countrymen might
+follow to purchase cotton, or whatever else they might have to sell,
+except slaves, Tingane became at once quite friendly.  The presence
+of the steamer, which showed that they had an entirely new people to
+deal with, probably contributed to this result; for Tingane was
+notorious for being the barrier to all intercourse between the
+Portuguese black traders and the natives further inland; none were
+allowed to pass him either way.  He was an elderly, well-made man,
+grey-headed, and over six feet high.  Though somewhat excited by our
+presence, he readily complied with the request to call his people
+together, in order that all might know what our objects were.
+
+In commencing intercourse with any people we almost always referred
+to the English detestation of slavery.  Most of them already possess
+some information respecting the efforts made by the English at sea to
+suppress the slave-trade; and our work being to induce them to raise
+and sell cotton, instead of capturing and selling their fellow-men,
+our errand appears quite natural; and as they all have clear ideas of
+their own self-interest, and are keen traders, the reasonableness of
+the proposal is at once admitted; and as a belief in a Supreme Being,
+the Maker and Ruler of all things, and in the continued existence of
+departed spirits, is universal, it becomes quite appropriate to
+explain that we possess a Book containing a Revelation of the will of
+Him to whom in their natural state they recognise no relationship.
+The fact that His Son appeared among men, and left His words in His
+Book, always awakens attention; but the great difficulty is to make
+them feel that they have any relationship to Him, and that He feels
+any interest in them.  The numbness of moral perception exhibited, is
+often discouraging; but the mode of communication, either by
+interpreters, or by the imperfect knowledge of the language, which
+not even missionaries of talent can overcome save by the labour of
+many years, may, in part, account for the phenomenon.  However, the
+idea of the Father of all being displeased with His children, for
+selling or killing each other, at once gains their ready assent:  it
+harmonizes so exactly with their own ideas of right and wrong.  But,
+as in our own case at home, nothing less than the instruction and
+example of many years will secure their moral elevation.
+
+The dialect spoken here closely resembles that used at Senna and
+Tette.  We understood it at first only enough to know whether our
+interpreter was saying what we bade him, or was indulging in his own
+version.  After stating pretty nearly what he was told, he had an
+inveterate tendency to wind up with "The Book says you are to grow
+cotton, and the English are to come and buy it," or with some joke of
+his own, which might have been ludicrous, had it not been seriously
+distressing.
+
+In the first ascent of the Shire our attention was chiefly directed
+to the river itself.  The delight of threading out the meanderings of
+upwards of 200 miles of a hitherto unexplored river must be felt to
+be appreciated.  All the lower part of the river was found to be at
+least two fathoms in depth.  It became shallower higher up, where
+many departing and re-entering branches diminished the volume of
+water, but the absence of sandbanks made it easy of navigation.  We
+had to exercise the greatest care lest anything we did should be
+misconstrued by the crowds who watched us.  After having made, in a
+straight line, one hundred miles, although the windings of the river
+had fully doubled the distance, we found further progress with the
+steamer arrested, in 15 degrees 55 minutes south, by magnificent
+cataracts, which we called, "The Murchison," after one whose name has
+already a world-wide fame, and whose generous kindness we can never
+repay.  The native name of that figured in the woodcut is Mamvira.
+It is that at which the progress of the steamer was first stopped.
+The angle of descent is much smaller than that of the five cataracts
+above it; indeed, so small as compared with them, that after they
+were discovered this was not included in the number.
+
+A few days were spent here in the hope that there might be an
+opportunity of taking observations for longitude, but it rained most
+of the time, or the sky was overcast.  It was deemed imprudent to
+risk a land journey whilst the natives were so very suspicious as to
+have a strong guard on the banks of the river night and day; the
+weather also was unfavourable.  After sending presents and messages
+to two of the chiefs, we returned to Tette.  In going down stream our
+progress was rapid, as we were aided by the current.  The hippopotami
+never made a mistake, but got out of our way.  The crocodiles, not so
+wise, sometimes rushed with great velocity at us, thinking that we
+were some huge animal swimming.  They kept about a foot from the
+surface, but made three well-defined ripples from the feet and body,
+which marked their rapid progress; raising the head out of the water
+when only a few yards from the expected feast, down they went to the
+bottom like a stone, without touching the boat.
+
+In the middle of March of the same year (1859), we started again for
+a second trip on the Shire.  The natives were now friendly, and
+readily sold us rice, fowls, and corn.  We entered into amicable
+relations with the chief, Chibisa, whose village was about ten miles
+below the cataract.  He had sent two men on our first visit to invite
+us to drink beer; but the steamer was such a terrible apparition to
+them, that, after shouting the invitation, they jumped ashore, and
+left their canoe to drift down the stream.  Chibisa was a remarkably
+shrewd man, the very image, save his dark hue, of one of our most
+celebrated London actors, {2} and the most intelligent chief, by far,
+in this quarter.  A great deal of fighting had fallen to his lot, he
+said; but it was always others who began; he was invariably in the
+right, and they alone were to blame.  He was moreover a firm believer
+in the divine right of kings.  He was an ordinary man, he said, when
+his father died, and left him the chieftainship; but directly he
+succeeded to the high office, he was conscious of power passing into
+his head, and down his back; he felt it enter, and knew that he was a
+chief, clothed with authority, and possessed of wisdom; and people
+then began to fear and reverence him.  He mentioned this, as one
+would a fact of natural history, any doubt being quite out of the
+question.  His people, too, believed in him, for they bathed in the
+river without the slightest fear of crocodiles, the chief having
+placed a powerful medicine there, which protected them from the bite
+of these terrible reptiles.
+
+Leaving the vessel opposite Chibisa's village, Drs. Livingstone and
+Kirk and a number of the Makololo started on foot for Lake Shirwa.
+They travelled in a northerly direction over a mountainous country.
+The people were far from being well-disposed to them, and some of
+their guides tried to mislead them, and could not be trusted.
+Masakasa, a Makololo headman, overheard some remarks which satisfied
+him that the guide was leading them into trouble.  He was quiet till
+they reached a lonely spot, when he came up to Dr. Livingstone, and
+said, "That fellow is bad, he is taking us into mischief; my spear is
+sharp, and there is no one here; shall I cast him into the long
+grass?"  Had the Doctor given the slightest token of assent, or even
+kept silence, never more would any one have been led by that guide,
+for in a twinkling he would have been where "the wicked cease from
+troubling."  It was afterwards found that in this case there was no
+treachery at all, but a want of knowledge on their part of the
+language and of the country.  They asked to be led to "Nyanja
+Mukulu," or Great Lake, meaning, by this, Lake Shirwa; and the guide
+took them round a terribly rough piece of mountainous country,
+gradually edging away towards a long marsh, which from the numbers of
+those animals we had seen there we had called the Elephant Marsh, but
+which was really the place known to him by the name "Nyanja Mukulu,"
+or Great Lake.  Nyanja or Nyanza means, generally, a marsh, lake,
+river, or even a mere rivulet.
+
+The party pushed on at last without guides, or only with crazy ones;
+for, oddly enough, they were often under great obligations to the
+madmen of the different villages:  one of these honoured them, as
+they slept in the open air, by dancing and singing at their feet the
+whole night.  These poor fellows sympathized with the explorers,
+probably in the belief that they belonged to their own class; and,
+uninfluenced by the general opinion of their countrymen, they really
+pitied, and took kindly to the strangers, and often guided them
+faithfully from place to place, when no sane man could be hired for
+love or money.
+
+The bearing of the Manganja at this time was very independent; a
+striking contrast to the cringing attitude they afterwards assumed,
+when the cruel scourge of slave-hunting passed over their country.
+Signals were given from the different villages by means of drums, and
+notes of defiance and intimidation were sounded in the travellers'
+ears by day; and occasionally they were kept awake the whole night,
+in expectation of an instant attack.  Drs. Livingstone and Kirk were
+desirous that nothing should occur to make the natives regard them as
+enemies; Masakasa, on the other hand, was anxious to show what he
+could do in the way of fighting them.
+
+The perseverance of the party was finally crowned with success; for
+on the 18th of April they discovered Lake Shirwa, a considerable body
+of bitter water, containing leeches, fish, crocodiles, and
+hippopotami.  From having probably no outlet, the water is slightly
+brackish, and it appears to be deep, with islands like hills rising
+out of it.  Their point of view was at the base of Mount Pirimiti or
+Mopeu-peu, on its S.S.W. side.  Thence the prospect northwards ended
+in a sea horizon with two small islands in the distance--a larger
+one, resembling a hill-top and covered with trees, rose more in the
+foreground.  Ranges of hills appeared on the east; and on the west
+stood Mount Chikala, which seems to be connected with the great
+mountain-mass called Zomba.
+
+The shore, near which they spent two nights, was covered with reeds
+and papyrus.  Wishing to obtain the latitude by the natural horizon,
+they waded into the water some distance towards what was reported to
+be a sand-bank, but were so assaulted by leeches, they were fain to
+retreat; and a woman told them that in enticing them into the water
+the men only wanted to kill them.  The information gathered was that
+this lake was nothing in size compared to another in the north, from
+which it is separated by only a tongue of land.  The northern end of
+Shirwa has not been seen, though it has been passed; the length of
+the lake may probably be 60 or 80 miles, and about 20 broad.  The
+height above the sea is 1800 feet, and the taste of the water is like
+a weak solution of Epsom salts.  The country around is very
+beautiful, and clothed with rich vegetation; and the waves, at the
+time they were there breaking and foaming over a rock on the south-
+eastern side, added to the beauty of the picture.  Exceedingly lofty
+mountains, perhaps 8000 feet above the sea-level, stand near the
+eastern shore.  When their lofty steep-sided summits appear, some
+above, some below the clouds, the scene is grand.  This range is
+called Milanje; on the west stands Mount Zomba, 7000 feet in height,
+and some twenty miles long.
+
+Their object being rather to gain the confidence of the people by
+degrees than to explore, they considered that they had advanced far
+enough into the country for one trip; and believing that they could
+secure their end by a repetition of their visit, as they had done on
+the Shire, they decided to return to the vessel at Dakanamoio island;
+but, instead of returning by the way they came, they passed down
+southwards close by Mount Chiradzuru, among the relatives of Chibisa,
+and thence by the pass Zedi, down to the Shire.  The Kroomen had,
+while we were away, cut a good supply of wood for steaming, and we
+soon proceeded down the river.
+
+The steamer reached Tette on the 23rd of June, and, after undergoing
+repairs, proceeded to the Kongone to receive provisions from one of
+H.M. cruisers.  We had been very abundantly supplied with first-rate
+stores, but were unfortunate enough to lose a considerable portion of
+them, and had now to bear the privation as best we could.  On the way
+down, we purchased a few gigantic cabbages and pumpkins at a native
+village below Mazaro.  Our dinners had usually consisted of but a
+single course; but we were surprised the next day by our black cook
+from Sierra Leone bearing in a second course.  "What have you got
+there?" was asked in wonder.  "A tart, sir."  "A tart! of what is it
+made?"  "Of cabbage, sir."  As we had no sugar, and could not "make
+believe," as in the days of boyhood, we did not enjoy the feast that
+Tom's genius had prepared.  Her Majesty's brig "Persian," Lieutenant
+Saumarez commanding, called on her way to the Cape; and, though
+somewhat short of provisions herself, generously gave us all she
+could spare.  We now parted with our Kroomen, as, from their
+inability to march, we could not use them in our land journeys.  A
+crew was picked out from the Makololo, who, besides being good
+travellers, could cut wood, work the ship, and required only native
+food.
+
+While at the Kongone it was found necessary to beach the steamer for
+repairs.  She was built of a newly invented sort of steel plates,
+only a sixteenth of an inch in thickness, patented, but unfortunately
+never tried before.  To build an exploring ship of untried material
+was a mistake.  Some chemical action on this preparation of steel
+caused a minute hole; from this point, branches like lichens, or the
+little ragged stars we sometimes see in thawing ice, radiated in all
+directions.  Small holes went through wherever a bend occurred in
+these branches.  The bottom very soon became like a sieve, completely
+full of minute holes, which leaked perpetually.  The engineer stopped
+the larger ones, but the vessel was no sooner afloat, than new ones
+broke out.  The first news of a morning was commonly the unpleasant
+announcement of another leak in the forward compartment, or in the
+middle, which was worse still.
+
+Frequent showers fell on our way up the Zambesi, in the beginning of
+August.  On the 8th we had upwards of three inches of rain, which
+large quantity, more than falls in any single rainy day during the
+season at Tette, we owed to being near the sea.  Sometimes the cabin
+was nearly flooded; for, in addition to the leakage from below, rain
+poured through the roof, and an umbrella had to be used whenever we
+wished to write:  the mode of coupling the compartments, too, was a
+new one, and the action of the hinder compartment on the middle one
+pumped up the water of the river, and sent it in streams over the
+floor and lockers, where lay the cushions which did double duty as
+chairs and beds.  In trying to form an opinion of the climate, it
+must be recollected that much of the fever, from which we suffered,
+was caused by sleeping on these wet cushions.  Many of the botanical
+specimens, laboriously collected and carefully prepared by Dr. Kirk,
+were destroyed, or double work imposed, by their accidentally falling
+into wet places in the cabin.
+
+About the middle of August, after cutting wood at Shamoara, we again
+steamed up the Shire, with the intention of becoming better
+acquainted with the people, and making another and longer journey on
+foot to the north of Lake Shirwa, in search of Lake Nyassa, of which
+we had already received some information, under the name Nyinyesi
+(the stars).  The Shire is much narrower than the Zambesi, but
+deeper, and more easily navigated.  It drains a low and exceedingly
+fertile valley of from fifteen to twenty miles in breadth.  Ranges of
+wooded hills bound this valley on both sides.  For the first twenty
+miles the hills on the left bank are close to the river; then comes
+Morambala, a detached mountain 500 yards from the river's brink,
+which rises, with steep sides on the west, to 4000 feet in height,
+and is about seven miles in length.  It is wooded up to the very top,
+and very beautiful.  The southern end, seen from a distance, has a
+fine gradual slope, and looks as if it might be of easy ascent; but
+the side which faces the Shire is steep and rocky, especially in the
+upper half.  A small village peeps out about halfway up the mountain;
+it has a pure and bracing atmosphere; and is perched above mosquito
+range.  The people on the summit have a very different climate and
+vegetation from those of the plains; but they have to spend a great
+portion of their existence amidst white fleecy clouds, which, in the
+rainy season, rest daily on the top of their favourite mountain.  We
+were kindly treated by these mountaineers on our first ascent; before
+our second they were nearly all swept away by Mariano.  Dr. Kirk
+found upwards of thirty species of ferns on this and other mountains,
+and even good-sized tree-ferns; though scarcely a single kind is to
+be met with on the plains.  Lemon and orange trees grew wild, and
+pineapples had been planted by the people.  Many large hornbills,
+hawks, monkeys, antelopes, and rhinoceroses found a home and food
+among the great trees round its base.  A hot fountain boils up on the
+plain near the north end.  It bubbles out of the earth, clear as
+crystal, at two points, or eyes, a few yards apart from each other,
+and sends off a fine flowing stream of hot water.  The temperature
+was found to be 174 degrees Fahr., and it boiled an egg in about the
+usual time.  Our guide threw in a small branch to show us how
+speedily the Madse-awira (boiling water) could kill the leaves.
+Unlucky lizards and insects did not seem to understand the nature of
+a hot-spring, as many of their remains were lying at the bottom.  A
+large beetle had alighted on the water, and been killed before it had
+time to fold its wings.  An incrustation, smelling of sulphur, has
+been deposited by the water on the stones.  About a hundred feet from
+the eye of the fountain the mud is as hot as can be borne by the
+body.  In taking a bath there, it makes the skin perfectly clean, and
+none of the mud adheres:  it is strange that the Portuguese do not
+resort to it for the numerous cutaneous diseases with which they are
+so often afflicted.
+
+A few clumps of the palm and acacia trees appear west of Morambala,
+on the rich plain forming the tongue of land between the rivers Shire
+and Zambesi.  This is a good place for all sorts of game.  The
+Zambesi canoe-men were afraid to sleep on it from the idea of lions
+being there; they preferred to pass the night on an island.  Some
+black men, who accompanied us as volunteer workmen from Shupanga,
+called out one evening that a lion stood on the bank.  It was very
+dark, and we could only see two sparkling lights, said to be the
+lion's eyes looking at us; for here, as elsewhere, they have a theory
+that the lion's eyes always flash fire at night.  Not being
+fireflies--as they did not move when a shot was fired in their
+direction--they were probably glowworms.
+
+Beyond Morambala the Shire comes winding through an extensive marsh.
+For many miles to the north a broad sea of fresh green grass extends,
+and is so level, that it might be used for taking the meridian
+altitude of the sun.  Ten or fifteen miles north of Morambala, stands
+the dome-shaped mountain Makanga, or Chi-kanda; several others with
+granitic-looking peaks stretch away to the north, and form the
+eastern boundary of the valley; another range, but of metamorphic
+rocks, commencing opposite Senna, bounds the valley on the west.
+After streaming through a portion of this marsh, we came to a broad
+belt of palm and other trees, crossing the fine plain on the right
+bank.  Marks of large game were abundant.  Elephants had been feeding
+on the palm nuts, which have a pleasant fruity taste, and are used as
+food by man.  Two pythons were observed coiled together among the
+branches of a large tree, and were both shot.  The larger of the two,
+a female, was ten feet long.  They are harmless, and said to be good
+eating.  The Makololo having set fire to the grass where they were
+cutting wood, a solitary buffalo rushed out of the conflagration, and
+made a furious charge at an active young fellow named Mantlanyane.
+Never did his fleet limbs serve him better than during the few
+seconds of his fearful flight before the maddened animal.  When he
+reached the bank, and sprang into the river, the infuriated beast was
+scarcely six feet behind him.  Towards evening, after the day's
+labour in wood-cutting was over, some of the men went fishing.  They
+followed the common African custom of agitating the water, by giving
+it a few sharp strokes with the top of the fishing-rod, immediately
+after throwing in the line, to attract the attention of the fish to
+the bait.  Having caught nothing, the reason assigned was the same as
+would have been given in England under like circumstances, namely,
+that "the wind made the fish cold, and they would not bite."  Many
+gardens of maize, pumpkins, and tobacco, fringed the marshy banks as
+we went on.  They belong to natives of the hills, who come down in
+the dry season, and raise a crop on parts at other times flooded.
+While the crops are growing, large quantities of fish are caught,
+chiefly Clarias capensis, and Mugil Africanus; they are dried for
+sale or future consumption.
+
+As we ascended, we passed a deep stream about thirty yards wide,
+flowing in from a body of open water several miles broad.  Numbers of
+men were busy at different parts of it, filling their canoes with the
+lotus root, called Nyika, which, when boiled or roasted, resembles
+our chestnuts, and is extensively used in Africa as food.  Out of
+this lagoon, and by this stream, the chief part of the duckweed of
+the Shire flows.  The lagoon itself is called Nyanja ea Motope (Lake
+of Mud).  It is also named Nyanja Pangono (Little Lake), while the
+elephant marsh goes by the name of Nyanja Mukulu (Great Lake).  It is
+evident from the shore line still to be observed on the adjacent
+hills, that in ancient times these were really lakes, and the
+traditional names thus preserved are only another evidence of the
+general desiccation which Africa has undergone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+The Steamer in difficulties--Elephant hunting--Arrival at Chibisa's--
+Search for Lake Nyassa--The Manganja country--Weavers and smelters--
+Lake Pamalombe.
+
+Late in the afternoon of the first day's steaming, after we left the
+wooding-place, we called at the village of Chikanda-Kadze, a female
+chief, to purchase rice for our men; but we were now in the blissful
+region where time is absolutely of no account, and where men may sit
+down and rest themselves when tired; so they requested us to wait
+till next day, and they would then sell us some food.  As our forty
+black men, however, had nothing to cook for supper, we were obliged
+to steam on to reach a village a few miles above.  When we meet those
+who care not whether we purchase or let it alone, or who think men
+ought only to be in a hurry when fleeing from an enemy, our ideas
+about time being money, and the power of the purse, receives a shock.
+The state of eager competition, which in England wears out both mind
+and body, and makes life bitter, is here happily unknown.  The
+cultivated spots are mere dots compared to the broad fields of rich
+soil which is never either grazed or tilled.  Pity that the plenty in
+store for all, from our Father's bountiful hands, is not enjoyed by
+more.
+
+The wretched little steamer could not carry all the hands we needed;
+so, to lighten her, we put some into the boats and towed them astern.
+In the dark, one of the boats was capsized; but all in it, except one
+poor fellow who could not swim, were picked up.  His loss threw a
+gloom over us all, and added to the chagrin we often felt at having
+been so ill-served in our sorry craft.
+
+Next day we arrived at the village of Mboma (16 degrees 56 minutes 30
+seconds S.), where the people raised large quantities of rice, and
+were eager traders; the rice was sold at wonderfully low rates, and
+we could not purchase a tithe of the food brought for sale.
+
+A native minstrel serenaded us in the evening, playing several quaint
+tunes on a species of one stringed fiddle, accompanied by wild, but
+not unmusical songs.  He told the Makololo that he intended to play
+all night to induce us to give him a present.  The nights being cold,
+the thermometer falling to 47 degrees, with occasional fogs, he was
+asked if he was not afraid of perishing from cold; but, with the
+genuine spirit of an Italian organ-grinder, he replied, "Oh, no; I
+shall spend the night with my white comrades in the big canoe; I have
+often heard of the white men, but have never seen them till now, and
+I must sing and play well to them."  A small piece of cloth, however,
+bought him off, and he moved away in good humour.  The water of the
+river was 70 degrees at sunrise, which was 23 degrees warmer than the
+air at the same time, and this caused fogs, which rose like steam off
+the river.  When this is the case cold bathing in the mornings at
+this time of the year is improper, for, instead of a glow on coming
+out, one is apt to get a chill; the air being so much colder than the
+water.
+
+A range of hills, commencing opposite Senna, comes to within two or
+three miles of Mboma village, and then runs in a north-westerly
+direction; the principal hill is named Malawe; a number of villages
+stand on its tree-covered sides, and coal is found cropping out in
+the rocks.  The country improves as we ascend, the rich valley
+becoming less swampy, and adorned with a number of trees.
+
+Both banks are dotted with hippopotamus traps, over every track which
+these animals have made in going up out of the water to graze.  The
+hippopotamus feeds on grass alone, and, where there is any danger,
+only at night.  Its enormous lips act like a mowing-machine, and form
+a path of short-cropped grass as it feeds.  We never saw it eat
+aquatic plants or reeds.  The tusks seem weapons of both offence and
+defence.  The hippopotamus trap consists of a beam five or six feet
+long, armed with a spear-head or hard-wood spike, covered with
+poison, and suspended to a forked pole by a cord, which, coming down
+to the path, is held by a catch, to be set free when the beast treads
+on it.  Being wary brutes, they are still very numerous.  One got
+frightened by the ship, as she was steaming close to the bank.  In
+its eager hurry to escape it rushed on shore, and ran directly under
+a trap, when down came the heavy beam on its back, driving the
+poisoned spear-head a foot deep into its flesh.  In its agony it
+plunged back into the river, to die in a few hours, and afterwards
+furnished a feast for the natives.  The poison on the spear-head does
+not affect the meat, except the part around the wound, and that is
+thrown away.  In some places the descending beam is weighted with
+heavy stones, but here the hard heavy wood is sufficient.
+
+"She is leaking worse than ever forward, sir, and there is a foot of
+water in the hold," was our first salutation on the morning of the
+20th.  But we have become accustomed to these things now; the cabin-
+floor is always wet, and one is obliged to mop up the water many
+times a day, giving some countenance to the native idea that
+Englishmen live in or on the water, and have no houses but ships.
+The cabin is now a favourite breeding-place for mosquitoes, and we
+have to support both the ship-bred and shore-bred bloodsuckers, of
+which several species show us their irritating attentions.  A large
+brown sort, called by the Portuguese mansos (tame), flies straight to
+its victim, and goes to work at once, as though it were an invited
+guest.  Some of the small kinds carry uncommonly sharp lancets, and
+very potent poison.  "What would these insects eat, if we did not
+pass this way?" becomes a natural question.
+
+The juices of plants, and decaying vegetable matter in the mud,
+probably form the natural food of mosquitoes, and blood is not
+necessary for their existence.  They appear so commonly at malarious
+spots, that their presence may be taken as a hint to man to be off to
+more healthy localities.  None appear on the high lands.  On the low
+lands they swarm in myriads.  The females alone are furnished with
+the biting apparatus, and their number appears to be out of all
+proportion in excess of the males.  At anchor, on a still evening,
+they were excessively annoying; and the sooner we took refuge under
+our mosquito curtains, the better.  The miserable and sleepless night
+that only one mosquito inside the curtain can cause, is so well
+known, and has been so often described, that it is needless to
+describe it here.  One soon learns, from experience, that to beat out
+the curtains thoroughly before entering them, so that not one of
+these pests can possibly be harboured within, is the only safeguard
+against such severe trials to one's tranquillity and temper.
+
+A few miles above Mboma we came again to the village (16 degrees 44
+minutes 30 seconds S.) of the chief Tingane, the beat of whose war-
+drums can speedily muster some hundreds of armed men.  The bows and
+poisoned arrows here are of superior workmanship to those below.
+Mariano's slave-hunting parties stood in great awe of these barbed
+arrows, and long kept aloof from Tingane's villages.  His people were
+friendly enough with us now, and covered the banks with a variety of
+articles for sale.  The majestic mountain, Chipirone, to which we
+have given the name of Mount Clarendon, now looms in sight, and
+further to the N.W. the southern end of the grand Milanje range rises
+in the form of an unfinished sphinx looking down on Lake Shirwa.  The
+Ruo (16 degrees 31 minutes 0 seconds S.) is said to have its source
+in the Milanje mountains, and flows to the S.W., to join the Shire
+some distance above Tingane's.  A short way beyond the Ruo lies the
+Elephant marsh, or Nyanja Mukulu, which is frequented by vast herds
+of these animals.  We believe that we counted eight hundred elephants
+in sight at once.  In the choice of such a strong hold, they have
+shown their usual sagacity, for no hunter can get near them through
+the swamps.  They now keep far from the steamer; but, when she first
+came up, we steamed into the midst of a herd, and some were shot from
+the ship's deck.  A single lesson was sufficient to teach them that
+the steamer was a thing to be avoided; and at the first glimpse they
+are now off two or three miles to the midst of the marsh, which is
+furrowed in every direction by wandering branches of the Shire.  A
+fine young elephant was here caught alive, as he was climbing up the
+bank to follow his retreating dam.  When laid hold of, he screamed
+with so much energy that, to escape a visit from the enraged mother,
+we steamed off, and dragged him through the water by the proboscis.
+As the men were holding his trunk over the gunwale, Monga, a brave
+Makololo elephant-hunter, rushed aft, and drew his knife across it in
+a sort of frenzy peculiar to the chase.  The wound was skilfully sewn
+up, and the young animal soon became quite tame, but, unfortunately
+the breathing prevented the cut from healing, and he died in a few
+days from loss of blood.  Had he lived, and had we been able to bring
+him home, he would have been the first AFRICAN elephant ever seen in
+England.  The African male elephant is from ten to a little over
+eleven feet in height, and differs from the Asiatic species more
+particularly in the convex shape of his forehead, and the enormous
+size of his ears.  In Asia many of the males, and all the females,
+are without tusks, but in Africa both sexes are provided with these
+weapons.  The enamel in the molar teeth is arranged differently in
+the two species.  By an admirable provision, new teeth constantly
+come up at the part where in man the wisdom teeth appear, and these
+push the others along, and out at the front end of the jaws, thus
+keeping the molars sound by renewal, till the animal attains a very
+great age.  The tusks of animals from dry rocky countries are very
+munch more dense and heavier than those from wet and marshy
+districts, but the latter attain much the larger size.
+
+The Shire marshes support prodigious numbers of many kinds of water-
+fowl.  An hour at the mast-head unfolds novel views of life in an
+African marsh.  Near the edge, and on the branches of some favourite
+tree, rest scores of plotuses and cormorants, which stretch their
+snake-like necks, and in mute amazement turn one eye and then another
+towards the approaching monster.  By and-by the timid ones begin to
+fly off, or take "headers" into the stream; but a few of the bolder,
+or more composed, remain, only taking the precaution to spread their
+wings ready for instant flight.  The pretty ardetta (Herodias
+bubulcus), of a light yellow colour when at rest, but seemingly of a
+pure white when flying, takes wing, and sweeps across the green grass
+in large numbers, often showing us where buffaloes and elephants are,
+by perching on their backs.  Flocks of ducks, of which the kind
+called "Soriri" (Dendrocygna personata) is most abundant, being night
+feeders, meditate quietly by the small lagoons, until startled by the
+noise of the steam machinery.  Pelicans glide over the water,
+catching fish, while the Scopus (Scopus umbretta) and large herons
+peer intently into pools.  The large black and white spur-winged
+goose (a constant marauder of native gardens) springs up, and circles
+round to find out what the disturbance can be, and then settles down
+again with a splash.  Hundreds of Linongolos (Anastomus lamelligerus)
+rise on the wing from the clumps of reeds, or low trees (the
+Eschinomena, from which pith hats are made), on which they build in
+colonies, and are speedily high in mid-air.  Charming little red and
+yellow weavers (Ploceidae) remind one of butterflies, as they fly in
+and out of the tall grass, or hang to the mouths of their pendent
+nests, chattering briskly to their mates within.  These weavers seem
+to have "cock nests," built with only a roof, and a perch beneath,
+with a doorway on each side.  The natives say they are made to
+protect the bird from the rain.  Though her husband is very
+attentive, we have seen the hen bird tearing her mate's nest to
+pieces, but why we cannot tell.  Kites and vultures are busy
+overhead, beating the ground for their repast of carrion; and the
+solemn-looking, stately-stepping Marabout, with a taste for dead
+fish, or men, stalks slowly along the almost stagnant channels.
+Groups of men and boys are searching diligently in various places for
+lotus and other roots.  Some are standing in canoes, on the weed-
+covered ponds, spearing fish, while others are punting over the small
+intersecting streams, to examine their sunken fish-baskets.
+
+Towards evening, hundreds of pretty little hawks (Erythropus
+vespertinus) are seen flying in a southerly direction, and feeding on
+dragon-flies and locusts.  They come, apparently, from resting on the
+palm-trees during the heat of the day.  Flocks of scissor-bills
+(Rhyncops) are then also on the wing, and in search of food,
+ploughing the water with their lower mandibles, which are nearly half
+an inch longer than the upper ones.
+
+At the north-eastern end of the marsh, and about three miles from the
+river, commences a great forest of palm-trees (Borassus Aethiopium).
+It extends many miles, and at one point comes close to the river.
+The grey trunks and green tops of this immense mass of trees give a
+pleasing tone of colour to the view.  The mountain-range, which rises
+close behind the palms, is generally of a cheerful green, and has
+many trees, with patches of a lighter tint among them, as if spots of
+land had once been cultivated.  The sharp angular rocks and dells on
+its sides have the appearance of a huge crystal broken; and this is
+so often the case in Africa, that one can guess pretty nearly at
+sight whether a range is of the old crystalline rocks or not.  The
+Borassus, though not an oil-bearing palm, is a useful tree.  The
+fibrous pulp round the large nuts is of a sweet fruity taste, and is
+eaten by men and elephants.  The natives bury the nuts until the
+kernels begin to sprout; when dug up and broken, the inside resembles
+coarse potatoes, and is prized in times of scarcity as nutritious
+food.  During several months of the year, palm-wine, or sura, is
+obtained in large quantities; when fresh, it is a pleasant drink,
+somewhat like champagne, and not at all intoxicating; though, after
+standing a few hours, it becomes highly so.  Sticks, a foot long, are
+driven into notches in the hard outside of the tree--the inside being
+soft or hollow--to serve as a ladder; the top of the fruit-shoot is
+cut off, and the sap, pouring out at the fresh wound, is caught in an
+earthen pot, which is hung at the point.  A thin slice is taken off
+the end, to open the pores, and make the juice flow every time the
+owner ascends to empty the pot.  Temporary huts are erected in the
+forest, and men and boys remain by their respective trees day and
+night; the nuts, fish, and wine, being their sole food.  The
+Portuguese use the palm-wine as yeast, and it makes bread so light,
+that it melts in the mouth like froth.
+
+Beyond the marsh the country is higher, and has a much larger
+population.  We passed a long line of temporary huts, on a plain on
+the right bank, with crowds of men and women hard at work making
+salt.  They obtain it by mixing the earth, which is here highly
+saline, with water, in a pot with a small hole in it, and then
+evaporating the liquid, which runs through, in the sun.  From the
+number of women we saw carrying it off in bags, we concluded that
+vast quantities must be made at these works.  It is worth observing
+that on soils like this, containing salt, the cotton is of larger and
+finer staple than elsewhere.  We saw large tracts of this rich
+brackish soil both in the Shire and Zambesi valleys, and hence,
+probably, sea-island cotton would do well; a single plant of it,
+reared by Major Sicard, flourished and produced the long staple and
+peculiar tinge of this celebrated variety, though planted only in the
+street at Tette; and there also a salt efflorescence appears,
+probably from decomposition of the rock, off which the people scrape
+it for use.
+
+The large village of the chief, Mankokwe, occupies a site on the
+right bank; he owns a number of fertile islands, and is said to be
+the Rundo, or paramount chief, of a large district.  Being of an
+unhappy suspicious disposition, he would not see us; so we thought it
+best to move on, rather than spend time in seeking his favour.
+
+On the 25th August we reached Dakanamoio island, opposite the
+perpendicular bluff on which Chibisa's village stands; he had gone,
+with most of his people, to live near the Zambesi, but his headman
+was civil, and promised us guides and whatever else we needed.  A few
+of the men were busy cleaning, sorting, spinning, and weaving cotton.
+This is a common sight in nearly every village, and each family
+appears to have its patch of cotton, as our own ancestors in Scotland
+had each his patch of flax.  Near sunset an immense flock of the
+large species of horn-bill (Buceros cristatus) came here to roost on
+the great trees which skirt the edge of the cliff.  They leave early
+in the morning, often before sunrise, for their feeding-places,
+coming and going in pairs.  They are evidently of a loving
+disposition, and strongly attached to each other, the male always
+nestling close beside his mate.  A fine male fell to the ground, from
+fear, at the report of Dr. Kirk's gun; it was caught and kept on
+board; the female did not go off in the mornings to feed with the
+others, but flew round the ship, anxiously trying, by her plaintive
+calls, to induce her beloved one to follow her:  she came again in
+the evenings to repeat the invitations.  The poor disconsolate
+captive soon refused to eat, and in five days died of grief, because
+he could not have her company.  No internal injury could be detected
+after death.
+
+Chibisa and his wife, with a natural show of parental feeling, had
+told the Doctor, on his previous visit, that a few years before some
+of Chisaka's men had kidnapped and sold their little daughter, and
+that she was now a slave to the padre at Tette.  On his return to
+Tette, the Doctor tried hard to ransom and restore the girl to her
+parents, and offered twice the value of a slave; the padre seemed
+willing, but she could not be found.  This padre was better than the
+average men of the country; and, being always civil and obliging,
+would probably have restored her gratuitously, but she had been sold,
+it might be to the distant tribe Bazizulu, or he could not tell
+where.  Custom had rendered his feelings callous, and Chibisa had to
+be told that his child would never return.  It is this callous state
+of mind which leads some of our own blood to quote Scripture in
+support of slavery.  If we could afford to take a backward step in
+civilization, we might find men among ourselves who would in like
+manner prove Mormonism or any other enormity to be divine.
+
+We left the ship on the 28th of August, 1859, for the discovery of
+Lake Nyassa.  Our party numbered forty-two in all--four whites,
+thirty-six Makololo, and two guides.  We did not actually need so
+many, either for carriage or defence; but took them because we
+believed that, human nature being everywhere the same, blacks are as
+ready as whites to take advantage of the weak, and are as civil and
+respectful to the powerful.  We armed our men with muskets, which
+gave us influence, although it did not add much to our strength, as
+most of the men had never drawn a trigger, and in any conflict would
+in all probability have been more dangerous to us than the enemy.
+
+Our path crossed the valley, in a north-easterly direction, up the
+course of a beautiful flowing stream.  Many of the gardens had
+excellent cotton growing in them.  An hour's march brought us to the
+foot of the Manganja hills, up which lay the toilsome road.  The
+vegetation soon changed; as we rose bamboos appeared, and new trees
+and plants were met with, which gave such incessant employment to Dr.
+Kirk, that he travelled the distance three times over.  Remarkably
+fine trees, one of which has oil-yielding seeds, and belongs to the
+mahogany family, grow well in the hollows along the rivulet courses.
+The ascent became very fatiguing, and we were glad of a rest.
+Looking back from an elevation of a thousand feet, we beheld a lovely
+prospect.  The eye takes in at a glance the valley beneath, and the
+many windings of its silver stream Makubula, or Kubvula, from the
+shady hill-side, where it emerges in foaming haste, to where it
+slowly glides into the tranquil Shire; then the Shire itself is seen
+for many a mile above and below Chibisa's, and the great level
+country beyond, with its numerous green woods; until the prospect,
+west and north-west, is bounded far away by masses of peaked and
+dome-shaped blue mountains, that fringe the highlands of the Maravi
+country.
+
+After a weary march we halted at Makolongwi, the village of Chitimba.
+It stands in a woody hollow on the first of the three terraces of the
+Manganja hills, and, like all other Manganja villages, is surrounded
+by an impenetrable hedge of poisonous euphorbia.  This tree casts a
+deep shade, which would render it difficult for bowmen to take aim at
+the villagers inside.  The grass does not grow beneath it, and this
+may be the reason why it is so universally used, for when dry the
+grass would readily convey fire to the huts inside; moreover, the
+hedge acts as a fender to all flying sparks.  As strangers are wont
+to do, we sat down under some fine trees near the entrance of the
+village.  A couple of mats, made of split reeds, were spread for the
+white men to sit on; and the headman brought a seguati, or present,
+of a small goat and a basket of meal.  The full value in beads and
+cotton cloth was handed to him in return.  He measured the cloth,
+doubled it, and then measured that again.  The beads were
+scrutinized; he had never seen beads of that colour before, and
+should like to consult with his comrades before accepting them, and
+this, after repeated examinations and much anxious talk, he concluded
+to do.  Meal and peas were then brought for sale.  A fathom of blue
+cotton cloth, a full dress for man or woman, was produced.  Our
+Makololo headman, Sininyane, thinking a part of it was enough for the
+meal, was proceeding to tear it, when Chitimba remarked that it was a
+pity to cut such a nice dress for his wife, he would rather bring
+more meal.  "All right," said Sininyane; "but look, the cloth is very
+wide, so see that the basket which carries the meal be wide too, and
+add a cock to make the meal taste nicely."  A brisk trade sprang up
+at once, each being eager to obtain as fine things as his neighbour,-
+-and all were in good humour.  Women and girls began to pound and
+grind meal, and men and boys chased the screaming fowls over the
+village, until they ran them down.  In a few hours the market was
+completely glutted with every sort of native food; the prices,
+however, rarely fell, as they could easily eat what was not sold.
+
+We slept under the trees, the air being pheasant, and no mosquitoes
+on the hills.  According to our usual plan of marching, by early dawn
+our camp was in motion.  After a cup of coffee and a bit of biscuit
+we were on the way.  The air was deliciously cool, and the path a
+little easier than that of yesterday.  We passed a number of
+villages, occupying very picturesque spots among the hills, and in a
+few hours gained the upper terrace, 3000 feet above the level of the
+sea.  The plateau lies west of the Milanje mountains, and its north-
+eastern border slopes down to Lake Shirwa.  We were all charmed with
+the splendid country, and looked with never-failing delight on its
+fertile plains, its numerous hills, and majestic mountains.  In some
+of the passes we saw bramble-berries growing; and the many other
+flowers, though of great beauty, did not remind us of youth and of
+home like the ungainly thorny bramble-bushes.  We were a week in
+crossing the high-lands in a northerly direction; then we descended
+into the Upper Shire Valley, which is nearly 1200 feet above the
+level of the sea.  This valley is wonderfully fertile, and supports a
+large population.  After leaving the somewhat flat-topped southern
+portion, the most prominent mountain of the Zomba range is Njongone,
+which has a fine stream running past its northern base.  We were
+detained at the end of the chain some days by one of our companions
+being laid up with fever.  One night we were suddenly aroused by
+buffaloes rushing close by the sick-bed.  We were encamped by a wood
+on the border of a marsh, but our patient soon recovered,
+notwithstanding the unfavourable situation, and the poor
+accommodation.
+
+The Manganja country is delightfully well watered.  The clear, cool,
+gushing streams are very numerous.  Once we passed seven fine brooks
+and a spring in a single hour, and this, too, near the close of the
+dry season.  Mount Zomba, which is twenty miles long, and from 7000
+to 8000 feet high, has a beautiful stream flowing through a verdant
+valley on its summit, and running away down into Lake Shirwa.  The
+highlands are well wooded, and many trees, admirable for their height
+and timber, grow on the various watercourses.  "Is this country good
+for cattle?" we inquired of a Makololo herdsman, whose occupation had
+given him skill in pasturage.  "Truly," he replied, "do you not see
+abundance of those grasses which the cattle love, and get fat upon?"
+Yet the people have but few goats, and fewer sheep.  With the
+exception of an occasional leopard, there are no beasts of prey to
+disturb domestic animals.  Wool-sheep would, without doubt, thrive on
+these highlands.  Part of the Upper Shire valley has a lady
+paramount, named Nyango; and in her dominions women rank higher and
+receive more respectful treatment than their sisters on the hills.
+
+The hill chief, Mongazi, called his wife to take charge of a present
+we had given him.  She dropped down on her knees, clapping her hands
+in reverence, before and after receiving our presents from his lordly
+hands.  It was painful to see the abject manner in which the women of
+the hill tribes knelt beside the path as we passed; but a great
+difference took place when we got into Nyango's country.
+
+On entering a village, we proceeded, as all strangers do, at once to
+the Boalo:  mats of split reeds or bamboo were usually spread for us
+to sit on.  Our guides then told the men who might be there, who we
+were, whence we had come, whither we wanted to go, and what were our
+objects.  This information was duly carried to the chief, who, if a
+sensible man, came at once; but, if he happened to be timid and
+suspicious, waited until he had used divination, and his warriors had
+time to come in from outlying hamlets.  When he makes his appearance,
+all the people begin to clap their hands in unison, and continue
+doing so till he sits down opposite to us.  His counsellors take
+their places beside him.  He makes a remark or two, and is then
+silent for a few seconds.  Our guides then sit down in front of the
+chief and his counsellors, and both parties lean forward, looking
+earnestly at each other; the chief repeats a word, such as "Ambuiatu"
+(our Father, or master)--or "moio" (life), and all clap their hands.
+Another word is followed by two claps, a third by still more
+clapping, when each touches the ground with both hands placed
+together.  Then all rise and lean forward with measured clap, and sit
+down again with clap, clap, clap, fainter, and still fainter, till
+the last dies away, or is brought to an end by a smart loud clap from
+the chief.  They keep perfect time in this species of court
+etiquette.  Our guides now tell the chief, often in blank verse, all
+they have already told his people, with the addition perhaps of their
+own suspicions of the visitors.  He asks some questions, and then
+converses with us through the guides.  Direct communication between
+the chief and the head of the stranger party is not customary.  In
+approaching they often ask who is the spokesman, and the spokesman of
+the chief addresses the person indicated exclusively.  There is no
+lack of punctilious good manners.  The accustomed presents are
+exchanged with civil ceremoniousness; until our men, wearied and
+hungry, call out, "English do not buy slaves, they buy food," and
+then the people bring meal, maize, fowls, batatas, yams, beans, beer,
+for sale.
+
+The Manganja are an industrious race; and in addition to working in
+iron, cotton, and basket-making, they cultivate the soil extensively.
+All the people of a village turn out to labour in the fields.  It is
+no uncommon thing to see men, women, and children hard at work, with
+the baby lying close by beneath a shady bush.  When a new piece of
+woodland is to be cleared, they proceed exactly as farmers do in
+America.  The trees are cut down with their little axes of soft
+native iron; trunks and branches are piled up and burnt, and the
+ashes spread on the soil.  The corn is planted among the standing
+stumps which are left to rot.  If grass land is to be brought under
+cultivation, as much tall grass as the labourer can conveniently lay
+hold of is collected together and tied into a knot.  He then strikes
+his hoe round the tufts to sever the roots, and leaving all standing,
+proceeds until the whole ground assumes the appearance of a field
+covered with little shocks of corn in harvest.  A short time before
+the rains begin, these grass shocks are collected in small heaps,
+covered with earth, and burnt, the ashes and burnt soil being used to
+fertilize the ground.  Large crops of the mapira, or Egyptian dura
+(Holcus sorghum), are raised, with millet, beans, and ground-nuts;
+also patches of yams, rice, pumpkins, cucumbers, cassava, sweet
+potatoes, tobacco, and hemp, or bang (Cannabis setiva).  Maize is
+grown all the year round.  Cotton is cultivated at almost every
+village.  Three varieties of cotton have been found in the country,
+namely, two foreign and one native.  The "tonje manga," or foreign
+cotton, the name showing that it has been introduced, is of excellent
+quality, and considered at Manchester to be nearly equal to the best
+New Orleans.  It is perennial, but requires replanting once in three
+years.  A considerable amount of this variety is grown in the Upper
+and Lower Shire valleys.  Every family of any importance owns a
+cotton patch which, from the entire absence of weeds, seemed to be
+carefully cultivated.  Most were small, none seen on this journey
+exceeding half an acre; but on the former trip some were observed of
+more than twice that size.
+
+The "tonje cadja," or indigenous cotton, is of shorter staple, and
+feels in the hand like wool.  This kind has to be planted every
+season in the highlands; yet, because it makes stronger cloth, many
+of the people prefer it to the foreign cotton; the third variety is
+not found here.  It was remarked to a number of men near the Shire
+Lakelet, a little further on towards Nyassa, "You should plant plenty
+of cotton, and probably the English will come and buy it."  "Truly,"
+replied a far-travelled Babisa trader to his fellows, "the country is
+full of cotton, and if these people come to buy they will enrich us."
+Our own observation on the cotton cultivated convinced us that this
+was no empty flourish, but a fact.  Everywhere we met with it, and
+scarcely ever entered a village without finding a number of men
+cleaning, spinning, and weaving.  It is first carefully separated
+from the seed by the fingers, or by an iron roller, on a little block
+of wood, and rove out into long soft bands without twist.  Then it
+receives its first twist on the spindle, and becomes about the
+thickness of coarse candlewick; after being taken off and wound into
+a large ball, it is given the final hard twist, and spun into a firm
+cop on the spindle again:  all the processes being painfully slow.
+
+Iron ore is dug out of the hills, and its manufacture is the staple
+trade of the southern highlands.  Each village has its smelting-
+house, its charcoal-burners, and blacksmiths.  They make good axes,
+spears, needles, arrowheads, bracelets and anklets, which,
+considering the entire absence of machinery, are sold at surprisingly
+low rates; a hoe over two pounds in weight is exchanged for calico of
+about the value of fourpence.  In villages near Lake Shirwa and
+elsewhere, the inhabitants enter pretty largely into the manufacture
+of crockery, or pottery, making by hand all sorts of cooking, water,
+and grain pots, which they ornament with plumbago found in the hills.
+Some find employment in weaving neat baskets from split bamboos, and
+others collect the fibre of the buaze, which grows abundantly on the
+hills, and make it into fish-nets.  These they either use themselves,
+or exchange with the fishermen on the river or lakes for dried fish
+and salt.  A great deal of native trade is carried on between the
+villages, by means of barter in tobacco, salt, dried fish, skins, and
+iron.  Many of the men are intelligent-looking, with well-shaped
+heads, agreeable faces, and high foreheads.  We soon learned to
+forget colour, and we frequently saw countenances resembling those of
+white people we had known in England, which brought back the looks of
+forgotten ones vividly before the mind.  The men take a good deal of
+pride in the arrangement of their hair; the varieties of style are
+endless.  One trains his long locks till they take the admired form
+of the buffalo's horns; others prefer to let their hair hang in a
+thick coil down their backs, like that animal's tail; while another
+wears it in twisted cords, which, stiffened by fillets of the inner
+bark of a tree wound spirally round each curl, radiate from the head
+in all directions.  Some have it hanging all round the shoulders in
+large masses; others shave it off altogether.  Many shave part of it
+into ornamental figures, in which the fancy of the barber crops out
+conspicuously.  About as many dandies run to seed among the blacks as
+among the whites.  The Man ganja adorn their bodies extravagantly,
+wearing rings on their fingers and thumbs, besides throatlets,
+bracelets, and anklets of brass, copper, or iron.  But the most
+wonderful of ornaments, if such it may be called, is the pelele, or
+upper-lip ring of the women.  The middle of the upper lip of the
+girls is pierced close to the septum of the nose, and a small pin
+inserted to prevent the puncture closing up.  After it has healed,
+the pin is taken out and a larger one is pressed into its place, and
+so on successively for weeks, and months, and years.  The process of
+increasing the size of the lip goes on till its capacity becomes so
+great that a ring of two inches diameter can be introduced with ease.
+All the highland women wear the pelele, and it is common on the Upper
+and Lower Shire.  The poorer classes make them of hollow or of solid
+bamboo, but the wealthier of ivory or tin.  The tin pelele is often
+made in the form of a small dish.  The ivory one is not unlike a
+napkin-ring.  No woman ever appears in public without the pelele,
+except in times of mourning for the dead.  It is frightfully ugly to
+see the upper lip projecting two inches beyond the tip of the nose.
+When an old wearer of a hollow bamboo ring smiles, by the action of
+the muscles of the cheeks, the ring and lip outside it are dragged
+back and thrown above the eyebrows.  The nose is seen through the
+middle of the ring, amid the exposed teeth show how carefully they
+have been chipped to look like those of a cat or crocodile.  The
+pelele of an old lady, Chikanda Kadze, a chieftainess, about twenty
+miles north of Morambala, hung down below her chin, with, of course,
+a piece of the upper lip around its border.  The labial letters
+cannot be properly pronounced, but the under lip has to do its best
+for them, against the upper teeth and gum.  Tell them it makes them
+ugly; they had better throw it away; they reply, "Kodi!  Really! it
+is the fashion."  How this hideous fashion originated is an enigma.
+Can thick lips ever have been thought beautiful, and this mode of
+artificial enlargement resorted to in consequence?  The constant
+twiddling of the pelele with the tongue by the younger women
+suggested the irreverent idea that it might have been invented to
+give safe employment to that little member.  "Why do the women wear
+these things?" we inquired of the old chief, Chinsunse.  Evidently
+surprised at such a stupid question, he replied, "For beauty, to be
+sure!  Men have beards and whiskers; women have none; and what kind
+of creature would a woman be without whiskers, and without the
+pelele?  She would have a mouth like a man, and no beard; ha! ha!
+ha!"  Afterwards on the Rovuma, we found men wearing the pelele, as
+well as women.  An idea suggested itself on seeing the effects of the
+slight but constant pressure exerted on the upper gum and front
+teeth, of which our medical brethren will judge the value.  In many
+cases the upper front teeth, instead of the natural curve outwards,
+which the row presents, had been pressed so as to appear as if the
+line of alveoli in which they were planted had an inward curve.  As
+this was produced by the slight pressure of the pelele backwards,
+persons with too prominent teeth might by slight, but long-continued
+pressure, by some appliance only as elastic as the lip, have the
+upper gum and teeth depressed, especially in youth, more easily than
+is usually imagined.  The pressure should be applied to the upper gum
+more than to the teeth.
+
+The Manganja are not a sober people:  they brew large quantities of
+beer, and like it well.  Having no hops, or other means of checking
+fermentation, they are obliged to drink the whole brew in a few days,
+or it becomes unfit for use.  Great merry-makings take place on these
+occasions, and drinking, drumming, and dancing continue day and
+night, till the beer is gone.  In crossing the hills we sometimes
+found whole villages enjoying this kind of mirth.  The veteran
+traveller of the party remarked, that he had not seen so much
+drunkenness during all the sixteen years he had spent in Africa.  As
+we entered a village one afternoon, not a man was to be seen; but
+some women were drinking beer under a tree.  In a few moments the
+native doctor, one of the innocents, "nobody's enemy but his own,"
+staggered out of a hut, with his cupping-horn dangling from his neck,
+and began to scold us for a breach of etiquette.  "Is this the way to
+come into a man's village, without sending him word that you are
+coming?"  Our men soon pacified the fuddled but good-humoured medico,
+who, entering his beer-cellar, called on two of them to help him to
+carry out a huge pot of beer, which he generously presented to us.
+While the "medical practitioner" was thus hospitably employed, the
+chief awoke in a fright, and shouted to the women to run away, or
+they would all be killed.  The ladies laughed at the idea of their
+being able to run away, and remained beside the beer-pots.  We
+selected a spot for our camp, our men cooked the dinner as usual, and
+we were quietly eating it, when scores of armed men, streaming with
+perspiration, came pouring into the village.  They looked at us, then
+at each other, and turning to the chief upbraided him for so
+needlessly sending for them.  "These people are peaceable; they do
+not hurt you; you are killed with beer:" so saying, they returned to
+their homes.
+
+Native beer has a pinkish colour, and the consistency of gruel.  The
+grain is made to vegetate, dried in the sun, pounded into meal, and
+gently boiled.  When only a day or two old, the beer is sweet, with a
+slight degree of acidity, which renders it a most grateful beverage
+in a hot climate, or when fever begets a sore craving for acid
+drinks.  A single draught of it satisfies this craving at once.  Only
+by deep and long-continued potations can intoxication be produced:
+the grain being in a minutely divided state, it is a good way of
+consuming it, and the decoction is very nutritious.  At Tette a
+measure of beer is exchanged for an equal-sized pot full of grain.  A
+present of this beer, so refreshing to our dark comrades, was brought
+to us in nearly every village.  Beer-drinking does not appear to
+produce any disease, or to shorten life on the hills.  Never before
+did we see so many old, grey-headed men and women; leaning on their
+staves they came with the others to see the white men.  The aged
+chief, Muata Manga, could hardly have been less than ninety years of
+age; his venerable appearance struck the Makololo.  "He is an old
+man," said they, "a very old man; his skin hangs in wrinkles, just
+like that on elephants' hips."  "Did you never," he was asked, "have
+a fit of travelling come over you; a desire to see other lands and
+people?"  No, he had never felt that, and had never been far from
+home in his life.  For long life they are not indebted to frequent
+ablutions.  An old man told us that he remembered to have washed once
+in his life, but it was so long since that he had forgotten how it
+felt.  "Why do you wash?" asked Chinsunse's women of the Makololo;
+"our men never do."
+
+The superstitious ordeal, by drinking the poisonous muave, obtains
+credit here; and when a person is suspected of crime, this ordeal is
+resorted to.  If the stomach rejects the poison, the accused is
+pronounced innocent; but if it is retained, guilt is believed to be
+demonstrated.  Their faith is so firm in its discriminating power,
+that the supposed criminal offers of his own accord to drink it, and
+even chiefs are not exempted.  Chibisa, relying on its efficacy,
+drank it several times, in order to vindicate his character.  When
+asserting that all his wars had been just, it was hinted that, as
+every chief had the same tale of innocence to tell, we ought to
+suspend our judgment.  "If you doubt my word," said he, "give me the
+muave to drink."  A chief at the foot of Mount Zomba successfully
+went through the ordeal the day we reached his village; and his
+people manifested their joy at his deliverance by drinking beer,
+dancing, and drumming for two days and nights.  It is possible that
+the native doctor, who mixes the ingredients of the poisoned bowl,
+may be able to save those whom he considers innocent; but it is
+difficult to get the natives to speak about the matter, and no one is
+willing to tell what the muave poison consists of.  We have been
+shown trees said to be used, but had always reason to doubt the
+accuracy of our informants.  We once found a tree in a village, with
+many pieces of the bark chipped off, closely allied to the Tangena or
+Tanghina, the ordeal poison tree of Madagascar; but we could not
+ascertain any particulars about it.  Death is inflicted on those
+found guilty of witchcraft, by the muave.
+
+The women wail for the dead two days.  Seated on the ground they
+chant a few plaintive words, and end each verse with the prolonged
+sound of a-a, or o-o, or ea-ea-ea--a.  Whatever beer is in the house
+of the deceased, is poured out on the ground with the meal, and all
+cooking and water pots are broken, as being of no further use.  Both
+men and women wear signs of mourning for their dead relatives.  These
+consist of narrow strips of the palm-leaf wound round the head, the
+arms, legs, neck, and breasts, and worn till they drop off from
+decay.  They believe in the existence of a supreme being, called
+Mpambe, and also Morungo, and in a future state.  "We live only a few
+days here," said old Chinsunse, "but we live again after death:  we
+do not know where, or in what condition, or with what companions, for
+the dead never return to tell us.  Sometimes the dead do come back,
+and appear to us in dreams; but they never speak nor tell us where
+they have gone, nor how they fare."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+The Upper Shire--Discovery of Lake Nyassa--Distressing exploration--
+Return to Zambesi--Unpleasant visitors--Start for Sekeletu's Country
+in the interior.
+
+Our path followed the Shire above the cataracts, which is now a broad
+deep river, with but little current.  It expands in one place into a
+lakelet, called Pamalombe, full of fine fish, and ten or twelve miles
+long by five or six in breadth.  Its banks are low, and a dense wall
+of papyrus encircles it.  On its western shore rises a range of hills
+running north.  On reaching the village of the chief Muana-Moesi, and
+about a day's march distant from Nyassa, we were told that no lake
+had ever been heard of there; that the River Shire stretched on as we
+saw it now to a distance of "two months," and then came out from
+between perpendicular rocks, which towered almost to the skies.  Our
+men looked blank at this piece of news, and said, "Let us go back to
+the ship, it is of no use trying to find the lake."  "We shall go and
+see those wonderful rocks at any rate," said the Doctor.  "And when
+you see them," replied Masakasa, "you will just want to see something
+else.  But there IS a lake," rejoined Masakasa, "for all their
+denying it, for it is down in a book."  Masakasa, having unbounded
+faith in whatever was in a book, went and scolded the natives for
+telling him an untruth.  "There is a lake," said he, "for how could
+the white men know about it in a book if it did not exist?"  They
+then admitted that there was a lake a few miles off.  Subsequent
+inquiries make it probable that the story of the "perpendicular
+rocks" may have had reference to a fissure, known to both natives and
+Arabs, in the north-eastern portion of the lake.  The walls rise so
+high that the path along the bottom is said to be underground.  It is
+probably a crack similar to that which made the Victoria Falls, and
+formed the Shire Valley.
+
+The chief brought a small present of meal in the evening, and sat
+with us for a few minutes.  On leaving us he said that he wished we
+might sleep well.  Scarce had he gone, when a wild sad cry arose from
+the river, followed by the shrieking of women.  A crocodile had
+carried off his principal wife, as she was bathing.  The Makololo
+snatched up their arms, and rushed to the bank, but it was too late,
+she was gone.  The wailing of the women continued all night, and next
+morning we met others coming to the village to join in the general
+mourning.  Their grief was evidently heartfelt, as we saw the tears
+coursing down their cheeks.  In reporting this misfortune to his
+neighbours, Muana-Moesi said, "that white men came to his village;
+washed themselves at the place where his wife drew water and bathed;
+rubbed themselves with a white medicine (soap); and his wife, having
+gone to bathe afterwards, was taken by a crocodile; he did not know
+whether in consequence of the medicine used or not."  This we could
+not find fault with.  On our return we were viewed with awe, and all
+the men fled at our approach; the women remained; and this elicited
+the remark from our men, "The women have the advantage of men, in not
+needing to dread the spear."  The practice of bathing, which our
+first contact with Chinsunse's people led us to believe was unknown
+to the natives, we afterwards found to be common in other parts of
+the Manganja country.
+
+We discovered Lake Nyassa a little before noon of the 16th September,
+1859.  Its southern end is in 14 degrees 25 minutes S. Lat., and 35
+degrees 30 minutes E. Long.  At this point the valley is about twelve
+miles wide.  There are hills on both sides of the lake, but the haze
+from burning grass prevented us at the time from seeing far.  A long
+time after our return from Nyassa, we received a letter from Captain
+R. B. Oldfield, R.N., then commanding H.M.S. "Lyra," with the
+information that Dr. Roscher, an enterprising German who
+unfortunately lost his life in his zeal for exploration, had also
+reached the Lake, but on the 19th November following our discovery;
+and on his arrival had been informed by the natives that a party of
+white men were at the southern extremity.  On comparing dates (16th
+September and 19th November) we were about two months before Dr.
+Roscher.
+
+It is not known where Dr. Roscher first saw its waters; as the exact
+position of Nusseewa on the borders of the Lake, where he lived some
+time, is unknown.  He was three days north-east of Nusseewa, and on
+the Arab road back to the usual crossing-place of the Rovuma, when he
+was murdered.  The murderers were seized by one of the chiefs, sent
+to Zanzibar, and executed.  He is said to have kept his discoveries
+to himself, with the intention of publishing in Europe the whole at
+once, in a splendid book of travels.
+
+The chief of the village near the confluence of the Lake and River
+Shire, an old man, called Mosauka, hearing that we were sitting under
+a tree, came and kindly invited us to his village.  He took us to a
+magnificent banyan-tree, of which he seemed proud.  The roots had
+been trained down to the ground into the form of a gigantic arm-
+chair, without the seat.  Four of us slept in the space betwixt its
+arms.  Mosauka brought us a present of a goat and basket of meal "to
+comfort our hearts."  He told us that a large slave party, led by
+Arabs, were encamped close by.  They had been up to Cazembe's country
+the past year, and were on their way back, with plenty of slaves,
+ivory, and malachite.  In a few minutes half a dozen of the leaders
+came over to see us.  They were armed with long muskets, and, to our
+mind, were a villanous-looking lot.  They evidently thought the same
+of us, for they offered several young children for sale, but, when
+told that we were English, showed signs of fear, and decamped during
+the night.  On our return to the Kongone, we found that H.M.S. "Lynx"
+had caught some of these very slaves in a dhow; for a woman told us
+she first saw us at Mosauka's, and that the Arabs had fled for fear
+of an UNCANNY sort of Basungu.
+
+This is one of the great slave-paths from the interior, others cross
+the Shire a little below, and some on the lake itself.  We might have
+released these slaves but did not know what to do with them
+afterwards.  On meeting men, led in slave-sticks, the Doctor had to
+bear the reproaches of the Makololo, who never slave, "Ay, you call
+us bad, but are we yellow-hearted, like these fellows--why won't you
+let us choke them?"  To liberate and leave them, would have done but
+little good, as the people of the surrounding villages would soon
+have seized them, and have sold them again into slavery.  The
+Manganja chiefs sell their own people, for we met Ajawa and slave-
+dealers in several highland villages, who had certainly been
+encouraged to come among them for slaves.  The chiefs always seemed
+ashamed of the traffic, and tried to excuse themselves.  "We do not
+sell many, and only those who have committed crimes."  As a rule the
+regular trade is supplied by the low and criminal classes, and hence
+the ugliness of slaves.  Others are probably sold besides criminals,
+as on the accusation of witchcraft.  Friendless orphans also
+sometimes disappear suddenly, and no one inquires what has become of
+them.  The temptation to sell their people is peculiarly great, as
+there is but little ivory on the hills, and often the chief has
+nothing but human flesh with which to buy foreign goods.  The Ajawa
+offer cloth, brass rings, pottery, and sometimes handsome young
+women, and agree to take the trouble of carrying off by night all
+those whom the chief may point out to them.  They give four yards of
+cotton cloth for a man, three for a woman, and two for a boy or girl,
+to be taken to the Portuguese at Mozambique, Iboe, and Quillimane.
+
+The Manganja were more suspicious and less hospitable than the tribes
+on the Zambesi.  They were slow to believe that our object in coming
+into their country was really what we professed it to be.  They
+naturally judge us by the motives which govern themselves.  A chief
+in the Upper Shire Valley, whose scared looks led our men to christen
+him Kitlabolawa (I shall be killed), remarked that parties had come
+before, with as plausible a story as ours, and, after a few days, had
+jumped up and carried off a number of his people as slaves.  We were
+not allowed to enter some of the villages in the valley, nor would
+the inhabitants even sell us food; Zimika's men, for instance, stood
+at the entrance of the euphorbia hedge, and declared we should not
+pass in.  We sat down under a tree close by.  A young fellow made an
+angry oration, dancing from side to side with his bow and poisoned
+arrows, and gesticulating fiercely in our faces.  He was stopped in
+the middle of his harangue by an old man, who ordered him to sit
+down, and not talk to strangers in that way; he obeyed reluctantly,
+scowling defiance, and thrusting out his large lips very
+significantly.  The women were observed leaving the village; and,
+suspecting that mischief might ensue, we proceeded on our journey, to
+the great disgust of our men.  They were very angry with the natives
+for their want of hospitality to strangers, and with us, because we
+would not allow them to give "the things a thrashing."  "This is what
+comes of going with white men," they growled out; "had we been with
+our own chief, we should have eaten their goats to-night, and had
+some of themselves to carry the bundles for us to-morrow."  On our
+return by a path which left his village on our right, Zimika sent to
+apologize, saying that "he was ill, and in another village at the
+time; it was not by his orders we were sent away; his men did not
+know that we were a party wishing the land to dwell in peace."
+
+We were not able, when hastening back to the men left in the ship, to
+remain in the villages belonging to this chief; but the people came
+after us with things for sale, and invited us to stop, and spend the
+night with them, urging, "Are we to have it said that white people
+passed through our country and we did not see them?"  We rested by a
+rivulet to gratify these sight-seers.  We appear to them to be red
+rather than white; and, though light colour is admired among
+themselves, our clothing renders us uncouth in aspect.  Blue eyes
+appear savage, and a red beard hideous.  From the numbers of aged
+persons we saw on the highlands, and the increase of mental and
+physical vigour we experienced on our ascent from the lowlands, we
+inferred that the climate was salubrious, and that our countrymen
+might there enjoy good health, and also be of signal benefit, by
+leading the multitude of industrious inhabitants to cultivate cotton,
+buaze, sugar, and other valuable produce, to exchange for goods of
+European manufacture; at the same time teaching them, by precept and
+example, the great truths of our Holy Religion.
+
+Our stay at the Lake was necessarily short.  We had found that the
+best plan for allaying any suspicions, that might arise in the minds
+of a people accustomed only to slave-traders, was to pay a hasty
+visit, and then leave for a while, and allow the conviction to form
+among the people that, though our course of action was so different
+from that of others, we were not dangerous, but rather disposed to be
+friendly.  We had also a party at the vessel, and any indiscretion on
+their part might have proved fatal to the character of the
+Expedition.
+
+The trade of Cazembe and Katanga's country, and of other parts of the
+interior, crosses Nyassa and the Shire, on its way to the Arab port,
+Kilwa, and the Portuguese ports of Iboe and Mozambique.  At present,
+slaves, ivory, malachite, and copper ornaments, are the only articles
+of commerce.  According to information collected by Colonel Rigby at
+Zanzibar, and from other sources, nearly all the slaves shipped from
+the above-mentioned ports come from the Nyassa district.  By means of
+a small steamer, purchasing the ivory of the Lake and River above the
+cataracts, which together have a shore-line of at least 600 miles,
+the slave-trade in this quarter would be rendered unprofitable,--for
+it is only by the ivory being carried by the slaves, that the latter
+do not eat up all the profits of a trip.  An influence would be
+exerted over an enormous area of country, for the Mazitu about the
+north end of the Lake will not allow slave-traders to pass round that
+way through their country.  They would be most efficient allies to
+the English, and might themselves be benefited by more intercourse.
+As things are now, the native traders in ivory and malachite have to
+submit to heavy exactions; and if we could give them the same prices
+which they at present get after carrying their merchandise 300 miles
+beyond this to the Coast, it might induce them to return without
+going further.  It is only by cutting off the supplies in the
+interior, that we can crush the slave-trade on the Coast.  The plan
+proposed would stop the slave-trade from the Zambesi on one side and
+Kilwa on the other; and would leave, beyond this tract, only the
+Portuguese port of Inhambane on the south, and a portion of the
+Sultan of Zanzibar's dominion on the north, for our cruisers to look
+after.  The Lake people grow abundance of cotton for their own
+consumption, and can sell it for a penny a pound or even less.
+Water-carriage exists by the Shire and Zambesi all the way to
+England, with the single exception of a portage of about thirty-five
+miles past the Murchison Cataracts, along which a road of less than
+forty miles could be made at a trifling expense; and it seems
+feasible that a legitimate and thriving trade might, in a short time,
+take the place of the present unlawful traffic.
+
+Colonel Rigby, Captains Wilson, Oldfield, and Chapman, and all the
+most intelligent officers on the Coast, were unanimous in the belief,
+that one small vessel on the Lake would have decidedly more
+influence, and do more good in suppressing the slave-trade, than half
+a dozen men-of-war on the ocean.  By judicious operations, therefore,
+on a small scale inland, little expense would be incurred, and the
+English slave-trade policy on the East would have the same fair
+chance of success, as on the West Coast.
+
+After a land-journey of forty days, we returned to the ship on the
+6th of October, 1859, in a somewhat exhausted condition, arising more
+from a sort of poisoning, than from the usual fatigue of travel.  We
+had taken a little mulligatawney paste, for making soup, in case of
+want of time to cook other food.  Late one afternoon, at the end of
+an unusually long march, we reached Mikena, near the base of Mount
+Njongone to the north of Zomba, and the cook was directed to use a
+couple of spoonfuls of the paste; but, instead of doing so, he put in
+the whole potful.  The soup tasted rather hot, but we added boiled
+rice to it, and, being very hungry, partook freely of it; and, in
+consequence of the overdose, we were delayed several days in severe
+suffering, and some of the party did not recover till after our
+return to the ship.  Our illness may partly have arisen from another
+cause.  One kind of cassava (Jatropha maligna) is known to be, in its
+raw state, poisonous, but by boiling it carefully in two waters,
+which must be thrown off, the poison is extracted and the cassava
+rendered fit for food.  The poisonous sort is easily known by raising
+a bit of the bark of the root, and putting the tongue to it.  A
+bitter taste shows poison, but it is probable that even the sweet
+kind contains an injurious principle.  The sap, which, like that of
+our potatoes, is injurious as an article of food, is used in the
+"Pepper-pot" of the West Indies, under the name of "Cassereep," as a
+perfect preservative of meat.  This juice put into an earthen vessel
+with a little water and Chili pepper is said to keep meat, that is
+immersed in it, good for a great length of time; even for years.  No
+iron or steel must touch the mixture, or it will become sour.  This
+"Pepper-pot," of which we first heard from the late Archbishop
+Whately, is a most economical meat-safe in a hot climate; any beef,
+mutton, pork, or fowl that may be left at dinner, if put into the
+mixture and a little fresh cassereep added, keeps perfectly, though
+otherwise the heat of the climate or flies would spoil it.  Our cook,
+however, boiled the cassava root as he was in the habit of cooking
+meat, namely, by filling the pot with it, and then pouring in water,
+which he allowed to stand on the fire until it had become absorbed
+and boiled away.  This method did not expel the poisonous properties
+of the root, or render it wholesome; for, notwithstanding our
+systematic caution in purchasing only the harmless sort, we suffered
+daily from its effects, and it was only just before the end of our
+trip that this pernicious mode of boiling it was discovered by us.
+
+In ascending 3000 feet from the lowlands to the highlands, or on
+reaching the low valley of the Shire from the higher grounds, the
+change of climate was very marked.  The heat was oppressive below,
+the thermometer standing at from 84 degrees to 103 degrees in the
+shade; and our spirits were as dull and languid as they had been
+exhilarated on the heights in a temperature cooler by some 20
+degrees.  The water of the river was sometimes 84 degrees or higher,
+whilst that we had been drinking in the hill streams was only 65
+degrees.
+
+It was found necessary to send two of our number across from the
+Shire to Tette; and Dr. Kirk, with guides from Chibisa, and
+accompanied by Mr. Rae, the engineer, accomplished the journey.  We
+had found the country to the north and east so very well watered,
+that no difficulty was anticipated in this respect in a march of less
+than a hundred miles; but on this occasion our friends suffered
+severely.  The little water to be had at this time of the year, by
+digging in the beds of dry watercourses, was so brackish as to
+increase thirst--some of the natives indeed were making salt from it;
+and when at long intervals a less brackish supply was found, it was
+nauseous and muddy from the frequent visits of large game.  The
+tsetse abounded.  The country was level, and large tracts of it
+covered with mopane forest, the leaves of which afford but scanty
+shade to the baked earth, so that scarcely any grass grows upon it.
+The sun was so hot, that the men frequently jumped from the path, in
+the vain hope of cooling, for a moment, their scorched feet under the
+almost shadeless bushes; and the native who carried the provision of
+salt pork got lost, and came into Tette two days after the rest of
+the party, with nothing but the fibre of the meat left, the fat,
+melted by the blazing sun, having all run down his back.  This path
+was soon made a highway for slaving parties by Captain Raposo, the
+Commandant.  The journey nearly killed our two active young friends;
+and what the slaves must have since suffered on it no one can
+conceive; but slaving probably can never be conducted without
+enormous suffering and loss of life.
+
+Mankokwe now sent a message to say that he wished us to stop at his
+village on our way down.  He came on board on our arrival there with
+a handsome present, and said that his young people had dissuaded him
+from visiting us before; but now he was determined to see what every
+one else was seeing.  A bald square-headed man, who had been his
+Prime Minister when we came up, was now out of office, and another
+old man, who had taken his place accompanied the chief.  In passing
+the Elephant Marsh, we saw nine large herds of elephants; they
+sometimes formed a line two miles long.
+
+On the 2nd of November we anchored off Shamoara, and sent the boat to
+Senna for biscuit and other provisions.  Senhor Ferrao, with his
+wonted generosity, gave us a present of a bullock, which he sent to
+us in a canoe.  Wishing to know if a second bullock would be
+acceptable to us, he consulted his Portuguese and English dictionary,
+and asked the sailor in charge if he would take ANOTHER; but Jack,
+mistaking the Portuguese pronunciation of the letter h, replied, "Oh
+no, sir, thank you, I don't want an OTTER in the boat, they are such
+terrible biters!"
+
+We had to ground the vessel on a shallow sandbank every night; she
+leaked so fast, that in deep water she would have sunk, and the pump
+had to be worked all day to keep her afloat.  Heavy rains fell daily,
+producing the usual injurious effects in the cabin; and, unable to
+wait any longer for our associates, who had gone overland from the
+Shire to Tette, we ran down the Kongone and beached her for repairs.
+Her Majesty's ship "Lynx," Lieut. Berkeley commanding, called shortly
+afterwards with supplies; the bar, which had been perfectly smooth
+for some time before, became rather rough just before her arrival, so
+that it was two or three days before she could communicate with us.
+Two of her boats tried to come in on the second day, and one of them,
+mistaking the passage, capsized in the heavy breakers abreast of the
+island.  Mr. Hunt, gunner, the officer in charge of the second boat,
+behaved nobly, and by his skilful and gallant conduct succeeded in
+rescuing every one of the first boat's crew.  Of course the things
+that they were bringing to us were lost, but we were thankful that
+all the men were saved.  The loss of the mail-bags, containing
+Government despatches and our friends' letters for the past year, was
+felt severely, as we were on the point of starting on an expedition
+into the interior, which might require eight or nine months; and
+twenty months is a weary time to be without news of friends and
+family.  In the repairing of our crazy craft, we received kind and
+efficient aid from Lieutenant Berkeley, and we were enabled to leave
+for Tette on December 16th.
+
+We had now frequent rains, and the river rose considerably; our
+progress up the stream was distressingly slow, and it was not until
+the 2nd of February, 1860, that we reached Tette.  Mr. Thornton
+returned on the same day from a geological tour, by which some
+Portuguese expected that a fabulous silver-mine would be
+rediscovered.  The tradition in the country is, that the Jesuits
+formerly knew and worked a precious lode at Chicova.  Mr. Thornton
+had gone beyond Zumbo, in company with a trader of colour; he soon
+after this left the Zambesi and, joining the expedition of the Baron
+van der Decken, explored the snow mountain Kilimanjaro, north-west of
+Zanzibar.  Mr. Thornton's companion, the trader, brought back much
+ivory, having found it both abundant and cheap.  He was obliged,
+however, to pay heavy fines to the Banyai and other tribes, in the
+country which is coolly claimed in Europe as Portuguese.  During this
+trip of six mouths 200 pieces of cotton cloth of sixteen yards each,
+besides beads and brass wire, were paid to the different chiefs, for
+leave to pass through their country.  In addition to these
+sufficiently weighty exactions, the natives of THIS DOMINION have got
+into the habit of imposing fines for alleged milandos, or crimes,
+which the traders' men may have unwittingly committed.  The
+merchants, however, submit rather than run the risk of fighting.
+
+The general monotony of existence at Tette is sometimes relieved by
+an occasional death or wedding.  When the deceased is a person of
+consequence, the quantity of gunpowder his slaves are allowed to
+expend is enormous.  The expense may, in proportion to their means,
+resemble that incurred by foolishly gaudy funerals in England.  When
+at Tette, we always joined with sympathizing hearts in aiding, by our
+presence at the last rites, to soothe the sorrows of the surviving
+relatives.  We are sure that they would have done the same to us had
+we been the mourners.  We never had to complain of want of
+hospitality.  Indeed, the great kindness shown by many of whom we
+have often spoken, will never be effaced from our memory till our
+dying day.  When we speak of their failings it is in sorrow, not in
+anger.  Their trading in slaves is an enormous mistake.  Their
+Government places them in a false position by cutting them off from
+the rest of the world; and of this they always speak with a
+bitterness which, were it heard, might alter the tone of the
+statesmen of Lisbon.  But here there is no press, no booksellers'
+shops, and scarcely a schoolmaster.  Had we been born in similar
+untoward circumstances--we tremble to think of it!
+
+The weddings are celebrated with as much jollity as weddings are
+anywhere.  We witnessed one in the house of our friend the Padre.  It
+being the marriage of his goddaughter, he kindly invited us to be
+partakers in his joy; and we there became acquainted with old Donna
+Engenia, who was a married wife and had children, when the slaves
+came from Cassange, before any of us were born.  The whole merry-
+making was marked by good taste amid propriety.
+
+About the only interesting object in the vicinity of Tette is the
+coal a few miles to the north.  There, in the feeders of the stream
+Revubue, it crops out in cliff sections.  The seams are from four to
+seven feet in thickness; one measured was found to be twenty-five
+feet thick.
+
+Learning that it would be difficult for our party to obtain food
+beyond Kebrabasa before the new crop came in and knowing the
+difficulty of hunting for so many men in the wet season, we decided
+on deferring our departure for the interior until May, and in the
+mean time to run down once more to the Kongone, in the hopes of
+receiving letters and despatches from the man-of-war that was to call
+in March.  We left Tette on the 10th, and at Senna heard that our
+lost mail had been picked up on the beach by natives, west of the
+Milambe; carried to Quillimane, sent thence to Senna, and, passing us
+somewhere on the river, on to Tette.  At Shupanga the governor
+informed us that it was a very large mail; no great comfort, seeing
+it was away up the river.
+
+Mosquitoes were excessively troublesome at the harbour, and
+especially when a light breeze blew from the north over the
+mangroves.  We lived for several weeks in small huts, built by our
+men.  Those who did the hunting for the party always got wet, and
+were attacked by fever, but generally recovered in time to be out
+again before the meat was all consumed.  No ship appearing, we
+started off on the 15th of March, and stopped to wood on the Luabo,
+near an encampment of hippopotamus hunters; our men heard again,
+through them, of the canoe path from this place to Quillimane, but
+they declined to point it out.
+
+We found our friend Major Sicard at Mazaro with picks, shovels,
+hurdles, and slaves, having come to build a fort and custom-house at
+the Kongone.  As we had no good reason to hide the harbour, but many
+for its being made known, we supplied him with a chart of the
+tortuous branches, which, running among the mangroves, perplex the
+search; and with such directions as would enable him to find his way
+down to the river.  He had brought the relics of our fugitive mail,
+and it was a disappointment to find that all had been lost, with the
+exception of a bundle of old newspapers, two photographs, and three
+letters, which had been written before we left England.
+
+The distance from Mazaro, on the Zambesi side, to the Kwakwa at
+Nterra, is about six miles, over a surprisingly rich dark soil.  We
+passed the night in the long shed, erected at Nterra, on the banks of
+this river, for the use of travellers, who have often to wait several
+days for canoes; we tried to sleep, but the mosquitoes and rats were
+so troublesome as to render sleep impossible.  The rats, or rather
+large mice, closely resembling Mus pumilio (Smith), of this region,
+are quite facetious, and, having a great deal of fun in them, often
+laugh heartily.  Again and again they woke us up by scampering over
+our faces, and then bursting into a loud laugh of He! he! he! at
+having performed the feat.  Their sense of the ludicrous appears to
+be exquisite; they screamed with laughter at the attempts which
+disturbed and angry human nature made in the dark to bring their ill-
+timed merriment to a close.  Unlike their prudent European cousins,
+which are said to leave a sinking ship, a party of these took up
+their quarters in our leaky and sinking vessel.  Quiet and invisible
+by day, they emerged at night, and cut their funny pranks.  No sooner
+were we all asleep, than they made a sudden dash over the lockers and
+across our faces for the cabin door, where all broke out into a loud
+He! he! he! he! he! he! showing how keenly they enjoyed the joke.
+They next went forward with as much delight, and scampered over the
+men.  Every night they went fore and aft, rousing with impartial feet
+every sleeper, and laughing to scorn the aimless blows, growls, and
+deadly rushes of outraged humanity.  We observed elsewhere a species
+of large mouse, nearly allied to Euryotis unisulcatus (F. Cuvier),
+escaping up a rough and not very upright wall, with six young ones
+firmly attached to the perineum.  They were old enough to be well
+covered with hair, and some were not detached by a blow which
+disabled the dam.  We could not decide whether any involuntary
+muscles were brought into play in helping the young to adhere.  Their
+weight seemed to require a sort of cataleptic state of the muscles of
+the jaw, to enable them to hold on.
+
+Scorpions, centipedes, and poisonous spiders also were not
+unfrequently brought into the ship with the wood, and occasionally
+found their way into our beds; but in every instance we were
+fortunate enough to discover and destroy them before they did any
+harm.  Naval officers on this coast report that, when scorpions and
+centipedes remain a few weeks after being taken on board in a similar
+manner, their poison loses nearly all its virulence; but this we did
+not verify.  Snakes sometimes came in with the wood, but oftener
+floated down the river to us, climbing on board with ease by the
+chain-cable, and some poisonous ones were caught in the cabin.  A
+green snake lived with us several weeks, concealing himself behind
+the casing of the deckhouse in the daytime.  To be aroused in the
+dark by five feet of cold green snake gliding over one's face is
+rather unpleasant, however rapid the movement may be.  Myriads of two
+varieties of cockroaches infested the vessel; they not only ate round
+the roots of our nails, but even devoured and defiled our food,
+flannels, and boots.  Vain were all our efforts to extirpate these
+destructive pests; if you kill one, say the sailors, a hundred come
+down to his funeral!  In the work of Commodore Owen it is stated that
+cockroaches, pounded into a paste, form a powerful carminative; this
+has not been confirmed, but when monkeys are fed on them they are
+sure to become lean.
+
+On coming to Senna, we found that the Zulus had arrived in force for
+their annual tribute.  These men are under good discipline, and never
+steal from the people.  The tax is claimed on the ground of conquest,
+the Zulus having formerly completely overcome the Senna people, and
+chased them on to the islands in the Zambesi.  Fifty-four of the
+Portuguese were slain on the occasion, and, notwithstanding the mud
+fort, the village has never recovered its former power.  Fever was
+now very prevalent, and most of the Portuguese were down with it.
+
+For a good view of the adjacent scenery, the hill, Baramuana, behind
+the village, was ascended.  A caution was given about the probability
+of an attack of fever from a plant that grows near the summit.  Dr.
+Kirk discovered it to be the Paedevia foetida, which, when smelt,
+actually does give headache and fever.  It has a nasty fetor, as its
+name indicates.  This is one instance in which fever and a foul smell
+coincide.  In a number of instances offensive effluvia and fever
+seems to have no connection.  Owing to the abundant rains, the crops
+in the Senna district were plentiful; this was fortunate, after the
+partial failure of the past two years.  It was the 25th of April,
+1860, before we reached Tette; here also the crops were luxuriant,
+and the people said that they had not had such abundance since 1856,
+the year when Dr. Livingstone came down the river.  It is astonishing
+to any one who has seen the works for irrigation in other countries,
+as at the Cape and in Egypt, that no attempt has ever been made to
+lead out the water either of the Zambesi or any of its tributaries;
+no machinery has ever been used to raise it even from the stream, but
+droughts and starvations are endured, as if they were inevitable
+dispensations of Providence, incapable of being mitigated.
+
+Feeling in honour bound to return with those who had been the
+faithful companions of Dr. Livingstone, in 1856, and to whose
+guardianship and services was due the accomplishment of a journey
+which all the Portuguese at Tette had previously pronounced
+impossible, the requisite steps were taken to convey them to their
+homes.
+
+We laid the ship alongside of the island Kanyimbe, opposite Tette;
+and, before starting for the country of the Makololo, obtained a
+small plot of land, to form a garden for the two English sailors who
+were to remain in charge during our absence.  We furnished them with
+a supply of seeds, and they set to work with such zeal, that they
+certainly merited success.  Their first attempt at African
+horticulture met with failure from a most unexpected source; every
+seed was dug up and the inside of it eaten by mice.  "Yes," said an
+old native, next morning, on seeing the husks, "that is what happens
+this month; for it is the mouse month, and the seed should have been
+sown last mouth, when I sowed mine."  The sailors, however, sowed
+more next day; and, being determined to outwit the mice, they this
+time covered the beds over with grass.  The onions, with other seeds
+of plants cultivated by the Portuguese, are usually planted in the
+beginning of April, in order to have the advantage of the cold
+season; the wheat a little later, for the same reason.  If sown at
+the beginning of the rainy season in November, it runs, as before
+remarked, entirely to straw; but as the rains are nearly over in May,
+advantage is taken of low-lying patches, which have been flooded by
+the river.  A hole is made in the mud with a hoe, a few seeds dropped
+in, and the earth shoved back with the foot.  If not favoured with
+certain misty showers, which, lower down the river, are simply fogs,
+water is borne from the river to the roots of the wheat in earthern
+pots; and in about four months the crop is ready for the sickle.  The
+wheat of Tette is exported, as the best grown in the country; but a
+hollow spot at Maruru, close by Mazaro, yielded very good crops,
+though just at the level of the sea, as a few inches rise of tide
+shows.
+
+A number of days were spent in busy preparation for our journey; the
+cloth, beads, and brass wire, for the trip were sewn up in old
+canvas, and each package had the bearer's name printed on it.  The
+Makololo, who had worked for the Expedition, were paid for their
+services, and every one who had come down with the Doctor from the
+interior received a present of cloth and ornaments, in order to
+protect them from the greater cold of their own country, and to show
+that they had not come in vain.  Though called Makololo by courtesy,
+as they were proud of the name, Kanyata, the principal headman, was
+the only real Makololo of the party; and he, in virtue of his birth,
+had succeeded to the chief place on the death of Sekwebu.  The others
+belonged to the conquered tribes of the Batoka, Bashubia, Ba-Selea,
+and Barotse.  Some of these men had only added to their own vices
+those of the Tette slaves; others, by toiling during the first two
+years in navigating canoes, and hunting elephants, had often managed
+to save a little, to take back to their own country, but had to part
+with it all for food to support the rest in times of hunger, and,
+latterly, had fallen into the improvident habits of slaves, and spent
+their surplus earnings in beer and agua ardiente.
+
+Everything being ready on the 15th of May, we started at 2 p.m. from
+the village where the Makololo had dwelt.  A number of the men did
+not leave with the goodwill which their talk for months before had
+led us to anticipate; but some proceeded upon being told that they
+were not compelled to go unless they liked, though others altogether
+declined moving.  Many had taken up with slave-women, whom they
+assisted in hoeing, and in consuming the produce of their gardens.
+Some fourteen children had been born to them; and in consequence of
+now having no chief to order them, or to claim their services, they
+thought that they were about as well off as they had been in their
+own country.  They knew and regretted that they could call neither
+wives nor children their own; the slave-owners claimed the whole; but
+their natural affections had been so enchained, that they clave to
+the domestic ties.  By a law of Portugal the baptized children of
+slave women are all free; by the custom of the Zambesi that law is
+void.  When it is referred to, the officers laugh and say, "These
+Lisbon-born laws are very stringent, but somehow, possibly from the
+heat of the climate, here they lose all their force."  Only one woman
+joined our party--the wife of a Batoka man:  she had been given to
+him, in consideration of his skilful dancing, by the chief, Chisaka.
+A merchant sent three of his men along with us, with a present for
+Sekeletu, and Major Sicard also lent us three more to assist us on
+our return, and two Portuguese gentleman kindly gave us the loan of a
+couple of donkeys.  We slept four miles above Tette, and hearing that
+the Banyai, who levy heavy fines on the Portuguese traders, lived
+chiefly on the right bank, we crossed over to the left, as we could
+not fully trust our men.  If the Banyai had come in a threatening
+manner, our followers might, perhaps, from having homes behind them,
+have even put down their bundles and run.  Indeed, two of them at
+this point made up their minds to go no further, and turned back to
+Tette.  Another, Monga, a Batoka, was much perplexed, and could not
+make out what course to pursue, as he had, three years previously,
+wounded Kanyata, the headman, with a spear.  This is a capital
+offence among the Makololo, and he was afraid of being put to death
+for it on his return.  He tried, in vain, to console himself with the
+facts that he had neither father, mother, sisters, nor brothers to
+mourn for him, and that he could die but once.  He was good, and
+would go up to the stars to Yesu, and therefore did not care for
+death.  In spite, however, of these reflections, he was much cast
+down, until Kanyata assured him that he would never mention his
+misdeed to the chief; indeed, he had never even mentioned it to the
+Doctor, which he would assuredly have done had it lain heavy on his
+heart.  We were right glad of Monga's company, for he was a merry
+good-tempered fellow, and his lithe manly figure had always been in
+the front in danger; and, from being left-handed, had been easily
+recognized in the fight with elephants.
+
+We commenced, for a certain number of days, with short marches,
+walking gently until broken in to travel.  This is of so much
+importance, that it occurs to us that more might be made out of
+soldiers if the first few days' marches were easy, and gradually
+increased in length and quickness.  The nights were cold, with heavy
+dews and occasional showers, and we had several cases of fever.  Some
+of the men deserted every night, and we fully expected that all who
+had children would prefer to return to Tette, for little ones are
+well known to prove the strongest ties, even to slaves.  It was
+useless informing them, that if they wanted to return they had only
+to come and tell us so; we should not be angry with them for
+preferring Tette to their own country.  Contact with slaves had
+destroyed their sense of honour; they would not go in daylight, but
+decamped in the night, only in one instance, however, taking our
+goods, though, in two more, they carried off their comrades'
+property.  By the time we had got well into the Kebrabasa hills
+thirty men, nearly a third of the party, had turned back, and it
+became evident that, if many more left us, Sekeletu's goods could not
+be carried up.  At last, when the refuse had fallen away, no more
+desertions took place.
+
+Stopping one afternoon at a Kebrabasa village, a man, who pretended
+to be able to change himself into a lion, came to salute us.
+Smelling the gunpowder from a gun which had been discharged, he went
+on one side to get out of the wind of the piece, trembling in a most
+artistic manner, but quite overacting his part.  The Makololo
+explained to us that he was a Pondoro, or a man who can change his
+form at will, and added that he trembles when he smells gunpowder.
+"Do you not see how he is trembling now?"  We told them to ask him to
+change himself at once into a lion, and we would give him a cloth for
+the performance.  "Oh no," replied they; "if we tell him so, he may
+change himself and come when we are asleep and kill us."  Having
+similar superstitions at home, they readily became as firm believers
+in the Pondoro as the natives of the village.  We were told that he
+assumes the form of a lion and remains in the woods for days, and is
+sometimes absent for a whole month.  His considerate wife had built
+him a hut or den, in which she places food and beer for her
+transformed lord, whose metamorphosis does not impair his human
+appetite.  No one ever enters this hut except the Pondoro and his
+wife, and no stranger is allowed even to rest his gun against the
+baobab-tree beside it:  the Mfumo, or petty chief, of another small
+village wished to fine our men for placing their muskets against an
+old tumble-down hut, it being that of the Pondoro.  At times the
+Pondoro employs his acquired powers in hunting for the benefit of the
+village; and after an absence of a day or two, his wife smells the
+lion, takes a certain medicine, places it in the forest, and there
+quickly leaves it, lest the lion should kill even her.  This medicine
+enables the Pondoro to change himself back into a man, return to the
+village, and say, "Go and get the game that I have killed for you."
+Advantage is of course taken of what a lion has done, and they go and
+bring home the buffalo or antelope killed when he was a lion, or
+rather found when he was patiently pursuing his course of deception
+in the forest.  We saw the Pondoro of another village dressed in a
+fantastic style, with numerous charms hung round him, and followed by
+a troop of boys who were honouring him with rounds of shrill
+cheering.
+
+It is believed also that the souls of departed chiefs enter into
+lions, and render them sacred.  On one occasion, when we had shot a
+buffalo in the path beyond the Kafue, a hungry lion, attracted
+probably by the smell of the meat, came close to our camp, and roused
+up all hands by his roaring.  Tuba Mokoro, imbued with the popular
+belief that the beast was a chief in disguise, scolded him roundly
+during his brief intervals of silence.  "You a chief, eh?  You call
+yourself a chief, do you?  What kind of chief are you to come
+sneaking about in the dark, trying to steal our buffalo meat!  Are
+you not ashamed of yourself?  A pretty chief truly; you are like the
+scavenger beetle, and think of yourself only.  You have not the heart
+of a chief; why don't you kill your own beef?  You must have a stone
+in your chest, and no heart at all, indeed!"  Tuba Mokoro producing
+no impression on the transformed chief, one of the men, the most
+sedate of the party, who seldom spoke, took up the matter, and tried
+the lion in another strain.  In his slow quiet way he expostulated
+with him on the impropriety of such conduct to strangers, who had
+never injured him.  "We were travelling peaceably through the country
+back to our own chief.  We never killed people, nor stole anything.
+The buffalo meat was ours, not his, and it did not become a great
+chief like him to be prowling round in the dark, trying, like a
+hyena, to steal the meat of strangers.  He might go and hunt for
+himself, as there was plenty of game in the forest."  The Pondoro,
+being deaf to reason, and only roaring the louder, the men became
+angry, and threatened to send a ball through him if he did not go
+away.  They snatched up their guns to shoot him, but he prudently
+kept in the dark, outside the luminous circle made by our camp fires,
+and there they did not like to venture.  A little strychnine was put
+into a piece of meat, and thrown to him, when he soon departed, and
+we heard no more of the majestic sneaker.
+
+The Kebrabasa people were now plumper and in better condition than on
+our former visits; the harvest had been abundant; they had plenty to
+eat and drink, and they were enjoying life as much as ever they
+could.  At Defwe's village, near where the ship lay on her first
+ascent, we found two Mfumos or headmen, the son and son-in-law of the
+former chief.  A sister's son has much more chance of succeeding to a
+chieftainship than the chief's own offspring, it being unquestionable
+that the sister's child has the family blood.  The men are all marked
+across the nose and up the middle of the forehead with short
+horizontal bars or cicatrices; and a single brass earring of two or
+three inches diameter, like the ancient Egyptian, is worn by the men.
+Some wear the hair long like the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians, and
+a few have eyes with the downward and inward slant of the Chinese.
+
+After fording the rapid Luia, we left our former path on the banks of
+the Zambesi, and struck off in a N.W. direction behind one of the
+hill ranges, the eastern end of which is called Mongwa, the name of
+an acacia, having a peculiarly strong fetor, found on it.  Our route
+wound up a valley along a small mountain-stream which was nearly dry,
+and then crossed the rocky spurs of some of the lofty hills.  The
+country was all very dry at the time, and no water was found except
+in an occasional spring and a few wells dug in the beds of
+watercourses.  The people were poor, and always anxious to convince
+travellers of the fact.  The men, unlike those on the plains, spend a
+good deal of their time in hunting; this may be because they have but
+little ground on the hill-sides suitable for gardens, and but little
+certainty of reaping what may be sown in the valleys.  No women came
+forward in the hamlet, east of Chiperiziwa, where we halted for the
+night.  Two shots had been fired at guinea-fowl a little way off in
+the valley; the women fled into the woods, and the men came to know
+if war was meant, and a few of the old folks only returned after
+hearing that we were for peace.  The headman, Kambira, apologized for
+not having a present ready, and afterwards brought us some meal, a
+roasted coney (Hyrax capensis), and a pot of beer; he wished to be
+thought poor.  The beer had come to him from a distance; he had none
+of his own.  Like the Manganja, these people salute by clapping their
+hands.  When a man comes to a place where others are seated, before
+sitting down he claps his hands to each in succession, and they do
+the same to him.  If he has anything to tell, both speaker and hearer
+clap their hands at the close of every paragraph, and then again
+vigorously at the end of the speech.  The guide, whom the headman
+gave us, thus saluted each of his comrades before he started off with
+us.  There is so little difference in the language, that all the
+tribes of this region are virtually of one family.
+
+We proceeded still in the same direction, and passed only two small
+hamlets during the day.  Except the noise our men made on the march,
+everything was still around us:  few birds were seen.  The appearance
+of a whydahbird showed that he had not yet parted with his fine long
+plumes.  We passed immense quantities of ebony and lignum-vitae, and
+the tree from whose smooth and bitter bark granaries are made for
+corn.  The country generally is clothed with a forest of ordinary-
+sized trees.  We slept in the little village near Sindabwe, where our
+men contrived to purchase plenty of beer, and were uncommonly
+boisterous all the evening.  We breakfasted next morning under green
+wild date-palms, beside the fine flowery stream, which runs through
+the charming valley of Zibah.  We now had Mount Chiperiziwa between
+us, and part of the river near Morumbwa, having in fact come north
+about in order to avoid the difficulties of our former path.  The
+last of the deserters, a reputed thief, took French leave of us here.
+He left the bundle of cloth he was carrying in the path a hundred
+yards in front of where we halted, but made off with the musket and
+most of the brass rings and beads of his comrade Shirimba, who had
+unsuspectingly intrusted them to his care.
+
+Proceeding S.W. up this lovely valley, in about an hour's time we
+reached Sandia's village.  The chief was said to be absent hunting,
+and they did not know when he would return.  This is such a common
+answer to the inquiry after a headman, that one is inclined to think
+that it only means that they wish to know the stranger's object
+before exposing their superior to danger.  As some of our men were
+ill, a halt was made here.
+
+As we were unable to march next morning, six of our young men,
+anxious to try their muskets, went off to hunt elephants.  For
+several hours they saw nothing, and some of them, getting tired,
+proposed to go to a village and buy food.  "No!" said Mantlanyane,
+"we came to hunt, so let us go on."  In a short time they fell in
+with a herd of cow elephants and calves.  As soon as the first cow
+caught sight of the hunters on the rocks above her, she, with true
+motherly instinct, placed her young one between her fore-legs for
+protection.  The men were for scattering, and firing into the herd
+indiscriminately.  "That won't do," cried Mantlanyane, "let us all
+fire at this one."  The poor beast received a volley, and ran down
+into the plain, where another shot killed her; the young one escaped
+with the herd.  The men were wild with excitement, and danced round
+the fallen queen of the forest, with loud shouts and exultant songs.
+They returned, bearing as trophies the tail and part of the trunk,
+and marched into camp as erect as soldiers, and evidently feeling
+that their stature had increased considerably since the morning.
+
+Sandia's wife was duly informed of their success, as here a law
+decrees that half the elephant belongs to the chief on whose ground
+it has been killed.  The Portuguese traders always submit to this
+tax, and, were it of native origin, it could hardly be considered
+unjust.  A chief must have some source of revenue; and, as many
+chiefs can raise none except from ivory or slaves, this tax is more
+free from objections than any other that a black Chancellor of the
+Exchequer could devise.  It seems, however, to have originated with
+the Portuguese themselves, and then to have spread among the adjacent
+tribes.  The Governors look sharply after any elephant that may be
+slain on the Crown lands, and demand one of the tusks from their
+vassals.  We did not find the law in operation in any tribe beyond
+the range of Portuguese traders, or further than the sphere of travel
+of those Arabs who imitated Portuguese customs in trade.  At the
+Kafue in 1855 the chiefs bought the meat we killed, and demanded
+nothing as their due; and so it was up the Shire during our visits.
+The slaves of the Portuguese, who are sent by their masters to shoot
+elephants, probably connive at the extension of this law, for they
+strive to get the good will of the chiefs to whose country they come,
+by advising them to make a demand of half of each elephant killed,
+and for this advice they are well paid in beer.  When we found that
+the Portuguese argued in favour of this law, we told the natives that
+they might exact tusks from THEM, but that the English, being
+different, preferred the pure native custom.  It was this which made
+Sandia, as afterwards mentioned, hesitate; but we did not care to
+insist on exemption in our favour, where the prevalence of the custom
+might have been held to justify the exaction.
+
+The cutting up of an elephant is quite a unique spectacle.  The men
+stand remind the animal in dead silence, while the chief of the
+travelling party declares that, according to ancient law, the head
+and right hind-leg belong to him who killed the beast, that is, to
+him who inflicted the first wound; the left leg to bins who delivered
+the second, or first touched the animal after it fell.  The meat
+around the eye to the English, or chief of the travellers, and
+different parts to the headmen of the different fires, or groups, of
+which the camp is composed; not forgetting to enjoin the preservation
+of the fat and bowels for a second distribution.  This oration
+finished, the natives soon become excited, and scream wildly as they
+cut away at the carcass with a score of spears, whose long handles
+quiver in the air above their heads.  Their excitement becomes
+momentarily more and more intense, and reaches the culminating point
+when, as denoted by a roar of gas, the huge mass is laid fairly open.
+Some jump inside, and roll about there in their eagerness to seize
+the precious fat, while others run off, screaming, with pieces of the
+bloody meat, throw it on the grass, and run back for more:  all keep
+talking and shouting at the utmost pitch of their voices.  Sometimes
+two or three, regardless of all laws, seize the same piece of meat,
+and have a brief fight of words over it.  Occasionally an agonized
+yell bursts forth, and a native emerges out of the moving mass of
+dead elephant and wriggling humanity, with his hand badly cut by the
+spear of his excited friend and neighbour:  this requires a rag and
+some soothing words to prevent bad blood.  In an incredibly short
+time tons of meat are cut up, and placed in separate heaps around.
+
+Sandia arrived soon after the beast was divided:  he is an elderly
+man, and wears a wig made of "ife" fibre (sanseviera) dyed black, and
+of a fine glossy appearance.  This plant is allied to the aloes, and
+its thick fleshy leaves, in shape somewhat like our sedges, when
+bruised yield much fine strong fibre, which is made into ropes, nets,
+and wigs.  It takes dyes readily, and the fibre might form a good
+article of commerce.  "Ife" wigs, as we afterwards saw, are not
+uncommon in this country, though perhaps not so common as hair wigs
+at home.  Sandia's mosamela, or small carved wooden pillow, exactly
+resembling the ancient Egyptian one, was hung from the back of his
+neck; this pillow and a sleeping mat are usually carried by natives
+when on hunting excursions.
+
+We had the elephant's fore-foot cooked for ourselves, in native
+fashion.  A large hole was dug in the ground, in which a fire was
+made; and, when the inside was thoroughly heated, the entire foot was
+placed in it, and covered over with the hot ashes and soil; another
+fire was made above the whole, and kept burning all night.  We had
+the foot thus cooked for breakfast next morning, and found it
+delicious.  It is a whitish mass, slightly gelatinous, and sweet,
+like marrow.  A long march, to prevent biliousness, is a wise
+precaution after a meal of elephant's foot.  Elephant's trunk and
+tongue are also good, and, after long simmering, much resemble the
+hump of a buffalo and the tongue of an ox; but all the other meat is
+tough, and, from its peculiar flavour, only to be eaten by a hungry
+man.  The quantities of meat our men devour is quite astounding.
+They boil as much as their pots will hold, and eat till it becomes
+physically impossible for them to stow away any more.  An uproarious
+dance follows, accompanied with stentorian song; and as soon as they
+have shaken their first course down, and washed off the sweat and
+dust of the after performance, they go to work to roast more:  a
+short snatch of sleep succeeds, and they are up and at it again; all
+night long it is boil and eat, roast and devour, with a few brief
+interludes of sleep.  Like other carnivora, these men can endure
+hunger for a much longer period than the mere porridge-eating tribes.
+Our men can cook meat as well as any reasonable traveller could
+desire; and, boiled in earthen pots, like Indian chatties, it tastes
+much better than when cooked in iron ones.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+Magnificent scenery--Method of marching--Hippopotamus killed--Lions
+and buffalo--Sequasha the ivory-trader.
+
+Sandia gave us two guides; and on the 4th of June we left the
+Elephant valley, taking a westerly course; and, after crossing a few
+ridges, entered the Chingerere or Paguruguru valley, through which,
+in the rainy season, runs the streamlet Pajodze.  The mountains on
+our left, between us and the Zambesi, our guides told us have the
+same name as the valley, but that at the confluence of the Pajodze is
+called Morumbwa.  We struck the river at less than half a mile to the
+north of the cataract Morumbwa.  On climbing up the base of this
+mountain at Pajodze, we found that we were distant only the diameter
+of the mountain from the cataract.  In measuring the cataract we
+formerly stood on its southern flank; now we were perched on its
+northern flank, and at once recognized the onion-shaped mountain,
+here called Zakavuma, whose smooth convex surface overlooks the
+broken water.  Its bearing by compass was l80 degrees from the spot
+to which we had climbed, and 700 or 800 yards distant.  We now, from
+this standing-point, therefore, completed our inspection of all
+Kebrabasa, and saw what, as a whole, was never before seen by
+Europeans so far as any records show.
+
+The remainder of the Kebrabasa path, on to Chicova, was close to the
+compressed and rocky river.  Ranges of lofty tree-covered mountains,
+with deep narrow valleys, in which are dry watercourses, or flowing
+rivulets, stretch from the north-west, and are prolonged on the
+opposite side of the river in a south-easterly direction.  Looking
+back, the mountain scenery in Kebrabasa was magnificent; conspicuous
+from their form and steep sides, are the two gigantic portals of the
+cataract; the vast forests still wore their many brilliant autumnal-
+coloured tints of green, yellow, red, purple, and brown, thrown into
+relief by the grey bark of the trunks in the background.  Among these
+variegated trees were some conspicuous for their new livery of fresh
+light-green leaves, as though the winter of others was their spring.
+The bright sunshine in these mountain forests, and the ever-changing
+forms of the cloud shadows, gliding over portions of the surface,
+added fresh charms to scenes already surpassingly beautiful.
+
+From what we have seen of the Kebrabasa rocks and rapids, it appears
+too evident that they must always form a barrier to navigation at the
+ordinary low water of the river; but the rise of the water in this
+gorge being as much as eighty feet perpendicularly, it is probable
+that a steamer might be taken up at high flood, when all the rapids
+are smoothed over, to run on the Upper Zambesi.  The most formidable
+cataract in it, Morumbwa, has only about twenty feet of fall, in a
+distance of thirty yards, and it must entirely disappear when the
+water stands eighty feet higher.  Those of the Makololo who worked on
+board the ship were not sorry at the steamer being left below, as
+they had become heartily tired of cutting the wood that the
+insatiable furnace of the "Asthmatic" required.  Mbia, who was a bit
+of a wag, laughingly exclaimed in broken English, "Oh, Kebrabasa
+good, very good; no let shippee up to Sekeletu, too muchee work,
+cuttee woodyee, cuttee woodyee:  Kebrabasa good."  It is currently
+reported, and commonly believed, that once upon a time a Portuguese
+named Jose Pedra,--by the natives called Nyamatimbira,--chief, or
+capitao mor, of Zumbo, a man of large enterprise and small humanity,-
+-being anxious to ascertain if Kebrabasa could be navigated, made two
+slaves fast to a canoe, and launched it from Chicova into Kebrabasa,
+in order to see if it would come out at the other end.  As neither
+slaves nor canoe ever appeared again, his Excellency concluded that
+Kebrabasa was unnavigable.  A trader had a large canoe swept away by
+a sudden rise of the river, and it was found without damage below;
+but the most satisfactory information was that of old Sandia, who
+asserted that in flood all Kebrabasa became quite smooth, and he had
+often seen it so.
+
+We emerged from the thirty-five or forty miles of Kebrabasa hills
+into the Chicova plains on the 7th of June, 1860, having made short
+marches all the way.  The cold nights caused some of our men to cough
+badly, and colds in this country almost invariably become fever.  The
+Zambesi suddenly expands at Chicova, and assumes the size and
+appearance it has at Tette.  Near this point we found a large seam of
+coal exposed in the left bank.
+
+We met with native travellers occasionally.  Those on a long journey
+carry with them a sleeping-mat and wooden pillow, cooking-pot and bag
+of meal, pipe and tobacco-pouch, a knife, bow, and arrows, and two
+small sticks, of from two to three feet in length, for making fire,
+when obliged to sleep away from human habitations.  Dry wood is
+always abundant, and they get fire by the following method.  A notch
+is cut in one of the sticks, which, with a close-grained outside, has
+a small core of pith, and this notched stick is laid horizontally on
+a knife-blade on the ground; the operator squatting, places his great
+toes on each end to keep all steady, and taking the other wand which
+is of very hard wood cut to a blunt point, fits it into the notch at
+right angles; the upright wand is made to spin rapidly backwards and
+forwards between the palms of the hands, drill fashion, and at the
+same time is pressed downwards; the friction, in the course of a
+minute or so, ignites portions of the pith of the notched stick,
+which, rolling over like live charcoal on to the knife-blade, are
+lifted into a handful of fine dry grass, and carefully blown, by
+waving backwards and forwards in the air.  It is hard work for the
+hands to procure fire by this process, as the vigorous drilling and
+downward pressure requisite soon blister soft palms.
+
+Having now entered a country where lions were numerous, our men began
+to pay greater attention to the arrangements of the camp at night.
+As they are accustomed to do with their chiefs, they place the white
+men in the centre; Kanyata, his men, and the two donkeys, camp on our
+right; Tuba Mokoro's party of Bashubia are in front; Masakasa, and
+Sininyane's body of Batoka, on the left; and in the rear six Tette
+men have their fires.  In placing their fires they are careful to put
+them where the smoke will not blow in our faces.  Soon after we halt,
+the spot for the English is selected, and all regulate their places
+accordingly, and deposit their burdens.  The men take it by turns to
+cut some of the tall dry grass, and spread it for our beds on a spot,
+either naturally level, or smoothed by the hoe; some, appointed to
+carry our bedding, then bring our rugs and karosses, and place the
+three rugs in a row on the grass; Dr. Livingstone's being in the
+middle, Dr. Kirk's on the right, and Charles Livingstone's on the
+left.  Our bags, rifles, and revolvers are carefully placed at our
+heads, and a fire made near our feet.  We have no tent nor covering
+of any kind except the branches of the tree under which we may happen
+to lie; and it is a pretty sight to look up and see every branch,
+leaf, and twig of the tree stand out, reflected against the clear
+star-spangled and moonlit sky.  The stars of the first magnitude have
+names which convey the same meaning over very wide tracts of country.
+Here when Venus comes out in the evenings, she is called Ntanda, the
+eldest or first-born, and Manjika, the first-born of morning, at
+other times:  she has so much radiance when shining alone, that she
+casts a shadow.  Sirius is named Kuewa usiko, "drawer of night,"
+because supposed to draw the whole night after it.  The moon has no
+evil influence in this country, so far as we know.  We have lain and
+looked up at her, till sweet sleep closed our eyes, unharmed.  Four
+or five of our men were affected with moon-blindness at Tette; though
+they had not slept out of doors there, they became so blind that
+their comrades had to guide their hands to the general dish of food;
+the affection is unknown in their own country.  When our posterity
+shall have discovered what it is which, distinct from foul smells,
+causes fever, and what, apart from the moon, causes men to be moon-
+struck, they will pity our dulness of perception.
+
+The men cut a very small quantity of grass for themselves, and sleep
+in fumbas or sleeping-bags, which are double mats of palm-leaf, six
+feet long by four wide, and sewn together round three parts of the
+square, and left open only on one side.  They are used as a
+protection from the cold, wet, and mosquitoes, and are entered as we
+should get into our beds, were the blankets nailed to the top,
+bottom, and one side of the bedstead.
+
+A dozen fires are nightly kindled in the camp; and these, being
+replenished from time to time by the men who are awakened by the
+cold, are kept burning until daylight.  Abundance of dry hard wood is
+obtained with little trouble; and burns beautifully.  After the great
+business of cooking and eating is over, all sit round the camp-fires,
+and engage in talking or singing.  Every evening one of the Batoka
+plays his "sansa," and continues at it until far into the night; he
+accompanies it with an extempore song, in which he rehearses their
+deeds ever since they left their own country.  At times animated
+political discussions spring up, and the amount of eloquence expended
+on these occasions is amazing.  The whole camp is aroused, and the
+men shout to one another from the different fires; whilst some, whose
+tongues are never heard on any other subject, burst forth into
+impassioned speech.
+
+As a specimen of our mode of marching, we rise about five, or as soon
+as dawn appears, take a cup of tea and a bit of biscuit; the servants
+fold up the blankets and stow them away in the bags they carry; the
+others tie their fumbas and cooking-pots to each end of their
+carrying-sticks, which are borne on the shoulder; the cook secures
+the dishes, and all are on the path by sunrise.  If a convenient spot
+can be found we halt for breakfast about nine a.m.  To save time,
+this meal is generally cooked the night before, and has only to be
+warmed.  We continue the march after breakfast, rest a little in the
+middle of the day, and break off early in the afternoon.  We average
+from two to two-and-a-half miles an hour in a straight line, or as
+the crow flies, and seldom have more than five or six hours a day of
+actual travel.  This in a hot climate is as much as a man can
+accomplish without being oppressed; and we always tried to make our
+progress more a pleasure than a toil.  To hurry over the ground,
+abuse, and look ferocious at one's native companions, merely for the
+foolish vanity of boasting how quickly a distance was accomplished,
+is a combination of silliness with absurdity quite odious; while
+kindly consideration for the feelings of even blacks, the pleasure of
+observing scenery and everything new as one moves on at an ordinary
+pace, and the participation in the most delicious rest with our
+fellows, render travelling delightful.  Though not given to over
+haste, we were a little surprised to find that we could tire our men
+out; and even the headman, who carried but little more than we did,
+and never, as we often had to do, hunted in the afternoon, was no
+better than his comrades.  Our experience tends to prove that the
+European constitution has a power of endurance, even in the tropics,
+greater than that of the hardiest of the meat-eating Africans.
+
+After pitching our camp, one or two of us usually go off to hunt,
+more as a matter of necessity than of pleasure, for the men, as well
+as ourselves, must have meat.  We prefer to take a man with us to
+carry home the game, or lead the others to where it lies; but as they
+frequently grumble and complain of being tired, we do not
+particularly object to going alone, except that it involves the extra
+labour of our making a second trip to show the men where the animal
+that has been shot is to be found.  When it is a couple of miles off
+it is rather fatiguing to have to go twice; more especially on the
+days when it is solely to supply their wants that, instead of resting
+ourselves, we go at all.  Like those who perform benevolent deeds at
+home, the tired hunter, though trying hard to live in charity with
+all men, is strongly tempted to give it up by bringing only
+sufficient meat for the three whites and leaving the rest; thus
+sending the "idle ungrateful poor" supperless to bed.  And yet it is
+only by continuance in well-doing, even to the length of what the
+worldly-wise call weakness, that the conviction is produced anywhere,
+that our motives are high enough to secure sincere respect.
+
+A jungle of mimosa, ebony, and "wait-a-bit" thorn lies between the
+Chicova flats and the cultivated plain, on which stand the villages
+of the chief, Chitora.  He brought us a present of food and drink,
+because, as he, with the innate politeness of an African, said, he
+"did not wish us to sleep hungry:  he had heard of the Doctor when he
+passed down, and had a great desire to see and converse with him; but
+he was a child then, and could not speak in the presence of great
+men.  He was glad that he had seen the English now, and was sorry
+that his people were away, or he should have made them cook for us."
+All his subsequent conduct showed him to be sincere.
+
+Many of the African women are particular about the water they use for
+drinking and cooking, and prefer that which is filtered through sand.
+To secure this, they scrape holes in the sandbanks beside the stream,
+and scoop up the water, which slowly filters through, rather than
+take it from the equally clear and limpid river.  This practice is
+common in the Zambesi, the Rovuma, and Lake Nyassa; and some of the
+Portuguese at Tette have adopted the native custom, and send canoes
+to a low island in the middle of the river for water.  Chitora's
+people also obtained their supply from shallow wells in the sandy bed
+of a small rivulet close to the village.  The habit may have arisen
+from observing the unhealthiness of the main stream at certain
+seasons.  During nearly nine months in the year, ordure is deposited
+around countless villages along the thousands of miles drained by the
+Zambesi.  When the heavy rains come down, and sweep the vast fetid
+accumulation into the torrents, the water is polluted with filth;
+and, but for the precaution mentioned, the natives would prove
+themselves as little fastidious as those in London who drink the
+abomination poured into the Thames by Reading and Oxford.  It is no
+wonder that sailors suffered so much from fever after drinking
+African river water, before the present admirable system of
+condensing it was adopted in our navy.
+
+The scent of man is excessively terrible to game of all kinds, much
+more so, probably, than the sight of him.  A herd of antelopes, a
+hundred yards off, gazed at us as we moved along the winding path,
+and timidly stood their ground until half our line had passed, but
+darted off the instant they "got the wind," or caught the flavour of
+those who had gone by.  The sport is all up with the hunter who gets
+to the windward of the African beast, as it cannot stand even the
+distant aroma of the human race, so much dreaded by all wild animals.
+Is this the fear and the dread of man, which the Almighty said to
+Noah was to be upon every beast of the field?  A lion may, while
+lying in wait for his prey, leap on a human being as he would on any
+other animal, save a rhinoceros or an elephant, that happened to
+pass; or a lioness, when she has cubs, might attack a man, who,
+passing "up the wind of her," had unconsciously, by his scent,
+alarmed her for the safety of her whelps; or buffaloes, amid other
+animals, might rush at a line of travellers, in apprehension of being
+surrounded by them; but neither beast nor snake will, as a general
+rule, turn on man except when wounded, or by mistake.  If gorillas,
+unwounded, advance to do battle with him, and beat their breasts in
+defiance, they are an exception to all wild beasts known to us.  From
+the way an elephant runs at the first glance of man, it is inferred
+that this huge brute, though really king of beasts, would run even
+from a child.
+
+Our two donkeys caused as much admiration as the three white men.
+Great was the astonishment when one of the donkeys began to bray.
+The timid jumped more than if a lion had roared beside them.  All
+were startled, and stared in mute amazement at the harsh-voiced one,
+till the last broken note was uttered; then, on being assured that
+nothing in particular was meant, they looked at each other, and burst
+into a loud laugh at their common surprise.  When one donkey
+stimulated the other to try his vocal powers, the interest felt by
+the startled visitors, must have equalled that of the Londoners, when
+they first crowded to see the famous hippopotamus.
+
+We were now, when we crossed the boundary rivulet Nyamatarara, out of
+Chicova and amongst sandstone rocks, similar to those which prevail
+between Lupata and Kebrabasa.  In the latter gorge, as already
+mentioned, igneous and syenitic masses have been acted on by some
+great fiery convulsion of nature; the strata are thrown into a
+huddled heap of confusion.  The coal has of course disappeared in
+Kebrabasa, but is found again in Chicova.  Tette grey sandstone is
+common about Sinjere, and wherever it is seen with fossil wood upon
+it, coal lies beneath; and here, as at Chicova, some seams crop out
+on the banks of the Zambesi.  Looking southwards, the country is open
+plain and woodland, with detached hills and mountains in the
+distance; but the latter are too far off, the natives say, for them
+to know their names.  The principal hills on our right, as we look up
+stream, are from six to twelve miles away, and occasionally they send
+down spurs to the river, with brooks flowing through their narrow
+valleys.  The banks of the Zambesi show two well-defined terraces;
+the first, or lowest, being usually narrow, and of great fertility,
+while the upper one is a dry grassy plain, a thorny jungle, or a
+mopane (Bauhinia) forest.  One of these plains, near the Kafue, is
+covered with the large stumps and trunks of a petrified forest.  We
+halted a couple of days by the fine stream Sinjere, which comes from
+the Chiroby-roby hills, about eight miles to the north.  Many lumps
+of coal, brought down by the rapid current, lie in its channel.  The
+natives never seem to have discovered that coal would burn, and, when
+informed of the fact, shook their heads, smiled incredulously, and
+said "Kodi" (really), evidently regarding it as a mere traveller's
+tale.  They were astounded to see it burning freely on our fire of
+wood.  They told us that plenty of it was seen among the hills; but,
+being long ago aware that we were now in an immense coalfield, we did
+not care to examine it further.
+
+A dyke of black basaltic rock, called Kakolole, crosses the river
+near the mouth of the Sinjere; but it has two open gateways in it of
+from sixty to eighty yards in breadth, and the channel is very deep.
+
+On a shallow sandbank, under the dyke, lay a herd of hippopotami in
+fancied security.  The young ones were playing with each other like
+young puppies, climbing on the backs of their dams, trying to take
+hold of one another by the jaws and tumbling over into the water.
+Mbia, one of the Makololo, waded across to within a dozen yards of
+the drowsy beasts, and shot the father of the herd; who, being very
+fat, soon floated, and was secured at the village below.  The headman
+of the village visited us while we were at breakfast.  He wore a
+black "ife" wig and a printed shirt.  After a short silence he said
+to Masakasa, "You are with the white people, so why do you not tell
+them to give me a cloth?"  "We are strangers," answered Masakasa,
+"why do you not bring us some food?"  He took the plain hint, and
+brought us two fowls, in order that we should not report that in
+passing him we got nothing to eat; and, as usual, we gave a cloth in
+return.  In reference to the hippopotamus he would make no demand,
+but said he would take what we chose to give him.  The men gorged
+themselves with meat for two days, and cut large quantities into long
+narrow strips, which they half-dried and half-roasted on wooden
+frames over the fire.  Much game is taken in this neighbourhood in
+pitfalls.  Sharp-pointed stakes are set in the bottom, on which the
+game tumbles and gets impaled.  The natives are careful to warn
+strangers of these traps, and also of the poisoned beams suspended on
+the tall trees for the purpose of killing elephants and hippopotami.
+It is not difficult to detect the pitfalls after one's attention has
+been called to them; but in places where they are careful to carry
+the earth off to a distance, and a person is not thinking of such
+things, a sudden descent of nine feet is an experience not easily
+forgotten by the traveller.  The sensations of one thus
+instantaneously swallowed up by the earth are peculiar.  A momentary
+suspension of consciousness is followed by the rustling sound of a
+shower of sand and dry grass, and the half-bewildered thought of
+where he is, and how he came into darkness.  Reason awakes to assure
+him that he must have come down through that small opening of
+daylight overhead, and that he is now where a hippopotamus ought to
+have been.  The descent of a hippopotamus pitfall is easy, but to get
+out again into the upper air is a work of labour.  The sides are
+smooth and treacherous, and the cross reeds, which support the
+covering, break in the attempt to get out by clutching them.  A cry
+from the depths is unheard by those around, and it is only by
+repeated and most desperate efforts that the buried alive can regain
+the upper world.  At Tette we are told of a white hunter, of
+unusually small stature, who plumped into a pit while stalking a
+guinea-fowl on a tree.  It was the labour of an entire forenoon to
+get out; and he was congratulating himself on his escape, and
+brushing off the clay from his clothes, when down he went into a
+second pit, which happened, as is often the case, to be close beside
+the first, and it was evening before he could work himself out of
+THAT.
+
+Elephants and buffaloes seldom return to the river by the same path
+on two successive nights, they become so apprehensive of danger from
+this human art.  An old elephant will walk in advance of the herd,
+and uncover the pits with his trunk, that the others may see the
+openings and tread on firm ground.  Female elephants are generally
+the victims:  more timid by nature than the males, and very motherly
+in their anxiety for their calves, they carry their trunks up, trying
+every breeze for fancied danger, which often in reality lies at their
+feet.  The tusker, fearing less, keeps his trunk down, and, warned in
+time by that exquisitely sensitive organ, takes heed to his ways.
+
+Our camp on the Sinjere stood under a wide-spreading wild fig-tree.
+From the numbers of this family, of large size, dotted over the
+country, the fig or banyan species would seem to have been held
+sacred in Africa from the remotest times.  The soil teemed with white
+ants, whose clay tunnels, formed to screen them from the eyes of
+birds, thread over the ground, up the trunks of trees, and along the
+branches, from which the little architects clear away all rotten or
+dead wood.  Very often the exact shape of branches is left in tunnels
+on the ground and not a bit of the wood inside.  The first night we
+passed here these destructive insects ate through our grass-beds, and
+attacked our blankets, and certain large red-headed ones even bit our
+flesh.
+
+On some days not a single white ant is to be seen abroad; and on
+others, and during certain hours, they appear out of doors in
+myriads, and work with extraordinary zeal and energy in carrying bits
+of dried grass down into their nests.  During these busy reaping-fits
+the lizards and birds have a good time of it, and enjoy a rich feast
+at the expense of thousands of hapless workmen; and when they swarm
+they are caught in countless numbers by the natives, and their
+roasted bodies are spoken of in an unctuous manner as resembling
+grains of soft rice fried in delicious fresh oil.
+
+A strong marauding party of large black ants attacked a nest of white
+ones near the camp:  as the contest took place beneath the surface,
+we could not see the order of the battle; but it soon became apparent
+that the blacks had gained the day, and sacked the white town, for
+they returned in triumph, bearing off the eggs, and choice bits of
+the bodies of the vanquished.  A gift, analogous to that of language,
+has not been withheld from ants:  if part of their building is
+destroyed, an official is seen coming out to examine the damage; and,
+after a careful survey of the ruins, he chirrups a few clear and
+distinct notes, and a crowd of workers begin at once to repair the
+breach.  When the work is completed, another order is given, and the
+workmen retire, as will appear on removing the soft freshly-built
+portion.  We tried to sleep one rainy might in a native hut, but
+could not because of attacks by the fighting battalions of a very
+small species of formica, not more than one-sixteenth of an inch in
+length.  It soon became obvious that they were under regular
+discipline, and even attempting to carry out the skilful plans and
+stratagems of some eminent leader.  Our hands and necks were the
+first objects of attack.  Large bodies of these little pests were
+massed in silence round the point to be assaulted.  We could hear the
+sharp shrill word of command two or three times repeated, though
+until then we had not believed in the vocal power of an ant; the
+instant after we felt the storming hosts range over head and neck,
+biting the tender skin, clinging with a death-grip to the hair, and
+parting with their jaws rather than quit their hold.  On our lying
+down again in the hope of their having been driven off, no sooner was
+the light out, and all still, than the manoeuvre was repeated.  Clear
+and audible orders were issued, and the assault renewed.  It was as
+hard to sleep in that hut as in the trenches before Sebastopol.  The
+white ant, being a vegetable feeder, devours articles of vegetable
+origin only, and leather, which, by tanning, is imbued with a
+vegetable flavour.  "A man may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow,
+from the ravages of white ants," said a Portuguese merchant.  "If he
+gets sick, and unable to look after his goods, his slaves neglect
+them, and they are soon destroyed by these insects."  The reddish
+ant, in the west called drivers, crossed our path daily, in solid
+columns an inch wide, and never did the pugnacity of either man or
+beast exceed theirs.  It is a sufficient cause of war if you only
+approach them, even by accident.  Some turn out of the ranks and
+stand with open mandibles, or, charging with extended jaws, bite with
+savage ferocity.  When hunting, we lighted among them too often;
+while we were intent on the game, and without a thought of ants, they
+quietly covered us from head to foot, then all began to bite at the
+same instant; seizing a piece of the skin with their powerful
+pincers, they twisted themselves round with it, as if determined to
+tear it out.  Their bites are so terribly sharp that the bravest must
+run, and then strip to pick off those that still cling with their
+hooked jaws, as with steel forceps.  This kind abounds in damp
+places, and is usually met with on the banks of streams.  We have not
+heard of their actually killing any animal except the Python, and
+that only when gorged and quite lethargic, but they soon clear away
+any dead animal matter; this appears to be their principal food, and
+their use in the economy of nature is clearly in the scavenger line.
+
+We started from the Sinjere on the 12th of June, our men carrying
+with them bundles of hippopotamus meat for sale, and for future use.
+We rested for breakfast opposite the Kakolole dyke, which confines
+the channel, west of the Manyerere mountain.  A rogue monkey, the
+largest by far that we ever saw, and very fat and tame, walked off
+leisurely from a garden as we approached.  The monkey is a sacred
+animal in this region, and is never molested or killed, because the
+people believe devoutly that the souls of their ancestors now occupy
+these degraded forms, and anticipate that they themselves must,
+sooner or later, be transformed in like manner; a future as cheerless
+for the black as the spirit-rapper's heaven is for the whites.  The
+gardens are separated from each other by a single row of small
+stones, a few handfuls of grass, or a slight furrow made by the hoe.
+Some are enclosed by a reed fence of the flimsiest construction, yet
+sufficient to keep out the ever wary hippopotamus, who dreads a trap.
+His extreme caution is taken advantage of by the women, who hang, as
+a miniature trap-beam, a kigelia fruit with a bit of stick in the
+end.  This protects the maize, of which he is excessively fond.
+
+The quantity of hippopotamus meat eaten by our men made some of them
+ill, and our marches were necessarily short.  After three hours'
+travel on the 13th, we spent the remainder of the day at the village
+of Chasiribera, on a rivulet flowing through a beautiful valley to
+the north, which is bounded by magnificent mountain-ranges.  Pinkwe,
+or Mbingwe, otherwise Moeu, forms the south-eastern angle of the
+range.  On the 16th June we were at the flourishing village of Senga,
+under the headman Manyame, which lies at the foot of the mount
+Motemwa.  Nearly all the mountains in this country are covered with
+open forest and grass, in colour, according to the season, green or
+yellow.  Many are between 2000 and 3000 feet high, with the sky line
+fringed with trees; the rocks show just sufficiently for one to
+observe their stratification, or their granitic form, and though not
+covered with dense masses of climbing plants, like those in moister
+eastern climates, there is still the idea conveyed that most of the
+steep sides are fertile, and none give the impression of that
+barrenness which, in northern mountains, suggests the idea that the
+bones of the world are sticking through its skin.
+
+The villagers reported that we were on the footsteps of a Portuguese
+half-caste, who, at Senga, lately tried to purchase ivory, but, in
+consequence of his having murdered a chief near Zumbo and twenty of
+his men, the people declined to trade with him.  He threatened to
+take the ivory by force, if they would not sell it; but that same
+night the ivory and the women were spirited out of the village, and
+only a large body of armed men remained.  The trader, fearing that he
+might come off second best if it came to blows, immediately departed.
+Chikwanitsela, or Sekuanangila, is the paramount chief of some fifty
+miles of the northern bank of the Zambesi in this locality.  He lives
+on the opposite, or southern side, and there his territory is still
+more extensive.  We sent him a present from Senga, and were informed
+by a messenger next morning that he had a cough and could not come
+over to see us.  "And has his present a cough too," remarked one of
+our party, "that it does not come to us?  Is this the way your chief
+treats strangers, receives their present, and sends them no food in
+return?"  Our men thought Chikwanitsela an uncommonly stingy fellow;
+but, as it was possible that some of them might yet wish to return
+this way, they did not like to scold him more than this, which was
+sufficiently to the point.
+
+Men and women were busily engaged in preparing the ground for the
+November planting.  Large game was abundant; herds of elephants and
+buffaloes came down to the river in the night, but were a long way
+off by daylight.  They soon adopt this habit in places where they are
+hunted.
+
+The plains we travel over are constantly varying in breadth,
+according as the furrowed and wooded hills approach or recede from
+the river.  On the southern side we see the hill Bungwe, and the
+long, level, wooded ridge Nyangombe, the first of a series bending
+from the S.E. to the N.W. past the Zambesi.  We shot an old pallah on
+the 16th, and found that the poor animal had been visited with more
+than the usual share of animal afflictions.  He was stone-blind in
+both eyes, had several tumours, and a broken leg, which showed no
+symptoms of ever having begun to heal.  Wild animals sometimes suffer
+a great deal from disease, and wearily drag on a miserable existence
+before relieved of it by some ravenous beast.  Once we drove off a
+maneless lion and lioness from a dead buffalo, which had been in the
+last stage of a decline.  They had watched him staggering to the
+river to quench his thirst, and sprang on him as he was crawling up
+the bank.  One had caught him by the throat, and the other by his
+high projecting backbone, which was broken by the lion's powerful
+fangs.  The struggle, if any, must have been short.  They had only
+eaten the intestines when we frightened them off.  It is curious that
+this is the part that wild animals always begin with, and that it is
+also the first choice of our men.  Were it not a wise arrangement
+that only the strongest males should continue the breed, one could
+hardly help pitying the solitary buffalo expelled from the herd for
+some physical blemish, or on account of the weakness of approaching
+old age.  Banished from female society, he naturally becomes morose
+and savage; the necessary watchfulness against enemies is now never
+shared by others; disgusted, he passes into a state of chronic war
+with all who enjoy life, and the sooner after his expulsion that he
+fills the lion's or the wild-dog's maw, the better for himself and
+for the peace of the country.
+
+We encamped on the 20th of June at a spot where Dr. Livingstone, on
+his journey from the West to the East Coast, was formerly menaced by
+a chief named Mpende.  No offence had been committed against him, but
+he had firearms, and, with the express object of showing his power,
+he threatened to attack the strangers.  Mpende's counsellors having,
+however, found out that Dr. Livingstone belonged to a tribe of whom
+they had heard that "they loved the black man and did not make
+slaves," his conduct at once changed from enmity to kindness, and, as
+the place was one well selected for defence, it was perhaps quite as
+well for Mpende that he decided as he did.  Three of his counsellors
+now visited us, and we gave them a handsome present for their chief,
+who came himself next morning and made us a present of a goat, a
+basket of boiled maize, and another of vetches.  A few miles above
+this the headman, Chilondo of Nyamasusa, apologized for not formerly
+lending us canoes.  "He was absent, and his children were to blame
+for not telling him when the Doctor passed; he did not refuse the
+canoes."  The sight of our men, now armed with muskets, had a great
+effect.  Without any bullying, firearms command respect, and lead men
+to be reasonable who might otherwise feel disposed to be troublesome.
+Nothing, however, our fracas with Mpende excepted, could be more
+peaceful than our passage through this tract of country in 1856.  We
+then had nothing to excite the cupidity of the people, and the men
+maintained themselves, either by selling elephant's meat, or by
+exhibiting feats of foreign dancing.  Most of the people were very
+generous and friendly; but the Banyai, nearer to Tette than this,
+stopped our march with a threatening war-dance.  One of our party,
+terrified at this, ran away, as we thought, insane, and could not,
+after a painful search of three days, be found.  The Banyai,
+evidently touched by our distress, allowed us to proceed.  Through a
+man we left on an island a little below Mpende's, we subsequently
+learned that poor Monaheng had fled thither, and had been murdered by
+the headman for no reason except that he was defenceless.  This
+headman had since become odious to his countrymen, and had been put
+to death by them.
+
+On the 23rd of June we entered Pangola's principal village, which is
+upwards of a mile from the river.  The ruins of a mud wall showed
+that a rude attempt had been made to imitate the Portuguese style of
+building.  We established ourselves under a stately wild fig-tree,
+round whose trunk witchcraft medicine had been tied, to protect from
+thieves the honey of the wild bees, which had their hive in one of
+the limbs.  This is a common device.  The charm, or the medicine, is
+purchased of the dice doctors, and consists of a strip of palm-leaf
+smeared with something, and adorned with a few bits of grass, wood,
+or roots.  It is tied round the tree, and is believed to have the
+power of inflicting disease and death on the thief who climbs over
+it.  Superstition is thus not without its uses in certain states of
+society; it prevents many crimes and misdemeanours, which would occur
+but for the salutary fear that it produces.
+
+Pangola arrived, tipsy and talkative.--"We are friends, we are great
+friends; I have brought you a basket of green maize--here it is!"  We
+thanked him, and handed him two fathoms of cotton cloth, four times
+the market-value of his present.  No, he would not take so small a
+present; he wanted a double-barrelled rifle--one of Dixon's best.
+"We are friends, you know; we are all friends together."  But
+although we were willing to admit that, we could not give him our
+best rifle, so he went off in high dudgeon.  Early next morning, as
+we were commencing Divine service, Pangola returned, sober.  We
+explained to him that we wished to worship God, and invited him to
+remain; he seemed frightened, and retired:  but after service he
+again importuned us for the rifle.  It was of no use telling him that
+we had a long journey before us, and needed it to kill game for
+ourselves.--"He too must obtain meat for himself and people, for they
+sometimes suffered from hunger."  He then got sulky, and his people
+refused to sell food except at extravagant prices.  Knowing that we
+had nothing to eat, they felt sure of starving us into compliance.
+But two of our young men, having gone off at sunrise, shot a fine
+water-buck, and down came the provision market to the lower figure;
+they even became eager to sell, but our men were angry with them for
+trying compulsion, and would not buy.  Black greed had outwitted
+itself, as happens often with white cupidity; and not only here did
+the traits of Africans remind us of Anglo-Saxons elsewhere:  the
+notoriously ready world-wide disposition to take an unfair advantage
+of a man's necessities shows that the same mean motives are pretty
+widely diffused among all races.  It may not be granted that the same
+blood flows in all veins, or that all have descended from the same
+stock; but the traveller has no doubt that, practically, the white
+rogue and black are men and brothers.
+
+Pangola is the child or vassal of Mpende.  Sandia and Mpende are the
+only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa to Zumbo, and belong to the
+tribe Manganja.  The country north of the mountains here in sight
+from the Zambesi is called Senga, and its inhabitants Asenga, or
+Basenga, but all appear to be of the same family as the rest of the
+Manganja and Maravi.  Formerly all the Manganja were united under the
+government of their great chief, Undi, whose empire extended from
+Lake Shirwa to the River Loangwa; but after Undi's death it fell to
+pieces, and a large portion of it on the Zambesi was absorbed by
+their powerful southern neighbours the Banyai.  This has been the
+inevitable fate of every African empire from time immemorial.  A
+chief of more than ordinary ability arises and, subduing all his less
+powerful neighbours, founds a kingdom, which he governs more or less
+wisely till he dies.  His successor not having the talents of the
+conqueror cannot retain the dominion, and some of the abler under-
+chiefs set up for themselves, and, in a few years, the remembrance
+only of the empire remains.  This, which may be considered as the
+normal state of African society, gives rise to frequent and
+desolating wars, and the people long in vain for a power able to make
+all dwell in peace.  In this light, a European colony would be
+considered by the natives as an inestimable boon to intertropical
+Africa.  Thousands of industrious natives would gladly settle round
+it, and engage in that peaceful pursuit of agriculture and trade of
+which they are so fond, and, undistracted by wars or rumours of wars,
+might listen to the purifying and ennobling truths of the gospel of
+Jesus Christ.  The Manganja on the Zambesi, like their countrymen on
+the Shire, are fond of agriculture; and, in addition to the usual
+varieties of food, cultivate tobacco and cotton in quantities more
+than equal to their wants.  To the question, "Would they work for
+Europeans?" an affirmative answer may be given, if the Europeans
+belong to the class which can pay a reasonable price for labour, and
+not to that of adventurers who want employment for themselves.  All
+were particularly well clothed from Sandia's to Pangola's; and it was
+noticed that all the cloth was of native manufacture, the product of
+their own looms.  In Senga a great deal of iron is obtained from the
+ore and manufactured very cleverly.
+
+As is customary when a party of armed strangers visits the village,
+Pangola took the precaution of sleeping in one of the outlying
+hamlets.  No one ever knows, or at any rate will tell, where the
+chief sleeps.  He came not next morning, so we went our way; but in a
+few moments we saw the rifle-loving chief approaching with some armed
+men.  Before meeting us, he left the path and drew up his "following"
+under a tree, expecting us to halt, and give him a chance of
+bothering us again; but, having already had enough of that, we held
+right on:  he seemed dumbfoundered, and could hardly believe his own
+eyes.  For a few seconds he was speechless, but at last recovered so
+far as to be able to say, "You are passing Pangola.  Do you not see
+Pangola?"  Mbia was just going by at the time with the donkey, and,
+proud of every opportunity of airing his small stock of English,
+shouted in reply, "All right! then get on."  "Click, click, click."
+
+On the 26th June we breakfasted at Zumbo, on the left bank of the
+Loangwa, near the ruins of some ancient Portuguese houses.  The
+Loangwa was too deep to be forded, and there were no canoes on our
+side.  Seeing two small ones on the opposite shore, near a few
+recently erected huts of two half-castes from Tette, we halted for
+the ferry-men to come over.  From their movements it was evident that
+they were in a state of rollicking drunkenness.  Having a waterproof
+cloak, which could be inflated into a tiny boat, we sent Mantlanyane
+across in it.  Three half-intoxicated slaves then brought us the
+shaky canoes, which we lashed together and manned with our own canoe-
+men.  Five men were all that we could carry over at a time; and after
+four trips had been made the slaves began to clamour for drink; not
+receiving any, as we had none to give, they grew more insolent, and
+declared that not another man should cross that day.  Sininyane was
+remonstrating with them, when a loaded musket was presented at him by
+one of the trio.  In an instant the gun was out of the rascal's
+hands, a rattling shower of blows fell on his back, and he took an
+involuntary header into the river.  He crawled up the bank a sad and
+sober man, and all three at once tumbled from the height of saucy
+swagger to a low depth of slavish abjectness.  The musket was found
+to have an enormous charge, and might have blown our man to pieces,
+but for the promptitude with which his companions administered
+justice in a lawless land.  We were all ferried safely across by 8
+o'clock in the evening.
+
+In illustration of what takes place where no government, or law
+exists, the two half-castes, to whom these men belonged, left Tette,
+with four hundred slaves, armed with the old Sepoy Brown Bess, to
+hunt elephants and trade in ivory.  On our way up, we heard from
+natives of their lawless deeds, and again, on our way down, from
+several, who had been eyewitnesses of the principal crime, and all
+reports substantially agreed.  The story is a sad one.  After the
+traders reached Zumbo, one of them, called by the natives Sequasha,
+entered into a plot with the disaffected headman, Namakusuru, to kill
+his chief, Mpangwe, in order that Namakusuru might seize upon the
+chieftainship; and for the murder of Mpangwe the trader agreed to
+receive ten large tusks of ivory.  Sequasha, with a picked party of
+armed slaves, went to visit Mpangwe who received him kindly, and
+treated him with all the honour and hospitality usually shown to
+distinguished strangers, and the women busied themselves in cooking
+the best of their provisions for the repast to be set before him.  Of
+this, and also of the beer, the half-caste partook heartily.  Mpangwe
+was then asked by Sequasha to allow his men to fire their guns in
+amusement.  Innocent of any suspicion of treachery, and anxious to
+hear the report of firearms, Mpangwe at once gave his consent; and
+the slaves rose and poured a murderous volley into the merry group of
+unsuspecting spectators, instantly killing the chief and twenty of
+his people.  The survivors fled in horror.  The children and young
+women were seized as slaves, and the village sacked.  Sequasha sent
+the message to Namakusuru:  "I have killed the lion that troubled
+you; come and let us talk over the matter."  He came and brought the
+ivory.  "No," said the half-caste, "let us divide the land:" and he
+took the larger share for himself, and compelled the would-be usurper
+to deliver up his bracelets, in token of subjection on becoming the
+child or vassal of Sequasha.  These were sent in triumph to the
+authorities at Tette.  The governor of Quillimane had told us that he
+had received orders from Lisbon to take advantage of our passing to
+re-establish Zumbo; and accordingly these traders had built a small
+stockade on the rich plain of the right bank of Loangwa, a mile above
+the site of the ancient mission church of Zumbo, as part of the royal
+policy.  The bloodshed was quite unnecessary, because, the land at
+Zumbo having of old been purchased, the natives would have always of
+their own accord acknowledged the right thus acquired; they pointed
+it out to Dr. Livingstone in 1856 that, though they were cultivating
+it, is was not theirs, but white man's land.  Sequasha and his mate
+had left their ivory in charge of some of their slaves, who, in the
+absence of their masters, were now having a gay time of it, and
+getting drunk every day with the produce of the sacked villages.  The
+head slave came and begged for the musket of the delinquent ferryman,
+which was returned.  He thought his master did perfectly right to
+kill Mpangwe, when asked to do it for the fee of ten tusks, and he
+even justified it thus:  "If a man invites you to eat, will you not
+partake?"
+
+We continued our journey on the 28th of June.  Game was extremely
+abundant, and there were many lions.  Mbia drove one off from his
+feast on a wild pig, and appropriated what remained of the pork to
+his own use.  Lions are particularly fond of the flesh of wild pigs
+and zebras, and contrive to kill a large number of these animals.  In
+the afternoon we arrived at the village of the female chief, Ma-
+mburuma, but she herself was now living on the opposite side of the
+river.  Some of her people called, and said she had been frightened
+by seeing her son and other children killed by Sequasha, and had fled
+to the other bank; but when her heart was healed, she would return
+and live in her own village, and among her own people.  She
+constantly inquired of the black traders, who came up the river, if
+they had any news of the white man who passed with the oxen.  "He has
+gone down into the sea," was their reply, "but we belong to the same
+people."  "Oh no; you need not tell me that; he takes no slaves, but
+wishes peace:  you are not of his tribe."  This antislavery character
+excites such universal attention, that any missionary who winked at
+the gigantic evils involved in the slave-trade would certainly fail
+to produce any good impression on the native mind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+
+Illness--The Honey-guide--Abundance of game--The Baenda pezi--The
+Batoka.
+
+We left the river here, and proceeded up the valley which leads to
+the Mburuma or Mohango pass.  The nights were cold, and on the 30th
+of June the thermometer was as low as 39 degrees at sunrise.  We
+passed through a village of twenty large huts, which Sequasha had
+attacked on his return from the murder of the chief, Mpangwe.  He
+caught the women and children for slaves, and carried off all the
+food, except a huge basket of bran, which the natives are wont to
+save against a time of famine.  His slaves had broken all the water-
+pots and the millstones for grinding meal.
+
+The buaze-trees and bamboos are now seen on the hills; but the jujube
+or zisyphus, which has evidently been introduced from India, extends
+no further up the river.  We had been eating this fruit, which,
+having somewhat the taste of apples, the Portuguese call Macaas, all
+the way from Tette; and here they were larger than usual, though
+immediately beyond they ceased to be found.  No mango-tree either is
+to be met with beyond this point, because the Portuguese traders
+never established themselves anywhere beyond Zumbo.  Tsetse flies are
+more numerous and troublesome than we have ever before found them.
+They accompany us on the march, often buzzing round our heads like a
+swarm of bees.  They are very cunning, and when intending to bite,
+alight so gently that their presence is not perceived till they
+thrust in their lance-like proboscis.  The bite is acute, but the
+pain is over in a moment; it is followed by a little of the
+disagreeable itching of the mosquito's bite.  This fly invariably
+kills all domestic animals except goats and donkeys; man and the wild
+animals escape.  We ourselves were severely bitten on this pass, and
+so were our donkeys, but neither suffered from any after effects.
+
+Water is scarce in the Mburuma pass, except during the rainy season.
+We however halted beside some fine springs in the bed of the now dry
+rivulet, Podebode, which is continued down to the end of the pass,
+and yields water at intervals in pools.  Here we remained a couple of
+days in consequence of the severe illness of Dr. Kirk.  He had
+several times been attacked by fever; and observed that when we were
+on the cool heights he was comfortable, but when we happened to
+descend from a high to a lower altitude, he felt chilly, though the
+temperature in the latter case was 25 degrees higher than it was
+above; he had been trying different medicines of reputed efficacy
+with a view to ascertain whether other combinations might not be
+superior to the preparation we generally used; in halting by this
+water he suddenly became blind, and unable to stand from faintness.
+The men, with great alacrity, prepared a grassy bed, on which we laid
+our companion, with the sad forebodings which only those who have
+tended the sick in a wild country can realize.  We feared that in
+experimenting he had over-drugged himself; but we gave him a dose of
+our fever pills; on the third day he rode the one of the two donkeys
+that would allow itself to be mounted, and on the sixth he marched as
+well as any of us.  This case is mentioned in order to illustrate
+what we have often observed, that moving the patient from place to
+place is most conducive to the cure; and the more pluck a man has--
+the less he gives in to the disease--the less likely he is to die.
+
+Supplied with water by the pools in the Podebode, we again joined the
+Zambesi at the confluence of the rivulet.  When passing through a dry
+district the native hunter knows where to expect water by the animals
+he sees.  The presence of the gemsbuck, duiker or diver, springbucks,
+or elephants, is no proof that water is near; for these animals roam
+over vast tracts of country, and may be met scores of miles from it.
+Not so, however, the zebra, pallah, buffalo, and rhinoceros; their
+spoor gives assurance that water is not far off, as they never stray
+any distance from its neighbourhood.  But when amidst the solemn
+stillness of the woods, the singing of joyous birds falls upon the
+ear, it is certain that water is close at hand.
+
+Our men in hunting came on an immense herd of buffaloes, quietly
+resting in the long dry grass, and began to blaze away furiously at
+the astonished animals.  In the wild excitement of the hunt, which
+heretofore had been conducted with spears, some forgot to load with
+ball, and, firing away vigorously with powder only, wondered for the
+moment that the buffaloes did not fall.  The slayer of the young
+elephant, having buried his four bullets in as many buffaloes, fired
+three charges of No. 1 shot he had for killing guinea-fowl.  The
+quaint remarks and merriment after these little adventures seemed to
+the listener like the pleasant prattle of children.  Mbia and
+Mantlanyane, however, killed one buffalo each; both the beasts were
+in prime condition; the meat was like really excellent beef, with a
+smack of venison.  A troop of hungry, howling hyenas also thought the
+savour tempting, as they hung round the camp at night, anxious to
+partake of the feast.  They are, fortunately, arrant cowards, and
+never attack either men or beasts except they can catch them asleep,
+sick, or at some other disadvantage.  With a bright fire at our feet
+their presence excites no uneasiness.  A piece of meat hung on a
+tree, high enough to make him jump to reach it, and a short spear,
+with its handle firmly planted in the ground beneath, are used as a
+device to induce the hyena to commit suicide by impalement.
+
+The honey-guide is an extraordinary bird; how is it that every member
+of its family has learned that all men, white or black, are fond of
+honey?  The instant the little fellow gets a glimpse of a man, he
+hastens to greet him with the hearty invitation to come, as Mbia
+translated it, to a bees' hive, and take some honey.  He flies on in
+the proper direction, perches on a tree, and looks back to see if you
+are following; then on to another and another, until he guides you to
+the spot.  If you do not accept his first invitation he follows you
+with pressing importunities, quite as anxious to lure the stranger to
+the bees' hive as other birds are to draw him away from their own
+nest.  Except while on the march, our men were sure to accept the
+invitation, and manifested the same by a peculiar responsive whistle,
+meaning, as they said, "All right, go ahead; we are coming."  The
+bird never deceived them, but always guided them to a hive of bees,
+though some had but little honey in store.  Has this peculiar habit
+of the honey-guide its origin, as the attachment of dogs, in
+friendship for man, or in love for the sweet pickings of the plunder
+left on the ground?  Self-interest aiding in preservation from danger
+seems to be the rule in most cases, as, for instance, in the bird
+that guards the buffalo and rhinoceros.  The grass is often so tall
+and dense that one could go close up to these animals quite
+unperceived; but the guardian bird, sitting on the beast, sees the
+approach of danger, flaps its wings and screams, which causes its
+bulky charge to rush off from a foe he has neither seen nor heard;
+for his reward the vigilant little watcher has the pick of the
+parasites on his fat friend.  In other cases a chance of escape must
+be given even by the animal itself to its prey; as in the rattle-
+snake, which, when excited to strike, cannot avoid using his rattle,
+any more than the cat can resist curling its tail when excited in the
+chase of a mouse, or the cobra can refrain from inflating the loose
+skin of the neck and extending it laterally, before striking its
+poison fangs into its victim.  There are many snakes in parts of this
+pass; they basked in the warm sunshine, but rustled off through the
+leaves as we approached.  We observed one morning a small one of a
+deadly poisonous species, named Kakone, on a bush by the wayside,
+quietly resting in a horizontal position, digesting a lizard for
+breakfast.  Though openly in view, its colours and curves so closely
+resembled a small branch that some failed to see it, even after being
+asked if they perceived anything on the bush.  Here also one of our
+number had a glance at another species, rarely seen, and whose swift
+lightning-like motion has given rise to the native proverb, that when
+a man sees this snake he will forthwith become a rich man.
+
+We slept near the ruined village of the murdered chief, Mpangwe, a
+lovely spot, with the Zambesi in front, and extensive gardens behind,
+backed by a semicircle of hills receding up to lofty mountains.  Our
+path kept these mountains on our right, and crossed several
+streamlets, which seemed to be perennial, and among others the
+Selole, which apparently flows past the prominent peak Chiarapela.
+These rivulets have often human dwellings on their banks; but the
+land can scarcely be said to be occupied.  The number of all sorts of
+game increases wonderfully every day.  As a specimen of what may be
+met with where there are no human habitations, and where no firearms
+have been introduced, we may mention what at times has actually been
+seen by us.  On the morning of July 3rd a herd of elephants passed
+within fifty yards of our sleeping-place, going down to the river
+along the dry bed of a rivulet.  Starting a few minutes before the
+main body, we come upon large flocks of guinea-fowl, shoot what may
+be wanted for dinner, or next morning's breakfast, and leave them in
+the path to be picked up by the cook and his mates behind.  As we
+proceed, francolins of three varieties run across the path, and
+hundreds of turtle-doves rise, with great blatter of wing, and fly
+off to the trees.  Guinea-fowls, francolins, turtle-doves, ducks, and
+geese are the game birds of this region.  At sunrise a herd of
+pallahs, standing like a flock of sheep, allow the first man of our
+long Indian file to approach within about fifty yards; but having
+meat, we let them trot off leisurely and unmolested.  Soon afterwards
+we come upon a herd of waterbucks, which here are very much darker in
+colour, and drier in flesh, than the same species near the sea.  They
+look at us and we at them; and we pass on to see a herd of doe
+koodoos, with a magnificently horned buck or two, hurrying off to the
+dry hill-sides.  We have ceased shooting antelopes, as our men have
+been so often gorged with meat that they have become fat and dainty.
+They say that they do not want more venison, it is so dry and
+tasteless, and ask why we do not give them shot to shoot the more
+savoury guinea-fowl.
+
+About eight o'clock the tsetse commence to buzz about us, and bite
+our hands and necks sharply.  Just as we are thinking of breakfast,
+we meet some buffaloes grazing by the path; but they make off in a
+heavy gallop at the sight of man.  We fire, and the foremost, badly
+wounded, separates from the herd, and is seen to stop amongst the
+trees; but, as it is a matter of great danger to follow a wounded
+buffalo, we hold on our way.  It is this losing of wounded animals
+which makes firearms so annihilating to these beasts of the field,
+and will in time sweep them all away.  The small Enfield bullet is
+worse than the old round one for this.  It often goes through an
+animal without killing him, and he afterwards perishes, when he is of
+no value to man.  After breakfast we draw near a pond of water; a
+couple of elephants stand on its bank, and, at a respectful distance
+behind these monarchs of the wilderness, is seen a herd of zebras,
+and another of waterbucks.  On getting our wind the royal beasts make
+off at once; but the zebras remain till the foremost man is within
+eighty yards of them, when old and young canter gracefully away.  The
+zebra has a great deal of curiosity; and this is often fatal to him,
+for he has the habit of stopping to look at the hunter.  In this
+particular he is the exact opposite of the diver antelope, which
+rushes off like the wind, and never for a moment stops to look
+behind, after having once seen or smelt danger.  The finest zebra of
+the herd is sometimes shot, our men having taken a sudden fancy to
+the flesh, which all declare to be the "king of good meat."  On the
+plains of short grass between us and the river many antelopes of
+different species are calmly grazing, or reposing.  Wild pigs are
+common, and walk abroad during the day; but are so shy as seldom to
+allow a close approach.  On taking alarm they erect their slender
+tails in the air, and trot off swiftly in a straight line, keeping
+their bodies as steady as a locomotive on a railroad.  A mile beyond
+the pool three cow buffaloes with their calves come from the woods,
+and move out into the plain.  A troop of monkeys, on the edge of the
+forest, scamper back to its depths on hearing the loud song of
+Singeleka, and old surly fellows, catching sight of the human party,
+insult it with a loud and angry bark.  Early in the afternoon we may
+see buffaloes again, or other animals.  We camp on the dry higher
+ground, after, as has happened, driving off a solitary elephant.  The
+nights are warmer now, and possess nearly as much of interest and
+novelty as the days.  A new world awakes and comes forth, more
+numerous, if we may judge by the noise it makes, than that which is
+abroad by sunlight.  Lions and hyenas roar around us, and sometimes
+come disagreeably near, though they have never ventured into our
+midst.  Strange birds sing their agreeable songs, while others scream
+and call harshly as if in fear or anger.  Marvellous insect-sounds
+fall upon the ear; one, said by natives to proceed from a large
+beetle, resembles a succession of measured musical blows upon an
+anvil, while many others are perfectly indescribable.  A little lemur
+was once seen to leap about from branch to branch with the agility of
+a frog; it chirruped like a bird, and is not larger than a robin red-
+breast.  Reptiles, though numerous, seldom troubled us; only two men
+suffered from stings, and that very slightly, during the entire
+journey, the one supposed that he was bitten by a snake, and the
+other was stung by a scorpion.
+
+Grass-burning has begun, and is producing the blue hazy atmosphere of
+the American Indian summer, which in Western Africa is called the
+"smokes."  Miles of fire burn on the mountain-sides in the evenings,
+but go out during the night.  From their height they resemble a broad
+zigzag line of fire in the heavens.
+
+We slept on the night of the 6th of July on the left bank of the
+Chongwe, which comes through a gap in the hills on our right, and is
+twenty yards wide.  A small tribe of the Bazizulu, from the south,
+under Dadanga, have recently settled here and built a village.  Some
+of their houses are square, and they seem to be on friendly terms
+with the Bakoa, who own the country.  They, like the other natives,
+cultivate cotton, but of a different species from any we have yet
+seen in Africa, the staple being very long, and the boll larger than
+what is usually met with; the seeds cohere as in the Pernambuco kind.
+They brought the seed with them from their own country, the distant
+mountains of which in the south, still inhabited by their fellow-
+countrymen, who possess much cattle and use shields, can be seen from
+this high ground.  These people profess to be children of the great
+paramount chief, Kwanyakarombe, who is said to be lord of all the
+Bazizulu.  The name of this tribe is known to geographers, who derive
+their information from the Portuguese, as the Morusurus, and the
+hills mentioned above are said to have been the country of
+Changamira, the warrior-chief of history, whom no Portuguese ever
+dared to approach.  The Bazizulu seem, by report, to be brave
+mountaineers; nearer the river, the Sidima inhabit the plains; just
+as on the north side, the Babimpe live on the heights, about two days
+off, and the Makoa on or near the river.  The chief of the Bazizulu
+we were now with was hospitable and friendly.  A herd of buffaloes
+came trampling through the gardens and roused up our men; a feat that
+roaring lions seldom achieved.
+
+Our course next day passed over the upper terrace and through a dense
+thorn jungle.  Travelling is always difficult where there is no path,
+but it is even more perplexing where the forest is cut up by many
+game-tracks.  Here we got separated from one another, and a
+rhinoceros with angry snort dashed at Dr. Livingstone as he stooped
+to pick up a specimen of the wild fruit morula; but she strangely
+stopped stock-still when less than her own length distant, and gave
+him time to escape; a branch pulled out his watch as he ran, and
+turning half round to grasp it, he got a distant glance of her and
+her calf still standing on the selfsame spot, as if arrested in the
+middle of her charge by an unseen hand.  When about fifty yards off,
+thinking his companions close behind, he shouted "Look out there!"
+when off she rushed, snorting loudly, in another direction.  The
+Doctor usually went unarmed before this, but never afterwards.
+
+A fine eland was shot by Dr. Kirk this afternoon, the first we have
+killed.  It was in first-rate condition, and remarkably fat; but the
+meat, though so tempting in appearance, severely deranged all who
+partook of it heartily, especially those who ate of the fat.  Natives
+who live in game countries, and are acquainted with the different
+kinds of wild animals, have a prejudice against the fat of the eland,
+the pallah, the zebra, hippopotamus, and pig; they never reject it,
+however, the climate making the desire for all animal food very
+strong; but they consider that it causes ulcers and leprosy, while
+the fat of sheep and of oxen never produces any bad effects, unless
+the animal is diseased.
+
+On the morning of the 9th, after passing four villages, we
+breakfasted at an old friend's, Tombanyama, who lives now on the
+mainland, having resigned the reedy island, where he was first seen,
+to the buffaloes, which used to take his crops and show fight to his
+men.  He keeps a large flock of tame pigeons, and some fine fat
+capons, one of which he gave us, with a basket of meal.  They have
+plenty of salt in this part of the country, obtaining it from the
+plains in the usual way.
+
+The half-caste partner of Sequasha and a number of his men were
+staying near.  The fellow was very munch frightened when he saw us,
+and trembled so much when he spoke, that the Makololo and other
+natives noticed and remarked on it.  His fears arose from a sense of
+guilt, as we said nothing to frighten him, and did not allude to the
+murder till a few minutes before starting; when it was remarked that
+Dr. Livingstone having been accredited to the murdered chief, it
+would be his duty to report on it; and that not even the Portuguese
+Government would approve of the deed.  He defended it by saying that
+they had put in the right man, the other was a usurper.  He was
+evidently greatly relieved when we departed.  In the afternoon we
+came to an outlying hamlet of Kambadzo, whose own village is on an
+island, Nyampungo, or Nyangalule, at the confluence of the Kafue.
+The chief was on a visit here, and they had been enjoying a regular
+jollification.  There had been much mirth, music, drinking, and
+dancing.  The men, and women too, had taken "a wee drap too much,"
+but had not passed the complimentary stage.  The wife of the headman,
+after looking at us a few moments, called out to the others, "Black
+traders have come before, calling themselves Bazungu, or white men,
+but now, for the first time, have we seen the real Bazungu."
+Kambadzo also soon appeared; he was sorry that we had not come before
+the beer was all done, but he was going back to see if it was all
+really and entirely finished, and not one little potful left
+somewhere.
+
+This was, of course, mere characteristic politeness, as he was
+perfectly aware that every drop had been swallowed; so we proceeded
+on to the Kafue, or Kafuje, accompanied by the most intelligent of
+his headmen.  A high ridge, just before we reached the confluence,
+commands a splendid view of the two great rivers, and the rich
+country beyond.  Behind, on the north and east, is the high mountain-
+range, along whose base we have been travelling; the whole range is
+covered with trees, which appear even on the prominent peaks,
+Chiarapela, Morindi, and Chiava; at this last the chain bends away to
+the N.W., and we could see the distant mountains where the chief,
+Semalembue, gained all our hearts in 1856.
+
+On the 9th of July we tried to send Semalembue a present, but the
+people here refused to incur the responsibility of carrying it.  We,
+who have the art of writing, cannot realize the danger one incurs of
+being accused of purloining a portion of goods sent from one person
+to another, when the carrier cannot prove that he delivered all
+committed to his charge.  Rumours of a foray having been made, either
+by Makololo or Batoka, as far as the fork of the Kafue, were received
+here by our men with great indignation, as it looked as if the
+marauders were shutting up the country, which they had been trying so
+much to open.  Below the junction of the rivers, on a shallow
+sandbank, lay a large herd of hippopotami, their bodies out of the
+water, like masses of black rock.  Kambadzo's island, called
+Nyangalule, a name which occurs again at the mouth of the Zambesi,
+has many choice Motsikiri (Trachelia) trees on it; and four very
+conspicuous stately palms growing out of a single stem.  The Kafue
+reminds us a little of the Shire, flowing between steep banks, with
+fertile land on both sides.  It is a smaller river, and has less
+current.  Here it seems to come from the west.  The headman of the
+village, near which we encamped, brought a present of meal, fowls,
+and sweet potatoes.  They have both the red and white varieties of
+this potato.  We have, on several occasions during this journey, felt
+the want of vegetables, in a disagreeable craving which our diet of
+meat and native meal could not satisfy.  It became worse and worse
+till we got a meal of potatoes, which allayed it at once.  A great
+scarcity of vegetables prevails in these parts of Africa.  The
+natives collect several kinds of wild plants in the woods, which they
+use no doubt for the purpose of driving off cravings similar to those
+we experienced.
+
+Owing to the strength of the wind, and the cranky state of the
+canoes, it was late in the afternoon of the 11th before our party was
+ferried over the Kafue.  After crossing, we were in the Bawe country.
+Fishhooks here, of native workmanship, were observed to have barbs
+like the European hooks:  elsewhere the point of the hook is merely
+bent in towards the shank, to have the same effect in keeping on the
+fish as the barb.  We slept near a village a short distance above the
+ford.  The people here are of Batoka origin, the same as many of our
+men, and call themselves Batonga (independents), or Balengi, and
+their language only differs slightly from that of the Bakoa, who live
+between the two rivers Kafue and Loangwa.  The paramount chief of the
+district lives to the west of this place, and is called Nchomokela--
+an hereditary title:  the family burying-place is on a small hill
+near this village.  The women salute us by clapping their hands and
+lullilooing as we enter and leave a village, and the men, as they
+think, respectfully clap their hands on their hips.  Immense crops of
+mapira (holcus sorghum) are raised; one species of it forms a natural
+bend on the seed-stalk, so that the massive ear hangs down.  The
+grain was heaped up on wooden stages, and so was a variety of other
+products.  The men are skilful hunters, and kill elephants and
+buffaloes with long heavy spears.  We halted a few minutes on the
+morning of the 12th July, opposite the narrow island of Sikakoa,
+which has a village on its lower end.  We were here told that
+Moselekatse's chief town is a month's distance from this place.  They
+had heard, moreover, that the English had come to Moselekatse, and
+told him it was wrong to kill men; and he had replied that he was
+born to kill people, but would drop the habit; and, since the English
+came, he had sent out his men, not to kill as of yore, but to collect
+tribute of cloth and ivory.  This report referred to the arrival of
+the Rev. R. Moffat, of Kuruman, who, we afterwards found, had
+established a mission.  The statement is interesting as showing that,
+though imperfectly expressed, the purport of the missionaries'
+teaching had travelled, in a short time, over 300 miles, and we know
+not how far the knowledge of the English operations on the coast
+spread inland.
+
+When abreast of the high wooded island Kalabi we came in contact with
+one of the game-laws of the country, which has come down from the
+most ancient times.  An old buffalo crossed the path a few yards in
+front of us; our guide threw his small spear at its hip, and it was
+going off scarcely hurt, when three rifle balls knocked it over.  "It
+is mine," said the guide.  He had wounded it first, and the
+established native game-law is that the animal belongs to the man who
+first draws blood; the two legs on one side, by the same law,
+belonged to us for killing it.  This beast was very old, blind of one
+eye, and scabby; the horns, mere stumps, not a foot long, must have
+atrophied, when by age he lost the strength distinctive of his sex;
+some eighteen or twenty inches of horn could not well be worn down by
+mere rubbing against the trees.  We saw many buffaloes next day,
+standing quietly amidst a thick thorn-jungle, through which we were
+passing.  They often stood until we were within fifty or a hundred
+yards of them.
+
+On the 14th July we left the river at the mountain-range, which,
+lying north-east and south-west across the river, forms the Kariba
+gorge.  Near the upper end of the Kariba rapids, the stream Sanyati
+enters from the south, and is reported to have Moselekatse's
+principal cattle-posts at its sources; our route went round the end
+of the mountains, and we encamped beside the village of the generous
+chief Moloi, who brought us three immense baskets of fine mapira
+meal, ten fowls, and two pots of beer.  On receiving a present in
+return, he rose, and, with a few dancing gestures, said or sang,
+"Motota, Motota, Motota," which our men translated into "thanks."  He
+had visited Moselekatse a few months before our arrival, and saw the
+English missionaries, living in their wagons.  "They told
+Moselekatse," said he, "they were of his family, or friends, and
+would plough the land and live at their own expense;" and he had
+replied, "The land is before you, and I shall come and see you
+plough."  This again was substantially what took place, when Mr.
+Moffat introduced the missionaries to his old friend, and shows still
+further that the notion of losing their country by admitting
+foreigners does not come as the first idea to the native mind.  One
+might imagine that, as mechanical powers are unknown to the heathen,
+the almost magic operations of machinery, the discoveries of modern
+science and art, or the presence of the prodigious force which, for
+instance, is associated with the sight of a man-of-war, would have
+the effect which miracles once had of arresting the attention and
+inspiring awe.  But, though we have heard the natives exclaim in
+admiration at the sight of even small illustrations of what science
+enables us to do--"Ye are gods, and not men"--the heart is
+unaffected.  In attempting their moral elevation, it is always more
+conducive to the end desired, that the teacher should come
+unaccompanied by any power to cause either jealousy or fear.  The
+heathen, who have not become aware of the greed and hate which too
+often characterize the advancing tide of emigration, listen with most
+attention to the message of Divine love when delivered by men who
+evidently possess the same human sympathies with themselves.  A chief
+is rather envied his good fortune in first securing foreigners in his
+town.  Jealousy of strangers belongs more to the Arab than to the
+African character; and if the women are let alone by the traveller,
+no danger need be apprehended from any save the slave-trading tribes,
+and not often even from them.
+
+We passed through a fertile country, covered with open forest,
+accompanied by the friendly Bawe.  They are very hospitable; many of
+them were named, among themselves, "the Baenda pezi," or "Go-nakeds,"
+their only clothing being a coat of red ochre.  Occasionally stopping
+at their villages we were duly lullilooed, and regaled with sweet
+new-made beer, which, being yet unfermented, was not intoxicating.
+It is in this state called Liting or Makonde.  Some of the men carry
+large shields of buffalo-hide, and all are well supplied with heavy
+spears.  The vicinity of the villages is usually cleared and
+cultivated in large patches; but nowhere can the country be said to
+be stocked with people.  At every village stands were erected, and
+piles of the native corn, still unthrashed, placed upon them; some
+had been beaten out, put into oblong parcels made of grass, and
+stacked in wooden frames.
+
+We crossed several rivulets in our course, as the Mandora, the Lofia,
+the Manzaia (with brackish water), the Rimbe, the Chibue, the Chezia,
+the Chilola (containing fragments of coal), which did little more
+than mark our progress.  The island and rapid of Nakansalo, of which
+we had formerly heard, were of no importance, the rapid being but
+half a mile long, and only on one side of the island.  The island
+Kaluzi marks one of the numerous places where astronomical
+observations were made; Mozia, a station where a volunteer poet left
+us; the island Mochenya, and Mpande island, at the mouth of the
+Zungwe rivulet, where we left the Zambesi.
+
+When favoured with the hospitality and company of the "Go-nakeds," we
+tried to discover if nudity were the badge of a particular order
+among the Bawe, but they could only refer to custom.  Some among them
+had always liked it for no reason in particular:  shame seemed to lie
+dormant, and the sense could not be aroused by our laughing and
+joking them on their appearance.  They evidently felt no less decent
+than we did with our clothes on; but, whatever may be said in favour
+of nude statues, it struck us that man, in a state of nature, is a
+most ungainly animal.  Could we see a number of the degraded of our
+own lower classes in like guise, it is probable that, without the
+black colour which acts somehow as a dress, they would look worse
+still.
+
+In domestic contentions the Bawe are careful not to kill each other;
+but, when one village goes to war with another, they are not so
+particular.  The victorious party are said to quarter one of the
+bodies of the enemies they may have killed, and to perform certain
+ceremonies over the fragments.  The vanquished call upon their
+conquerors to give them a portion also; and, when this request is
+complied with, they too perform the same ceremonies, and lament over
+their dead comrade, after which the late combatants may visit each
+other in peace.  Sometimes the head of the slain is taken and buried
+in an ant-hill, till all the flesh is gone; and the lower jaw is then
+worn as a trophy by the slayer; but this we never saw, and the
+foregoing information was obtained only through an interpreter.
+
+We left the Zambesi at the mouth of the Zungwe or Mozama or Dela
+rivulet, up which we proceeded, first in a westerly and then in a
+north-westerly direction.  The Zungwe at this time had no water in
+its sandy channel for the first eight or ten miles.  Willows,
+however, grow on the banks, and water soon began to appear in the
+hollows; and a few miles further up it was a fine flowing stream
+deliciously cold.  As in many other streams from Chicova to near
+Sinamane shale and coal crop out in the bank; and here the large
+roots of stigmaria or its allied plants were found.  We followed the
+course of the Zungwe to the foot of the Batoka highlands, up whose
+steep and rugged sides of red and white quartz we climbed till we
+attained an altitude of upwards of 3000 feet.  Here, on the cool and
+bracing heights, the exhilaration of mind and body was delightful, as
+we looked back at the hollow beneath covered with a hot sultry glare,
+not unpleasant now that we were in the mild radiance above.  We had a
+noble view of the great valley in which the Zambesi flows.  The
+cultivated portions are so small in comparison to the rest of the
+landscape that the valley appears nearly all forest, with a few
+grassy glades.  We spent the night of the 28th July high above the
+level of the sea, by the rivulet Tyotyo, near Tabacheu or
+Chirebuechina, names both signifying white mountain; in the morning
+hoar frost covered the ground, and thin ice was on the pools.
+Skirting the southern flank of Tabacheu, we soon passed from the
+hills on to the portion of the vast table-land called Mataba, and
+looking back saw all the way across the Zambesi valley to the lofty
+ridge some thirty miles off, which, coming from the Mashona, a
+country in the S.E., runs to the N.W. to join the ridge at the angle
+of which are the Victoria Falls, and then bends far to the N.E. from
+the same point.  Only a few years since these extensive highlands
+were peopled by the Batoka; numerous herds of cattle furnished
+abundance of milk, and the rich soil amply repaid the labour of the
+husbandman; now large herds of buffaloes, zebras, and antelopes
+fatten on the excellent pasture; and on that land, which formerly
+supported multitudes, not a man is to been seen.  In travelling from
+Monday morning till late on Saturday afternoon, all the way from
+Tabacheu to Moachemba, which is only twenty-one miles of latitude
+from the Victoria Falls, and constantly passing the ruined sites of
+utterly deserted Botoka villages, we did not fall in with a single
+person.  The Batoka were driven out of their noble country by the
+invasions of Moselekatse and Sebetuane.  Several tribes of Bechuana
+and Basutu, fleeing from the Zulu or Matebele chief Moselekatse
+reached the Zambesi above the Falls.  Coming from a land without
+rivers, none of them knew how to swim; and one tribe, called the
+Bamangwato, wishing to cross the Zambesi, was ferried over, men and
+women separately, to different islands, by one of the Batoka chiefs;
+the men were then left to starve and the women appropriated by the
+ferryman and his people.  Sekomi, the present chief of the
+Bamangwato, then an infant in his mother's arms, was enabled, through
+the kindness of a private Batoka, to escape.  This act seems to have
+made an indelible impression on Sekomi's heart, for though otherwise
+callous, he still never fails to inquire after the welfare of his
+benefactor.
+
+Sebetuane, with his wonted ability, outwitted the treacherous Batoka,
+by insisting in the politest manner on their chief remaining at his
+own side until the people and cattle were all carried safe across;
+the chief was then handsomely rewarded, both with cattle and brass
+rings off Sebetuane's own wives.  No sooner were the Makololo, then
+called Basuto, safely over, than they were confronted by the whole
+Batoka nation; and to this day the Makololo point with pride to the
+spot on the Lekone, near to which they were encamped, where
+Sebetuane, with a mere handful of warriors in comparison to the vast
+horde that surrounded him, stood waiting the onslaught, the warriors
+in one small body, the women and children guarding the cattle behind
+them.  The Batoka, of course, melted away before those who had been
+made veterans by years of continual fighting, and Sebetuane always
+justified his subsequent conquests in that country by alleging that
+the Batoka had come out to fight with a man fleeing for his life, who
+had never done them any wrong.  They seem never to have been a
+warlike race; passing through their country, we once observed a large
+stone cairn, and our guide favoured us with the following account of
+it:- "Once upon a time, our forefathers were going to fight another
+tribe, and here they halted and sat down.  After a long consultation,
+they came to the unanimous conclusion that, instead of proceeding to
+fight and kill their neighbours, and perhaps be killed themselves, it
+would be more like men to raise this heap of stones, as their protest
+against the wrong the other tribe had done them, which, having
+accomplished, they returned quietly home."  Such men of peace could
+not stand before the Makololo, nor, of course, the more warlike
+Matebele, who coming afterwards, drove even their conquerors, the
+Makololo, out of the country.  Sebetuane, however, profiting by the
+tactics which he had learned of the Batoka, inveigled a large body of
+this new enemy on to another island, and after due starvation there
+overcame the whole.  A much greater army of "Moselekatse's own"
+followed with canoes, but were now baffled by Sebetuane's placing all
+his people and cattle on an island and so guarding it that none could
+approach.  Dispirited, famished, borne down by fever, they returned
+to the Falls, and all except five were cut off.
+
+But though the Batoka appear never to have had much inclination to
+fight with men, they are decidedly brave hunters of buffaloes and
+elephants.  They go fearlessly close up to these formidable animals,
+and kill them with large spears.  The Banyai, who have long bullied
+all Portuguese traders, were amazed at the daring and bravery of the
+Batoka in coming at once to close quarters with the elephant; and
+Chisaka, a Portuguese rebel, having formerly induced a body of this
+tribe to settle with him, ravaged all the Portuguese villas around
+Tette.  They bear the name of Basimilongwe, and some of our men found
+relations among them.  Sininyane and Matenga also, two of our party,
+were once inveigled into a Portuguese expedition against Mariano, by
+the assertion that the Doctor had arrived and had sent for them to
+come down to Senna.  On finding that they were entrapped to fight,
+they left, after seeing an officer with a large number of Tette
+slaves killed.
+
+The Batoka had attained somewhat civilized ideas, in planting and
+protecting various fruit and oil-seed yielding trees of the country.
+No other tribe either plants or abstains from cutting down fruit
+trees, but here we saw some which had been planted in regular rows,
+and the trunks of which were quite two feet in diameter.  The grand
+old Mosibe, a tree yielding a bean with a thin red pellicle, said to
+be very fattening, had probably seen two hundred summers.  Dr. Kirk
+found that the Mosibe is peculiar, in being allied to a species met
+with only in the West Indies.  The Motsikiri, sometimes called
+Mafuta, yields a hard fat, and an oil which is exported from
+Inhambane.  It is said that two ancient Batoka travellers went down
+as far as the Loangwa, and finding the Macaa tree (jujube or
+zisyphus) in fruit, carried the seed all the way back to the great
+Falls, in order to plant them.  Two of these trees are still to be
+seen there, the only specimens of the kind in that region.
+
+The Batoka had made a near approach to the custom of more refined
+nations and had permanent graveyards, either on the sides of hills,
+thus rendered sacred, or under large old shady trees; they reverence
+the tombs of their ancestors, and plant the largest elephants' tusks,
+as monuments at the head of the grave, or entirely enclose it with
+the choicest ivory.  Some of the other tribes throw the dead body
+into the river to be devoured by crocodiles, or, sewing it up in a
+mat, place it on the branch of a baobab, or cast it in some lonely
+gloomy spot, surrounded by dense tropical vegetation, where it
+affords a meal to the foul hyenas; but the Batoka reverently bury
+their dead, and regard the spot henceforth as sacred.  The ordeal by
+the poison of the muave is resorted to by the Batoka, as well as by
+the other tribes; but a cock is often made to stand proxy for the
+supposed witch.  Near the confluence of the Kafue the Mambo, or
+chief, with some of his headmen, came to our sleeping-place with a
+present; their foreheads were smeared with white flour, and an
+unusual seriousness marked their demeanour.  Shortly before our
+arrival they had been accused of witchcraft; conscious of innocence,
+they accepted the ordeal, and undertook to drink the poisoned muave.
+For this purpose they made a journey to the sacred hill of
+Nchomokela, on which repose the bodies of their ancestors; and, after
+a solemn appeal to the unseen spirits to attest the innocence of
+their children, they swallowed the muave, vomited, and were therefore
+declared not guilty.  It is evident that they believe that the soul
+has a continued existence; and that the spirits of the departed know
+what those they have left behind them are doing, and are pleased or
+not according as their deeds are good or evil; this belief is
+universal.  The owner of a large canoe refused to sell it, because it
+belonged to the spirit of his father, who helped him when he killed
+the hippopotamus.  Another, when the bargain for his canoe was nearly
+completed, seeing a large serpent on a branch of the tree overhead,
+refused to complete the sale, alleging that this was the spirit of
+his father come to protest against it.
+
+Some of the Batoka chiefs must have been men of considerable
+enterprise; the land of one, in the western part of this country, was
+protected by the Zambesi on the S., and on the N. and E. lay an
+impassable reedy marsh, filled with water all the year round, leaving
+only his western border open to invasion:  he conceived the idea of
+digging a broad and deep canal nearly a mile in length, from the
+reedy marsh to the Zambesi, and, having actually carried the scheme
+into execution, he formed a large island, on which his cattle grazed
+in safety, and his corn ripened from year to year secure from all
+marauders.
+
+Another chief, who died a number of years ago, believed that he had
+discovered a remedy for tsetse-bitten cattle; his son Moyara showed
+us a plant, which was new to our botanist, and likewise told us how
+the medicine was prepared; the bark of the root, and, what might
+please our homoeopathic friends, a dozen of the tsetse are dried, and
+ground together into a fine powder.  This mixture is administered
+internally; and the cattle are fumigated by burning under them the
+rest of the plant collected.  The treatment must be continued for
+weeks, whenever the symptoms of poison appear.  This medicine, he
+frankly admitted, would not cure all the bitten cattle.  "For," said
+he, "cattle, and men too, die in spite of medicine; but should a herd
+by accident stray into a tsetse district and be bitten, by this
+medicine of my father, Kampa-kampa, some of them could be saved,
+while, without it, all would inevitably die."  He stipulated that we
+were not to show the medicine to other people, and if ever we needed
+it in this region we must employ him; but if we were far off we might
+make it ourselves; and when we saw it cure the cattle think of him,
+and send him a present.
+
+Our men made it known everywhere that we wished the tribes to live in
+peace, and would use our influence to induce Sekeletu to prevent the
+Batoka of Moshobotwane and the Makololo under-chiefs making forays
+into their country:  they had already suffered severely, and their
+remonstrances with their countryman, Moshobotwane, evoked only the
+answer, "The Makololo have given me a spear; why should I not use
+it?"  He, indeed, it was who, being remarkably swift of foot, first
+guided the Makololo in their conquest of the country.  In the
+character of peacemakers, therefore, we experienced abundant
+hospitality; and, from the Kafue to the Falls, none of our party was
+allowed to suffer hunger.  The natives sent to our sleeping-places
+generous presents of the finest white meal, and fat capons to give it
+a relish, great pots of beer to comfort our hearts, together with
+pumpkins, beans, and tobacco, so that we "should sleep neither hungry
+nor thirsty."
+
+In travelling from the Kafue to the Zungwe we frequently passed
+several villages in the course of a day's march.  In the evening came
+deputies from the villages, at which we could not stay to sleep, with
+liberal presents of food.  It would have pained them to have allowed
+strangers to pass without partaking of their hospitality; repeatedly
+were we hailed from huts, and asked to wait a moment and drink a
+little of the beer, which was brought with alacrity.  Our march
+resembled a triumphant procession.  We entered and left every village
+amidst the cheers of its inhabitants; the men clapping their hands,
+and the women lullilooing, with the shrill call, "Let us sleep," or
+"Peace."  Passing through a hamlet one day, our guide called to the
+people, "Why do you not clap your hands and salute when you see men
+who are wishing to bring peace to the land?"  When we halted for the
+night it was no uncommon thing for the people to prepare our camp
+entirely of their own accord; some with hoes quickly smoothed the
+ground for our beds, others brought dried grass and spread it
+carefully over the spot; some with their small axes speedily made a
+bush fence to shield us from the wind; and if, as occasionally
+happened, the water was a little distance off, others hastened and
+brought it with firewood to cook our food with.  They are an
+industrious people, and very fond of agriculture.  For hours together
+we marched through unbroken fields of mapira, or native corn, of a
+great width; but one can give no idea of the extent of land under the
+hoe as compared with any European country.  The extent of surface is
+so great that the largest fields under culture, when viewed on a wide
+landscape, dwindle to mere spots.  When taken in connection with the
+wants of the people, the cultivation on the whole is most creditable
+to their industry.  They erect numerous granaries which give their
+villages the appearance of being large; and, when the water of the
+Zambesi has subsided, they place large quantities of grain, tied up
+in bundles of grass, and well plastered over with clay, on low sand
+islands for protection from the attacks of marauding mice and men.
+Owing to the ravages of the weevil, the native corn can hardly be
+preserved until the following crop comes in.  However largely they
+may cultivate, and however abundant the harvest, it must all be
+consumed in a year.  This may account for their making so much of it
+into beer.  The beer these Batoka or Bawe brew is not the sour and
+intoxicating boala or pombe found among some other tribes, but sweet,
+and highly nutritive, with only a slight degree of acidity,
+sufficient to render it a pleasant drink.  The people were all plump,
+and in good condition; and we never saw a single case of intoxication
+among them, though all drank abundance of this liting, or sweet beer.
+Both men and boys were eager to work for very small pay.  Our men
+could hire any number of them to carry their burdens for a few beads
+a day.  Our miserly and dirty ex-cook had an old pair of trousers
+that some one had given to him; after he had long worn them himself,
+with one of the sorely decayed legs he hired a man to carry his heavy
+load a whole day; a second man carried it the next day for the other
+leg, and what remained of the old garment, without the buttons,
+procured the labour of another man for the third day.
+
+Men of remarkable ability have risen up among the Africans from time
+to time, as amongst other portions of the human family.  Some have
+attracted the attention, and excited the admiration of large
+districts by their wisdom.  Others, apparently by the powers of
+ventriloquism, or by peculiar dexterity in throwing the spear, or
+shooting with the bow, have been the wonder of their generation; but
+the total absence of literature leads to the loss of all former
+experience, and the wisdom of the wise has not been handed down.
+They have had their minstrels too, but mere tradition preserves not
+their effusions.  One of these, and apparently a genuine poet,
+attached himself to our party for several days, and whenever we
+halted, sang our praises to the villagers, in smooth and harmonious
+numbers.  It was a sort of blank verse, and each line consisted of
+five syllables.  The song was short when it first began, but each day
+he picked up more information about us, and added to the poem until
+our praises became an ode of respectable length.  When distance from
+home compelled his return he expressed his regret at leaving us, and
+was, of course, paid for his useful and pleasant flatteries.
+Another, though a less gifted son of song, belonged to the Batoka of
+our own party.  Every evening, while the others were cooking,
+talking, or sleeping, he rehearsed his songs, containing a history of
+everything he had seen in the land of the white men, and on the way
+back.  In composing, extempore, any new piece, he was never at a
+loss; for if the right word did not come he halted not, but eked out
+the measure with a peculiar musical sound meaning nothing at all.  He
+accompanied his recitations on the sansa, an instrument figured in
+the woodcut, the nine iron keys of which are played with the thumbs,
+while the fingers pass behind to hold it.  The hollow end and
+ornaments face the breast of the player.  Persons of a musical turn,
+if too poor to buy a sansa, may be seen playing vigorously on an
+instrument made with a number of thick corn-stalks sewn together, as
+a sansa frame, and keys of split bamboo, which, though making but
+little sound, seems to soothe the player himself.  When the
+instrument is played with a calabash as a sounding board, it emits a
+greater volume of sound.  Pieces of shells and tin are added to make
+a jingling accompaniment, and the calabash is also ornamented.
+
+After we had passed up, a party of slaves, belonging to the two
+native Portuguese who assassinated the chief, Mpangwe, and took
+possession of his lands at Zumbo, followed on our footsteps, and
+representing themselves to be our "children," bought great quantities
+of ivory from the Bawe, for a few coarse beads a tusk.  They also
+purchased ten large new canoes to carry it, at the rate of six
+strings of red or white beads, or two fathoms of grey calico, for
+each canoe, and, at the same cheap rate, a number of good-looking
+girls.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+
+The Victoria Falls of the Zambesi--Marvellous grandeur of the
+Cataracts--The Makololo's town--The Chief Sekeletu.
+
+During the time we remained at Motunta a splendid meteor was observed
+to lighten the whole heavens.  The observer's back was turned to it,
+but on looking round the streak of light was seen to remain on its
+path some seconds.  This streak is usually explained to be only the
+continuance of the impression made by the shining body on the retina.
+This cannot be, as in this case the meteor was not actually seen and
+yet the streak was clearly perceived.  The rays of planets and stars
+also require another explanation than that usually given.
+
+Fruit-trees and gigantic wild fig-trees, and circles of stones on
+which corn safes were placed, with worn grindstones, point out where
+the villages once stood.  The only reason now assigned for this fine
+country remaining desolate is the fear of fresh visitations by the
+Matebele.  The country now slopes gradually to the west into the
+Makololo Valley.  Two days' march from the Batoka village nearest the
+highlands, we met with some hunters who were burning the dry grass,
+in order to attract the game by the fresh vegetation which speedily
+springs up afterwards.  The grass, as already remarked, is excellent
+for cattle.  One species, with leaves having finely serrated edges,
+and of a reddish-brown colour, we noticed our men eating:  it tastes
+exactly like liquorice-root, and is named kezu-kezu.  The tsetse,
+known to the Batoka by the name "ndoka," does not exist here, though
+buffaloes and elephants abound.
+
+A small trap in the path, baited with a mouse, to catch spotted cats
+(F. Genetta), is usually the first indication that we are drawing
+near to a village; but when we get within the sounds of pounding
+corn, cockcrowing, or the merry shouts of children at play, we know
+that the huts are but a few yards off, though the trees conceal them
+from view.  We reached, on the 4th of August, Moachemba, the first of
+the Batoka villages which now owe allegiance to Sekeletu, and could
+see distinctly with the naked eye, in the great valley spread out
+before us, the columns of vapour rising from the Victoria Falls,
+though upwards of 20 miles distant.  We were informed that, the rains
+having failed this year, the corn crops had been lost, and great
+scarcity and much hunger prevailed from Sesheke to Linyanti.  Some of
+the reports which the men had heard from the Batoka of the hills
+concerning their families, were here confirmed.  Takelang's wife had
+been killed by Mashotlane, the headman at the Falls, on a charge, as
+usual, of witchcraft.  Inchikola's two wives, believing him to be
+dead, had married again; and Masakasa was intensely disgusted to hear
+that two years ago his friends, upon a report of his death, threw his
+shield over the Falls, slaughtered all his oxen, and held a species
+of wild Irish wake, in honour of his memory:  he said he meant to
+disown them, and to say, when they come to salute him, "I am dead.  I
+am not here.  I belong to another world, and should stink if I came
+among you."
+
+All the sad news we had previously heard, of the disastrous results
+which followed the attempt of a party of missionaries, under the Rev.
+H. Helmore, to plant the gospel at Linyanti, were here fully
+confirmed.  Several of the missionaries and their native attendants,
+from Kuruman, had succumbed to the fever, and the survivors had
+retired some weeks before our arrival.  We remained the whole of the
+7th beside the village of the old Batoka chief, Moshobotwane, the
+stoutest man we have seen in Africa.  The cause of our delay here was
+a severe attack of fever in Charles Livingstone.  He took a dose of
+our fever pills; was better on the 8th, and marched three hours; then
+on the 9th marched eight miles to the Great Falls, and spent the rest
+of the day in the fatiguing exercise of sight-seeing.  We were in the
+very same valley as Linyanti, and this was the same fever which
+treated, or rather maltreated, with only a little Dover's powder,
+proved so fatal to poor Helmore; the symptoms, too, were identical
+with those afterwards described by non-medical persons as those of
+poison.
+
+We gave Moshobotwane a present, and a pretty plain exposition of what
+we thought of his bloody forays among his Batoka brethren.  A
+scolding does most good to the recipient, when put alongside some
+obliging act.  He certainly did not take it ill, as was evident from
+what he gave us in return; which consisted of a liberal supply of
+meal, milk, and an ox.  He has a large herd of cattle, and a tract of
+fine pasture-land on the beautiful stream Lekone.  A home-feeling
+comes over one, even in the interior of Africa, at seeing once more
+cattle grazing peacefully in the meadows.  The tsetse inhabits the
+trees which bound the pasture-land on the west; so, should the
+herdsman forget his duty, the cattle straying might be entirely lost.
+The women of this village were more numerous than the men, the result
+of the chief's marauding.  The Batoko wife of Sima came up from the
+Falls, to welcome her husband back, bringing a present of the best
+fruits of the country.  Her husband was the only one of the party who
+had brought a wife from Tette, namely, the girl whom he obtained from
+Chisaka for his feats of dancing.  According to our ideas, his first
+wife could hardly have been pleased at seeing the second and younger
+one; but she took her away home with her, while the husband remained
+with us.  In going down to the Fall village we met several of the
+real Makololo.  They are lighter in colour than the other tribes,
+being of a rich warm brown; and they speak in a slow deliberate
+manner, distinctly pronouncing every word.  On reaching the village
+opposite Kalai, we had an interview with the Makololo headman,
+Mashotlane:  he came to the shed in which we were seated, a little
+boy carrying his low three-legged stool before him:  on this he sat
+down with becoming dignity, looked round him for a few seconds, then
+at us, and, saluting us with "Rumela" (good morning, or hail), he
+gave us some boiled hippopotamus meat, took a piece himself, and then
+handed the rest to his attendants, who soon ate it up.  He defended
+his forays on the ground that, when he went to collect tribute, the
+Batoka attacked him, and killed some of his attendants.  The excuses
+made for their little wars are often the very same as those made by
+Caesar in his "Commentaries."  Few admit, like old Moshobotwane, that
+they fought because they had the power, and a fair prospect of
+conquering.  We found here Pitsane, who had accompanied the Doctor to
+St. Paul de Loanda.  He had been sent by Sekeletu to purchase three
+horses from a trading party of Griquas from Kuruman, who charged nine
+large tusks apiece for very wretched animals.
+
+In the evening, when all was still, one of our men, Takelang, fired
+his musket, and cried out, "I am weeping for my wife:  my court is
+desolate:  I have no home;" and then uttered a loud wail of anguish.
+
+We proceeded next morning, 9th August, 1860, to see the Victoria
+Falls.  Mosi-oa-tunya is the Makololo name and means smoke sounding;
+Seongo or Chongwe, meaning the Rainbow, or the place of the Rainbow,
+was the more ancient term they bore.  We embarked in canoes,
+belonging to Tuba Mokoro, "smasher of canoes," an ominous name; but
+he alone, it seems, knew the medicine which insures one against
+shipwreck in the rapids above the Falls.  For some miles the river
+was smooth and tranquil, and we glided pleasantly over water clear as
+crystal, and past lovely islands densely covered with a tropical
+vegetation.  Noticeable among the many trees were the lofty Hyphaene
+and Borassus palms; the graceful wild date-palm, with its fruit in
+golden clusters, and the umbrageous mokononga, of cypress form, with
+its dark-green leaves and scarlet fruit.  Many flowers peeped out
+near the water's edge, some entirely new to us, and others, as the
+convolvulus, old acquaintances.
+
+But our attention was quickly called from the charming islands to the
+dangerous rapids, down which Tuba might unintentionally shoot us.  To
+confess the truth, the very ugly aspect of these roaring rapids could
+scarcely fail to cause some uneasiness in the minds of new-comers.
+It is only when the river is very low, as it was now, that any one
+durst venture to the island to which we were bound.  If one went
+during the period of flood, and fortunately hit the island, he would
+be obliged to remain there till the water subsided again, if he lived
+so long.  Both hippopotami and elephants have been known to be swept
+over the Falls, and of course smashed to pulp.
+
+Before entering the race of waters, we were requested not to speak,
+as our talking might diminish the virtue of the medicine; and no one
+with such boiling eddying rapids before his eyes, would think of
+disobeying the orders of a "canoe-smasher."  It soon became evident
+that there was sound sense in this request of Tuba's, although the
+reason assigned was not unlike that of the canoe-man from Sesheke,
+who begged one of our party not to whistle, because whistling made
+the wind come.  It was the duty of the man at the bow to look out
+ahead for the proper course, and when he saw a rock or snag, to call
+out to the steersman.  Tuba doubtless thought that talking on board
+might divert the attention of his steersman, at a time when the
+neglect of an order, or a slight mistake, would be sure to spill us
+all into the chafing river.  There were places where the utmost
+exertions of both men had to be put forth in order to force the canoe
+to the only safe part of the rapid, and to prevent it from sweeping
+down broadside on, where in a twinkling we should have found
+ourselves floundering among the plotuses and cormorants, which were
+engaged in diving for their breakfast of small fish.  At times it
+seemed as if nothing could save us from dashing in our headlong race
+against the rocks which, now that the river was low, jutted out of
+the water; but just at the very nick of time, Tuba passed the word to
+the steersman, and then with ready pole turned the canoe a little
+aside, and we glided swiftly past the threatened danger.  Never was
+canoe more admirably managed:  once only did the medicine seem to
+have lost something of its efficacy.  We were driving swiftly down, a
+black rock over which the white foam flew, lay directly in our path,
+the pole was planted against it as readily as ever, but it slipped,
+just as Tuba put forth his strength to turn the bow off.  We struck
+hard, and were half-full of water in a moment; Tuba recovered himself
+as speedily, shoved off the bow, and shot the canoe into a still
+shallow place, to bale out the water.  Here we were given to
+understand that it was not the medicine which was at fault; that had
+lost none of its virtue; the accident was owing entirely to Tuba
+having started without his breakfast.  Need it be said we never let
+Tuba go without that meal again?
+
+We landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near the
+middle of the river and on the lip of the Falls.  On reaching that
+lip, and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique
+character of the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us.
+
+It is rather a hopeless task to endeavour to convey an idea of it in
+words, since, as was remarked on the spot, an accomplished painter,
+even by a number of views, could but impart a faint impression of the
+glorious scene.  The probable mode of its formation may perhaps help
+to the conception of its peculiar shape.  Niagara has been formed by
+a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls; and during a
+long course of ages, it has gradually receded, and left a broad,
+deep, and pretty straight trough in front.  It goes on wearing back
+daily, and may yet discharge the lakes from which its river--the St.
+Lawrence--flows.  But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack
+right across the river, in the hard, black, basaltic rock which there
+formed the bed of the Zambesi.  The lips of the crack are still quite
+sharp, save about three feet of the edge over which the river rolls.
+The walls go sheer down from the lips without any projecting crag, or
+symptoms of stratification or dislocation.  When the mighty rift
+occurred, no change of level took place in the two parts of the bed
+of the river thus rent asunder, consequently, in coming down the
+river to Garden Island, the water suddenly disappears, and we see the
+opposite side of the cleft, with grass and trees growing where once
+the river ran, on the same level as that part of its bed on which we
+sail.  The first crack is, in length, a few yards more than the
+breadth of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little
+over 1860 yards, but this number we resolved to retain as indicating
+the year in which the Fall was for the first time carefully examined.
+The main stream here runs nearly north and south, and the cleft
+across it is nearly east and west.  The depth of the rift was
+measured by lowering a line, to the end of which a few bullets and a
+foot of white cotton cloth were tied.  One of us lay with his head
+over a projecting crag, and watched the descending calico, till,
+after his companions had paid out 310 feet, the weight rested on a
+sloping projection, probably 50 feet from the water below, the actual
+bottom being still further down.  The white cloth now appeared the
+size of a crown-piece.  On measuring the width of this deep cleft by
+sextant, it was found at Garden Island, its narrowest part, to be
+eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more.  Into this chasm, of
+twice the depth of Niagara-fall, the river, a full mile wide, rolls
+with a deafening roar; and this is Mosi-oa-tunya, or the Victoria
+Falls.
+
+Looking from Garden Island, down to the bottom of the abyss, nearly
+half a mile of water, which has fallen over that portion of the Falls
+to our right, or west of our point of view, is seen collected in a
+narrow channel twenty or thirty yards wide, and flowing at exactly
+right angles to its previous course, to our left; while the other
+half, or that which fell over the eastern portion of the Falls, is
+seen in the left of the narrow channel below, coming towards our
+right.  Both waters unite midway, in a fearful boiling whirlpool, and
+find an outlet by a crack situated at right angles to the fissure of
+the Falls.  This outlet is about 1170 yards from the western end of
+the chasm, and some 600 from its eastern end; the whirlpool is at its
+commencement.  The Zambesi, now apparently not more than twenty or
+thirty yards wide, rushes and surges south, through the narrow
+escape-channel for 130 yards; then enters a second chasm somewhat
+deeper, and nearly parallel with the first.  Abandoning the bottom of
+the eastern half of this second chasm to the growth of large trees,
+it turns sharply off to the west, and forms a promontory, with the
+escape-channel at its point, of 1170 yards long, and 416 yards broad
+at the base.  After reaching this base, the river runs abruptly round
+the head of another promontory, and flows away to the east, in a
+third chasm; then glides round a third promontory, much narrower than
+the rest, and away back to the west, in a fourth chasm; and we could
+see in the distance that it appeared to round still another
+promontory, and bend once more in another chasm towards the east.  In
+this gigantic, zigzag, yet narrow trough, the rocks are all so
+sharply cut and angular, that the idea at once arises that the hard
+basaltic trap must have been riven into its present shape by a force
+acting from beneath, and that this probably took place when the
+ancient inland seas were let off by similar fissures nearer the
+ocean.
+
+The land beyond, or on the south of the Falls, retains, as already
+remarked, the same level as before the rent was made.  It is as if
+the trough below Niagara were bent right and left, several times
+before it reached the railway bridge.  The land in the supposed bends
+being of the same height as that above the Fall, would give standing-
+places, or points of view, of the same nature as that from the
+railway-bridge, but the nearest would be only eighty yards, instead
+of two miles (the distance to the bridge) from the face of the
+cascade.  The tops of the promontories are in general flat, smooth,
+and studded with trees.  The first, with its base on the east, is at
+one place so narrow, that it would be dangerous to walk to its
+extremity.  On the second, however, we found a broad rhinoceros path
+and a hut; but, unless the builder were a hermit, with a pet
+rhinoceros, we cannot conceive what beast or man ever went there for.
+On reaching the apex of this second eastern promontory we saw the
+great river, of a deep sea-green colour, now sorely compressed,
+gliding away, at least 400 feet below us.
+
+Garden Island, when the river is low, commands the best view of the
+Great Fall chasm, as also of the promontory opposite, with its grove
+of large evergreen trees, and brilliant rainbows of three-quarters of
+a circle, two, three, and sometimes even four in number, resting on
+the face of the vast perpendicular rock, down which tiny streams are
+always running to be swept again back by the upward rushing vapour.
+But as, at Niagara, one has to go over to the Canadian shore to see
+the chief wonder--the Great Horse-shoe Fall--so here we have to cross
+over to Moselekatse's side to the promontory of evergreens, for the
+best view of the principal Falls of Mosi-oa-tunya.  Beginning,
+therefore, at the base of this promontory, and facing the Cataract,
+at the west end of the chasm, there is, first, a fall of thirty-six
+yards in breadth, and of course, as they all are, upwards of 310 feet
+in depth.  Then Boaruka, a small island, intervenes, and next comes a
+great fall, with a breadth of 573 yards; a projecting rock separates
+this from a second grand fall of 325 yards broad; in all, upwards of
+900 yards of perennial Falls.  Further east stands Garden Island;
+then, as the river was at its lowest, came a good deal of the bare
+rock of its bed, with a score of narrow falls, which, at the time of
+flood, constitute one enormous cascade of nearly another half-mile.
+Near the east end of the chasm are two larger falls, but they are
+nothing at low water compared to those between the islands.
+
+The whole body of water rolls clear over, quite unbroken; but, after
+a descent of ten or more feet, the entire mass suddenly becomes like
+a huge sheet of driven snow.  Pieces of water leap off it in the form
+of comets with tails streaming behind, till the whole snowy sheet
+becomes myriads of rushing, leaping, aqueous comets.  This
+peculiarity was not observed by Charles Livingstone at Niagara, and
+here it happens, possibly from the dryness of the atmosphere, or
+whatever the cause may be which makes every drop of Zambesi water
+appear to possess a sort of individuality.  It runs off the ends of
+the paddles, and glides in beads along the smooth surface, like drops
+of quicksilver on a table.  Here we see them in a conglomeration,
+each with a train of pure white vapour, racing down till lost in
+clouds of spray.  A stone dropped in became less and less to the eye,
+and at last disappeared in the dense mist below.
+
+Charles Livingstone had seen Niagara, and gave Mosi-oa-tunya the
+palm, though now at the end of a drought, and the river at its very
+lowest.  Many feel a disappointment on first seeing the great
+American Falls, but Mosi-oa-tunya is so strange, it must ever cause
+wonder.  In the amount of water, Niagara probably excels, though not
+during the months when the Zambesi is in flood.  The vast body of
+water, separating in the comet-like forms described, necessarily
+encloses in its descent a large volume of air, which, forced into the
+cleft, to an unknown depth, rebounds, and rushes up loaded with
+vapour to form the three or even six columns, as if of steam, visible
+at the Batoka village Moachemba, twenty-one miles distant.  On
+attaining a height of 200, or at most 300 feet from the level of the
+river above the cascade, this vapour becomes condensed into a
+perpetual shower of fine rain.  Much of the spray, rising to the west
+of Garden Island, falls on the grove of evergreen trees opposite; and
+from their leaves, heavy drops are for ever falling, to form sundry
+little rills, which, in running down the steep face of rock, are
+blown off and turned back, or licked off their perpendicular bed, up
+into the column from which they have just descended.
+
+The morning sun gilds these columns of watery smoke with all the
+glowing colours of double or treble rainbows.  The evening sun, from
+a hot yellow sky, imparts a sulphureous hue, and gives one the
+impression that the yawning gulf might resemble the mouth of the
+bottomless pit.  No bird sits and sings on the branches of the grove
+of perpetual showers, or ever builds its nest there.  We saw
+hornbills and flocks of little black weavers flying across from the
+mainland to the islands, and from the islands to the points of the
+promontories and back again, but they uniformly shunned the region of
+perpetual rain, occupied by the evergreen grove.  The sunshine,
+elsewhere in this land so overpowering, never penetrates the deep
+gloom of that shade.  In the presence of the strange Mosi-oa-tunya,
+we can sympathize with those who, when the world was young, peopled
+earth, air, and river, with beings not of mortal form.  Sacred to
+what deity would be this awful chasm and that dark grove, over which
+hovers an ever-abiding "pillar of cloud"?
+
+The ancient Batoka chieftains used Kazeruka, now Garden Island, and
+Boaruka, the island further west, also on the lip of the Falls, as
+sacred spots for worshipping the Deity.  It is no wonder that under
+the cloudy columns, and near the brilliant rainbows, with the
+ceaseless roar of the cataract, with the perpetual flow, as if
+pouring forth from the hand of the Almighty, their souls should be
+filled with reverential awe.  It inspired wonder in the native mind
+throughout the interior.  Among the first questions asked by
+Sebituane of Mr. Oswell and Dr. Livingstone, in 1851, was, "Have you
+any smoke soundings in your country," and "what causes the smoke to
+rise for ever so high out of water?"  In that year its fame was heard
+200 miles off, and it was approached within two days; but it was seen
+by no European till 1855, when Dr. Livingstone visited it on his way
+to the East Coast.  Being then accompanied as far as this Fall by
+Sekeletu and 200 followers, his stay was necessarily short; and the
+two days there were employed in observations for fixing the
+geographical position of the place, and turning the showers, that at
+times sweep from the columns of vapour across the island, to account,
+in teaching the Makololo arboriculture, and making that garden from
+which the natives named the island; so that he did not visit the
+opposite sides of the cleft, nor see the wonderful course of the
+river beyond the Falls.  The hippopotami had destroyed the trees
+which were then planted; and, though a strong stockaded hedge was
+made again, and living orange-trees, cashew-nuts, and coffee seeds
+put in afresh, we fear that the perseverance of the hippopotami will
+overcome the obstacle of the hedge.  It would require a resident
+missionary to rear European fruit-trees.  The period at which the
+peach and apricot come into blossom is about the end of the dry
+season, and artificial irrigation is necessary.  The Batoka, the only
+arboriculturists in the country, rear native fruit-trees alone--the
+mosibe, the motsikiri, the boma, and others.  When a tribe takes an
+interest in trees, it becomes more attached to the spot on which they
+are planted, and they prove one of the civilizing influences.
+
+Where one Englishman goes, others are sure to follow.  Mr. Baldwin, a
+gentleman from Natal, succeeded in reaching the Falls guided by his
+pocket-compass alone.  On meeting the second subject of Her Majesty,
+who had ever beheld the greatest of African wonders, we found him a
+sort of prisoner at large.  He had called on Mashotlane to ferry him
+over to the north side of the river, and, when nearly over, he took a
+bath, by jumping in and swimming ashore.  "If," said Mashotlane, "he
+had been devoured by one of the crocodiles which abound there, the
+English would have blamed us for his death.  He nearly inflicted a
+great injury upon us, therefore, we said, he must pay a fine."  As
+Mr. Baldwin had nothing with him wherewith to pay, they were taking
+care of him till he should receive beads from his wagon, two days
+distant.
+
+Mashotlane's education had been received in the camp of Sebituane,
+where but little regard was paid to human life.  He was not yet in
+his prime, and his fine open countenance presented to us no
+indication of the evil influences which unhappily, from infancy, had
+been at work on his mind.  The native eye was more penetrating than
+ours; for the expression of our men was, "He has drunk the blood of
+men--you may see it in his eyes."  He made no further difficulty
+about Mr. Baldwin; but the week after we left he inflicted a severe
+wound on the head of one of his wives with his rhinoceros-horn club.
+She, being of a good family, left him, and we subsequently met her
+and another of his wives proceeding up the country.
+
+The ground is strewn with agates for a number of miles above the
+Falls; but the fires, which burn off the grass yearly, have injured
+most of those on the surface.  Our men were delighted to hear that
+they do as well as flints for muskets; and this with the new ideas of
+the value of gold (dalama) and malachite, that they had acquired at
+Tette, made them conceive that we were not altogether silly in
+picking up and looking at stones.
+
+Marching up the river, we crossed the Lekone at its confluence, about
+eight miles above the island Kalai, and went on to a village opposite
+the Island Chundu.  Nambowe, the headman, is one of the Matebele or
+Zulus, who have had to flee from the anger of Moselekatse, to take
+refuge with the Makololo.
+
+We spent Sunday, the 12th, at the village of Molele, a tall old
+Batoka, who was proud of having formerly been a great favourite with
+Sebituane.  In coming hither we passed through patches of forest
+abounding in all sorts of game.  The elephants' tusks, placed over
+graves, are now allowed to decay, and the skulls, which the former
+Batoka stuck on poles to ornament their villages, not being renewed,
+now crumble into dust.  Here the famine, of which we had heard,
+became apparent, Molele's people being employed in digging up the
+tsitla root out of the marshes, and cutting out the soft core of the
+young palm-trees, for food.
+
+The village, situated on the side of a wooded ridge, commands an
+extensive view of a great expanse of meadow and marsh lying along the
+bank of the river.  On these holmes herds of buffaloes and waterbucks
+daily graze in security, as they have in the reedy marshes a refuge
+into which they can run on the approach of danger.  The pretty little
+tianyane or ourebi is abundant further on, and herds of blue
+weldebeests or brindled gnus (Katoblepas Gorgon) amused us by their
+fantastic capers.  They present a much more ferocious aspect than the
+lion himself, but are quite timid.  We never could, by waving a red
+handkerchief, according to the prescription, induce them to venture
+near to us.  It may therefore be that the red colour excites their
+fury only when wounded or hotly pursued.  Herds of lechee or lechwe
+now enliven the meadows; and they and their younger brother, the
+graceful poku, smaller, and of a rounder contour, race together
+towards the grassy fens.  We venture to call the poku after the late
+Major Vardon, a noble-hearted African traveller; but fully anticipate
+that some aspiring Nimrod will prefer that his own name should go
+down to posterity on the back of this buck.
+
+Midway between Tabacheu and the Great Falls the streams begin to flow
+westward.  On the other side they begin to flow east.  Large round
+masses of granite, somewhat like old castles, tower aloft about the
+Kalomo.  The country is an elevated plateau, and our men knew and
+named the different plains as we passed them by.
+
+On the 13th we met a party from Sekeletu, who was now at Sesheke.
+Our approach had been reported, and they had been sent to ask the
+Doctor what the price of a horse ought to be; and what he said, that
+they were to give and no more.  In reply they were told that by their
+having given nine large tusks for one horse before the Doctor came,
+the Griquas would naturally imagine that the price was already
+settled.  It was exceedingly amusing to witness the exact imitation
+they gave of the swagger of a certain white with whom they had been
+dealing, and who had, as they had perceived, evidently wished to
+assume an air of indifference.  Holding up the head and scratching
+the beard it was hinted might indicate not indifference, but vermin.
+It is well that we do not always know what they say about us.  The
+remarks are often not quite complimentary, and resemble closely what
+certain white travellers say about the blacks.
+
+We made our camp in the afternoon abreast of the large island called
+Mparira, opposite the mouth of the Chobe.  Francolins, quails, and
+guinea-fowls, as well as larger game, were abundant.  The Makololo
+headman, Mokompa, brought us a liberal present; and in the usual way,
+which is considered politeness, regretted he had no milk, as his cows
+were all dry.  We got some honey here from the very small stingless
+bee, called, by the Batoka, moandi, and by others, the kokomatsane.
+This honey is slightly acid, and has an aromatic flavour.  The bees
+are easily known from their habit of buzzing about the eyes, and
+tickling the skin by sucking it as common flies do.  The hive has a
+tube of wax like a quill, for its entrance, and is usually in the
+hollows of trees.
+
+Mokompa feared that the tribe was breaking up, and lamented the
+condition into which they had fallen in consequence of Sekeletu's
+leprosy; he did not know what was to become of them.  He sent two
+canoes to take us up to Sesheke; his best canoe had taken ivory up to
+the chief, to purchase goods of some native traders from Benguela.
+Above the Falls the paddlers always stand in the canoes, using long
+paddles, ten feet in length, and changing from side to side without
+losing the stroke.
+
+Mochokotsa, a messenger from Sekeletu, met us on the 17th, with
+another request for the Doctor to take ivory and purchase a horse.
+He again declined to interfere.  None were to come up to Sekeletu but
+the Doctor; and all the men who had had smallpox at Tette, three
+years ago, were to go back to Moshobotwane, and he would sprinkle
+medicine over them, to drive away the infection, and prevent it
+spreading in the tribe.  Mochokotsa was told to say to Sekeletu that
+the disease was known of old to white men, and we even knew the
+medicine to prevent it; and, were there any danger now, we should be
+the first to warn him of it.  Why did not he go himself to have
+Moshobotwane sprinkle medicine to drive away his leprosy.  We were
+not afraid of his disease, nor of the fever that had killed the
+teachers and many Makololo at Linyanti.  As this attempt at
+quarantine was evidently the suggestion of native doctors to increase
+their own importance, we added that we had no food, and would hunt
+next day for game, and the day after; and, should we be still ordered
+purification by their medicine, we should then return to our own
+country.
+
+The message was not all of our dictation, our companions interlarded
+it with their own indignant protests, and said some strong things in
+the Tette dialect about these "doctor things" keeping them back from
+seeing their father; when to their surprise Mochokotsa told them he
+knew every word they were saying, as he was of the tribe Bazizulu,
+and defied them to deceive him by any dialect, either of the Mashona
+on the east, or of the Mambari on the west.  Mochokotsa then repeated
+our message twice, to be sure that he had it every word, and went
+back again.  These chiefs' messengers have most retentive memories;
+they carry messages of considerable length great distances, and
+deliver them almost word for word.  Two or three usually go together,
+and when on the way the message is rehearsed every night, in order
+that the exact words may be kept to.  One of the native objections to
+learning to write is, that these men answer the purpose of
+transmitting intelligence to a distance as well as a letter would;
+and, if a person wishes to communicate with any one in the town, the
+best way to do so is either to go to or send for him.  And as for
+corresponding with friends very far off, that is all very well for
+white people, but the blacks have no friends to whom to write.  The
+only effective argument for the learning to read is, that it is their
+duty to know the revelation from their Father in Heaven, as it stands
+in the Book.
+
+Our messenger returned on the evening of the following day with "You
+speak truly," says Sekeletu, "the disease is old, come on at once, do
+not sleep in the path; for I am greatly desirous (tlologelecoe) to
+see the Doctor."
+
+After Mochokotsa left us, we met some of Mokompa's men bringing back
+the ivory, as horses were preferred to the West-Coast goods.  They
+were the bearers of instructions to Mokompa, and as these
+instructions illustrate the government of people who have learned
+scarcely anything from Europeans, they are inserted, though otherwise
+of no importance.  Mashotlane had not behaved so civilly to Mr.
+Baldwin as Sekeletu had ordered him to do to all Englishmen.  He had
+been very uncivil to the messengers sent by Moselekatse with letters
+from Mr. Moffat, treated them as spies, and would not land to take
+the bag until they moved off.  On our speaking to him about this, he
+justified his conduct on the plea that he was set at the Falls for
+the very purpose of watching these, their natural enemies; and how
+was he to know that they had been sent by Mr. Moffat?  Our men
+thereupon reported at head-quarters that Mashotlane had cursed the
+Doctor.  The instructions to Mokompa, from Sekeletu, were to "go and
+tell Mashotlane that he had offended greatly.  He had not cursed
+Monare (Dr. Livingstone) but Sebituane, as Monare was now in the
+place of Sebituane, and he reverenced him as he had done his father.
+Any fine taken from Mr. Baldwin was to be returned at once, as he was
+not a Boer but an Englishman.  Sekeletu was very angry, and Mokompa
+must not conceal the message."
+
+On finding afterwards that Mashotlane's conduct had been most
+outrageous to the Batoka, Sekeletu sent for him to come to Sesheke,
+in order that he might have him more under his own eye; but
+Mashotlane, fearing that this meant the punishment of death, sent a
+polite answer, alleging that he was ill and unable to travel.
+Sekeletu tried again to remove Mashotlane from the Falls, but without
+success.  In theory the chief is absolute and quite despotic; in
+practice his authority is limited, and he cannot, without
+occasionally putting refractory headmen to death, force his
+subordinates to do his will.
+
+Except the small rapids by Mparira island, near the mouth of the
+Chobe, the rest of the way to Sesheke by water is smooth.  Herds of
+cattle of two or three varieties graze on the islands in the river:
+the Batoka possessed a very small breed of beautiful shape, and
+remarkably tame, and many may still be seen; a larger kind, many of
+which have horns pendent, and loose at the roots; and a still larger
+sort, with horns of extraordinary dimensions,--apparently a burden
+for the beast to carry.  This breed was found in abundance at Lake
+Ngami.  We stopped at noon at one of the cattle-posts of Mokompa, and
+had a refreshing drink of milk.  Men of his standing have usually
+several herds placed at different spots, and the owner visits each in
+turn, while his head-quarters are at his village.  His son, a boy of
+ten, had charge of the establishment during his father's absence.
+According to Makololo ideas, the cattle-post is the proper school in
+which sons should be brought up.  Here they receive the right sort of
+education--the knowledge of pasture and how to manage cattle.
+
+Strong easterly winds blow daily from noon till midnight, and
+continue till the October or November rains set in.  Whirlwinds,
+raising huge pillars of smoke from burning grass and weeds, are
+common in the forenoon.  We were nearly caught in an immense one.  It
+crossed about twenty yards in front of us, the wind apparently
+rushing into it from all points of the compass.  Whirling round and
+round in great eddies, it swept up hundreds of feet into the air a
+continuous dense dark cloud of the black pulverized soil, mixed with
+dried grass, off the plain.  Herds of the new antelopes, lechwe, and
+poku, with the kokong, or gnus, and zebras stood gazing at us as we
+passed.  The mirage lifted them at times halfway to the clouds, and
+twisted them and the clumps of palms into strange unearthly forms.
+The extensive and rich level plains by the banks, along the sides of
+which we paddled, would support a vast population, and might be
+easily irrigated from the Zambesi.  If watered, they would yield
+crops all the year round, and never suffer loss by drought.  The
+hippopotamus is killed here with long lance-like spears.  We saw two
+men, in a light canoe, stealing noiselessly down on one of these
+animals thought to be asleep; but it was on the alert, and they had
+quickly to retreat.  Comparatively few of these animals now remain
+between Sesheke and the Falls, and they are uncommonly wary, as it is
+certain death for one to be caught napping in the daytime.
+
+On the 18th we entered Sesheke.  The old town, now in ruins, stands
+on the left bank of the river.  The people have built another on the
+same side, a quarter of a mile higher up, since their headman
+Moriantsiane was put to death for bewitching the chief with leprosy.
+Sekeletu was on the right bank, near a number of temporary huts.  A
+man hailed us from the chiefs quarters, and requested us to rest
+under the old Kotla, or public meeting-place tree.  A young Makololo,
+with the large thighs which Zulus and most of this tribe have,
+crossed over to receive orders from the chief, who had not shown
+himself to the people since he was affected with leprosy.  On
+returning he ran for Mokele, the headman of the new town, who, after
+going over to Sekeletu, came back and conducted us to a small but
+good hut, and afterwards brought us a fine fat ox, as a present from
+the chief.  "This is a time of hunger," he said, "and we have no
+meat, but we expect some soon from the Barotse Valley."  We were
+entirely out of food when we reached Sesheke.  Never was better meat
+than that of the ox Sekeletu sent, and infinitely above the flesh of
+all kinds of game is beef!
+
+A constant stream of visitors rolled in on us the day after our
+arrival.  Several of them, who had suffered affliction during the
+Doctor's absence, seemed to be much affected on seeing him again.
+All were in low spirits.  A severe drought had cut off the crops, and
+destroyed the pasture of Linyanti, and the people were scattered over
+the country in search of wild fruits, and the hospitality of those
+whose ground-nuts (Arachis hypogoea) had not failed.  Sekeletu's
+leprosy brought troops of evils in its train.  Believing himself
+bewitched, he had suspected a number of his chief men, and had put
+some, with their families, to death; others had fled to distant
+tribes, and were living in exile.  The chief had shut himself up, and
+allowed no one to come into his presence but his uncle Mamire.
+Ponwane, who had been as "head and eyes" to him, had just died;
+evidence, he thought, of the potent spells of those who hated all who
+loved the chief.  The country was suffering grievously, and
+Sebituane's grand empire was crumbling to pieces.  A large body of
+young Barotse had revolted and fled to the north; killing a man by
+the way, in order to put a blood-feud between Masiko, the chief to
+whom they were going, and Sekeletu.  The Batoka under Sinamane, and
+Muemba, were independent, and Mashotlane at the Falls was setting
+Sekeletu's authority virtually at defiance.  Sebituane's wise policy
+in treating the conquered tribes on equal terms with his own
+Makololo, as all children of the chief, and equally eligible to the
+highest honours, had been abandoned by his son, who married none but
+Makololo women, and appointed to office none but Makololo men.  He
+had become unpopular among the black tribes, conquered by the spear
+but more effectually won by the subsequent wise and just government
+of his father.
+
+Strange rumours were afloat respecting the unseen Sekeletu; his
+fingers were said to have grown like eagle's claws, and his face so
+frightfully distorted that no one could recognize him.  Some had
+begun to hint that he might not really be the son of the great
+Sebituane, the founder of the nation, strong in battle, and wise in
+the affairs of state.  "In the days of the Great Lion" (Sebituane),
+said his only sister, Moriantsiane's widow, whose husband Sekeletu
+had killed, "we had chiefs and little chiefs and elders to carry on
+the government, and the great chief, Sebituane, knew them all, and
+everything they did, and the whole country was wisely ruled; but now
+Sekeletu knows nothing of what his underlings do, and they care not
+for him, and the Makololo power is fast passing away." {3}
+
+The native doctors had given the case of Sekeletu up.  They could not
+cure him, and pronounced the disease incurable.  An old doctress from
+the Manyeti tribe had come to see what she could do for him, and on
+her skill he now hung his last hopes.  She allowed no one to see him,
+except his mother and uncle, making entire seclusion from society an
+essential condition of the much longed-for cure.  He sent,
+notwithstanding, for the Doctor; and on the following day we all
+three were permitted to see him.  He was sitting in a covered wagon,
+which was enclosed by a high wall of close-set reeds; his face was
+only slightly disfigured by the thickening of the skin in parts,
+where the leprosy had passed over it; and the only peculiarity about
+his hands was the extreme length of his finger-nails, which, however,
+was nothing very much out of the way, as all the Makololo gentlemen
+wear them uncommonly long.  He has the quiet, unassuming manners of
+his father, Sebituane, speaks distinctly, in a low pleasant voice,
+and appears to be a sensible man, except perhaps on the subject of
+his having been bewitched; and in this, when alluded to, he exhibits
+as firm a belief as if it were his monomania.  "Moriantsiane, my
+aunt's husband, tried the bewitching medicine first on his wife, and
+she is leprous, and so is her head-servant; then, seeing that it
+succeeded, he gave me a stronger dose in the cooked flesh of a goat,
+and I have had the disease ever since.  They have lately killed
+Ponwane, and, as you see, are now killing me."  Ponwane had died of
+fever a short time previously.  Sekeletu asked us for medicine and
+medical attendance, but we did not like to take the case out of the
+hands of the female physician already employed, it being bad policy
+to appear to undervalue any of the profession; and she, being anxious
+to go on with her remedies, said "she had not given him up yet, but
+would try for another month; if he was not cured by that time, then
+she would hand him over to the white doctors."  But we intended to
+leave the country before a month was up; so Mamire, with others,
+induced the old lady to suspend her treatment for a little.  She
+remained, as the doctors stipulated, in the chief's establishment,
+and on full pay.
+
+Sekeletu was told plainly that the disease was unknown in our
+country, and was thought exceedingly obstinate of cure; that we did
+not believe in his being bewitched, and we were willing to do all we
+could to help him.  This was a case for disinterested benevolence; no
+pay was expected, but considerable risk incurred; yet we could not
+decline it, as we had the trading in horses.  Having, however, none
+of the medicines usually employed in skin diseases with us, we tried
+the local application of lunar caustic, and hydriodate of potash
+internally; and with such gratifying results, that Mamire wished the
+patient to be smeared all over with a solution of lunar caustic,
+which he believed to be of the same nature as the blistering fluid
+formerly applied to his own knee by Mr. Oswell.  ITS power he
+considered irresistible, and he would fain have had anything like it
+tried on Sekeletu.
+
+It was a time of great scarcity and hunger, but Sekeletu treated us
+hospitably, preparing tea for us at every visit we paid him.  With
+the tea we had excellent American biscuit and preserved fruits, which
+had been brought to him all the way from Benguela.  The fruits he
+most relished were those preserved in their own juices; plums,
+apples, pears, strawberries, and peaches, which we have seen only
+among Portuguese and Spaniards.  It made us anxious to plant the
+fruit-tree seeds we had brought, and all were pleased with the idea
+of having these same fruits in their own country.
+
+Mokele, the headman of Sesheke, and Sebituane's sister, Manchunyane,
+were ordered to provide us with food, as Sekeletu's wives, to whom
+this duty properly belonged, were at Linyanti.  We found a black
+trader from the West Coast, and some Griqua traders from the South,
+both in search of ivory.  Ivory is dear at Sesheke; but cheaper in
+the Batoka country, from Sinamane's to the Kafue, than anywhere else.
+The trader from Benguela took orders for goods for his next year's
+trip, and offered to bring tea, coffee, and sugar at cent. per cent.
+prices.  As, in consequence of a hint formerly given, the Makololo
+had secured all the ivory in the Batoga country to the east, by
+purchasing it with hoes, the Benguela traders found it unprofitable
+to go thither for slaves.  They assured us that without ivory the
+trade in slaves did not pay.  In this way, and by the orders of
+Sekeletu, an extensive slave-mart was closed.  These orders were
+never infringed except secretly.  We discovered only two or three
+cases of their infraction.
+
+Sekeletu was well pleased with the various articles we brought for
+him, and inquired if a ship could not bring his sugar-mill and the
+other goods we had been obliged to leave behind at Tette.  On hearing
+that there was a possibility of a powerful steamer ascending as far
+as Sinamane's, but never above the Grand Victoria Falls, he asked,
+with charming simplicity, if a cannon could not blow away the Falls,
+so as to allow the vessel to come up to Sesheke.
+
+To save the tribe from breaking up, by the continual loss of real
+Makololo, it ought at once to remove to the healthy Batoka highlands,
+near the Kafue.  Fully aware of this, Sekeletu remarked that all his
+people, save two, were convinced that, if they remained in the
+lowlands, a few years would suffice to cut off all the real Makololo;
+they came originally from the healthy South, near the confluence of
+the Likwa and Namagari, where fever is almost unknown, and its
+ravages had been as frightful among them here, as amongst Europeans
+on the Coast.  Sebituane's sister described its first appearance
+among the tribe, after their settling in the Barotse Valley on the
+Zambesi.  Many of them were seized with a shivering sickness, as if
+from excessive cold; they had never seen the like before.  They made
+great fires, and laid the shivering wretches down before them; but,
+pile on wood as they might, they could not raise heat enough to drive
+the cold out of the bodies of the sufferers, and they shivered on
+till they died.  But, though all preferred the highlands, they were
+afraid to go there, lest the Matebele should come and rob them of
+their much-loved cattle.  Sebituane, with all his veterans, could not
+withstand that enemy; and how could they be resisted, now that most
+of the brave warriors were dead?  The young men would break, and run
+away the moment they saw the terrible Matebele, being as much afraid
+of them as the black conquered tribes are of the Makololo.  "But if
+the Doctor and his wife," said the chiefs and counsellors, "would
+come and live with us, we would remove to the highlands at once, as
+Moselekatse would not attack a place where the daughter of his
+friend, Moffat, was living."
+
+The Makololo are by far the most intelligent and enterprising of the
+tribes we have met.  None but brave and daring men remained long with
+Sebituane, his stern discipline soon eradicated cowardice from his
+army.  Death was the inevitable doom of the coward.  If the chief saw
+a man running away from the fight, he rushed after him with amazing
+speed, and cut him down; or waited till he returned to the town, and
+then summoned the deserter into his presence.  "You did not wish to
+die on the field, you wished to die at home, did you? you shall have
+your wish!" and he was instantly led off and executed.  The present
+race of young men are inferior in most respects to their fathers.
+The old Makololo had many manly virtues; they were truthful, and
+never stole, excepting in what they considered the honourable way of
+lifting cattle in fair fight.  But this can hardly be said of their
+sons; who, having been brought up among the subjected tribes, have
+acquired some of the vices peculiar to a menial and degraded race.  A
+few of the old Makololo cautioned us not to leave any of our property
+exposed, as the blacks were great thieves; and some of our own men
+advised us to be on our guard, as the Makololo also would steal.  A
+very few trifling articles were stolen by a young Makololo; and he,
+on being spoken to on the subject, showed great ingenuity in excusing
+himself, by a plausible and untruthful story.  The Makololo of old
+were hard workers, and did not consider labour as beneath them; but
+their sons never work, regarding it as fit only for the Mashona and
+Makalaka servants.  Sebituane, seeing that the rival tribes had the
+advantage over his, in knowing how to manage canoes, had his warriors
+taught to navigate; and his own son, with his companions, paddled the
+chief's canoe.  All the dishes, baskets, stools, and canoes are made
+by the black tribes called Manyeti and Matlotlora.  The houses are
+built by the women and servants.  The Makololo women are vastly
+superior to any we have yet seen.  They are of a light warm brown
+complexion, have pleasant countenances, and are remarkably quick of
+apprehension.  They dress neatly, wearing a kilt and mantle, and have
+many ornaments.  Sebituane's sister, the head lady of Sesheke, wore
+eighteen solid brass rings, as thick as one's finger, on each leg,
+and three of copper under each knee; nineteen brass rings on her left
+arm, and eight of brass and copper on her right, also a large ivory
+ring above each elbow.  She had a pretty bead necklace, and a bead
+sash encircled her waist.  The weight of the bright brass rings round
+her legs impeded her walking, and chafed her ankles; but, as it was
+the fashion, she did not mind the inconvenience, and guarded against
+the pain by putting soft rag round the lower rings.
+
+Justice appears upon the whole to be pretty fairly administered among
+the Makololo.  A headman took some beads and a blanket from one of
+his men who had been with us; the matter was brought before the
+chief, and he immediately ordered the goods to be restored, and
+decreed, moreover, that no headman should take the property of the
+men who had returned.  In theory, all the goods brought back belonged
+to the chief; the men laid them at his feet, and made a formal offer
+of them all; he looked at the articles, and told the men to keep
+them.  This is almost invariably the case.  Tuba Mokoro, however,
+fearing lest Sekeletu might take a fancy to some of his best goods,
+exhibited only a few of his old and least valuable acquisitions.
+Masakasa had little to show; he had committed some breach of native
+law in one of the villages on the way, and paid a heavy fine rather
+than have the matter brought to the Doctor's ears.  Each carrier is
+entitled to a portion of the goods in his bundle, though purchased by
+the chief's ivory, and they never hesitate to claim their rights; but
+no wages can be demanded from the chief, if he fails to respond to
+the first application.
+
+Our men, accustomed to our ways, thought that the English system of
+paying a man for his labour was the only correct one, and some even
+said it would be better to live under a government where life and
+labour were more secure and valuable than here.  While with us, they
+always conducted themselves with propriety during Divine service, and
+not only maintained decorum themselves, but insisted on other natives
+who might be present doing the same.  When Moshobotwane, the Batoka
+chief, came on one occasion with a number of his men, they listened
+in silence to the reading of the Bible in the Makololo tongue; but,
+as soon as we all knelt down to pray, they commenced a vigorous
+clapping of hands, their mode of asking a favour.  Our indignant
+Makololo soon silenced their noisy accompaniment, and looked with
+great contempt on this display of ignorance.  Nearly all our men had
+learned to repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed in their
+own language, and felt rather proud of being able to do so; and when
+they reached home, they liked to recite them to groups of admiring
+friends.  Their ideas of right and wrong differ in no respect from
+our own, except in their professed inability to see how it can be
+improper for a man to have more than one wife.  A year or two ago
+several of the wives of those who had been absent with us petitioned
+the chief for leave to marry again.  They thought that it was of no
+use waiting any longer, their husbands must be dead; but Sekeletu
+refused permission; he himself had bet a number of oxen that the
+Doctor would return with their husbands, and he had promised the
+absent men that their wives should be kept for them.  The impatient
+spouses had therefore to wait a little longer.  Some of them,
+however, eloped with other men; the wife of Mantlanyane, for
+instance, ran off and left his little boy among strangers.
+Mantlanyane was very angry when he heard of it, not that he cared
+much about her deserting him, for he had two other wives at Tette,
+but he was indignant at her abandoning his boy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+
+Life amongst the Makololo--Return journey--Native hospitality--A
+canoe voyage on the Zambesi.
+
+While we were at Sesheke, an ox was killed by a crocodile; a man
+found the carcass floating in the river, and appropriated the meat.
+When the owner heard of this, he requested him to come before the
+chief, as he meant to complain of him; rather than go, the delinquent
+settled the matter by giving one of his own oxen in lieu of the lost
+one.  A headman from near Linyanti came with a complaint that all his
+people had run off, owing to the "hunger."  Sekeletu said, "You must
+not be left to grow lean alone, some of them must come back to you."
+He had thus an order to compel their return, if he chose to put it in
+force.  Families frequently leave their own headman and flee to
+another village, and sometimes a whole village decamps by night,
+leaving the headman by himself.  Sekeletu rarely interfered with the
+liberty of the subject to choose his own headman, and, as it is often
+the fault of the latter which causes the people to depart, it is
+punishment enough for him to be left alone.  Flagrant disobedience to
+the chief's orders is punished with death.  A Moshubia man was
+ordered to cut some reeds for Sekeletu:  he went off, and hid himself
+for two days instead.  For this he was doomed to die, and was carried
+in a canoe to the middle of the river, choked, and tossed into the
+stream.  The spectators hooted the executioners, calling out to them
+that they too would soon be carried out and strangled.  Occasionally
+when a man is sent to beat an offender, he tells him his object,
+returns, and assures the chief he has nearly killed him.  The
+transgressor then keeps for a while out of sight, and the matter is
+forgotten.  The river here teems with monstrous crocodiles, and women
+are frequently, while drawing water, carried off by these reptiles.
+
+We met a venerable warrior, sole survivor, probably, of the Mantatee
+host which threatened to invade the colony in 1824.  He retained a
+vivid recollection of their encounter with the Griquas:  "As we
+looked at the men and horses, puffs of smoke arose, and some of us
+dropped down dead!"  "Never saw anything like it in my life, a man's
+brains lying in one place and his body in another!"  They could not
+understand what was killing them; a ball struck a man's shield at an
+angle; knocked his arm out of joint at the shoulder; and leaving a
+mark, or burn, as he said, on the shield, killed another man close
+by.  We saw the man with his shoulder still dislocated.  Sebetuane
+was present at the fight, and had an exalted opinion of the power of
+white people ever afterwards.
+
+The ancient costume of the Makololo consisted of the skin of a lamb,
+kid, jackal, ocelot, or other small animal, worn round and below the
+loins:  and in cold weather a kaross, or skin mantle, was thrown over
+the shoulders.  The kaross is now laid aside, and the young men of
+fashion wear a monkey-jacket and a skin round the hips; but no
+trousers, waistcoat, or shirt.  The river and lake tribes are in
+general very cleanly, bathing several times a day.  The Makololo
+women use water rather sparingly, rubbing themselves with melted
+butter instead:  this keeps off parasites, but gives their clothes a
+rancid odour.  One stage of civilization often leads of necessity to
+another--the possession of clothes creates a demand for soap; give a
+man a needle, and he is soon back to you for thread.
+
+This being a time of mourning, on account of the illness of the
+chief, the men were negligent of their persons, they did not cut
+their hair, or have merry dances, or carry spear and shield when they
+walked abroad.  The wife of Pitsane was busy making a large hut,
+while we were in the town:  she informed us that the men left house-
+building entirely to the women and servants.  A round tower of stakes
+and reeds, nine or ten feet high, is raised and plastered; a floor is
+next made of soft tufa, or ant-hill material and cowdung.  This
+plaster prevents the poisonous insects, called tumpans, whose bite
+causes fever in some, and painful sores in all, from harbouring in
+the cracks or soil.  The roof, which is much larger in diameter than
+the tower, is made on the ground, and then, many persons assisting,
+lifted up and placed on the tower, and thatched.  A plastered reed
+fence is next built up to meet the outer part of the roof, which
+still projects a little over this fence, and a space of three feet
+remains between it and the tower.  We slept in this space, instead of
+in the tower, as the inner door of the hut we occupied was
+uncomfortably small, being only nineteen inches high, and twenty-two
+inches wide at the floor.  A foot from the bottom it measured
+seventeen inches in breadth, and close to the top only twelve inches,
+so it was a difficult matter to get through it.  The tower has no
+light or ventilation, except through this small door.  The reason a
+lady assigned for having the doors so very small was to keep out the
+mice!
+
+The children have merry times, especially in the cool of the evening.
+One of their games consists of a little girl being carried on the
+shoulders of two others.  She sits with outstretched arms, as they
+walk about with her, and all the rest clap their hands, and stopping
+before each hut sing pretty airs, some beating time on their little
+kilts of cowskin, others making a curious humming sound between the
+songs.  Excepting this and the skipping-rope, the play of the girls
+consists in imitation of the serious work of their mothers, building
+little huts, making small pots, and cooking, pounding corn in
+miniature mortars, or hoeing tiny gardens.  The boys play with spears
+of reeds pointed with wood, and small shields, or bows and arrows; or
+amuse themselves in making little cattle-pens, or in moulding cattle
+in clay; they show great ingenuity in the imitation of various-shaped
+horns.  Some too are said to use slings, but as soon as they can
+watch the goats, or calves, they are sent to the field.  We saw many
+boys riding on the calves they had in charge, but this is an
+innovation since the arrival of the English with their horses.
+Tselane, one of the ladies, on observing Dr. Livingstone noting
+observations on the wet and dry bulb thermometers, thought that he
+too was engaged in play; for on receiving no reply to her question,
+which was rather difficult to answer, as the native tongue has no
+scientific terms, she said with roguish glee, "Poor thing, playing
+like a little child!"
+
+Like other Africans, the Makololo have great faith in the power of
+medicine; they believe that there is an especial medicine for every
+ill that flesh is heir to.  Mamire is anxious to have children; he
+has six wives, and only one boy, and he begs earnestly for "child
+medicine."  The mother of Sekeletu came from the Barotse Valley to
+see her son.  Thinks she has lost flesh since Dr. Livingstone was
+here before, and asks for "the medicine of fatness."  The Makololo
+consider plumpness an essential part of beauty in women, but the
+extreme stoutness, mentioned by Captain Speke, in the north, would be
+considered hideous here, for the men have been overheard speaking of
+a lady whom we call "inclined to embonpoint," as "fat unto ugliness."
+
+Two packages from the Kuruman, containing letters and newspapers,
+reached Linyanti previous to our arrival, and Sekeletu, not knowing
+when we were coming, left them there; but now at once sent a
+messenger for them.  This man returned on the seventh day, having
+travelled 240 geographical miles.  One of the packages was too heavy
+for him, and he left it behind.  As the Doctor wished to get some
+more medicine and papers out of the wagon left at Linyanti in 1853,
+he decided upon going thither himself.  The chief gave him his own
+horse, now about twelve years old, and some men.  He found everything
+in his wagon as safe as when he left it seven years before.  The
+headmen, Mosale and Pekonyane, received him cordially, and lamented
+that they had so little to offer him.  Oh! had he only arrived the
+year previous, when there was abundance of milk and corn and beer.
+
+Very early the next morning the old town-crier, Ma-Pulenyane, of his
+own accord made a public proclamation, which, in the perfect
+stillness of the town long before dawn, was striking:  "I have
+dreamed!  I have dreamed!  I have dreamed!  Thou Mosale and thou
+Pekonyane, my lords, be not faint-hearted, nor let your hearts be
+sore, but believe all the words of Monare (the Doctor) for his heart
+is white as milk towards the Makololo.  I dreamed that he was coming,
+and that the tribe would live, if you prayed to God and give heed to
+the word of Monare."  Ma-Pulenyane showed Dr. Livingstone the
+burying-place where poor Helmore and seven others were laid,
+distinguishing those whom he had put to rest, and those for whom
+Mafale had performed that last office.  Nothing whatever marked the
+spot, and with the native idea of HIDING the dead, it was said, "it
+will soon be all overgrown with bushes, for no one will cultivate
+there."  None but Ma-Pulenyane approached the place, the others stood
+at a respectful distance; they invariably avoid everything connected
+with the dead, and no such thing as taking portions of human bodies
+to make charms of, as is the custom further north, has ever been
+known among the Makololo.
+
+Sekeletu's health improved greatly during our visit, the melancholy
+foreboding left his spirits, and he became cheerful, but resolutely
+refused to leave his den, and appear in public till he was perfectly
+cured, and had regained what he considered his good looks.  He also
+feared lest some of those who had bewitched him originally might
+still be among the people, and neutralize our remedies. {4}
+
+As we expected another steamer to be at Kongone in November, it was
+impossible for us to remain in Sesheke more than one month.  Before
+our departure, the chief and his principal men expressed in a formal
+manner their great desire to have English people settled on the
+Batoka highlands.  At one time he proposed to go as far as Phori, in
+order to select a place of residence; but as he afterwards saw
+reasons for remaining where he was, till his cure was completed, he
+gave orders to those sent with us, in the event of our getting, on
+our return, past the rapids near Tette, not to bring us to Sesheke,
+but to send forward a messenger, and he with the whole tribe would
+come to us.  Dr. Kirk being of the same age, Sekeletu was
+particularly anxious that he should come and live with him.  He said
+that he would cut off a section of the country for the special use of
+the English; and on being told that in all probability their
+descendants would cause disturbance in his country, he replied,
+"These would be only domestic feuds, and of no importance."  The
+great extent of uncultivated land on the cool and now unpeopled
+highlands has but to be seen to convince the spectator how much room
+there is, and to spare, for a vastly greater population than ever, in
+our day, can be congregated there.
+
+On the last occasion of our holding Divine service at Sesheke, the
+men were invited to converse on the subject on which they had been
+addressed.  So many of them had died since we were here before, that
+not much probability existed of our all meeting again, and this had
+naturally led to the subject of a future state.  They replied that
+they did not wish to offend the speaker, but they could not believe
+that all the dead would rise again:  "Can those who have been killed
+in the field and devoured by the vultures; or those who have been
+eaten by the hyenas or lions; or those who have been tossed into the
+river, and eaten by more than one crocodile,--can they all be raised
+again to life?"  They were told that men could take a leaden bullet,
+change it into a salt (acetate of lead), which could be dissolved as
+completely in water as our bodies in the stomachs of animals, and
+then reconvert it into lead; or that the bullet could be transformed
+into the red and white paint of our wagons, and again be reconverted
+into the original lead; and that if men exactly like themselves could
+do so much, how much more could He do who has made the eye to see,
+and the ear to hear!  We added, however, that we believed in a
+resurrection, not because we understood how it would be brought
+about, but because our Heavenly Father assured us of it in His Book.
+The reference to the truth of the Book and its Author seems always to
+have more influence on the native mind than the cleverness of the
+illustration.  The knowledge of the people is scanty, but their
+reasoning is generally clear as far as their information goes.
+
+We left Sesheke on the 17th September, 1860, convoyed by Pitsane and
+Leshore with their men.  Pitsane was ordered by Sekeletu to make a
+hedge round the garden at the Falls, to protect the seeds we had
+brought; and also to collect some of the tobacco tribute below the
+Falls.  Leshore, besides acting as a sort of guard of honour to us,
+was sent on a diplomatic mission to Sinamane.  No tribute was exacted
+by Sekeletu from Sinamane; but, as he had sent in his adhesion, he
+was expected to act as a guard in case of the Matebele wishing to
+cross and attack the Makololo.  As we intended to purchase canoes of
+Sinamane in which to descend the river, Leshore was to commend us to
+whatever help this Batoka chief could render.  It must be confessed
+that Leshore's men, who were all of the black subject tribes, really
+needed to be viewed by us in the most charitable light; for Leshore,
+on entering any village, called out to the inhabitants, "Look out for
+your property, and see that my thieves don't steal it."
+
+Two young Makololo with their Batoka servants accompanied us to see
+if Kebrabasa could be surmounted, and to bring a supply of medicine
+for Sekeletu's leprosy; and half a dozen able canoe-men, under
+Mobito, who had previously gone with Dr. Livingstone to Loanda, were
+sent to help us in our river navigation.  Some men on foot drove six
+oxen which Sekeletu had given us as provisions for the journey.  It
+was, as before remarked, a time of scarcity; and, considering the
+dearth of food, our treatment had been liberal.
+
+By day the canoe-men are accustomed to keep close under the river's
+bank from fear of the hippopotami; by night, however, they keep in
+the middle of the stream, as then those animals are usually close to
+the bank on their way to their grazing grounds.  Our progress was
+considerably impeded by the high winds, which at this season of the
+year begin about eight in the morning, and blow strongly up the river
+all day.  The canoes were poor leaky affairs, and so low in parts of
+the gunwale, that the paddlers were afraid to follow the channel when
+it crossed the river, lest the waves might swamp us.  A rough sea is
+dreaded by all these inland canoe-men; but though timid, they are by
+no means unskilful at their work.  The ocean rather astonished them
+afterwards; and also the admirable way that the Nyassa men managed
+their canoes on a rough lake, and even amongst the breakers, where no
+small boat could possibly live.
+
+On the night of the 17th we slept on the left bank of the Majeele,
+after having had all the men ferried across.  An ox was slaughtered,
+and not an ounce of it was left next morning.  Our two young Makololo
+companions, Maloka and Ramakukane, having never travelled before,
+naturally clung to some of the luxuries they had been accustomed to
+at home.  When they lay down to sleep, their servants were called to
+spread their blankets over their august persons, not forgetting their
+feet.  This seems to be the duty of the Makololo wife to her husband,
+and strangers sometimes receive the honour.  One of our party, having
+wandered, slept at the village of Nambowe.  When he laid down, to his
+surprise two of Nambowe's wives came at once, and carefully and
+kindly spread his kaross over him.
+
+A beautiful silvery fish with reddish fins, called Ngwesi, is very
+abundant in the river; large ones weigh fifteen or twenty pounds
+each.  Its teeth are exposed, and so arranged that, when they meet,
+the edges cut a hook like nippers.  The Ngwesi seems to be a very
+ravenous fish.  It often gulps down the Konokono, a fish armed with
+serrated bones more than an inch in length in the pectoral and dorsal
+fins, which, fitting into a notch at the roots, can be put by the
+fish on full cock or straight out,--they cannot be folded down,
+without its will, and even break in resisting.  The name "Konokono,"
+elbow-elbow, is given it from a resemblance its extended fins are
+supposed to bear to a man's elbows stuck out from his body.  It often
+performs the little trick of cocking its fins in the stomach of the
+Ngwesi, and, the elbows piercing its enemy's sides, he is frequently
+found floating dead.  The fin bones seem to have an acrid secretion
+on them, for the wound they make is excessively painful.  The
+Konokono barks distinctly when landed with the hook.  Our canoe-men
+invariably picked up every dead fish they saw on the surface of the
+water, however far gone.  An unfragrant odour was no objection; the
+fish was boiled and eaten, and the water drunk as soup.  It is a
+curious fact that many of the Africans keep fish as we do woodcocks,
+until they are extremely offensive, before they consider them fit to
+eat.  Our paddlers informed us on our way down that iguanas lay their
+eggs in July and August, and crocodiles in September.  The eggs
+remain a month or two under the sand where they are laid, and the
+young come out when the rains have fairly commenced.  The canoe-men
+were quite positive that crocodiles frequently stun men by striking
+them with their tails, and then squat on them till they are drowned.
+We once caught a young crocodile, which certainly did use its tail to
+inflict sharp blows, and led us to conclude that the native opinion
+is correct.  They believed also that, if a person shuts the beast's
+eyes, it lets go its hold.  Crocodiles have been known to unite and
+kill a large one of their own species and eat it.  Some fishermen
+throw the bones of the fish into the river but in most of the fishing
+villages there are heaps of them in various places.  The villagers
+can walk over them without getting them into their feet; but the
+Makololo, from having softer soles, are unable to do so.  The
+explanation offered was, that the fishermen have a medicine against
+fish-bones, but that they will not reveal it to the Makololo.
+
+We spent a night on Mparira island, which is four miles long and
+about one mile broad.  Mokompa, the headman, was away hunting
+elephants.  His wife sent for him on our arrival, and he returned
+next morning before we left.  Taking advantage of the long-continued
+drought, he had set fire to the reeds between the Chobe and Zambesi,
+in such a manner as to drive the game out at one corner, where his
+men laid in wait with their spears.  He had killed five elephants and
+three buffaloes, wounding several others which escaped.
+
+On our land party coming up, we were told that the oxen were bitten
+by the tsetse:  they could see a great difference in their looks.
+One was already eaten, and they now wished to slaughter another.  A
+third fell into a buffalo-pit next day, so our stock was soon
+reduced.
+
+The Batoka chief, Moshobotwane, again treated us with his usual
+hospitality, giving us an ox, some meal, and milk.  We took another
+view of the grand Mosi-oa-tunya, and planted a quantity of seeds in
+the garden on the island; but, as no one will renew the hedge, the
+hippopotami will, doubtless, soon destroy what we planted.
+Mashotlane assisted us.  So much power was allowed to this under-
+chief, that he appeared as if he had cast off the authority of
+Sekeletu altogether.  He did not show much courtesy to his
+messengers; instead of giving them food, as is customary, he took the
+meat out of a pot in their presence, and handed it to his own
+followers.  This may have been because Sekeletu's men bore an order
+to him to remove to Linyanti.  He had not only insulted Baldwin, but
+had also driven away the Griqua traders; but this may all end in
+nothing.  Some of the natives here, and at Sesheke, know a few of the
+low tricks of more civilized traders.  A pot of milk was brought to
+us one evening, which was more indebted to the Zambesi than to any
+cow.  Baskets of fine-looking white meal, elsewhere, had occasionally
+the lower half filled with bran.  Eggs are always a perilous
+investment.  The native idea of a good egg differs as widely from our
+own as is possible on such a trifling subject.  An egg is eaten here
+with apparent relish, though an embryo chick be inside.
+
+We left Mosi-oa-tunya on the 27th, and slept close to the village of
+Bakwini.  It is built on a ridge of loose red soil, which produces
+great crops of mapira and ground-nuts; many magnificent mosibe-trees
+stand near the village.  Machimisi, the headman of the village,
+possesses a herd of cattle and a large heart; he kept us company for
+a couple of days to guide us on our way.
+
+We had heard a good deal of a stronghold some miles below the Falls,
+called Kalunda.  Our return path was much nearer the Zambesi than
+that of our ascent,--in fact, as near as the rough country would
+allow,--but we left it twice before we reached Sinamane's, in order
+to see Kalunda and a Fall called Moomba, or Moamba.  The Makololo had
+once dispossessed the Batoka of Kalunda, but we could not see the
+fissure, or whatever it is, that rendered it a place of security, as
+it was on the southern bank.  The crack of the Great Falls was here
+continued:  the rocks are the same as further up, but perhaps less
+weather-worn--and now partially stratified in great thick masses.
+The country through which we were travelling was covered with a
+cindery-looking volcanic tufa, and might be called "Katakaumena."
+
+The description we received of the Moamba Falls seemed to promise
+something grand.  They were said to send up "smoke" in the wet
+season, like Mosi-oa-tunya; but when we looked down into the cleft,
+in which the dark-green narrow river still rolls, we saw, about 800
+or 1000 feet below us, what, after Mosi-oa-tunya, seemed two
+insignificant cataracts.  It was evident that Pitsane, observing our
+delight at the Victoria Falls, wished to increase our pleasure by a
+second wonder.  One Mosi-oa-tunya, however, is quite enough for a
+continent.
+
+We had now an opportunity of seeing more of the Batoka, than we had
+on the highland route to our north.  They did not wait till the
+evening before offering food to the strangers.  The aged wife of the
+headman of a hamlet, where we rested at midday, at once kindled a
+fire, and put on the cooking-pot to make porridge.  Both men and
+women are to be distinguished by greater roundness of feature than
+the other natives, and the custom of knocking out the upper front
+teeth gives at once a distinctive character to the face.  Their
+colour attests the greater altitude of the country in which many of
+them formerly lived.  Some, however, are as dark as the Bashubia and
+Barotse of the great valley to their west, in which stands Sesheke,
+formerly the capital of the Balui, or Bashubia.
+
+The assertion may seem strange, yet it is none the less true, that in
+all the tribes we have visited we never saw a really black person.
+Different shades of brown prevail, and often with a bright bronze
+tint, which no painter, except Mr. Angus, seems able to catch.  Those
+who inhabit elevated, dry situations, and who are not obliged to work
+much in the sun, are frequently of a light warm brown, "dark but
+comely."  Darkness of colour is probably partly caused by the sun,
+and partly by something in the climate or soil which we do not yet
+know.  We see something of the same sort in trout and other fish
+which take their colour from the ponds or streams in which they live.
+The members of our party were much less embrowned by free exposure to
+the sun for years than Dr. Livingstone and his family were by passing
+once from Kuruman to Cape Town, a journey which occupied only a
+couple of months.
+
+We encamped on the Kalomo, on the 1st of October, and found the
+weather very much warmer than when we crossed this stream in August.
+At 3 p.m. the thermometer, four feet from the ground, was 101 degrees
+in the shade; the wet bulb only 61 degrees:  a difference of 40
+degrees.  Yet, notwithstanding this extreme dryness of the
+atmosphere, without a drop of rain having fallen for months, and
+scarcely any dew, many of the shrubs and trees were putting forth
+fresh leaves of various hues, while others made a profuse display of
+lovely blossoms.
+
+Two old and very savage buffaloes were shot for our companions on the
+3rd October.  Our Volunteers may feel an interest in knowing that
+balls sometimes have but little effect:  one buffalo fell, on
+receiving a Jacob's shell; it was hit again twice, and lost a large
+amount of blood; and yet it sprang up, and charged a native, who, by
+great agility, had just time to climb a tree, before the maddened
+beast struck it, battering-ram fashion, hard enough almost to have
+split both head and tree.  It paused a few seconds--drew back several
+paces--glared up at the man--and then dashed at the tree again and
+again, as if determined to shake him out of it.  It took two more
+Jacob's shells, and five other large solid rifle-balls to finish the
+beast at last.  These old surly buffaloes had been wandering about in
+a sort of miserable fellowship; their skins were diseased and scabby,
+as if leprous, and their horns atrophied or worn down to stumps--the
+first was killed outright, by one Jacob's shell, the second died
+hard.  There is so much difference in the tenacity of life in wounded
+animals of the same species, that the inquiry is suggested where the
+seat of life can be?--We have seen a buffalo live long enough, after
+a large bullet had passed right through the heart, to allow firm
+adherent clots to be formed in the two holes.
+
+One day's journey above Sinamane's, a mass of mountain called
+Gorongue, or Golongwe, is said to cross the river, and the rent
+through which the river passes is, by native report, quite fearful to
+behold.  The country round it is so rocky, that our companions
+dreaded the fatigue, and were not much to blame, if, as is probably
+the case, the way be worse than that over which we travelled.  As we
+trudged along over the black slag-like rocks, the almost leafless
+trees affording no shade, the heat was quite as great as Europeans
+could bear.  It was 102 degrees in the shade, and a thermometer
+placed under the tongue or armpit showed that our blood was 99.5
+degrees, or 1.5 degrees hotter than that of the natives, which stood
+at 98 degrees.  Our shoes, however, enable us to pass over the hot
+burning soil better than they can.  Many of those who wear sandals
+have corns on the sides of the feet, and on the heels, where the
+straps pass.  We have seen instances, too, where neither sandals nor
+shoes were worn, of corns on the soles of the feet.  It is, moreover,
+not at all uncommon to see toes cocked up, as if pressed out of their
+proper places; at home, we should have unhesitatingly ascribed this
+to the vicious fashions perversely followed by our shoemakers.
+
+On the 5th, after crossing some hills, we rested at the village of
+Simariango.  The bellows of the blacksmith here were somewhat
+different from the common goatskin bags, and more like those seen in
+Madagascar.  They consisted of two wooden vessels, like a lady's
+bandbox of small dimensions, the upper ends of which were covered
+with leather, and looked something like the heads of drums, except
+that the leather bagged in the centre.  They were fitted with long
+nozzles, through which the air was driven by working the loose
+covering of the tops up and down by means of a small piece of wood
+attached to their centres.  The blacksmith said that tin was obtained
+from a people in the north, called Marendi, and that he had made it
+into bracelets; we had never heard before of tin being found in the
+country.
+
+Our course then lay down the bed of a rivulet, called Mapatizia, in
+which there was much calc spar, with calcareous schist, and then the
+Tette grey sandstone, which usually overlies coal.  On the 6th we
+arrived at the islet Chilombe, belonging to Sinamane, where the
+Zambesi runs broad and smooth again, and were well received by
+Sinamane himself.  Never was Sunday more welcome to the weary than
+this, the last we were to spend with our convoy.
+
+We now saw many good-looking young men and women.  The dresses of the
+ladies are identical with those of Nubian women in Upper Egypt.  To a
+belt on the waist a great number of strings are attached to hang all
+round the person.  These fringes are about six or eight inches long.
+The matrons wear in addition a skin cut like the tails of the coatee
+formerly worn by our dragoons.  The younger girls wear the waist-belt
+exhibited in the woodcut, ornamented with shells, and have the
+fringes only in front.  Marauding parties of Batoka, calling
+themselves Makololo, have for some time had a wholesome dread of
+Sinamane's "long spears."  Before going to Tette our Batoka friend,
+Masakasa, was one of a party that came to steal some of the young
+women; but Sinamane, to their utter astonishment, attacked them so
+furiously that the survivors barely escaped with their lives.
+Masakasa had to flee so fast that he threw away his shield, his
+spear, and his clothes, and returned home a wiser and a sadder man.
+
+Sinamane's people cultivate large quantities of tobacco, which they
+manufacture into balls for the Makololo market.  Twenty balls,
+weighing about three-quarters of a pound each, are sold for a hoe.
+The tobacco is planted on low moist spots on the banks of the
+Zambesi; and was in flower at the time we were there, in October.
+Sinamane's people appear to have abundance of food, and are all in
+good condition.  He could sell us only two of his canoes; but lent us
+three more to carry us as far as Moemba's, where he thought others
+might be purchased.  They were manned by his own canoe-men, who were
+to bring them back.  The river is about 250 yards wide, and flows
+serenely between high banks towards the North-east.  Below Sinamane's
+the banks are often worn down fifty feet, and composed of shingle and
+gravel of igneous rocks, sometimes set in a ferruginous matrix.  The
+bottom is all gravel and shingle, how formed we cannot imagine,
+unless in pot-holes in the deep fissure above.  The bottom above the
+Falls, save a few rocks close by them, is generally sandy or of soft
+tufa.  Every damp spot is covered with maize, pumpkins, water-melons,
+tobacco, and hemp.  There is a pretty numerous Batoka population on
+both sides of the river.  As we sailed slowly down, the people
+saluted us from the banks, by clapping their hands.  A headman even
+hailed us, and brought a generous present of corn and pumpkins.
+
+Moemba owns a rich island, called Mosanga, a mile in length, on which
+his village stands.  He has the reputation of being a brave warrior,
+and is certainly a great talker; but he gave us strangers something
+better than a stream of words.  We received a handsome present of
+corn, and the fattest goat we had ever seen; it resembled mutton.
+His people were as liberal as their chief.  They brought two large
+baskets of corn, and a lot of tobacco, as a sort of general
+contribution to the travellers.  One of Sinamane's canoe-men, after
+trying to get his pay, deserted here, and went back before the
+stipulated time, with the story, that the Englishman had stolen the
+canoes.  Shortly after sunrise next morning, Sinamane came into the
+village with fifty of his "long spears," evidently determined to
+retake his property by force; he saw at a glance that his man had
+deceived him.  Moemba rallied him for coming on a wildgoose chase.
+"Here are your canoes left with me, your men have all been paid, and
+the Englishmen are now asking me to sell my canoes."  Sinamane said
+little to us; only observing that he had been deceived by his
+follower.  A single remark of his chief's caused the foolish fellow
+to leave suddenly, evidently much frightened and crestfallen.
+Sinamane had been very kind to us, and, as he was looking on when we
+gave our present to Moemba, we made him also an additional offering
+of some beads, and parted good friends.  Moemba, having heard that we
+had called the people of Sinamane together to tell them about our
+Saviour's mission to man, and to pray with them, associated the idea
+of Sunday with the meeting, and, before anything of the sort was
+proposed, came and asked that he and his people might be "sundayed"
+as well as his neighbours; and be given a little seed wheat, and
+fruit-tree seeds; with which request of course we very willingly
+complied.  The idea of praying direct to the Supreme Being, though
+not quite new to all, seems to strike their minds so forcibly that it
+will not be forgotten.  Sinamane said that he prayed to God, Morungo,
+and made drink-offerings to him.  Though he had heard of us, he had
+never seen white men before.
+
+Beautiful crowned cranes, named from their note "ma-wang," were seen
+daily, and were beginning to pair.  Large flocks of spur-winged
+geese, or machikwe, were common.  This goose is said to lay her eggs
+in March.  We saw also pairs of Egyptian geese, as well as a few of
+the knob-nosed, or, as they are called in India, combed geese.  When
+the Egyptian geese, as at the present time, have young, the goslings
+keep so steadily in the wake of their mother, that they look as if
+they were a part of her tail; and both parents, when on land,
+simulate lameness quite as well as our plovers, to draw off pursuers.
+The ostrich also adopts the lapwing fashion, but no quadrupeds do:
+they show fight to defend their young instead.  In some places the
+steep banks were dotted with the holes which lead into the nests of
+bee-eaters.  These birds came out in hundreds as we passed.  When the
+red-breasted species settle on the trees, they give them the
+appearance of being covered with red foliage.
+
+On the morning of the 12th October we passed through a wild, hilly
+country, with fine wooded scenery on both sides, but thinly
+inhabited.  The largest trees were usually thorny acacias, of great
+size and beautiful forms.  As we sailed by several villages without
+touching, the people became alarmed, and ran along the banks, spears
+in hand.  We employed one to go forward and tell Mpande of our
+coming.  This allayed their fears, and we went ashore, and took
+breakfast near the large island with two villages on it, opposite the
+mouth of the Zungwe, where we had left the Zambesi on our way up.
+Mpande was sorry that he had no canoes of his own to sell, but he
+would lend us two.  He gave us cooked pumpkins and a water-melon.
+His servant had lateral curvature of the spine.  We have often seen
+cases of humpback, but this was the only case of this kind of
+curvature we had met with.  Mpande accompanied us himself in his own
+vessel, till we had an opportunity of purchasing a fine large canoe
+elsewhere.  We paid what was considered a large price for it:  twelve
+strings of blue cut glass neck beads, an equal number of large blue
+ones of the size of marbles, and two yards of grey calico.  Had the
+beads been coarser, they would have been more valued, because such
+were in fashion.  Before concluding the bargain the owner said "his
+bowels yearned for his canoe, and we must give a little more to stop
+their yearning."  This was irresistible.  The trading party of
+Sequasha, which we now met, had purchased ten large new canoes for
+six strings of cheap coarse white beads each, or their equivalent,
+four yards of calico, and had bought for the merest trifle ivory
+enough to load them all.  They were driving a trade in slaves also,
+which was something new in this part of Africa, and likely soon to
+change the character of the inhabitants.  These men had been living
+in clover, and were uncommonly fat and plump.  When sent to trade,
+slaves wisely never stint themselves of beer or anything else, which
+their master's goods can buy.
+
+The temperature of the Zambesi had increased 10 degrees since August,
+being now 80 degrees.  The air was as high as 96 degrees after
+sunset; and, the vicinity of the water being the coolest part, we
+usually made our beds close by the river's brink, though there in
+danger of crocodiles.  Africa differs from India in the air always
+becoming cool and refreshing long before the sun returns, and there
+can be no doubt that we can in this country bear exposure to the sun,
+which would be fatal in India.  It is probably owing to the greater
+dryness of the African atmosphere that sunstroke is so rarely met
+with.  In twenty-two years Dr. Livingstone never met or heard of a
+single case, though the protective head-dresses of India are rarely
+seen.
+
+When the water is nearly at its lowest, we occasionally meet with
+small rapids which are probably not in existence during the rest of
+the year.  Having slept opposite the rivulet Bume, which comes from
+the south, we passed the island of Nakansalo, and went down the
+rapids of the same name on the 17th, and came on the morning of the
+19th to the more serious ones of Nakabele, at the entrance to Kariba.
+The Makololo guided the canoes admirably through the opening in the
+dyke.  When we entered the gorge we came on upwards of thirty
+hippopotami:  a bank near the entrance stretches two-thirds across
+the narrowed river, and in the still place behind it they were
+swimming about.  Several were in the channel, and our canoe-men were
+afraid to venture down among them, because, as they affirm, there is
+commonly an ill-natured one in a herd, which takes a malignant
+pleasure in upsetting canoes.  Two or three boys on the rocks
+opposite amused themselves by throwing stones at the frightened
+animals, and hit several on the head.  It would have been no
+difficult matter to have shot the whole herd.  We fired a few shots
+to drive them off; the balls often glance off the skull, and no more
+harm is done than when a schoolboy gets a bloody nose; we killed one,
+which floated away down the rapid current, followed by a number of
+men on the bank.  A native called to us from the left bank, and said
+that a man on his side knew how to pray to the Kariba gods, and
+advised us to hire him to pray for our safety, while we were going
+down the rapids, or we should certainly all be drowned.  No one ever
+risked his life in Kariba without first paying the river-doctor, or
+priest, for his prayers.  Our men asked if there was a cataract in
+front, but he declined giving any information; they were not on his
+side of the river; if they would come over, then he might be able to
+tell them.  We crossed, but he went off to the village.  We then
+landed and walked over the hills to have a look at Karaba before
+trusting our canoes in it.  The current was strong, and there was
+broken water in some places, but the channel was nearly straight, and
+had no cataract, so we determined to risk it.  Our men visited the
+village while we were gone, and were treated to beer and tobacco.
+The priest who knows how to pray to the god that rules the rapids
+followed us with several of his friends, and they were rather
+surprised to see us pass down in safety, without the aid of his
+intercession.  The natives who followed the dead hippopotamus caught
+it a couple of miles below, and, having made it fast to a rock, were
+sitting waiting for us on the bank beside the dead animal.  As there
+was a considerable current there, and the rocky banks were unfit for
+our beds, we took the hippopotamus in tow, telling the villagers to
+follow, and we would give them most of the meat.  The crocodiles
+tugged so hard at the carcass, that we were soon obliged to cast it
+adrift, to float down in the current, to avoid upsetting the canoe.
+We had to go on so far before finding a suitable spot to spend the
+night in, that the natives concluded we did not intend to share the
+meat with them, and returned to the village.  We slept two nights at
+the place where the hippopotamus was cut up.  The crocodiles had a
+busy time of it in the dark, tearing away at what was left in the
+river, and thrashing the water furiously with their powerful tails.
+The hills on both sides of Kariba are much like those of Kebrabasa,
+the strata tilted and twisted in every direction, with no level
+ground.
+
+Although the hills confine the Zambesi within a narrow channel for a
+number of miles, there are no rapids beyond those near the entrance.
+The river is smooth and apparently very deep.  Only one single human
+being was seen in the gorge, the country being too rough for culture.
+Some rocks in the water, near the outlet of Kariba, at a distance
+look like a fort; and such large masses dislocated, bent, and even
+twisted to a remarkable degree, at once attest some tremendous
+upheaving and convulsive action of nature, which probably caused
+Kebrabasa, Kariba, and the Victoria Falls to assume their present
+forms; it took place after the formation of the coal, that mineral
+having then been tilted up.  We have probably nothing equal to it in
+the present quiet operations of nature.
+
+On emerging we pitched our camp by a small stream, the Pendele, a few
+miles below the gorge.  The Palabi mountain stands on the western
+side of the lower end of the Kariba strait; the range to which it
+belongs crosses the river, and runs to the south-east.  Chikumbula, a
+hospitable old headman, under Nchomokela, the paramount chief of a
+large district, whom we did not see, brought us next morning a great
+basket of meal, and four fowls, with some beer, and a cake of salt,
+"to make it taste good."  Chikumbula said that the elephants plagued
+them, by eating up the cotton-plants; but his people seem to be well
+off.
+
+A few days before we came, they caught three buffaloes in pitfalls in
+one night, and, unable to eat them all, left one to rot.  During the
+night the wind changed and blew from the dead buffalo to our
+sleeping-place; and a hungry lion, not at all dainty in his food,
+stirred up the putrid mass, and growled and gloated over his feast,
+to the disturbance of our slumbers.  Game of all kinds is in most
+extraordinary abundance, especially from this point to below the
+Kafue, and so it is on Moselekatso's side, where there are no
+inhabitants.  The drought drives all the game to the river to drink.
+An hour's walk on the right bank, morning or evening, reveals a
+country swarming with wild animals:  vast herds of pallahs, many
+waterbucks, koodoos, buffaloes, wild pigs, elands, zebras, and
+monkeys appear; francolins, guinea-fowls, and myriads of turtledoves
+attract the eye in the covers, with the fresh spoor of elephants and
+rhinoceroses, which had been at the river during the night.  Every
+few miles we came upon a school of hippopotami, asleep on some
+shallow sandbank; their bodies, nearly all out of the water, appeared
+like masses of black rock in the river.  When these animals are
+hunted much, they become proportionably wary, but here no hunter ever
+troubles them, and they repose in security, always however taking the
+precaution of sleeping just above the deep channel, into which they
+can plunge when alarmed.  When a shot is fired into a sleeping herd,
+all start up on their feet, and stare with peculiar stolid looks of
+hippopotamic surprise, and wait for another shot before dashing into
+deep water.  A few miles below Chikumbula's we saw a white
+hippopotamus in a herd.  Our men had never seen one like it before.
+It was of a pinkish white, exactly like the colour of the Albino.  It
+seemed to be the father of a number of others, for there were many
+marked with large light patches.  The so-called WHITE elephant is
+just such a pinkish Albino as this hippopotamus.  A few miles above
+Kariba we observed that, in two small hamlets, many of the
+inhabitants had a similar affection of the skin.  The same influence
+appeared to have affected man and beast.  A dark coloured
+hippopotamus stood alone, as if expelled from the herd, and bit the
+water, shaking his head from side to side in a most frantic manner.
+When the female has twins, she is said to kill one of them.
+
+We touched at the beautiful tree-covered island of Kalabi, opposite
+where Tuba-mokoro lectured the lion in our way up.  The ancestors of
+the people who now inhabit this island possessed cattle.  The tsetse
+has taken possession of the country since "the beeves were lifted."
+No one knows where these insects breed; at a certain season all
+disappear, and as suddenly come back, no one knows whence.  The
+natives are such close observers of nature, that their ignorance in
+this case surprised us.  A solitary hippopotamus had selected the
+little bay in which we landed, and where the women drew water, for
+his dwelling-place.  Pretty little lizards, with light blue and red
+tails, run among the rocks, catching flies and other insects.  These
+harmless--though to new-comers repulsive--creatures sometimes perform
+good service to man, by eating great numbers of the destructive white
+ants.
+
+At noon on the 24th October, we found Sequasha in a village below the
+Kafue, with the main body of his people.  He said that 210 elephants
+had been killed during his trip; many of his men being excellent
+hunters.  The numbers of animals we saw renders this possible.  He
+reported that, after reaching the Kafue, he went northwards into the
+country of the Zulus, whose ancestors formerly migrated from the
+south and set up a sort of Republican form of government.  Sequasha
+is the greatest Portuguese traveller we ever became acquainted with,
+and he boasts that he is able to speak a dozen different dialects;
+yet, unfortunately, he can give but a very meagre account of the
+countries and people he has seen, and his statements are not very
+much to be relied on.  But considering the influence among which he
+has been reared, and the want of the means of education at Tette, it
+is a wonder that he possesses the good traits that he sometimes
+exhibits.  Among his wares were several cheap American clocks; a
+useless investment rather, for a part of Africa where no one cares
+for the artificial measurement of time.  These clocks got him into
+trouble among the Banyai:  he set them all agoing in the presence of
+a chief, who became frightened at the strange sounds they made, and
+looked upon them as so many witchcraft agencies at work to bring all
+manner of evils upon himself and his people.  Sequasha, it was
+decided, had been guilty of a milando, or crime, and he had to pay a
+heavy fine of cloth and beads for his exhibition.  He alluded to our
+having heard that he had killed Mpangwe, and he denied having
+actually done so; but in his absence his name had got mixed up in the
+affair, in consequence of his slaves, while drinking beer one night
+with Namakusuru, the man who succeeded Mpangwe, saying that they
+would kill the chief for him.  His partner had not thought of this
+when we saw him on the way up, for he tried to excuse the murder, by
+saying that now they had put the right man into the chieftainship.
+
+After three hours' sail, on the morning of the 29th, the river was
+narrowed again by the mountains of Mburuma, called Karivua, into one
+channel, and another rapid dimly appeared.  It was formed by two
+currents guided by rocks to the centre.  In going down it, the men
+sent by Sekeletu behaved very nobly.  The canoes entered without
+previous survey, and the huge jobbling waves of mid-current began at
+once to fill them.  With great presence of mind, and without a
+moment's hesitation, two men lightened each by jumping overboard;
+they then ordered a Botoka man to do the same, as "the white men must
+be saved."  "I cannot swim," said the Batoka.  "Jump out, then, and
+hold on to the canoe;" which he instantly did.  Swimming alongside,
+they guided the swamping canoes down the swift current to the foot of
+the rapid, and then ran them ashore to bale them out.  A boat could
+have passed down safely, but our canoes were not a foot above the
+water at the gunwales.
+
+Thanks to the bravery of these poor fellows, nothing was lost,
+although everything was well soaked.  This rapid is nearly opposite
+the west end of the Mburuma mountains or Karivua.  Another soon
+begins below it.  They are said to be all smoothed over when the
+river rises.  The canoes had to be unloaded at this the worst rapid,
+and the goods carried about a hundred yards.  By taking the time in
+which a piece of stick floated past 100 feet, we found the current to
+be running six knots, by far the greatest velocity noted in the
+river.  As the men were bringing the last canoe down close to the
+shore, the stern swung round into the current, and all except one man
+let go, rather than be dragged off.  He clung to the bow, and was
+swept out into the middle of the stream.  Having held on when he
+ought to have let go, he next put his life in jeopardy by letting go
+when he ought to have held on; and was in a few seconds swallowed up
+by a fearful whirlpool.  His comrades launched out a canoe below, and
+caught him as he rose the third time to the surface, and saved him,
+though much exhausted and very cold.
+
+The scenery of this pass reminded us of Kebrabasa, although it is
+much inferior.  A band of the same black shining glaze runs along the
+rocks about two feet from the water's edge.  There was not a blade of
+grass on some of the hills, it being the end of the usual dry season
+succeeding a previous severe drought; yet the hill-sides were dotted
+over with beautiful green trees.  A few antelopes were seen on the
+rugged slopes, where some people too appeared lying down, taking a
+cup of beer.  The Karivua narrows are about thirty miles in length.
+They end at the mountain Roganora.  Two rocks, twelve or fifteen feet
+above the water at the time we were there, may in flood be covered
+and dangerous.  Our chief danger was the wind, a very slight ripple
+being sufficient to swamp canoes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+
+The waterbuck--Disaster in Kebrabasa rapids--The "Ma Robert"
+founders--Arrival of the "Pioneer" and Bishop Mackenzie's party--
+Portuguese slave-trade--Interference and liberation.
+
+We arrived at Zumbo, at the mouth of the Loangwa, on the 1st of
+November.  The water being scarcely up to the knee, our land party
+waded this river with ease.  A buffalo was shot on an island opposite
+Pangola's, the ball lodging in the spleen.  It was found to have been
+wounded in the same organ previously, for an iron bullet was imbedded
+in it, and the wound entirely healed.  A great deal of the plant
+Pistia stratiotes was seen floating in the river.  Many people
+inhabit the right bank about this part, yet the game is very
+abundant.
+
+As we were taking our breakfast on the morning of the 2nd, the Mambo
+Kazai, of whom we knew nothing, and his men came with their muskets
+and large powder-horns to levy a fine, and obtain payment for the
+wood we used in cooking.  But on our replying to his demand that we
+were English, "Oh! are you?" he said; "I thought you were Bazungu
+(Portuguese).  They are the people I take payments from:" and he
+apologized for his mistake.  Bazungu, or Azungu, is a term applied to
+all foreigners of a light colour, and to Arabs; even to trading
+slaves if clothed; it probably means foreigners, or visitors,--from
+zunga, to visit or wander,--and the Portuguese were the only
+foreigners these men had ever seen.  As we had no desire to pass for
+people of that nation--quite the contrary--we usually made a broad
+line of demarcation by saying that we were English, and the English
+neither bought, sold, nor held black people as slaves, but wished to
+put a stop to the slave-trade altogether.
+
+We called upon our friend, Mpende, in passing.  He provided a hut for
+us, with new mats spread on the floor.  Having told him that we were
+hurrying on because the rains were near, "Are they near?" eagerly
+inquired an old counsellor, "and are we to have plenty of rain this
+year?"  We could only say that it was about the usual time for the
+rains to commence; and that there were the usual indications in great
+abundance of clouds floating westwards, but that we knew nothing more
+than they did themselves.
+
+The hippopotami are more wary here than higher up, as the natives
+hunt them with guns.  Having shot one on a shallow sandbank, our men
+undertook to bring it over to the left bank, in order to cut it up
+with greater ease.  It was a fine fat one, and all rejoiced in the
+hope of eating the fat for butter, with our hard dry cakes of native
+meal.  Our cook was sent over to cut a choice piece for dinner, but
+returned with the astonishing intelligence that the carcass was gone.
+They had been hoodwinked, and were very much ashamed of themselves.
+A number of Banyai came to assist in rolling it ashore, and asserted
+that it was all shallow water.  They rolled it over and over towards
+the land, and, finding the rope we had made fast to it, as they said,
+an encumbrance, it was unloosed.  All were shouting and talking as
+loud as they could bawl, when suddenly our expected feast plumped
+into a deep hole, as the Banyai intended it should do.  When sinking,
+all the Makololo jumped in after it.  One caught frantically at the
+tail; another grasped a foot; a third seized the hip; "but, by
+Sebituane, it would go down in spite of all that we could do."
+Instead of a fat hippopotamus we had only a lean fowl for dinner, and
+were glad enough to get even that.  The hippopotamus, however,
+floated during the night, and was found about a mile below.  The
+Banyai then assembled on the bank, and disputed our right to the
+beast:  "It might have been shot by somebody else."  Our men took a
+little of it and then left it, rather than come into collision with
+them.
+
+A fine waterbuck was shot in the Kakolole narrows, at Mount
+Manyerere; it dropped beside the creek where it was feeding; an
+enormous crocodile, that had been watching it at the moment, seized
+and dragged it into the water, which was not very deep.  The mortally
+wounded animal made a desperate plunge, and hauling the crocodile
+several yards tore itself out of the hideous jaws.  To escape the
+hunter, the waterbuck jumped into the river, and was swimming across,
+when another crocodile gave chase, but a ball soon sent it to the
+bottom.  The waterbuck swam a little longer, the fine head dropped,
+the body turned over, and one of the canoes dragged it ashore.  Below
+Kakolole, and still at the base of Manyerere mountain, several coal-
+seams, not noticed on our ascent, were now seen to crop out on the
+right bank of the Zambesi.
+
+Chitora, of Chicova, treated us with his former hospitality.  Our men
+were all much pleased with his kindness, and certainly did not look
+upon it as a proof of weakness.  They meant to return his
+friendliness when they came this way on a marauding expedition to eat
+the sheep of the Banyai, for insulting them in the affair of the
+hippopotamus; they would then send word to Chitora not to run away,
+for they, being his friends, would do such a good-hearted man no
+harm.
+
+We entered Kebrabasa rapids, at the east end of Chicova, in the
+canoes, and went down a number of miles, until the river narrowed
+into a groove of fifty or sixty yards wide, of which we have already
+spoken in describing the flood-bed and channel of low water.  The
+navigation then became difficult and dangerous.  A fifteen feet fall
+of the water in our absence had developed many cataracts.  Two of our
+canoes passed safely down a narrow channel, which, bifurcating, had
+an ugly whirlpool at the rocky partition between the two branches,
+the deep hole in the whirls at times opening and then shutting.  The
+Doctor's canoe came next, and seemed to be drifting broadside into
+the open vortex, in spite of the utmost exertions of the paddlers.
+The rest were expecting to have to pull to the rescue; the men
+saying, "Look where these people are going!--look, look!"--when a
+loud crash burst on our ears.  Dr. Kirk's canoe was dashed on a
+projection of the perpendicular rocks, by a sudden and mysterious
+boiling up of the river, which occurs at irregular intervals.  Dr.
+Kirk was seen resisting the sucking-down action of the water, which
+must have been fifteen fathoms deep, and raising himself by his arms
+on to the ledge, while his steersman, holding on to the same rocks,
+saved the canoe; but nearly all its contents were swept away down the
+stream.  Dr. Livingstone's canoe, meanwhile, which had distracted the
+men's attention, was saved by the cavity in the whirlpool filling up
+as the frightful eddy was reached.  A few of the things in Dr. Kirk's
+canoe were left; but all that was valuable, including a chronometer,
+a barometer, and, to our great sorrow, his notes of the journey and
+botanical drawings of the fruit-trees of the interior, perished.
+
+We now left the river, and proceeded on foot, sorry that we had not
+done so the day before.  The men were thoroughly frightened, they had
+never seen such perilous navigation.  They would carry all the loads,
+rather than risk Kebrabasa any longer; but the fatigue of a day's
+march over the hot rocks and burning sand changed their tune before
+night; and then they regretted having left the canoes; they thought
+they should have dragged them past the dangerous places, and then
+launched them again.  One of the two donkeys died from exhaustion
+near the Luia.  Though the men eat zebras and quaggas, blood
+relations of the donkey, they were shocked at the idea of eating the
+ass; "it would be like eating man himself, because the donkey lives
+with man, and is his bosom companion."  We met two large trading
+parties of Tette slaves on their way to Zumbo, leading, to be sold
+for ivory, a number of Manganja women, with ropes round their necks,
+and all made fast to one long rope.
+
+Panzo, the headman of the village east of Kebrabasa, received us with
+great kindness.  After the usual salutation he went up the hill, and,
+in a loud voice, called across the valley to the women of several
+hamlets to cook supper for us.  About eight in the evening he
+returned, followed by a procession of women, bringing the food.
+There were eight dishes of nsima, or porridge, six of different sorts
+of very good wild vegetables, with dishes of beans and fowls; all
+deliciously well cooked, and scrupulously clean.  The wooden dishes
+were nearly as white as the meal itself:  food also was brought for
+our men.  Ripe mangoes, which usually indicate the vicinity of the
+Portuguese, were found on the 21st November; and we reached Tette
+early on the 23rd, having been absent a little over six months.
+
+The two English sailors, left in charge of the steamer, were well,
+had behaved well, and had enjoyed excellent health all the time we
+were away.  Their farm had been a failure.  We left a few sheep, to
+be slaughtered when they wished for fresh meat, and two dozen fowls.
+Purchasing more, they soon had double the number of the latter, and
+anticipated a good supply of eggs; but they also bought two monkeys,
+and THEY ate all the eggs.  A hippopotamus came up one night, and
+laid waste their vegetable garden; the sheep broke into their cotton
+patch, when it was in flower, and ate it all, except the stems; then
+the crocodiles carried off the sheep, and the natives stole the
+fowls.  Nor were they more successful as gun-smiths:  a Portuguese
+trader, having an exalted opinion of the ingenuity of English
+sailors, showed them a double-barrelled rifle, and inquired if they
+could put on the BROWNING, which had rusted off.  "I think I knows
+how," said one, whose father was a blacksmith, "it's very easy; you
+have only to put the barrels in the fire."  A great fire of wood was
+made on shore, and the unlucky barrels put over it, to secure the
+handsome rifle colour.  To Jack's utter amazement the barrels came
+asunder.  To get out of the scrape, his companion and he stuck the
+pieces together with resin, and sent it to the owner, with the
+message, "It was all they could do for it, and they would not charge
+him anything for the job!"  They had also invented an original mode
+of settling a bargain; having ascertained the market price of
+provisions, they paid that, but no more.  If the traders refused to
+leave the ship till the price was increased, a chameleon, of which
+the natives have a mortal dread, was brought out of the cabin; and
+the moment the natives saw the creature, they at once sprang
+overboard.  The chameleon settled every dispute in a twinkling.
+
+But besides their good-humoured intercourse, they showed humanity
+worthy of English sailors.  A terrible scream roused them up one
+night, and they pushed off in a boat to the rescue.  A crocodile had
+caught a woman, and was dragging her across a shallow sandbank.  Just
+as they came up to her, she gave a fearful shriek:  the horrid
+reptile had snapped off her leg at the knee.  They took her on board,
+bandaged the limb as well as they could, and, not thinking of any
+better way of showing their sympathy, gave her a glass of rum, and
+carried her to a hut in the village.  Next morning they found the
+bandages torn off, and the unfortunate creature left to die.  "I
+believe," remarked Rowe, one of the sailors, "her master was angry
+with us for saving her life, seeing as how she had lost her leg."
+
+The Zambesi being unusually low, we remained at Tette till it rose a
+little, and then left on the 3rd of December for the Kongone.  It was
+hard work to keep the vessel afloat; indeed, we never expected her to
+remain above water.  New leaks broke out every day; the engine pump
+gave way; the bridge broke down; three compartments filled at night;
+except the cabin and front compartment all was flooded; and in a few
+days we were assured by Rowe that "she can't be worse than she is,
+sir."  He and Hutchins had spent much of their time, while we were
+away, in patching her bottom, puddling it with clay, and shoring it,
+and it was chiefly to please them that we again attempted to make use
+of her.  We had long been fully convinced that the steel plates were
+thoroughly unsuitable.  On the morning of the 21st the uncomfortable
+"Asthmatic" grounded on a sandbank and filled.  She could neither be
+emptied nor got off.  The river rose during the night, and all that
+was visible of the worn-out craft next day was about six feet of her
+two masts.  Most of the property we had on board was saved; and we
+spent the Christmas of 1860 encamped on the island of Chimba.  Canoes
+were sent for from Senna; and we reached it on the 27th, to be again
+hospitably entertained by our friend, Senhor Ferrao.
+
+We reached the Kongone on the 4th of January, 1861.  A flagstaff and
+a Custom-house had been erected during our absence; a hut, also, for
+a black lance-corporal and three privates.  By the kind permission of
+the lance-corporal, who came to see us as soon as he had got into his
+trousers and shirt, we took up our quarters in the Custom-house,
+which, like the other buildings, is a small square floorless hut of
+mangrove stakes overlaid with reeds.  The soldiers complained of
+hunger, they had nothing to eat but a little mapira, and were making
+palm wine to deaden their cravings.  While waiting for a ship, we had
+leisure to read the newspapers and periodicals we found in the mail
+which was waiting our arrival at Tette.  Several were a year and a
+half old.
+
+Our provisions began to run short; and towards the end of the month
+there was nothing left but a little bad biscuit and a few ounces of
+sugar.  Coffee and tea were expended, but scarcely missed, as our
+sailors discovered a pretty good substitute in roasted mapira.  Fresh
+meat was obtained in abundance from our antelope preserves on the
+large island made by a creek between the Kongone and East Luabo.
+
+In this focus of decaying vegetation, nothing is so much to be
+dreaded as inactivity.  We had, therefore, to find what exercise and
+amusement we could, when hunting was not required, in peering about
+in the fetid swamps; to have gone mooning about, in listless
+idleness, would have ensured fever in its worst form, and probably
+with fatal results.
+
+A curious little blenny-fish swarms in the numerous creeks which
+intersect the mangrove topes.  When alarmed, it hurries across the
+surface of the water in a series of leaps.  It may be considered
+amphibious, as it lives as much out of the water as in it, and its
+most busy time is during low water.  Then it appears on the sand or
+mud, near the little pools left by the retiring tide; it raises
+itself on its pectoral fins into something of a standing attitude,
+and with its large projecting eyes keeps a sharp look-out for the
+light-coloured fly, on which it feeds.  Should the fly alight at too
+great a distance for even a second leap, the blenny moves slowly
+towards it like a cat to its prey, or like a jumping spider; and, as
+soon as it gets within two or three inches of the insect, by a sudden
+spring contrives to pop its underset mouth directly over the unlucky
+victim.  He is, moreover, a pugnacious little fellow; and rather
+prolonged fights may be observed between him and his brethren.  One,
+in fleeing from an apparent danger, jumped into a pool a foot square,
+which the other evidently regarded as his by right of prior
+discovery; in a twinkling the owner, with eyes flashing fury, and
+with dorsal fin bristling up in rage, dashed at the intruding foe.
+The fight waxed furious, no tempest in a teapot ever equalled the
+storm of that miniature sea.  The warriors were now in the water, and
+anon out of it, for the battle raged on sea and shore.  They struck
+hard, they bit each other; until, becoming exhausted, they seized
+each other by the jaws like two bull-dogs, then paused for breath,
+and at it again as fiercely as before, until the combat ended by the
+precipitate retreat of the invader.
+
+The muddy ground under the mangrove-trees is covered with soldier-
+crabs, which quickly slink into their holes on any symptom of danger.
+When the ebbing tide retires, myriads of minute crabs emerge from
+their underground quarters, and begin to work like so many busy bees.
+Soon many miles of the smooth sand become rough with the results of
+their labour.  They are toiling for their daily bread:  a round bit
+of moist sand appears at the little labourer's mouth, and is quickly
+brushed off by one of the claws; a second bit follows the first; and
+another, and still another come as fast as they can be laid aside.
+As these pellets accumulate, the crab moves sideways, and the work
+continues.  The first impression one receives is, that the little
+creature has swallowed a great deal of sand, and is getting rid of it
+as speedily as possible:  a habit he indulges in of darting into his
+hole at intervals, as if for fresh supplies, tends to strengthen this
+idea; but the size of the heaps formed in a few seconds shows that
+this cannot be the case, and leads to the impression that, although
+not readily seen, at the distance at which he chooses to keep the
+observer, yet that possibly he raises the sand to his mouth, where
+whatever animalcule it may contain is sifted out of it, and the
+remainder rejected in the manner described.  At times the larger
+species of crabs perform a sort of concert; and from each
+subterranean abode strange sounds arise, as if, in imitation of the
+songsters of the groves, for very joy they sang!
+
+We found some natives pounding the woody stems of a poisonous
+climbing-plant (Dirca palustris) called Busungu, or poison, which
+grows abundantly in the swamps.  When a good quantity was bruised, it
+was tied up in bundles.  The stream above and below was obstructed
+with bushes, and with a sort of rinsing motion the poison was
+diffused through the water.  Many fish were soon affected, swain in
+shore, and died, others were only stupefied.  The plant has pink,
+pea-shaped blossoms, and smooth, pointed, glossy leaves, and the
+brown bark is covered with minute white points.  The knowledge of it
+might prove of use to a shipwrecked party by enabling them to catch
+the fish.
+
+The poison is said to be deleterious to man if the water is drunk;
+but not when the fish is cooked.  The Busungu is repulsive to some
+insects, and is smeared round the shoots of the palm-trees to prevent
+the ants from getting into the palm wine while it is dropping from
+the tops of the palm-trees into the little pots suspended to collect
+it.
+
+We were in the habit of walking from our beds into the salt water at
+sunrise, for a bath, till a large crocodile appeared at the bathing-
+place, and from that time forth we took our dip in the sea, away from
+the harbour, about midday.  This is said to be unwholesome, but we
+did not find it so.  It is certainly better not to bathe in the
+mornings, when the air is colder than the water--for then, on
+returning to the cooler air, one is apt to get a chill and fever.  In
+the mouth of the river, many saw-fish are found.  Rowe saw one while
+bathing--caught it by the tail, and shoved it, "snout on," ashore.
+The saw is from a foot to eighteen inches long.  We never heard of
+any one being wounded by this fish; nor, though it goes hundreds of
+miles up the river in fresh water, could we learn that it was eaten
+by the people.  The hippopotami delighted to spend the day among the
+breakers, and seemed to enjoy the fun as much as we did.
+
+Severe gales occurred during our stay on the Coast, and many small
+sea-birds (Prion Banksii, Smith) perished:  the beach was strewn with
+their dead bodies, and some were found hundreds of yards inland; many
+were so emaciated as to dry up without putrefying.  We were plagued
+with myriads of mosquitoes, and had some touches of fever; the men we
+brought from malarious regions of the interior suffered almost as
+much from it here as we did ourselves.  This gives strength to the
+idea that the civilized withstand the evil influences of strange
+climates better than the uncivilized.  When negroes return to their
+own country from healthy lands, they suffer as severely as foreigners
+ever do.
+
+On the 31st of January, 1861, our new ship, the "Pioneer," arrived
+from England, and anchored outside the bar; but the weather was
+stormy, and she did not venture in till the 4th of February.
+
+Two of H.M. cruisers came at the same time, bringing Bishop
+Mackenzie, and the Oxford and Cambridge Mission to the tribes of the
+Shire and Lake Nyassa.  The Mission consisted of six Englishmen, and
+five coloured men from the Cape.  It was a puzzle to know what to do
+with so many men.  The estimable Bishop, anxious to commence his work
+without delay, wished the "Pioneer" to carry the Mission up the
+Shire, as far as Chibisa's, and there leave them.  But there were
+grave objections to this.  The "Pioneer" was under orders to explore
+the Rovuma, as the Portuguese Government had refused to open the
+Zambesi to the ships of other nations, and their officials were very
+effectually pursuing a system, which, by abstracting the labour, was
+rendering the country of no value either to foreigners or to
+themselves.  She was already two months behind her time, and the
+rainy season was half over.  Then, if the party were taken to
+Chibisa's, the Mission would he left without a medical attendant, in
+an unhealthy region, at the beginning of the most sickly season of
+the year, and without means of reaching the healthy highlands, or of
+returning to the sea.  We dreaded that, in the absence of medical aid
+and all knowledge of the treatment of fever, there might be a
+repetition of the sorrowful fate which befell the similar non-medical
+Mission at Linyanti.
+
+On the 25th of February the "Pioneer" anchored in the mouth of the
+Rovuma, which, unlike most African rivers, has a magnificent bay and
+no bar.  We wooded, and then waited for the Bishop till the 9th of
+March, when he came in the "Lyra."  On the 11th we proceeded up the
+river, and saw that it had fallen four or five feet during our
+detention.  The scenery on the lower part of the Rovuma is superior
+to that on the Zambesi, for we can see the highlands from the sea.
+Eight miles from the mouth the mangroves are left behind, and a
+beautiful range of well-wooded hills on each bank begins.  On these
+ridges the tree resembling African blackwood, of finer grain than
+ebony, grows abundantly, and attains a large size.  Few people were
+seen, and those were of Arab breed, and did not appear to be very
+well off.  The current of the Rovuma was now as strong as that of the
+Zambesi, but the volume of water is very much less.  Several of the
+crossings had barely water enough for our ship, drawing five feet, to
+pass.  When we were thirty miles up the river, the water fell
+suddenly seven inches in twenty-four hours.  As the March flood is
+the last of the season, and it appeared to be expended, it was
+thought prudent to avoid the chance of a year's detention, by getting
+the ship back to the sea without delay.  Had the Expedition been
+alone, we would have pushed up in boats, or afoot, and done what we
+could towards the exploration of the river and upper end of the lake;
+but, though the Mission was a private one, and entirely distinct from
+our own, a public one, the objects of both being similar, we felt
+anxious to aid our countrymen in their noble enterprise; and, rather
+than follow our own inclination, decided to return to the Shire, see
+the Mission party settled safely, and afterwards explore Lake Nyassa
+and the Rovuma, from the Lake downwards.  Fever broke out on board
+the "Pioneer," at the mouth of the Rovuma, as we thought from our
+having anchored close to a creek coming out of the mangroves; and it
+remained in her until we completely isolated the engine-room from the
+rest of the ship.  The coal-dust rotting sent out strong effluvia,
+and kept up the disease for more than a twelvemonth.
+
+Soon after we started the fever put the "Pioneer" almost entirely
+into the hands of the original Zambesi Expedition, and not long
+afterwards the leader had to navigate the ocean as well as the river.
+The habit of finding the geographical positions on land renders it an
+easy task to steer a steamer with only three or four sails at sea;
+where, if one does not run ashore, no one follows to find out an
+error, and where a current affords a ready excuse for every blunder.
+
+Touching at Mohilla, one of the Comoro Islands, on our return, we
+found a mixed race of Arabs, Africans, and their conquerors, the
+natives of Madagascar.  Being Mahometans, they have mosques and
+schools, in which we were pleased to see girls as well as boys taught
+to read the Koran.  The teacher said he was paid by the job, and
+received ten dollars for teaching each child to read.  The clever
+ones learn in six months; but the dull ones take a couple of years.
+We next went over to Johanna for our friends; and, after a sojourn of
+a few days at the beautiful Comoro Islands, we sailed for the Kongone
+mouth of the Zambesi with Bishop Mackenzie and his party.  We reached
+the coast in seven days, and passed up the Zambesi to the Shire.
+
+The "Pioneer," constructed under the skilful supervision of Admiral
+Sir Baldwin Walker and the late Admiral Washington, warm-hearted and
+highly esteemed friends of the Expedition, was a very superior
+vessel, and well suited for our work in every respect, except in her
+draught of water.  Five feet were found to be too much for the
+navigation of the upper part of the Shire.  Designed to draw three
+feet only, the weight necessary to impart extra strength, and fit her
+for the ocean, brought her down two feet more, and caused us a great
+deal of hard and vexatious work, in laying out anchors, and toiling
+at the capstan to get her off sandbanks.  We should not have minded
+this much, but for the heavy loss of time which might have been more
+profitably, and infinitely more pleasantly, spent in intercourse with
+the people, exploring new regions, and otherwise carrying out the
+objects of the Expedition.  Once we were a fortnight on a bank of
+soft yielding sand, having only two or three inches less water than
+the ship drew; this delay was occasioned by the anchors coming home,
+and the current swinging the ship broadside on the bank, which,
+immediately on our touching, always formed behind us.  We did not
+like to leave the ship short of Chibisa's, lest the crew should
+suffer from the malaria of the lowland around; and it would have been
+difficult to have got the Mission goods carried up.  We were daily
+visited by crowds of natives, who brought us abundance of provisions
+far beyond our ability to consume.  In hauling the "Pioneer" over the
+shallow places, the Bishop, with Horace Waller and Mr. Scudamore,
+were ever ready and anxious to lend a hand, and worked as hard as any
+on board.  Had our fine little ship drawn but three feet, she could
+have run up and down the river at any time of the year with the
+greatest ease, but as it was, having once passed up over a few
+shallow banks, it was impossible to take her down again until the
+river rose in December.  She could go up over a bank, but not come
+down over it, as a heap of sand always formed instantly astern, while
+the current washed it away from under her bows.
+
+On at last reaching Chibisa's, we heard that there was war in the
+Manganja country, and the slave-trade was going on briskly.  A
+deputation from a chief near Mount Zomba had just passed on its way
+to Chibisa, who was in a distant village, to implore him to come
+himself, or send medicine, to drive off the Waiao, Waiau, or Ajawa,
+whose marauding parties were desolating the land.  A large gang of
+recently enslaved Manganja crossed the river, on their way to Tette,
+a few days before we got the ship up.  Chibisa's deputy was civil,
+and readily gave us permission to hire as many men to carry the
+Bishop's goods up to the hills as were willing to go.  With a
+sufficient number, therefore, we started for the highlands on the
+15th of July, to show the Bishop the country, which, from its
+altitude and coolness, was most suitable for a station.  Our first
+day's march was a long and fatiguing one.  The few hamlets we passed
+were poor, and had no food for our men, and we were obliged to go on
+till 4 p.m., when we entered the small village of Chipindu.  The
+inhabitants complained of hunger, and said they had no food to sell,
+and no hut for us to sleep in; but, if we would only go on a little
+further, we should come to a village where they had plenty to eat;
+but we had travelled far enough, and determined to remain where we
+were.  Before sunset as much food was brought as we cared to
+purchase, and, as it threatened to rain, huts were provided for the
+whole party.
+
+Next forenoon we halted at the village of our old friend Mbame, to
+obtain new carriers, because Chibisa's men, never before having been
+hired, and not having yet learned to trust us, did not choose to go
+further.  After resting a little, Mbame told us that a slave party on
+its way to Tette would presently pass through his village.  "Shall we
+interfere?" we inquired of each other.  We remembered that all our
+valuable private baggage was in Tette, which, if we freed the slaves,
+might, together with some Government property, be destroyed in
+retaliation; but this system of slave-hunters dogging us where
+previously they durst not venture, and, on pretence of being "our
+children," setting one tribe against another, to furnish themselves
+with slaves, would so inevitably thwart all the efforts, for which we
+had the sanction of the Portuguese Government, that we resolved to
+run all risks, and put a stop, if possible, to the slave-trade, which
+had now followed on the footsteps of our discoveries.  A few minutes
+after Mbame had spoken to us, the slave party, a long line of
+manacled men, women, and children, came wending their way round the
+hill and into the valley, on the side of which the village stood.
+The black drivers, armed with muskets, and bedecked with various
+articles of finery, marched jauntily in the front, middle, and rear
+of the line; some of them blowing exultant notes out of long tin
+horns.  They seemed to feel that they were doing a very noble thing,
+and might proudly march with an air of triumph.  But the instant the
+fellows caught a glimpse of the English, they darted off like mad
+into the forest; so fast, indeed, that we caught but a glimpse of
+their red caps and the soles of their feet.  The chief of the party
+alone remained; and he, from being in front, had his hand tightly
+grasped by a Makololo!  He proved to be a well-known slave of the
+late Commandant at Tette, and for some time our own attendant while
+there.  On asking him how he obtained these captives, he replied he
+had bought them; but on our inquiring of the people themselves, all,
+save four, said they had been captured in war.  While this inquiry
+was going on, he bolted too.  The captives knelt down, and, in their
+way of expressing thanks, clapped their hands with great energy.
+They were thus left entirely on our hands, and knives were soon busy
+at work cutting the women and children loose.  It was more difficult
+to cut the men adrift, as each had his neck in the fork of a stout
+stick, six or seven feet long, and was kept in by an iron rod which
+was riveted at both ends across the throat.  With a saw, luckily in
+the Bishop's baggage, one by one the men were sawn out into freedom.
+The women, on being told to take the meal they were carrying and cook
+breakfast for themselves and the children, seemed to consider the
+news too good to be true; but after a little coaxing went at it with
+alacrity, and made a capital fire by which to boil their pots with
+the slave sticks and bonds, their old acquaintances through many a
+sad night and weary day.  Many were mere children about five years of
+age and under.  One little boy, with the simplicity of childhood,
+said to our men, "The others tied and starved us, you cut the ropes
+and tell us to eat; what sort of people are you?--Where did you come
+from?"  Two of the women had been shot the day before for attempting
+to untie the thongs.  This, the rest were told, was to prevent them
+from attempting to escape.  One woman had her infant's brains knocked
+out, because she could not carry her load and it.  And a man was
+dispatched with an axe, because he had broken down with fatigue.
+Self-interest would have set a watch over the whole rather than
+commit murder; but in this traffic we invariably find self-interest
+overcome by contempt of human life and by bloodthirstiness.
+
+The Bishop was not present at this scene, having gone to bathe in a
+little stream below the village; but on his return he warmly approved
+of what had been done; he at first had doubts, but now felt that, had
+he been present, he would have joined us in the good work.  Logic is
+out of place when the question with a true-hearted man is, whether
+his brother man is to be saved or not.  Eighty-four, chiefly women
+and children, were liberated; and on being told that they were now
+free, and might go where they pleased, or remain with us, they all
+chose to stay; and the Bishop wisely attached them to his Mission, to
+be educated as members of a Christian family.  In this way a great
+difficulty in the commencement of a Mission was overcome.  Years are
+usually required before confidence is so far instilled into the
+natives' mind as to induce them, young or old, to submit to the
+guidance of strangers professing to be actuated by motives the
+reverse of worldly wisdom, and inculcating customs strange and
+unknown to them and their fathers.
+
+We proceeded next morning to Soche's with our liberated party, the
+men cheerfully carrying the Bishop's goods.  As we had begun, it was
+of no use to do things by halves, so eight others were freed in a
+hamlet on our path; but a party of traders, with nearly a hundred
+slaves, fled from Soche's on hearing of our proceedings.  Dr. Kirk
+and four Makololo followed them with great energy, but they made
+clear off to Tette.  Six more captives were liberated at Mongazi's,
+and two slave-traders detained for the night, to prevent them from
+carrying information to a large party still in front.  Of their own
+accord they volunteered the information that the Governor's servants
+had charge of the next party; but we did not choose to be led by
+them, though they offered to guide us to his Excellency's own agents.
+Two of the Bishop's black men from the Cape, having once been slaves,
+were now zealous emancipators, and volunteered to guard the prisoners
+during the night.  So anxious were our heroes to keep them safe, that
+instead of relieving each other, by keeping watch and watch, both
+kept watch together, till towards four o'clock in the morning, when
+sleep stole gently over them both; and the wakeful prisoners, seizing
+the opportunity, escaped:  one of the guards, perceiving the loss,
+rushed out of the hut, shouting, "They are gone, the prisoners are
+off, and they have taken my rifle with them, and the women too!
+Fire! everybody fire!"  The rifle and the women, however, were all
+safe enough, the slave-traders being only too glad to escape alone.
+Fifty more slaves were freed next day in another village; and, the
+whole party being stark-naked, cloth enough was left to clothe them,
+better probably than they had ever been clothed before.  The head of
+this gang, whom we knew as the agent of one of the principal
+merchants of Tette, said that they had the license of the Governor
+for all they did.  This we were fully aware of without his stating
+it.  It is quite impossible for any enterprise to be undertaken there
+without the Governor's knowledge and connivance.
+
+The portion of the highlands which the Bishop wished to look at
+before deciding on a settlement belonged to Chiwawa, or Chibaba, the
+most manly and generous Manganja chief we had met with on our
+previous journey.  On reaching Nsambo's, near Mount Chiradzuru, we
+heard that Chibaba was dead, and that Chigunda was chief instead.
+Chigunda, apparently of his own accord, though possibly he may have
+learnt that the Bishop intended to settle somewhere in the country,
+asked him to come and live with him at Magomero, adding that there
+was room enough for both.  This hearty and spontaneous invitation had
+considerable influence on the Bishop's mind, and seemed to decide the
+question.  A place nearer the Shire would have been chosen had he
+expected his supplies to come up that river; but the Portuguese,
+claiming the river Shire, though never occupying even its mouth, had
+closed it, as well as the Zambesi.
+
+Our hopes were turned to the Rovuma, as a free highway into Lake
+Nyassa and the vast interior.  A steamer was already ordered for the
+Lake, and the Bishop, seeing the advantageous nature of the highlands
+which stretch an immense way to the north, was more anxious to be
+near the Lake and the Rovuma, than the Shire.  When he decided to
+settle at Magomero, it was thought desirable, to prevent the country
+from being depopulated, to visit the Ajawa chief, and to try and
+persuade him to give up his slaving and kidnapping courses, and turn
+the energies of his people to peaceful pursuits.
+
+On the morning of the 22nd we were informed that the Ajawa were near,
+and were burning a village a few miles off.  Leaving the rescued
+slaves, we moved off to seek an interview with these scourges of the
+country.  On our way we met crowds of Manganja fleeing from the war
+in front.  These poor fugitives from the slave hunt had, as usual, to
+leave all the food they possessed, except the little they could carry
+on their heads.  We passed field after field of Indian corn or beans,
+standing ripe for harvesting, but the owners were away.  The villages
+were all deserted:  one where we breakfasted two years before, and
+saw a number of men peacefully weaving cloth, and, among ourselves,
+called it the "Paisley of the hills," was burnt; the stores of corn
+were poured out in cartloads, and scattered all over the plain, and
+all along the paths, neither conquerors nor conquered having been
+able to convey it away.  About two o'clock we saw the smoke of
+burning villages, and heard triumphant shouts, mingled with the wail
+of the Manganja women, lamenting over their slain.  The Bishop then
+engaged us in fervent prayer; and, on rising from our knees, we saw a
+long line of Ajawa warriors, with their captives, coming round the
+hill-side.  The first of the returning conquerors were entering their
+own village below, and we heard women welcoming them back with
+"lillilooings."  The Ajawa headman left the path on seeing us, and
+stood on an anthill to obtain a complete view of our party.  We
+called out that we had come to have an interview with them, but some
+of the Manganja who followed us shouted "Our Chibisa is come:"
+Chibisa being well known as a great conjurer and general.  The Ajawa
+ran off yelling and screaming, "Nkondo! Nkondo!" (War! War!)  We
+heard the words of the Manganja, but they did not strike us at the
+moment as neutralizing all our assertions of peace.  The captives
+threw down their loads on the path, and fled to the hills:  and a
+large body of armed men came running up from the village, and in a
+few seconds they were all around us, though mostly concealed by the
+projecting rocks and long grass.  In vain we protested that we had
+not come to fight, but to talk with them.  They would not listen,
+having, as we remembered afterwards, good reason, in the cry of "Our
+Chibisa."  Flushed with recent victory over three villages, and
+confident of an easy triumph over a mere handful of men, they began
+to shoot their poisoned arrows, sending them with great force upwards
+of a hundred yards, and wounding one of our followers through the
+arm.  Our retiring slowly up the ascent from the village only made
+them more eager to prevent our escape; and, in the belief that this
+retreat was evidence of fear, they closed upon us in bloodthirsty
+fury.  Some came within fifty yards, dancing hideously; others having
+quite surrounded us, and availing themselves of the rocks and long
+grass hard by, were intent on cutting us off, while others made off
+with their women and a large body of slaves.  Four were armed with
+muskets, and we were obliged in self-defence to return their fire and
+drive them off.  When they saw the range of rifles, they very soon
+desisted, and ran away; but some shouted to us from the hills the
+consoling intimation, that they would follow, and kill us where we
+slept.  Only two of the captives escaped to us, but probably most of
+those made prisoners that day fled elsewhere in the confusion.  We
+returned to the village which we had left in the morning, after a
+hungry, fatiguing, and most unpleasant day.
+
+Though we could not blame ourselves for the course we had followed,
+we felt sorry for what had happened.  It was the first time we had
+ever been attacked by the natives or come into collision with them;
+though we had always taken it for granted that we might be called
+upon to act in self-defence, we were on this occasion less prepared
+than usual, no game having been expected here.  The men had only a
+single round of cartridge each; their leader had no revolver, and the
+rifle he usually fired with was left at the ship to save it from the
+damp of the season.  Had we known better the effect of slavery and
+murder on the temper of these bloodthirsty marauders, we should have
+tried messages and presents before going near them.
+
+The old chief, Chinsunse, came on a visit to us next day, and pressed
+the Bishop to come and live with him.  "Chigunda," he said, "is but a
+child, and the Bishop ought to live with the father rather than with
+the child."  But the old man's object was so evidently to have the
+Mission as a shield against the Ajawa, that his invitation was
+declined.  While begging us to drive away the marauders, that he
+might live in peace, he adopted the stratagem of causing a number of
+his men to rush into the village, in breathless haste, with the news
+that the Ajawa were close upon us.  And having been reminded that we
+never fought, unless attacked, as we were the day before, and that we
+had come among them for the purpose of promoting peace, and of
+teaching them to worship the Supreme, to give up selling His
+children, and to cultivate other objects for barter than each other,
+he replied, in a huff, "Then I am dead already."
+
+The Bishop, feeling, as most Englishmen would, at the prospect of the
+people now in his charge being swept off into slavery by hordes of
+men-stealers, proposed to go at once to the rescue of the captive
+Manganja, and drive the marauding Ajawa out of the country.  All were
+warmly in favour of this, save Dr. Livingstone, who opposed it on the
+ground that it would be better for the Bishop to wait, and see the
+effect of the check the slave-hunters had just experienced.  The
+Ajawa were evidently goaded on by Portuguese agents from Tette, and
+there was no bond of union among the Manganja on which to work.  It
+was possible that the Ajawa might be persuaded to something better,
+though, from having long been in the habit of slaving for the
+Quillimane market, it was not very probable.  But the Manganja could
+easily be overcome piecemeal by any enemy; old feuds made them glad
+to see calamities befall their next neighbours.  We counselled them
+to unite against the common enemies of their country, and added
+distinctly that we English would on no account enter into their
+quarrels.  On the Bishop inquiring whether, in the event of the
+Manganja again asking aid against the Ajawa, it would be his duty to
+accede to their request,--"No," replied Dr. Livingstone, "you will be
+oppressed by their importunities, but do not interfere in native
+quarrels."  This advice the good man honourably mentions in his
+journal.  We have been rather minute in relating what occurred during
+the few days of our connection with the Mission of the English
+Universities, on the hills, because, the recorded advice having been
+discarded, blame was thrown on Dr. Livingstone's shoulders, as if the
+missionaries had no individual responsibility for their subsequent
+conduct.  This, unquestionably, good Bishop Mackenzie had too much
+manliness to have allowed.  The connection of the members of the
+Zambesi Expedition, with the acts of the Bishop's Mission, now
+ceased, for we returned to the ship and prepared for our journey to
+Lake Nyassa.  We cheerfully, if necessary, will bear all
+responsibility up to this point; and if the Bishop afterwards made
+mistakes in certain collisions with the slavers, he had the votes of
+all his party with him, and those who best knew the peculiar
+circumstances, and the loving disposition of this good-hearted man,
+will blame him least.  In this position, and in these circumstances,
+we left our friends at the Mission Station.
+
+As a temporary measure the Bishop decided to place his Mission
+Station on a small promontory formed by the windings of the little,
+clear stream of Magomero, which was so cold that the limbs were quite
+benumbed by washing in it in the July mornings.  The site chosen was
+a pleasant spot to the eye, and completely surrounded by stately,
+shady trees.  It was expected to serve for a residence, till the
+Bishop had acquired an accurate knowledge of the adjacent country,
+and of the political relations of the people, and could select a
+healthy and commanding situation, as a permanent centre of Christian
+civilization.  Everything promised fairly.  The weather was
+delightful, resembling the pleasantest part of an English summer;
+provisions poured in very cheap and in great abundance.  The Bishop,
+with characteristic ardour, commenced learning the language, Mr.
+Waller began building, and Mr. Scudamore improvised a sort of infant
+school for the children, than which there is no better means for
+acquiring an unwritten tongue.
+
+On the 6th of August, 1861, a few days after returning from Magomero,
+Drs. Livingstone and Kirk, and Charles Livingstone started for Nyassa
+with a light four-oared gig, a white sailor, and a score of
+attendants.  We hired people along the path to carry the boat past
+the forty miles of the Murchison Cataracts for a cubit of cotton
+cloth a day.  This being deemed great wages, more than twice the men
+required eagerly offered their services.  The chief difficulty was in
+limiting their numbers.  Crowds followed us; and, had we not taken
+down in the morning the names of the porters engaged, in the evening
+claims would have been made by those who only helped during the last
+ten minutes of the journey.  The men of one village carried the boat
+to the next, and all we had to do was to tell the headman that we
+wanted fresh men in the morning.  He saw us pay the first party, and
+had his men ready at the time appointed, so there was no delay in
+waiting for carriers.  They often make a loud noise when carrying
+heavy loads, but talking and bawling does not put them out of breath.
+The country was rough and with little soil on it, but covered with
+grass and open forest.  A few small trees were cut down to clear a
+path for our shouting assistants, who were good enough to consider
+the boat as a certificate of peaceful intentions at least to them.
+Several small streams were passed, the largest of which were the
+Mukuru-Madse and Lesungwe.  The inhabitants on both banks were now
+civil and obliging.  Our possession of a boat, and consequent power
+of crossing independently of the canoes, helped to develop their good
+manners, which were not apparent on our previous visit.
+
+There is often a surprising contrast between neighbouring villages.
+One is well off and thriving, having good huts, plenty of food, and
+native cloth; and its people are frank, trusty, generous, and eager
+to sell provisions; while in the next the inhabitants may be ill-
+housed, disobliging, suspicious, ill-fed, and scantily clad, and with
+nothing for sale, though the land around is as fertile as that of
+their wealthier neighbours.  We followed the river for the most part
+to avail ourselves of the still reaches for sailing; but a
+comparatively smooth country lies further inland, over which a good
+road could be made.  Some of the five main cataracts are very grand,
+the river falling 1200 feet in the 40 miles.  After passing the last
+of the cataracts, we launched our boat for good on the broad and deep
+waters of the Upper Shire, and were virtually on the lake, for the
+gentle current shows but little difference of level.  The bed is
+broad and deep, but the course is rather tortuous at first, and makes
+a long bend to the east till it comes within five or six miles of the
+base of Mount Zomba.  The natives regarded the Upper Shire as a
+prolongation of Lake Nyassa; for where what we called the river
+approaches Lake Shirwa, a little north of the mountains, they said
+that the hippopotami, "which are great night travellers," pass from
+ONE LAKE INTO THE OTHER.  There the land is flat, and only a short
+land journey would be necessary.  Seldom does the current here exceed
+a knot an hour, while that of the Lower Shire is from two to two-and-
+a-half knots.  Our land party of Makololo accompanied us along the
+right bank, and passed thousands of Manganja fugitives living in
+temporary huts on that side, who had recently been driven from their
+villages on the opposite hills by the Ajawa.
+
+The soil was dry and hard, and covered with mopane-trees; but some of
+the Manganja were busy hoeing the ground and planting the little corn
+they had brought with them.  The effects of hunger were already
+visible on those whose food had been seized or burned by the Ajawa
+and Portuguese slave-traders.  The spokesman or prime minister of one
+of the chiefs, named Kalonjere, was a humpbacked dwarf, a fluent
+speaker, who tried hard to make us go over and drive off the Ajawa;
+but he could not deny that by selling people Kalonjere had invited
+these slave-hunters to the country.  This is the second humpbacked
+dwarf we have found occupying the like important post, the other was
+the prime minister of a Batonga chief on the Zambesi.
+
+As we sailed along, we disturbed many white-breasted cormorants; we
+had seen the same species fishing between the cataracts.  Here, with
+many other wild-fowls, they find subsistence on the smooth water by
+night, and sit sleepily on trees and in the reeds by day.  Many
+hippopotami were seen in the river, and one of them stretched its
+wide jaws, as if to swallow the whole stern of the boat, close to Dr.
+Kirk's back; the animal was so near that, in opening its mouth, it
+lashed a quantity of water on to the stern-sheets, but did no damage.
+To avoid large marauding parties of Ajawa, on the left bank of the
+Shire, we continued on the right, or western side, with our land
+party, along the shore of the small lake Pamalombe.  This lakelet is
+ten or twelve miles in length, and five or six broad.  It is nearly
+surrounded by a broad belt of papyrus, so dense that we could
+scarcely find an opening to the shore.  The plants, ten or twelve
+feet high, grew so closely together that air was excluded, and so
+much sulphuretted hydrogen gas evolved that by one night's exposure
+the bottom of the boat was blackened.  Myriads of mosquitoes showed,
+as probably they always do, the presence of malaria.
+
+We hastened from this sickly spot, trying to take the attentions of
+the mosquitoes as hints to seek more pleasant quarters on the healthy
+shores of Lake Nyassa; and when we sailed into it, on the 2nd
+September, we felt refreshed by the greater coolness of the air off
+this large body of water.  The depth was the first point of interest.
+This is indicated by the colour of the water, which, on a belt along
+the shore, varying from a quarter to half a mile in breadth, is light
+green, and this is met by the deep blue or indigo tint of the Indian
+Ocean, which is the colour of the great body of Nyassa.  We found the
+Upper Shire from nine to fifteen feet in depth; but skirting the
+western side of the lake about a mile from the shore the water
+deepened from nine to fifteen fathoms; then, as we rounded the grand
+mountainous promontory, which we named Cape Maclear, after our
+excellent friend the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, we
+could get no bottom with our lead-line of thirty-five fathoms.  We
+pulled along the western shore, which was a succession of bays, and
+found that where the bottom was sandy near the beach, and to a mile
+out, the depth varied from six to fourteen fathoms.  In a rocky bay
+about latitude 11 degrees 40 minutes we had soundings at 100 fathoms,
+though outside the same bay we found none with a fishing-line of 116
+fathoms; but this cast was unsatisfactory, as the line broke in
+coming up.  According to our present knowledge, a ship could anchor
+only near the shore.
+
+Looking back to the southern end of Lake Nyassa, the arm from which
+the Shire flows was found to be about thirty miles long and from ten
+to twelve broad.  Rounding Cape Maclear, and looking to the south-
+west, we have another arm, which stretches some eighteen miles
+southward, and is from six to twelve miles in breadth.  These arms
+give the southern end a forked appearance, and with the help of a
+little imagination it may be likened to the "boot-shape" of Italy.
+The narrowest part is about the ankle, eighteen or twenty miles.
+From this it widens to the north, and in the upper third or fourth it
+is fifty or sixty miles broad.  The length is over 200 miles.  The
+direction in which it lies is as near as possible due north and
+south.  Nothing of the great bend to the west, shown in all the
+previous maps, could be detected by either compass or chronometer,
+and the watch we used was an excellent one.  The season of the year
+was very unfavourable.  The "smokes" filled the air with an
+impenetrable haze, and the equinoctial gales made it impossible for
+us to cross to the eastern side.  When we caught a glimpse of the sun
+rising from behind the mountains to the east, we made sketches and
+bearings of them at different latitudes, which enabled us to secure
+approximate measurements of the width.  These agreed with the times
+taken by the natives at the different crossing-places--as Tsenga and
+Molamba.  About the beginning of the upper third the lake is crossed
+by taking advantage of the island Chizumara, which name in the native
+tongue means the "ending;" further north they go round the end
+instead, though that takes several days.
+
+The lake appeared to be surrounded by mountains, but it was
+afterwards found that these beautiful tree-covered heights were, on
+the west, only the edges of high table-lands.  Like all narrow seas
+encircled by highlands, it is visited by sudden and tremendous
+storms.  We were on it in September and October, perhaps the
+stormiest season of the year, and were repeatedly detained by gales.
+At times, while sailing pleasantly over the blue water with a gentle
+breeze, suddenly and without any warning was heard the sound of a
+coming storm, roaring on with crowds of angry waves in its wake.  We
+were caught one morning with the sea breaking all around us, and,
+unable either to advance or recede, anchored a mile from shore, in
+seven fathoms.  The furious surf on the beach would have shivered our
+boat to atoms, had we tried to land.  The waves most dreaded came
+rolling on in threes, with their crests, driven into spray, streaming
+behind them.  A short lull followed each triple charge.  Had one of
+these seas struck our boat, nothing could have saved us; for they
+came on with resistless force; seaward, in shore, and on either side
+of us, they broke in foam, but we escaped.  For six weary hours we
+faced those terrible trios.  A low, dark, detached, oddly shaped
+cloud came slowly from the mountains, and hung for hours directly
+over our heads.  A flock of night-jars (Cometornis vexillarius),
+which on no other occasion come out by day, soared above us in the
+gale, like birds of evil omen.  Our black crew became sea-sick and
+unable to sit up or keep the boat's head to the sea.  The natives and
+our land party stood on the high cliffs looking at us and exclaiming,
+as the waves seemed to swallow up the boat, "They are lost! they are
+all dead!"  When at last the gale moderated and we got safely ashore,
+they saluted us warmly, as after a long absence.  From this time we
+trusted implicitly to the opinions of our seaman, John Neil, who,
+having been a fisherman on the coast of Ireland, understood boating
+on a stormy coast, and by his advice we often sat cowering on the
+land for days together waiting for the surf to go down.  He had never
+seen such waves before.  We had to beach the boat every night to save
+her from being swamped at anchor; and, did we not believe the gales
+to be peculiar to one season of the year, would call Nyassa the "Lake
+of Storms."
+
+Distinct white marks on the rocks showed that, for some time during
+the rainy season, the water of the lake is three feet above the point
+to which it falls towards the close of the dry period of the year.
+The rains begin here in November, and the permanent rise of the Shire
+does not take place till January.  The western side of Lake Nyassa,
+with the exception of the great harbour to the west of Cape Maclear,
+is, as has been said before, a succession of small bays of nearly
+similar form, each having an open sandy beach and pebbly shore, and
+being separated from its neighbour by a rocky headland, with detached
+rocks extending some distance out to sea.  The great south-western
+bay referred to would form a magnificent harbour, the only really
+good one we saw to the west.
+
+The land immediately adjacent to the lake is low and fertile, though
+in some places marshy and tenanted by large flocks of ducks, geese,
+herons, crowned cranes, and other birds.  In the southern parts we
+have sometimes ten or a dozen miles of rich plains, bordered by what
+seem high ranges of well-wooded hills, running nearly parallel with
+the lake.  Northwards the mountains become loftier and present some
+magnificent views, range towering beyond range, until the dim, lofty
+outlines projected against the sky bound the prospect.  Still further
+north the plain becomes more narrow, until, near where we turned, it
+disappears altogether, and the mountains rise abruptly out of the
+lake, forming the north-east boundary of what was described to us as
+an extensive table-land; well suited for pasturage and agriculture,
+and now only partially occupied by a tribe of Zulus, who came from
+the south some years ago.  These people own large herds of cattle,
+and are constantly increasing in numbers by annexing other tribes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+
+The Lake tribes--The Mazitu--Quantities of elephants--Distressing
+journey--Detention on the Shire.
+
+Never before in Africa have we seen anything like the dense
+population on the shores of Lake Nyassa.  In the southern part there
+was an almost unbroken chain of villages.  On the beach of wellnigh
+of every little sandy bay, dark crowds were standing, gazing at the
+novel sight of a boat under sail; and wherever we landed we were
+surrounded in a few seconds by hundreds of men, women, and children,
+who hastened to have a stare at the "chirombo" (wild animals).
+
+During a portion of the year, the northern dwellers on the lake have
+a harvest which furnishes a singular sort of food.  As we approached
+our limit in that direction, clouds, as of smoke rising from miles of
+burning grass, were observed bending in a south-easterly direction,
+and we thought that the unseen land on the opposite side was closing
+in, and that we were near the end of the lake.  But next morning we
+sailed through one of the clouds on our own side, and discovered that
+it was neither smoke nor haze, but countless millions of minute
+midges called "kungo" (a cloud or fog).  They filled the air to an
+immense height, and swarmed upon the water, too light to sink in it.
+Eyes and mouth had to be kept closed while passing through this
+living cloud:  they struck upon the face like fine drifting snow.
+Thousands lay in the boat when she emerged from the cloud of midges.
+The people gather these minute insects by night, and boil them into
+thick cakes, to be used as a relish--millions of midges in a cake.  A
+kungo cake, an inch thick, and as large as the blue bonnet of a
+Scotch ploughman, was offered to us; it was very dark in colour, and
+tasted not unlike caviare, or salted locusts.
+
+Abundance of excellent fish is found in the lake, and nearly all were
+new to us.  The mpasa, or sanjika, found by Dr. Kirk to be a kind of
+carp, was running up the rivers to spawn, like our salmon at home:
+the largest we saw was over two feet in length; it is a splendid
+fish, and the best we have ever eaten in Africa.  They were ascending
+the rivers in August and September, and furnished active and
+profitable employment to many fishermen, who did not mind their being
+out of season.  Weirs were constructed full of sluices, in each of
+which was set a large basket-trap, through whose single tortuous
+opening the fish once in has but small chance of escape.  A short
+distance below the weir, nets are stretched across from bank to bank,
+so that it seemed a marvel how the most sagacious sanjika could get
+up at all without being taken.  Possibly a passage up the river is
+found at night; but this is not the country of Sundays or "close
+times" for either men or fish.  The lake fish are caught chiefly in
+nets, although men, and even women with babies on their backs, are
+occasionally seen fishing from the rocks with hooks.
+
+A net with small meshes is used for catching the young fry of a
+silvery kind like pickerel, when they are about two inches long;
+thousands are often taken in a single haul.  We had a present of a
+large bucketful one day for dinner:  they tasted as if they had been
+cooked with a little quinine, probably from their gall-bladders being
+left in.  In deep water, some sorts are taken by lowering fish-
+baskets attached by a long cord to a float, around which is often
+tied a mass of grass or weeds, as an alluring shade for the deep-sea
+fish.  Fleets of fine canoes are engaged in the fisheries.  The men
+have long paddles, and stand erect while using them.  They sometimes
+venture out when a considerable sea is running.  Our Makololo
+acknowledge that, in handling canoes, the Lake men beat them; they
+were unwilling to cross the Zambesi even, when the wind blew fresh.
+
+Though there are many crocodiles in the lake, and some of an
+extraordinary size, the fishermen say that it is a rare thing for any
+one to be carried off by these reptiles.  When crocodiles can easily
+obtain abundance of fish--their natural food--they seldom attack men;
+but when unable to see to catch their prey, from the muddiness of the
+water in floods, they are very dangerous.
+
+Many men and boys are employed in gathering the buaze, in preparing
+the fibre, and in making it into long nets.  The knot of the net is
+different from ours, for they invariably use what sailors call the
+reef knot, but they net with a needle like that we use.  From the
+amount of native cotton cloth worn in many of the southern villages,
+it is evident that a great number of hands and heads must be employed
+in the cultivation of cotton, and in the various slow processes
+through which it has to pass, before the web is finished in the
+native loom.  In addition to this branch of industry, an extensive
+manufacture of cloth, from the inner bark of an undescribed tree, of
+the botanical group, Caesalpineae, is ever going on, from one end of
+the lake to the other; and both toil and time are required to procure
+the bark, and to prepare it by pounding and steeping it to render it
+soft and pliable.  The prodigious amount of the bark clothing worn
+indicates the destruction of an immense number of trees every year;
+yet the adjacent heights seem still well covered with timber.
+
+The Lake people are by no means handsome:  the women are VERY plain;
+and really make themselves hideous by the means they adopt to render
+themselves attractive.  The pelele, or ornament for the upper lip, is
+universally worn by the ladies; the most valuable is of pure tin,
+hammered into the shape of a small dish; some are made of white
+quartz, and give the wearer the appearance of having an inch or more
+of one of Price's patent candles thrust through the lip, and
+projecting beyond the tip of the nose.
+
+In character, the Lake tribes are very much like other people; there
+are decent men among them, while a good many are no better than they
+should be.  They are open-handed enough:  if one of us, as was often
+the case, went to see a net drawn, a fish was always offered.
+Sailing one day past a number of men, who had just dragged their nets
+ashore, at one of the fine fisheries at Pamalombe, we were hailed and
+asked to stop, and received a liberal donation of beautiful fish.
+Arriving late one afternoon at a small village on the lake, a number
+of the inhabitants manned two canoes, took out their seine, dragged
+it, and made us a present of the entire haul.  The northern chief,
+Marenga, a tall handsome man, with a fine aquiline nose, whom we
+found living in his stockade in a forest about twenty miles north of
+the mountain Kowirwe, behaved like a gentleman to us.  His land
+extended from Dambo to the north of Makuza hill.  He was specially
+generous, and gave us bountiful presents of food and beer.  "Do they
+wear such things in your country?" he asked, pointing to his iron
+bracelet, which was studded with copper, and highly prized.  The
+Doctor said he had never seen such in his country, whereupon Marenga
+instantly took it off, and presented it to him, and his wife also did
+the same with hers.  On our return south from the mountains near the
+north end of the lake, we reached Marenga's on the 7th October.  When
+he could not prevail upon us to forego the advantage of a fair wind
+for his invitation to "spend the whole day drinking his beer, which
+was," he said, "quite ready," he loaded us with provisions, all of
+which he sent for before we gave him any present.  In allusion to the
+boat's sail, his people said that they had no Bazimo, or none worth
+having, seeing they had never invented the like for them.  The chief,
+Mankambira, likewise treated us with kindness; but wherever the
+slave-trade is carried on, the people are dishonest and uncivil; that
+invariably leaves a blight and a curse in its path.  The first
+question put to us at the lake crossing-places, was, "Have you come
+to buy slaves?"  On hearing that we were English, and never purchased
+slaves, the questioners put on a supercilious air, and sometimes
+refused to sell us food.  This want of respect to us may have been
+owing to the impressions conveyed to them by the Arabs, whose dhows
+have sometimes been taken by English cruisers when engaged in lawful
+trade.  Much foreign cloth, beads, and brass-wire were worn by these
+ferrymen--and some had muskets.
+
+By Chitanda, near one of the slave crossing-places, we were robbed
+for the first time in Africa, and learned by experience that these
+people, like more civilized nations, have expert thieves among them.
+It might be only a coincidence; but we never suffered from impudence,
+loss of property, or were endangered, unless among people familiar
+with slaving.  We had such a general sense of security, that never,
+save when we suspected treachery, did we set a watch at night.  Our
+native companions had, on this occasion, been carousing on beer, and
+had removed to a distance of some thirty yards, that we might not
+overhear their free and easy after-dinner remarks, and two of us had
+a slight touch of fever; between three and four o'clock in the
+morning some thieves came, while we slept ingloriously--rifles and
+revolvers all ready,--and relieved us of most of our goods.  The
+boat's sail, under which we slept, was open all around, so the feat
+was easy.
+
+Awaking as honest men do, at the usual hour, the loss of one was
+announced by "My bag is gone--with all my clothes; and my boots too!"
+"And mine!" responded a second.  "And mine also!" chimed in the
+third, "with the bag of beads, and the rice!"  "Is the cloth taken?"
+was the eager inquiry, as that would have been equivalent to all our
+money.  It had been used for a pillow that night, and thus saved.
+The rogues left on the beach, close to our beds, the Aneroid
+Barometer and a pair of boots, thinking possibly that they might be
+of use to us, or, at least, that they could be of none to them.  They
+shoved back some dried plants and fishes into one bag, but carried
+off many other specimens we had collected; some of our notes also,
+and nearly all our clothing.
+
+We could not suspect the people of the village near which we lay.  We
+had probably been followed for days by the thieves watching for an
+opportunity.  And our suspicions fell on some persons who had come
+from the East Coast; but having no evidence, and expecting to hear if
+our goods were exposed for sale in the vicinity, we made no fuss
+about it, and began to make new clothing.  That our rifles and
+revolvers were left untouched was greatly to our advantage:  yet we
+felt it was most humiliating for armed men to have been so thoroughly
+fleeced by a few black rascals.
+
+Some of the best fisheries appear to be private property.  We found
+shelter from a storm one morning in a spacious lagoon, which
+communicated with the lake by a narrow passage.  Across this strait
+stakes were driven in, leaving only spaces for the basket fish-traps.
+A score of men were busily engaged in taking out the fish.  We tried
+to purchase some, but they refused to sell.  The fish did not belong
+to them, they would send for the proprietor of the place.  The
+proprietor arrived in a short time, and readily sold what we wanted.
+
+Some of the burying-grounds are very well arranged, and well cared
+for; this was noticed at Chitanda, and more particularly at a village
+on the southern shore of the fine harbour at Cape Maclear.  Wide and
+neat paths were made in the burying-ground on its eastern and
+southern sides.  A grand old fig-tree stood at the north-east corner,
+and its wide-spreading branches threw their kindly shade over the
+last resting-place of the dead.  Several other magnificent trees grew
+around the hallowed spot.  Mounds were raised as they are at home,
+but all lay north and south, the heads apparently north.  The graves
+of the sexes were distinguished by the various implements which the
+buried dead had used in their different employments during life; but
+they were all broken, as if to be employed no more.  A piece of
+fishing-net and a broken paddle told where a fisherman lay.  The
+graves of the women had the wooden mortar, and the heavy pestle used
+in pounding the corn, and the basket in which the meal is sifted,
+while all had numerous broken calabashes and pots arranged around
+them.  The idea that the future life is like the present does not
+appear to prevail; yet a banana-tree had been carefully planted at
+the head of several of the graves; the fruit might be considered an
+offering to those who still possess human tastes.  The people of the
+neighbouring villages were friendly and obliging, and willingly
+brought us food for sale.
+
+Pursuing our exploration, we found that the northern part of the lake
+was the abode of lawlessness and bloodshed.  The Mazite, or Mazitu,
+live on the highlands, and make sudden swoops on the villages of the
+plains.  They are Zulus who came originally from the south, inland of
+Sofalla and Inhambane; and are of the same family as those who levy
+annual tribute from the Portuguese on the Zambesi.  All the villages
+north of Mankambira's (lat. 11 degrees 44 minutes south) had been
+recently destroyed by these terrible marauders, but they were foiled
+in their attacks upon that chief and Marenga.  The thickets and
+stockades round their villages enabled the bowmen to pick off the
+Mazitu in security, while they were afraid to venture near any place
+where they could not use their shields.  Beyond Mankambira's we saw
+burned villages, and the putrid bodies of many who had fallen by
+Mazitu spears only a few days before.  Our land party were afraid to
+go further.  This reluctance to proceed without the presence of a
+white man was very natural, because bands of the enemy who had
+ravaged the country were supposed to be still roaming about; and if
+these marauders saw none but men of their own colour, our party might
+forthwith be attacked.  Compliance with their request led to an event
+which might have been attended by very serious consequences.  Dr.
+Livingstone got separated from the party in the boat for four days.
+Having taken the first morning's journey along with them, and
+directing the boat to call for him in a bay in sight, both parties
+proceeded north.  In an hour Dr. Livingstone and his party struck
+inland, on approaching the foot of the mountains which rise abruptly
+from the lake.  Supposing that they had heard of a path behind the
+high range which there forms the shore, those in the boat held on
+their course; but it soon began to blow so fresh that they had to run
+ashore for safety.  While delayed a couple of hours, two men were
+sent up the hills to look for the land party, but they could see
+nothing of them, and the boat party sailed as soon as it was safe to
+put to sea, with the conviction that the missing ones would regain
+the lake in front.
+
+In a short time a small island or mass of rocks was passed, on which
+were a number of armed Mazitu with some young women, apparently their
+wives.  The headman said that he had been wounded in the foot by
+Mankambira, and that they were staying there till he could walk to
+his chief, who lived over the hills.  They had several large canoes,
+and it was evident that this was a nest of lake pirates, who sallied
+out by night to kill and plunder.  They reported a path behind the
+hills, and, the crew being reassured, the boat sailed on.  A few
+miles further, another and still larger band of pirates were fallen
+in with, and hundreds of crows and kites hovered over and round the
+rocks on which they lived.  Dr. Kirk and Charles Livingstone, though
+ordered in a voice of authority to come ashore, kept on their course.
+A number of canoes then shot out from the rocks and chased them.  One
+with nine strong paddlers persevered for some time after all the
+others gave up the chase.  A good breeze, however, enabled the gig to
+get away from them with ease.  After sailing twelve or fifteen miles,
+north of the point where Dr. Livingstone had left them, it was
+decided that he must be behind; but no sooner had the boat's head
+been turned south, than another gale compelled her to seek shelter in
+a bay.  Here a number of wretched fugitives from the slave-trade on
+the opposite shore of the lake were found; the original inhabitants
+of the place had all been swept off the year before by the Mazitu.
+In the deserted gardens beautiful cotton was seen growing, much of it
+had the staple an inch and a half long, and of very fine quality.
+Some of the plants were uncommonly large, deserving to be ranked with
+trees.
+
+On their trying to purchase food, the natives had nothing to sell
+except a little dried cassava-root, and a few fish:  and they
+demanded two yards of calico for the head only of a large fish.  When
+the gale admitted of their return, their former pursuers tried to
+draw them ashore by asserting that they had quantities of ivory for
+sale.  Owing to a succession of gales, it was the fourth day from
+parting that the boat was found by Dr. Livingstone, who was coming on
+in search of it with only two of his companions.
+
+After proceeding a short distance up the path in which they had been
+lost sight of, they learned that it would take several days to go
+round the mountains, and rejoin the lake; and they therefore turned
+down to the bay, expecting to find the boat, but only saw it
+disappearing away to the north.  They pushed on as briskly as
+possible after it, but the mountain flank which forms the coast
+proved excessively tedious and fatiguing; travelling all day, the
+distance made, in a straight line, was under five miles.  As soon as
+day dawned, the march was resumed; and, after hearing at the first
+inhabited rock that their companions had passed it the day before, a
+goat was slaughtered out of the four which they had with them, when
+suddenly, to the evident consternation of the men, seven Mazitu
+appeared armed with spears and shields, with their heads dressed
+fantastically with feathers.  To hold a parley, Dr. Livingstone and
+Moloka, a Makololo man who spoke Zulu, went unarmed to meet them.  On
+Dr. Livingstone approaching them, they ordered him to stop, and sit
+down in the sun, while they sat in the shade.  No, no!" was the
+reply, "if you sit in the shade, so will we."  They then rattled
+their shields with their clubs, a proceeding which usually inspires
+terror; but Moloka remarked, "It is not the first time we have heard
+shields rattled."  And all sat down together.  They asked for a
+present, to show their chief that they had actually met strangers--
+something as evidence of having seen men who were not Arabs.  And
+they were requested in turn to take these strangers to the boat, or
+to their chief.  All the goods were in the boat, and to show that no
+present such as they wanted was in his pockets, Dr. Livingstone
+emptied them, turning out, among other things, a note-book:  thinking
+it was a pistol they started up, and said, "Put that in again."  The
+younger men then became boisterous, and demanded a goat.  That could
+not be spared, as they were the sole provisions.  When they insisted,
+they were asked how many of the party they had killed, that they thus
+began to divide the spoil; this evidently made them ashamed.  The
+elders were more reasonable; they dreaded treachery, and were as much
+afraid of Dr. Livingstone and his party as his men were of them; for
+on leaving they sped away up the hills like frightened deer.  One of
+them, and probably the leader, was married, as seen by portions of
+his hair sewn into a ring; all were observed by their teeth to be
+people of the country, who had been incorporated into the Zulu tribe.
+
+The way still led over a succession of steep ridges with ravines of
+from 500 to 1000 feet in depth; some of the sides had to be scaled on
+hands and knees, and no sooner was the top reached than the descent
+began again.  Each ravine had a running stream; and the whole
+country, though so very rugged, had all been cultivated, and densely
+peopled.  Many banana-trees, uncared for patches of corn, and Congo-
+bean bushes attested former cultivation.  The population had all been
+swept away; ruined villages, broken utensils, and human skeletons,
+met with at every turn, told a sad tale.  So numerous were the slain,
+that it was thought the inhabitants had been slaughtered in
+consequence of having made raids on the Zulus for cattle.
+
+Continuing the journey that night as long as light served, they slept
+unconsciously on the edge of a deep precipice, without fire, lest the
+Mazitu should see it.  Next morning most of the men were tired out,
+the dread of the apparition of the day before tending probably to
+increase the lameness of which they complained.  When told, however,
+that all might return to Mankambira's save two, Moloka and Charlie,
+they would not, till assured that the act would not be considered one
+of cowardice.  Giving them one of the goats as provision, another was
+slaughtered for the remainder of the party who, having found on the
+rocks a canoe which had belonged to one of the deserted villages,
+determined to put to sea again; but the craft was very small, and the
+remaining goat, spite of many a threat of having its throat cut,
+jumped and rolled about so, as nearly to capsize it; so Dr.
+Livingstone took to the shore again, and after another night spent
+without fire, except just for cooking, was delighted to see the boat
+coming back.
+
+We pulled that day to Mankambira's, a distance that on shore, with
+the most heartbreaking toil, had taken three days to travel.  This
+was the last latitude taken, 11 degrees 44 minutes S.  The boat had
+gone about 24 minutes further to the north, the land party probably
+half that distance, but fever prevented the instruments being used.
+Dr. Kirk and Charles Livingstone were therefore furthest up the lake,
+and they saw about 20 minutes beyond their turning-point, say into
+the tenth degree of south latitude.  From the heights of at least a
+thousand feet, over which the land party toiled, the dark mountain
+masses on both sides of the lake were seen closing in.  At this
+elevation the view extended at least as far as that from the boats,
+and it is believed the end of the lake lies on the southern borders
+of 10 degrees, or the northern limits of 11 degrees south latitude.
+
+Elephants are numerous on the borders of the lake, and surprisingly
+tame, being often found close to the villages.  Hippopotami swarm
+very much at their ease in the creeks and lagoons, and herds are
+sometimes seen in the lake itself.  Their tameness arises from the
+fact that poisoned arrows have no effect on either elephant or
+hippopotamus.  Five of each were shot for food during our journey.
+Two of the elephants were females, and had only a single tusk apiece,
+and were each killed by the first shot.  It is always a case of
+famine or satiety when depending on the rifle for food--a glut of
+meat or none at all.  Most frequently it is scanty fare, except when
+game is abundant, as it is far up the Zambesi.  We had one morning
+two hippopotami and an elephant, perhaps in all some eight tons of
+meat, and two days after the last of a few sardines only for dinner.
+
+One morning when sailing past a pretty thickly-inhabited part, we
+were surprised at seeing nine large bull-elephants standing near the
+beach quietly flapping their gigantic ears.  Glad of an opportunity
+of getting some fresh meat, we landed and fired into one.  They all
+retreated into a marshy piece of ground between two villages.  Our
+men gave chase, and fired into the herd.  Standing on a sand hummock,
+we could see the bleeding animals throwing showers of water with
+their trunks over their backs.  The herd was soon driven back upon
+us, and a wounded one turned to bay.  Yet neither this one, nor any
+of the others, ever attempted to charge.  Having broken his legs with
+a rifle-ball, we fired into him at forty yards as rapidly as we could
+load and discharge the rifles.  He simply shook his head at each
+shot, and received at least sixty Enfield balls before he fell.  Our
+excellent sailor from the north of Ireland happened to fire the last,
+and, as soon as he saw the animal fall, he turned with an air of
+triumph to the Doctor and exclaimed, "It was MY shot that done it,
+sir!"
+
+In a few minutes upwards of a thousand natives were round the
+prostrate king of beasts; and, after our men had taken all they
+wanted, an invitation was given to the villagers to take the
+remainder.  They rushed at it like hungry hyenas, and in an
+incredibly short time every inch of it was carried off.  It was only
+by knowing that the meat would all be used that we felt justified in
+the slaughter of this noble creature.  The tusks weighed 62 lbs.
+each.  A large amount of ivory might be obtained from the people of
+Nyassa, and we were frequently told of their having it in their huts.
+
+While detained by a storm on the 17th October at the mouth of the
+Kaombe, we were visited by several men belonging to an Arab who had
+been for fourteen years in the interior at Katanga's, south of
+Cazembe's.  They had just brought down ivory, malachite, copper
+rings, and slaves to exchange for cloth at the lake.  The malachite
+was said to be dug out of a large vein on the side of a hill near
+Katanga's.  They knew Lake Tanganyika well, but had not heard of the
+Zambesi.  They spoke quite positively, saying that the water of Lake
+Tanganyika flowed out by the opposite end to that of Nyassa.  As they
+had seen neither of the overflows, we took it simply as a piece of
+Arab geography.  We passed their establishment of long sheds next
+day, and were satisfied that the Arabs must be driving a good trade.
+
+The Lake slave-trade was going on at a terrible rate.  Two
+enterprising Arabs had built a dhow, and were running her, crowded
+with slaves, regularly across the Lake.  We were told she sailed the
+day before we reached their head-quarters.  This establishment is in
+the latitude of the Portuguese slave-exporting town of Iboe, and
+partly supplies that vile market; but the greater number of the
+slaves go to Kilwa.  We did not see much evidence of a wish to
+barter.  Some ivory was offered for sale; but the chief traffic was
+in human chattels.  Would that we could give a comprehensive account
+of the horrors of the slave-trade, with an approximation to the
+number of lives it yearly destroys! for we feel sure that were even
+half the truth told and recognized, the feelings of men would be so
+thoroughly roused, that this devilish traffic in human flesh would be
+put down at all risks; but neither we, nor any one else, have the
+statistics necessary for a work of this kind.  Let us state what we
+do know of one portion of Africa, and then every reader who believes
+our tale can apply the ratio of the known misery to find out the
+unknown.  We were informed by Colonel Rigby, late H.M. Political
+Agent, and Consul at Zanzibar, that 19,000 slaves from this Nyassa
+country alone pass annually through the Custom-house of that island.
+This is exclusive of course of those sent to Portuguese slave-ports.
+Let it not be supposed for an instant that this number, 19,000,
+represents all the victims.  Those taken out of the country are but a
+very small section of the sufferers.  We never realized the atrocious
+nature of the traffic, until we saw it at the fountain-head.  There
+truly "Satan has his seat."  Besides those actually captured,
+thousands are killed and die of their wounds and famine, driven from
+their villages by the slave raid proper.  Thousands perish in
+internecine war waged for slaves with their own clansmen and
+neighbours, slain by the lust of gain, which is stimulated, be it
+remembered always, by the slave purchasers of Cuba and elsewhere.
+The many skeletons we have seen, amongst rocks and woods, by the
+little pools, and along the paths of the wilderness, attest the awful
+sacrifice of human life, which must be attributed, directly or
+indirectly, to this trade of hell.  We would ask our countrymen to
+believe us when we say, as we conscientiously can, that it is our
+deliberate opinion, from what we know and have seen, that not one-
+fifth of the victims of the slave-trade ever become slaves.  Taking
+the Shire Valley as an average, we should say not even one-tenth
+arrive at their destination.  As the system, therefore, involves such
+an awful waste of human life,--or shall we say of human labour?--and
+moreover tends directly to perpetuate the barbarism of those who
+remain in the country, the argument for the continuance of this
+wasteful course because, forsooth, a fraction of the enslaved may
+find good masters, seems of no great value.  This reasoning, if not
+the result of ignorance, may be of maudlin philanthropy.  A small
+armed steamer on Lake Nyassa could easily, by exercising a control,
+and furnishing goods in exchange for ivory and other products, break
+the neck of this infamous traffic in that quarter; for nearly all
+must cross the Lake or the Upper Shire.
+
+Our exploration of the Lake extended from the 2nd September to the
+27th October, 1861; and, having expended or lost most of the goods we
+had brought, it was necessary to go back to the ship.  When near the
+southern end, on our return, we were told that a very large slave-
+party had just crossed to the eastern side.  We heard the fire of
+three guns in the evening, and judged by the report that they must be
+at least six-pounders.  They were said to belong to an Ajawa chief
+named Mukata.
+
+In descending the Shire, we found concealed in the broad belt of
+papyrus round the lakelet Pamalombe, into which the river expands, a
+number of Manganja families who had been driven from their homes by
+the Ajawa raids.  So thickly did the papyrus grow, that when beat
+down it supported their small temporary huts, though when they walked
+from one hut to another, it heaved and bent beneath their feet as
+thin ice does at home.
+
+A dense and impenetrable forest of the papyrus was left standing
+between them and the land, and no one passing by on the same side
+would ever have suspected that human beings lived there.  They came
+to this spot from the south by means of their canoes, which enabled
+them to obtain a living from the fine fish which abound in the
+lakelet.  They had a large quantity of excellent salt sewed up in
+bark, some of which we bought, our own having run out.  We anchored
+for the night off their floating camp, and were visited by myriads of
+mosquitoes.  Some of the natives show a love of country quite
+surprising.  We saw fugitives on the mountains, in the north of the
+lake, who were persisting in clinging to the haunts of their boyhood
+and youth, in spite of starvation and the continual danger of being
+put to death by the Mazitu.
+
+A few miles below the lakelet is the last of the great slave-
+crossings.  Since the Ajawa invasion the villages on the left bank
+had been abandoned, and the people, as we saw in our ascent, were
+living on the right or western bank.
+
+As we were resting for a few minutes opposite the valuable fishery at
+Movunguti, a young effeminate-looking man from some sea-coast tribe
+came in great state to have a look at us.  He walked under a large
+umbrella, and was followed by five handsome damsels gaily dressed and
+adorned with a view to attract purchasers.  One was carrying his pipe
+for smoking bang, here called "chamba;" another his bow and arrows; a
+third his battle-axe; a fourth one of his robes; while the last was
+ready to take his umbrella when he felt tired.  This show of his
+merchandise was to excite the cupidity of any chief who had ivory,
+and may be called the lawful way of carrying on the slave-trade.
+What proportion it bears to the other ways in which we have seen this
+traffic pursued, we never found means of forming a judgment.  He sat
+and looked at us for a few minutes, the young ladies kneeling behind
+him; and having satisfied himself that we were not likely to be
+customers, he departed.
+
+On our first trip we met, at the landing opposite this place, a
+middle-aged woman of considerable intelligence, and possessing more
+knowledge of the country than any of the men.  Our first definite
+information about Lake Nyassa was obtained from her.  Seeing us
+taking notes, she remarked that she had been to the sea, and had
+there seen white men writing.  She had seen camels also, probably
+among the Arabs.  She was the only Manganja woman we ever met who was
+ashamed of wearing the "pelele," or lip-ring.  She retired to her
+hut, took it out, and kept her hand before her mouth to hide the
+hideous hole in the lip while conversing with us.  All the villagers
+respected her, and even the headmen took a secondary place in her
+presence.  On inquiring for her now, we found that she was dead.  We
+never obtained sufficient materials to estimate the relative
+mortality of the highlands and lowlands; but, from many very old
+white-headed blacks having been seen on the highlands, we think it
+probable that even native races are longer lived the higher their
+dwelling-places are.
+
+We landed below at Mikena's and took observations for longitude, to
+verify those taken two years before.  The village was deserted,
+Mikena and his people having fled to the other side of the river.  A
+few had come across this morning to work in their old gardens.  After
+completing the observations we had breakfast; and, as the last of the
+things were being carried into the boat, a Manganja man came running
+down to his canoe, crying out, "The Ajawa have just killed my
+comrade!"  We shoved off, and in two minutes the advanced guard of a
+large marauding party were standing with their muskets on the spot
+where we had taken breakfast.  They were evidently surprised at
+seeing us there, and halted; as did also the main body of perhaps a
+thousand men.  "Kill them," cried the Manganja; "they are going up to
+the hills to kill the English," meaning the missionaries we had left
+at Magomero.  But having no prospect of friendly communication with
+them, nor confidence in Manganja's testimony, we proceeded down the
+river; leaving the Ajawa sitting under a large baobab, and the
+Manganja cursing them most energetically across the river.
+
+On our way up, we had seen that the people of Zimika had taken refuge
+on a long island in the Shire, where they had placed stores of grain
+to prevent it falling into the hands of the Ajawa; supposing
+afterwards that the invasion and war were past, they had removed back
+again to the mainland on the east, and were living in fancied
+security.  On approaching the chief's village, which was built in the
+midst of a beautiful grove of lofty wild-fig and palm trees, sounds
+of revelry fell upon our ears.  The people were having a merry time--
+drumming, dancing, and drinking beer--while a powerful enemy was
+close at hand, bringing death or slavery to every one in the village.
+One of our men called out to several who came to the bank to look at
+us, that the Ajawa were coming and were even now at Mikena's village;
+but they were dazed with drinking, and took no notice of the warning.
+
+Crowds of carriers offered their services after we left the river.
+Several sets of them placed so much confidence in us, as to decline
+receiving payment at the end of the first day; they wished to work
+another day, and so receive both days' wages in one piece.  The young
+headman of a new village himself came on with his men.  The march was
+a pretty long one, and one of the men proposed to lay the burdens
+down beside a hut a mile or more from the next village.  The headman
+scolded the fellow for his meanness in wishing to get rid of our
+goods where we could not procure carriers, and made him carry them
+on.  The village, at the foot of the cataracts, had increased very
+much in size and wealth since we passed it on our way up.  A number
+of large new huts had been built; and the people had a good stock of
+cloth and beads.  We could not account for this sudden prosperity,
+until we saw some fine large canoes, instead of the two old, leaky
+things which lay there before.  This had become a crossing-place for
+the slaves that the Portuguese agents were carrying to Tette, because
+they were afraid to take them across nearer to where the ship lay,
+about seven miles off.  Nothing was more disheartening than this
+conduct of the Manganja, in profiting by the entire breaking up of
+their nation.
+
+We reached the ship on the 8th of November, 1861, in a very weak
+condition, having suffered more from hunger than on any previous
+trip.  Heavy rains commenced on the 9th, and continued several days;
+the river rose rapidly, and became highly discoloured.  Bishop
+Mackenzie came down to the ship on the 14th, with some of the
+"Pioneer's" men, who had been at Magomero for the benefit of their
+health, and also for the purpose of assisting the Mission.  The
+Bishop appeared to be in excellent spirits, and thought that the
+future promised fair for peace and usefulness.  The Ajawa having been
+defeated and driven off while we were on the Lake, had sent word that
+they desired to live at peace with the English.  Many of the Manganja
+had settled round Magomero, in order to be under the protection of
+the Bishop; and it was hoped that the slave-trade would soon cease in
+the highlands, and the people be left in the secure enjoyment of
+their industry.  The Mission, it was also anticipated, might soon
+become, to a considerable degree, self-supporting, and raise certain
+kinds of food, like the Portuguese of Senna and Quillimane.  Mr.
+Burrup, an energetic young man, had arrived at Chibisa's the day
+before the Bishop, having come up the Shire in a canoe.  A surgeon
+and a lay brother followed behind in another canoe.  The "Pioneer's"
+draught being too much for the upper part of the Shire, it was not
+deemed advisable to bring her up, on the next trip, further than the
+Ruo; the Bishop, therefore, resolved to explore the country from
+Magomero to the mouth of that river, and to meet the ship with his
+sisters and Mrs. Burrup, in January.  This was arranged before
+parting, and then the good Bishop and Burrup, whom we were never to
+meet again, left us; they gave and received three hearty English
+cheers as they went to the shore, and we steamed off.
+
+The rains ceased on the 14th, and the waters of the Shire fell, even
+more rapidly than they had risen.  A shoal, twenty miles below
+Chibisa's, checked our further progress, and we lay there five weary
+weeks, till the permanent rise of the river took place.  During this
+detention, with a large marsh on each side, the first death occurred
+in the Expedition which had now been three-and-a-half years in the
+country.  The carpenter's mate, a fine healthy young man, was seized
+with fever.  The usual remedies had no effect; he died suddenly while
+we were at evening prayers, and was buried on shore.  He came out in
+the "Pioneer," and, with the exception of a slight touch of fever at
+the mouth of the Rovuma, had enjoyed perfect health all the time he
+had been with us.  The Portuguese are of opinion that the European
+who has immunity from this disease for any length of time after he
+enters the country is more likely to be cut off by it when it does
+come, than the man who has it frequently at first.
+
+The rains became pretty general towards the close of December, and
+the Shire was in flood in the beginning of January, 1862.  At our
+wooding-place, a mile above the Ruo, the water was three feet higher
+than it was when we were here in June; and on the night of the 6th it
+rose eighteen inches more, and swept down an immense amount of
+brushwood and logs which swarmed with beetles and the two kinds of
+shells which are common all over the African continent.  Natives in
+canoes were busy spearing fish in the meadows and creeks, and
+appeared to be taking them in great numbers.  Spur-winged geese, and
+others of the knob-nosed species, took advantage of the low gardens
+being flooded, and came to pilfer the beans.  As we passed the Ruo,
+on the 7th, and saw nothing of the Bishop, we concluded that he had
+heard from his surgeon of our detention, and had deferred his
+journey.  He arrived there five days after, on the 12th.
+
+After paying our Senna men, as they wished to go home, we landed them
+here.  All were keen traders, and had invested largely in native
+iron-hoes, axes, and ornaments.  Many of the hoes and spears had been
+taken from the slaving parties whose captives we liberated; for on
+these occasions our Senna friends were always uncommonly zealous and
+active.  The remainder had been purchased with the old clothes we had
+given them and their store of hippopotamus meat:  they had no fear of
+losing them, or of being punished for aiding us.  The system, in
+which they had been trained, had eradicated the idea of personal
+responsibility from their minds.  The Portuguese slaveholders would
+blame the English alone, they said; they were our servants at the
+time.  No white man on board could purchase so cheaply as these men
+could.  Many a time had their eloquence persuaded a native trader to
+sell for a bit of dirty worn cloth things for which he had, but a
+little before, refused twice the amount of clean new calico.
+"Scissors" being troubled with a cough at night, received a present
+of a quilted coverlet, which had seen a good deal of service.  A few
+days afterwards, a good chance of investing in hoes offering itself,
+he ripped off both sides, tore them into a dozen pieces, and
+purchased about a dozen hoes with them.
+
+We entered the Zambesi on the 11th of January, and steamed down
+towards the coast, taking the side on which we had come up; but the
+channel had changed to the other side during the summer, as it
+sometimes does, and we soon grounded.  A Portuguese gentleman,
+formerly a lieutenant in the army, and now living on Sangwisa, one of
+the islands of the Zambesi, came over with his slaves, to aid us in
+getting the ship off.  He said frankly, that his people were all
+great thieves, and we must be on our guard not to leave anything
+about.  He next made a short speech to his men, told them he knew
+what thieves they were, but implored them not to steal from us, as we
+would give them a present of cloth when the work was done.  "The
+natives of this country," he remarked to us, "think only of three
+things, what they shall eat and drink, how many wives they can have,
+and what they may steal from their master, if not how they may murder
+him."  He always slept with a loaded musket by his side.  This
+opinion may apply to slaves, but decidedly does not in our experience
+apply to freemen.  We paid his men for helping us, and believe that
+even they, being paid, stole nothing from us.  Our friend farms
+pretty extensively the large island called Sangwisa,--lent him for
+nothing by Senhor Ferrao,--and raises large quantities of mapira and
+beans, and also beautiful white rice, grown from seed brought a few
+years ago from South Carolina.  He furnished us with some, which was
+very acceptable; for though not in absolute want, we were living on
+beans, salt pork, and fowls, all the biscuit and flour on board
+having been expended.
+
+We fully expected that the owners of the captives we had liberated
+would show their displeasure, at least by their tongues; but they
+seemed ashamed; only one ventured a remark, and he, in the course of
+common conversation, said, with a smile, "You took the Governor's
+slaves, didn't you?"  "Yes, we did free several gangs that we met in
+the Manganja country."  The Portuguese of Tette, from the Governor
+downwards, were extensively engaged in slaving.  The trade is partly
+internal and partly external:  they send some of the captives, and
+those bought, into the interior, up the Zambesi:  some of these we
+actually met on their way up the river.  The young women were sold
+there for ivory:  an ordinary-looking one brought two arrobas, sixty-
+four pounds weight, and an extra beauty brought twice that amount.
+The men and boys were kept as carriers, to take the ivory down from
+the interior to Tette, or were retained on farms on the Zambesi,
+ready for export if a slaver should call:  of this last mode of
+slaving we were witnesses also.  The slaves were sent down the river
+chained, and in large canoes.  This went on openly at Tette, and more
+especially so while the French "Free Emigration" system was in full
+operation.  This double mode of disposing of the captives pays better
+than the single system of sending them down to the coast for
+exportation.  One merchant at Tette, with whom we were well
+acquainted, sent into the interior three hundred Manganja women to be
+sold for ivory, and another sent a hundred and fifty.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+
+Arrival of H.M.S. "Gorgon"--Dr. Livingstone's new steamer and Mrs.
+Livingstone--Death of Mrs. Livingstone--Voyage to Johanna and the
+Rovuma--An attack upon the "Pioneer's" boats.
+
+We anchored on the Great Luabo mouth of the Zambesi, because wood was
+much more easily obtained there than at the Kongone.
+
+On the 30th, H.M.S. "Gorgon" arrived, towing the brig which brought
+Mrs. Livingstone, some ladies about to join their relatives in the
+Universities' Mission, and the twenty-four sections of a new iron
+steamer intended for the navigation of Lake Nyassa.  The "Pioneer"
+steamed out, and towed the brig into the Kongone harbour.  The new
+steamer was called the "Lady of the Lake," or the "Lady Nyassa," and
+as much as could be carried of her in one trip was placed, by the
+help of the officers and men of the "Gorgon," on board the "Pioneer,"
+and the two large paddle-box boats of H.M.'s ship.  We steamed off
+for Ruo on the 10th of February, having on board Captain Wilson, with
+a number of his officers and men to help us to discharge the cargo.
+Our progress up was distressingly slow.  The river was in flood, and
+we had a three-knot current against us in many places.  These delays
+kept us six months in the delta, instead of, as we anticipated, only
+six days; for, finding it impossible to carry the sections up to the
+Ruo without great loss of time, it was thought best to land them at
+Shupanga, and, putting the hull of the "Lady Nyassa" together there,
+to tow her up to the foot of the Murchison Cataracts.
+
+A few days before the "Pioneer" reached Shupanga, Captain Wilson,
+seeing the hopeless state of affairs, generously resolved to hasten
+with the Mission ladies up to those who, we thought, were anxiously
+awaiting their arrival, and therefore started in his gig for the Ruo,
+taking Miss Mackenzie, Mrs. Burrup, and his surgeon, Dr. Ramsay.
+They were accompanied by Dr. Kirk and Mr. Sewell, paymaster of the
+"Gorgon," in the whale-boat of the "Lady Nyassa."  As our slow-paced-
+launch, "Ma Robert," had formerly gone up to the foot of the
+cataracts in nine days' steaming, it was supposed that the boats
+might easily reach the expected meeting-place at the Ruo in a week;
+but the Shire was now in flood, and in its most rapid state; and they
+were longer in getting up about half the distance, than it was hoped
+they would be in the whole navigable part of the river.  They could
+hear nothing of the Bishop from the chief of the island, Malo, at the
+mouth of the Ruo.  "No white man had ever come to his village," he
+said.  They proceeded on to Chibisa's, suffering terribly from
+mosquitoes at night.  Their toil in stemming the rapid current made
+them estimate the distance, by the windings, as nearer 300 than 200
+miles.  The Makololo who had remained at Chibisa's told them the sad
+news of the death of the good Bishop and of Mr. Burrup.  Other
+information received there awakened fresh anxiety on behalf of the
+survivors; so, leaving the ladies with Dr. Ramsay and the Makololo,
+Captain Wilson and Dr. Kirk went up the hills, in hopes of being able
+to render assistance, and on the way they met some of the Mission
+party at Soche's.  The excessive fatigue that our friends had
+undergone in the voyage up to Chibisa's in no wise deterred them from
+this further attempt for the benefit of their countrymen, but the
+fresh labour, with diminished rations, was too much for their
+strength.  They were reduced to a diet of native beans and an
+occasional fowl.  Both became very ill of fever, Captain Wilson so
+dangerously that his fellow-sufferer lost all hopes of his recovery.
+His strong able-bodied cockswain did good service in cheerfully
+carrying his much-loved Commander, and they managed to return to the
+boat, and brought the two bereaved and sorrow-stricken ladies back to
+the "Pioneer."
+
+We learnt that the Bishop, wishing to find a shorter route down to
+the Shire, had sent two men to explore the country between Magomero
+and the junction of the Ruo; and in December Messrs. Proctor and
+Scudamore, with a number of Manganja carriers, left Magomero for the
+same purpose.  They were to go close to Mount Choro, and then skirt
+the Elephant Marsh, with Mount Clarendon on their left.  Their guides
+seem to have led them away to the east, instead of south; to the
+upper waters of the Ruo in the Shirwa valley, instead of to its
+mouth.  Entering an Anguru slave-trading village, they soon began to
+suspect that the people meant mischief, and just before sunset a
+woman told some of their men that if they slept there they would all
+be killed.  On their preparing to leave, the Anguru followed them and
+shot their arrows at the retreating party.  Two of the carriers were
+captured, and all the goods were taken by these robbers.  An arrow-
+head struck deep into the stock of Proctor's gun; and the two
+missionaries, barely escaping with their lives, swam a deep river at
+night, and returned to Magomero famished and exhausted.
+
+The wives of the captive carriers came to the Bishop day after day
+weeping and imploring him to rescue their husbands from slavery.  The
+men had been caught while in his service, no one else could be
+entreated; there was no public law nor any power superior to his own,
+to which an appeal could be made; for in him Church and State were,
+in the disorganized state of the country, virtually united.  It
+seemed to him to be clearly his duty to try and rescue these
+kidnapped members of the Mission family.  He accordingly invited the
+veteran Makololo to go with him on this somewhat hazardous errand.
+Nothing could have been proposed to them which they would have liked
+better, and they went with alacrity to eat the sheep of the Anguru,
+only regretting that the enemy did not keep cattle as well.  Had the
+matter been left entirely in their hands, they would have made a
+clean sweep of that part of the country; but the Bishop restrained
+them, and went in an open manner, thus commending the measure to all
+the natives, as one of justice.  This deliberation, however, gave the
+delinquents a chance of escape.
+
+The missionaries were successful; the offending village was burned,
+and a few sheep and goats were secured which could not be considered
+other than a very mild punishment for the offence committed; the
+headman, Muana-somba, afraid to retain the prisoners any longer,
+forthwith liberated them, and they returned to their homes.  This
+incident took place at the time we were at the Ruo and during the
+rains, and proved very trying to the health of the missionaries; they
+were frequently wetted, and had hardly any food but roasted maize.
+Mr. Scudamore was never well afterwards.  Directly on their return to
+Magomero, the Bishop and Mr. Burrup, both suffering from diarrhoea in
+consequence of wet, hunger, and exposure, started for Chibisa's to go
+down to the Ruo by the Shire.  So fully did the Bishop expect a
+renewal of the soaking wet from which he had just returned, that on
+leaving Magomero he walked through the stream.  The rivulets were so
+swollen that it took five days to do a journey that would otherwise
+have occupied only two days and a half.
+
+None of the Manganja being willing to take them down the river during
+the flood, three Makololo canoe-men agreed to go with them.  After
+paddling till near sunset, they decided to stop and sleep on shore;
+but the mosquitoes were so numerous that they insisted on going on
+again; the Bishop, being a week behind the time he had engaged to be
+at the Ruo, reluctantly consented, and in the darkness the canoe was
+upset in one of the strong eddies or whirlpools, which suddenly boil
+up in flood time near the outgoing branches of the river; clothing,
+medicines, tea, coffee, and sugar were all lost.  Wet and weary, and
+tormented by mosquitoes, they lay in the canoe till morning dawned,
+and then proceeded to Malo, an island at the mouth of the Ruo, where
+the Bishop was at once seized with fever.
+
+Had they been in their usual health, they would doubtless have pushed
+on to Shupanga, or to the ship; but fever rapidly prostrates the
+energies, and induces a drowsy stupor, from which, if not roused by
+medicine, the patient gradually sinks into the sleep of death.  Still
+mindful, however, of his office, the Bishop consoled himself by
+thinking that he might gain the friendship of the chief, which would
+be of essential service to him in his future labours.  That heartless
+man, however, probably suspicious of all foreigners from the
+knowledge he had acquired of white slave-traders, wanted to turn the
+dying Bishop out of the hut, as he required it for his corn, but
+yielded to the expostulations of the Makololo.  Day after day for
+three weeks did these faithful fellows remain beside his mat on the
+floor; till, without medicine or even proper food, he died.  They dug
+his grave on the edge of the deep dark forest where the natives
+buried their dead.  Mr. Burrup, himself far gone with dysentery,
+staggered from the hut, and, as in the dusk of evening they committed
+the Bishop's body to the grave, repeated from memory portions of our
+beautiful service for the Burial of the Dead--"earth to earth, ashes
+to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection
+of the dead through our Lord Jesus Christ."  And in this sad way
+ended the earthly career of one, of whom it can safely be said that
+for unselfish goodness of heart, and earnest devotion to the noble
+work he had undertaken, none of the commendations of his friends can
+exceed the reality.  The grave in which his body rests is about a
+hundred yards from the confluence of the Ruo, on the left bank of the
+Shire, and opposite the island of Malo.  The Makololo then took Mr.
+Burrup up in the canoe as far as they could, and, making a litter of
+branches, carried him themselves, or got others to carry him, all the
+way back to his countrymen at Magomero.  They hurried him on lest he
+should die in their hands, and blame be attached to them.  Soon after
+his return he expired, from the disease which was on him when he
+started to meet his wife.
+
+Captain Wilson arrived at Shupanga on the 11th of March, having been
+three weeks on the Shire.  On the 15th the "Pioneer" steamed down to
+the Kongone.  The "Gorgon" had been driven out to sea in a gale, and
+had gone to Johanna for provisions, and it was the 2nd of April
+before she returned.  It was fortunate for us that she had obtained a
+supply, as our provisions were exhausted, and we had to buy some from
+the master of the brig.  The "Gorgon" left for the Cape on the 4th,
+taking all, except one, of the Mission party who had come in January.
+We take this opportunity of expressing our heartfelt gratitude to the
+gallant Captain I. C. Wilson and his officers for innumerable acts of
+kindness and hearty co-operation.  Our warmest thanks are also due to
+Captain R. B. Oldfield and the other officers from the Admiral
+downwards, and we beg to assure them that nothing could be more
+encouraging to us in our difficulties and trials, than the knowledge
+that we possessed their friendship and sympathy in our labours.
+
+The Rev. James Stewart, of the Free Church of Scotland, arrived in
+the "Gorgon."  He had wisely come out to inspect the country, before
+deciding on the formation of a Mission in the interior.  To this
+object he devoted many months of earnest labour.  This Mission was
+intended to embrace both the industrial and the religious element;
+and as the route by the Zambesi and Shire forms the only one at
+present known, with but a couple of days' land journey to the
+highlands, which stretch to an unknown distance into the continent,
+and as no jealousy was likely to be excited in the mind of a man of
+Bishop Mackenzie's enlarged views--there being moreover room for
+hundreds of Missions--we gladly extended the little aid in our power
+to an envoy from the energetic body above mentioned, but recommended
+him to examine the field with his own eyes.
+
+During our subsequent detention at Shupanga, he proceeded as far up
+the Shire as the Upper Cataracts, and saw the mere remnants of that
+dense population, which we at first had found living in peace and
+plenty, but which was now scattered and destroyed by famine and
+slave-hunting.  The land, which both before and after we found so
+fair and fruitful, was burned up by a severe drought; in fact, it was
+at its very worst.  With most praiseworthy energy, and in spite of
+occasional attacks of fever, he then ascended the Zambesi as far as
+Kebrabasa; and, what may be of interest to some, compared it, in
+parts, to the Danube.  His estimate of the highlands would naturally
+be lower than ours.  The main drawbacks in his opinion, however, were
+the slave-trade, and the power allowed the effete Portuguese of
+shutting up the country from all except a few convicts of their own
+nation.  The time of his coming was inopportune; the disasters which,
+from inexperience, had befallen the Mission of the Universities, had
+a depressing effect on the minds of many at home, and rendered a new
+attempt unadvisable; though, had the Scotch perseverance and energy
+been introduced, it is highly probable that they would have reacted,
+most beneficially, on the zeal of our English brethren, and desertion
+would never have been heard of.  After examining the country, Mr.
+Stewart descended the Zambesi in the beginning of the following year,
+and proceeded homewards with his report, by Mosambique and the Cape.
+
+On the 7th of April we had only one man fit for duty; all the rest
+were down with fever, or with the vile spirit secretly sold to them
+by the Portuguese officer of customs, in spite of our earnest request
+to him to refrain from the pernicious traffic.
+
+We started on the 11th for Shupanga with another load of the "Lady
+Nyassa."  As we steamed up the delta, we observed many of the natives
+wearing strips of palm-leaf, the signs of sickness and mourning; for
+they too suffer from fever.  This is the unhealthy season; the rains
+are over, and the hot sun draws up malaria from the decayed
+vegetation; disease seemed peculiarly severe this year.  On our way
+up we met Mr. Waller, who had come from Magomero for provisions; the
+missionaries were suffering severely from want of food; the liberated
+people were starving, and dying of diarrhoea, and loathsome sores.
+The Ajawa, stimulated in their slave raids by supplies of ammunition
+and cloth from the Portuguese, had destroyed the large crops of the
+past year; a drought had followed, and little or no food could be
+bought.  With his usual energy, Mr. Waller hired canoes, loaded them
+with stores, and took them up the long weary way to Chibisa's.
+Before he arrived he was informed that the Mission of the
+Universities, now deprived of its brave leader, had retired from the
+highlands down to the Low Shire Valley.  This appeared to us, who
+knew the danger of leading a sedentary life, the greatest mistake
+they could have made, and was the result of no other counsel or
+responsibility than their own.  Waller would have reascended at once
+to the higher altitude, but various objections stood in the way.  The
+loss of poor Scudamore and Dickinson, in this low-lying situation,
+but added to the regret that the highlands had not received a fair
+trial.
+
+When the news of the Bishop's unfortunate collisions with the
+natives, and of his untimely end, reached England, much blame was
+imputed to him.  The policy, which with the formal sanction of all
+his companions he had adopted, being directly contrary to the advice
+which Dr. Livingstone tendered, and to the assurances of the
+peaceable nature of the Mission which the Doctor had given to the
+natives, a friendly disapproval of a bishop's engaging in war was
+ventured on, when we met him at Chibisa's in November.  But when we
+found his conduct regarded with so much bitterness in England,
+whether from a disposition to "stand by the down man," or from having
+an intimate knowledge of the peculiar circumstances of the country in
+which he was placed, or from the thorough confidence which intimacy
+caused us to repose in his genuine piety, and devout service of God,
+we came to think much more leniently of his proceedings, than his
+assailants did.  He never seemed to doubt but that he had done his
+duty; and throughout he had always been supported by his associates.
+
+The question whether a Bishop, in the event of his flock being torn
+from his bosom, may make war to rescue them, requires serious
+consideration.  It seems to narrow itself into whether a Christian
+man may lawfully use the civil power or the sword at all in defensive
+war, as police or otherwise.  We would do almost anything to avoid a
+collision with degraded natives; but in case of an invasion--our
+blood boils at the very thought of our wives, daughters, or sisters
+being touched--we, as men with human feelings, would unhesitatingly
+fight to the death, with all the fury in our power.
+
+The good Bishop was as intensely averse to using arms, before he met
+the slave-hunters, as any man in England.  In the course he pursued
+he may have made a mistake, but it is a mistake which very few
+Englishmen on meeting bands of helpless captives, or members of his
+family in bonds, would have failed to commit likewise.
+
+During unhealthy April, the fever was more severe in Shupanga and
+Mazaro than usual.  We had several cases on board--they were quickly
+cured, but, from our being in the delta, as quickly returned.  About
+the middle of the month Mrs. Livingstone was prostrated by this
+disease; and it was accompanied by obstinate vomiting.  Nothing is
+yet known that can allay this distressing symptom, which of course
+renders medicine of no avail, as it is instantly rejected.  She
+received whatever medical aid could be rendered from Dr. Kirk, but
+became unconscious, and her eyes were closed in the sleep of death as
+the sunset on the evening of the Christian Sabbath, the 27th April,
+1862.  A coffin was made during the night, a grave was dug next day
+under the branches of the great baobab-tree, and with sympathizing
+hearts the little band of his countrymen assisted the bereaved
+husband in burying his dead.  At his request, the Rev. James Stewart
+read the burial-service; and the seamen kindly volunteered to mount
+guard for some nights at the spot where her body rests in hope.
+Those who are not aware how this brave, good, English wife made a
+delightful home at Kolobeng, a thousand miles inland from the Cape,
+and as the daughter of Moffat and a Christian lady exercised most
+beneficial influence over the rude tribes of the interior, may wonder
+that she should have braved the dangers and toils of this down-
+trodden land.  She knew them all, and, in the disinterested and
+dutiful attempt to renew her labours, was called to her rest instead.
+"Fiat, Domine, voluntas tua!"
+
+On the 5th of May Dr. Kirk and Charles Livingstone started in the
+boat for Tette, in order to see the property of the Expedition
+brought down in canoes.  They took four Mazaro canoe-men to manage
+the boat, and a white sailor to cook for them; but, unfortunately, he
+caught fever the very day after leaving the ship, and was ill most of
+the trip; so they had to cook for themselves, and to take care of him
+besides.
+
+We now proceeded with preparations for the launch of the "Lady
+Nyassa."  Ground was levelled on the bank at Shupanga, for the
+purpose of arranging the compartments in order:  she was placed on
+palm-trees which were brought from a place lower down the river for
+ways, and the engineer and his assistants were soon busily engaged;
+about a fortnight after they were all brought from Kongone, the
+sections were screwed together.  The blacks are more addicted to
+stealing where slavery exists than elsewhere.  We were annoyed by
+thieves who carried off the iron screw-bolts, but were gratified to
+find that strychnine saved us from the man-thief as well as the
+hyena-thief.  A hyena was killed by it, and after the natives saw the
+dead animal and knew how we had destroyed it, they concluded that it
+was not safe to steal from men who possessed a medicine so powerful.
+The half-caste, who kept Shupanga-house, said he wished to have some
+to give to the Zulus, of whom he was mortally afraid, and to whom he
+had to pay an unwilling tribute.
+
+The "Pioneer" made several trips to the Kongone, and returned with
+the last load on the 12th of June.  On the 23rd the "Lady Nyassa" was
+safely launched, the work of putting her together having been
+interrupted by fever and dysentery, and many other causes which it
+would only weary the reader to narrate in detail.  Natives from all
+parts of the country came to see the launch, most of them quite
+certain that, being made of iron, she must go to the bottom as soon
+as she entered the water.  Earnest discussions had taken place among
+them with regard to the propriety of using iron for ship-building.
+The majority affirmed that it would never answer.  They said, "If we
+put a hoe into the water, or the smallest bit of iron, it sinks
+immediately.  How then can such a mass of iron float? it must go to
+the bottom."  The minority answered that this might be true with
+them, but white men had medicine for everything.  "They could even
+make a woman, all except the speaking; look at that one on the
+figure-head of the vessel."  The unbelievers were astonished, and
+could hardly believe their eyes, when they saw the ship float lightly
+and gracefully on the river, instead of going to the bottom, as they
+so confidently predicted.  "Truly," they said, "these men have
+powerful medicine."
+
+Birds are numerous on the Shupanga estate.  Some kinds remain all the
+year round, while many others are there only for a few months.
+Flocks of green pigeons come in April to feed on the young fruit of
+the wild fig-trees, which is also eaten by a large species of bat in
+the evenings.  The pretty little black weaver, with yellow shoulders,
+appears to enjoy life intensely after assuming his wooing dress.  A
+hearty breakfast is eaten in the mornings and then come the hours for
+making merry.  A select party of three or four perch on the bushes
+which skirt a small grassy plain, and cheer themselves with the music
+of their own quiet and self-complacent song.  A playful performance
+on the wind succeeds.  Expanding his soft velvet-like plumage, one
+glides with quivering pinions to the centre of the open space,
+singing as he flies, then turns with a rapid whirring sound from his
+wings--somewhat like a child's rattle--and returns to his place
+again.  One by one the others perform the same feat, and continue the
+sport for hours, striving which can produce the loudest brattle while
+turning.  These games are only played during the season of courting
+and of the gay feathers; the merriment seems never to be thought of
+while the bird wears his winter suit of sober brown.
+
+We received two mules from the Cape to aid us in transporting the
+pieces of the "Lady Nyassa" past the cataracts and landed them at
+Shupanga, but they soon perished.  A Portuguese gentleman kindly
+informed us, AFTER both the mules were dead, that he knew they would
+die; for the land there had been often tried, and nothing would live
+on it--not even a pig.  He said he had not told us so before, because
+he did not like to appear officious!
+
+By the time everything had been placed on board the "Lady Nyassa,"
+the waters of the Zambesi and the Shire had fallen so low that it was
+useless to attempt taking her up to the cataracts before the rains in
+December.  Draught oxen and provisions also were required, and could
+not be obtained nearer than the Island of Johanna.  The Portuguese,
+without refusing positively to let trade enter the Zambesi, threw
+impediments in the way; they only wanted a small duty!  They were
+about to establish a river police, and rearrange the Crown lands,
+which have long since become Zulu lands; meanwhile they were making
+the Zambesi, by slaving, of no value to any one.
+
+The Rovuma, which was reported to come from Lake Nyassa, being out of
+their claims and a free river, we determined to explore it in our
+boats immediately on our return from Johanna, for which place, after
+some delay at the Kongone, in repairing engines, paddle-wheel, and
+rudder, we sailed on the 6th of August.  A store of naval provisions
+had been formed on a hulk in Pomone Bay of that island for the supply
+of the cruisers, and was in charge of Mr. Sunley, the Consul, from
+whom we always received the kindest attentions and assistance.  He
+now obliged us by parting with six oxen, trained for his own use in
+sugar-making.  Though sadly hampered in his undertaking by being
+obliged to employ slave labour, he has by indomitable energy overcome
+obstacles under which most persons would have sunk.  He has done all
+that under the circumstances could be done to infuse a desire for
+freedom, by paying regular wages; and has established a large
+factory, and brought 300 acres of rich soil under cultivation with
+sugar-cane.  We trust he will realize the fortune which he so well
+deserves to earn.  Had Mr. Sunley performed the same experiment on
+the mainland, where people would have flocked to him for the wages he
+now gives, he would certainly have inaugurated a new era on the East
+Coast of Africa.  On a small island where the slaveholders have
+complete power over the slaves, and where there is no free soil such
+as is everywhere met with in Africa, the experiment ought not to be
+repeated.  Were Mr. Sunley commencing again, it should neither be in
+Zanzibar nor Johanna, but on African soil, where, if even a slave is
+ill-treated, he can easily by flight become free.  On an island under
+native rule a joint manufacture by Arabs and Englishmen might only
+mean that the latter were to escape the odium of flogging the slaves.
+
+On leaving Johanna and our oxen for a time, H.M.S. "Orestes" towed us
+thence to the mouth of the Rovuma at the beginning of September.
+Captain Gardner, her commander, and several of his officers,
+accompanied us up the river for two days in the gig and cutter.  The
+water was unusually low, and it was rather dull work for a few hours
+in the morning; but the scene became livelier and more animated when
+the breeze began to blow.  Our four boats they swept on under full
+sail, the men on the look out in the gig and cutter calling, "Port,
+sir!"  "Starboard, sir!"  "As you go, sir!" while the black men in
+the bows of the others shouted the practical equivalents, "Pagombe!
+Pagombe!"  "Enda quete!"  "Berane! Berane!"  Presently the leading-
+boat touches on a sandbank; down comes the fluttering sail; the men
+jump out to shove her off, and the other boats, shunning the
+obstruction, shoot on ahead to be brought up each in its turn by
+mistaking a sandbank for the channel, which had often but a very
+little depth of water.
+
+A drowsy herd of hippopotami were suddenly startled by a score of
+rifle-shots, and stared in amazement at the strange objects which had
+invaded their peaceful domains, until a few more bullets compelled
+them to seek refuge at the bottom of the deep pool, near which they
+had been quietly reposing.  On our return, one of the herd
+retaliated.  He followed the boat, came up under it, and twice tried
+to tear the bottom out of it; but fortunately it was too flat for his
+jaws to get a good grip, so he merely damaged one of the planks with
+his tusks, though he lifted the boat right up, with ten men and a ton
+of ebony in it.
+
+We slept, one of the two nights Captain Gardner was with us, opposite
+the lakelet Chidia, which is connected with the river in flood time,
+and is nearly surrounded by hills some 500 or 600 feet high, dotted
+over with trees.  A few small groups of huts stood on the hill-sides,
+with gardens off which the usual native produce had been reaped.  The
+people did not seem much alarmed by the presence of the large party
+which had drawn up on the sandbanks below their dwellings.  There is
+abundance of large ebony in the neighbourhood.  The pretty little
+antelope (Cephalophus caeruleus), about the size of a hare, seemed to
+abound, as many of their skins were offered for sale.  Neat figured
+date-leaf mats of various colours are woven here, the different dyes
+being obtained from the barks of trees.  Cattle could not live on the
+banks of the Rovuma on account of the tsetse, which are found from
+near the mouth, up as far as we could take the boats.  The navigation
+did not improve as we ascended; snags, brought down by the floods,
+were common, and left in the channel on the sudden subsidence of the
+water.  In many places, where the river divided into two or three
+channels, there was not water enough in any of them for a boat
+drawing three feet, so we had to drag ours over the shoals; but we
+saw the river at its very lowest, and it may be years before it is so
+dried up again.
+
+The valley of the Rovuma, bounded on each side by a range of
+highlands, is from two to four miles in width, and comes in a pretty
+straight course from the W.S.W.; but the channel of the river is
+winding, and now at its lowest zigzagged so perversely, that
+frequently the boats had to pass over three miles to make one in a
+straight line.  With a full stream it must of course be much easier
+work.  Few natives were seen during the first week.  Their villages
+are concealed in the thick jungle on the hill-sides, for protection
+from marauding slave-parties.  Not much of interest was observed on
+this part of the silent and shallow river.  Though feeling convinced
+that it was unfit for navigation, except for eight months of the
+year, we pushed on, resolved to see if, further inland, the accounts
+we had received from different naval officers of its great
+capabilities would prove correct; or if, by communication with Lake
+Nyassa, even the upper part could be turned to account.  Our
+exploration showed us that the greatest precaution is required in
+those who visit new countries.
+
+The reports we received from gentlemen, who had entered the river and
+were well qualified to judge, were that the Rovuma was infinitely
+superior to the Zambesi, in the absence of any bar at its mouth, in
+its greater volume of water, and in the beauty of the adjacent lands.
+We probably came at a different season from that in which they
+visited it, and our account ought to be taken with theirs to arrive
+at the truth.  It might be available as a highway for commerce during
+three quarters of each year; but casual visitors, like ourselves and
+others, are all ill able to decide.  The absence of animal life was
+remarkable.  Occasionally we saw pairs of the stately jabirus, or
+adjutant-looking marabouts, wading among the shoals, and spur-winged
+geese, and other water-fowl, but there was scarcely a crocodile or a
+hippopotamus to be seen.
+
+At the end of the first week, an old man called at our camp, and said
+he would send a present from his village, which was up among the
+hills.  He appeared next morning with a number of his people,
+bringing meal, cassava-root, and yams.  The language differs
+considerably from that on the Zambesi, but it is of the same family.
+The people are Makonde, and are on friendly terms with the Mabiha,
+and the Makoa, who live south of the Rovuma.  When taking a walk up
+the slopes of the north bank, we found a great variety of trees we
+had seen nowhere else.  Those usually met with far inland seem here
+to approach the coast.  African ebony, generally named mpingu, is
+abundant within eight miles of the sea; it attains a larger size, and
+has more of the interior black wood than usual.  A good timber tree
+called mosoko is also found; and we saw half-caste Arabs near the
+coast cutting up a large log of it into planks.  Before reaching the
+top of the rise we were in a forest of bamboos.  On the plateau
+above, large patches were cleared and cultivated.  A man invited us
+to take a cup of beer; on our complying with his request, the fear
+previously shown by the bystanders vanished.  Our Mazaro men could
+hardly understand what they said.  Some of them waded in the river
+and caught a curious fish in holes in the claybank.  Its ventral fin
+is peculiar, being unusually large, and of a circular shape, like
+boys' playthings called "suckers."  We were told that this fish is
+found also in the Zambesi, and is called Chirire.  Though all its
+fins are large, it is asserted that it rarely ventures out into the
+stream, but remains near its hole, where it is readily caught by the
+hand.
+
+The Zambesi men thoroughly understood the characteristic marks of
+deep or shallow water, and showed great skill in finding out the
+proper channel.  The Molimo is the steersman at the helm, the
+Mokadamo is the head canoe-man, and he stands erect on the bows with
+a long pole in his hands, and directs the steersman where to go,
+aiding the rudder, if necessary, with his pole.  The others preferred
+to stand and punt our boat, rather than row with our long oars, being
+able to shove her ahead faster than they could pull her.  They are
+accustomed to short paddles.  Our Mokadamo was affected with moon-
+blindness, and could not see at all at night.  His comrades then led
+him about, and handed him his food.  They thought that it was only
+because his eyes rested all night, that he could see the channel so
+well by day.  At difficult places the Mokadamo sometimes, however,
+made mistakes, and ran us aground; and the others, evidently imbued
+with the spirit of resistance to constituted authority, and led by
+Joao an aspirant for the office, jeered him for his stupidity.  "Was
+he asleep?  Why did he allow the boat to come there?  Could he not
+see the channel was somewhere else?"  At last the Mokadamo threw down
+the pole in disgust, and told Joao he might be a Mokadamo himself.
+The office was accepted with alacrity; but in a few minutes he too
+ran us into a worse difficulty than his predecessor ever did, and was
+at once disrated amidst the derision of his comrades.
+
+On the 16th September, we arrived at the inhabited island of
+Kichokomane.  The usual way of approaching an unknown people is to
+call out in a cheerful tone "Malonda!"  Things for sale, or do you
+want to sell anything?  If we can obtain a man from the last village,
+he is employed, though only useful in explaining to the next that we
+come in a friendly way.  The people here were shy of us at first, and
+could not be induced to sell any food; until a woman, more
+adventurous than the rest, sold us a fowl.  This opened the market,
+and crowds came with fowls and meal, far beyond our wants.  The women
+are as ugly as those on Lake Nyassa, for who can be handsome wearing
+the pelele, or upper-lip ring, of large dimensions?  We were once
+surprised to see young men wearing the pelele, and were told that in
+the tribe of the Mabiha, on the south bank, men as well as women wore
+them.
+
+Along the left bank, above Kichokomane, is an exceedingly fertile
+plain, nearly two miles broad, and studded with a number of deserted
+villages.  The inhabitants were living in temporary huts on low naked
+sandbanks; and we found this to be the case as far as we went.  They
+leave most of their property and food behind, because they are not
+afraid of these being stolen, but only fear being stolen themselves.
+The great slave-route from Nyassa to Kilwa passes to N.E. from S.W.,
+just beyond them; and it is dangerous to remain in their villages at
+this time of year, when the kidnappers are abroad.  In one of the
+temporary villages, we saw, in passing, two human heads lying on the
+ground.  We slept a couple of miles above this village.
+
+Before sunrise next morning, a large party armed with bows and arrows
+and muskets came to the camp, two or three of them having a fowl
+each, which we refused to purchase, having bought enough the day
+before.  They followed us all the morning, and after breakfast those
+on the left bank swam across and joined the main party on the other
+side.  It was evidently their intention to attack us at a chosen
+spot, where we had to pass close to a high bank, but their plan was
+frustrated by a stiff breeze sweeping the boat past, before the
+majority could get to the place.  They disappeared then, but came out
+again ahead of us, on a high wooded bank, walking rapidly to the
+bend, near which we were obliged to sail.  An arrow was shot at the
+foremost boat; and seeing the force at the bend, we pushed out from
+the side, as far as the shoal water would permit, and tried to bring
+them to a parley, by declaring that we had not come to fight, but to
+see the river.  "Why did you fire a gun, a little while ago?" they
+asked.  "We shot a large puff-adder, to prevent it from killing men;
+you may see it lying dead on the beach."  With great courage, our
+Mokadamo waded to within thirty yards of the bank, and spoke with
+much earnestness, assuring them that we were a peaceable party, and
+had not come for war, but to see the river.  We were friends, and our
+countrymen bought cotton and ivory, and wished to come and trade with
+them.  All we wanted was to go up quietly to look at the river, and
+then return to the sea.  While he was talking with those on the
+shore, the old rogue, who appeared to be the ringleader, stole up the
+bank, and with a dozen others, waded across to the island, near which
+the boats lay, and came down behind us.  Wild with excitement, they
+rushed into the water, and danced in our rear, with drawn bows,
+taking aim, and making various savage gesticulations.  Their leader
+urged them to get behind some snags, and then shoot at us.  The party
+on the bank in front had many muskets--and those of them, who had
+bows, held them with arrows ready set in the bowstrings.  They had a
+mass of thick bush and trees behind them, into which they could in a
+moment dart, after discharging their muskets and arrows, and be
+completely hidden from our sight; a circumstance that always gives
+people who use bows and arrows the greatest confidence.
+Notwithstanding these demonstrations, we were exceedingly loath to
+come to blows.  We spent a full half-hour exposed at any moment to be
+struck by a bullet or poisoned arrow.  We explained that we were
+better armed than they were, and had plenty of ammunition, the
+suspected want of which often inspires them with courage, but that we
+did not wish to shed the blood of the children of the same Great
+Father with ourselves; that if we must fight, the guilt would be all
+theirs.
+
+This being a common mode of expostulation among themselves, we so far
+succeeded, that with great persuasion the leader and others laid down
+their arms, and waded over from the bank to the boats to talk the
+matter over.  "This was their river; they did not allow white men to
+use it.  We must pay toll for leave to pass."  It was somewhat
+humiliating to do so, but it was pay or fight; and, rather than
+fight, we submitted to the humiliation of paying for their
+friendship, and gave them thirty yards of cloth.  They pledged
+themselves to be our friends ever afterwards, and said they would
+have food cooked for us on our return.  We then hoisted sail, and
+proceeded, glad that the affair had been amicably settled.  Those on
+shore walked up to the bend above to look at the boat, as we
+supposed; but the moment she was abreast of them, they gave us a
+volley of musket-balls and poisoned arrows, without a word of
+warning.  Fortunately we were so near, that all the arrows passed
+clear over us, but four musket-balls went through the sail just above
+our heads.  All our assailants bolted into the bushes and long grass
+the instant after firing, save two, one of whom was about to
+discharge a musket and the other an arrow, when arrested by the fire
+of the second boat.  Not one of them showed their faces again, till
+we were a thousand yards away.  A few shots were then fired over
+their heads, to give them an idea of the range of our rifles, and
+they all fled into the woods.  Those on the sandbank rushed off too,
+with the utmost speed; but as they had not shot at us, we did not
+molest them, and they went off safely with their cloth.  They
+probably expected to kill one of our number, and in the confusion rob
+the boats.  It is only where the people are slavers that the natives
+of this part of Africa are bloodthirsty.
+
+These people have a bad name in the country in front, even among
+their own tribe.  A slave-trading Arab we met above, thinking we were
+then on our way down the river, advised us not to land at the
+villages, but to stay in the boats, as the inhabitants were
+treacherous, and attacked at once, without any warning or
+provocation.  Our experience of their conduct fully confirmed the
+truth of what he said.  There was no trade on the river where they
+lived, but beyond that part there was a brisk canoe-trade in rice and
+salt; those further in the interior cultivating rice, and sending it
+down the river to be exchanged for salt, which is extracted from the
+earth in certain places on the banks.  Our assailants hardly
+anticipated resistance, and told a neighbouring chief that, if they
+had known who we were, they would not have attacked English, who can
+"bite hard."  They offered no molestations on our way down, though we
+were an hour in passing their village.  Our canoe-men plucked up
+courage on finding that we had come off unhurt.  One of them, named
+Chiku, acknowledging that he had been terribly frightened, said.
+"His fear was not the kind which makes a man jump overboard and run
+away; but that which brings the heart up to the mouth, and renders
+the man powerless, and no more able to fight than a woman."
+
+In the country of Chonga Michi, about 80 or 90 miles up the river, we
+found decent people, though of the same tribe, who treated strangers
+with civility.  A body of Makoa had come from their own country in
+the south, and settled here.  The Makoa are known by a cicatrice in
+the forehead shaped like the new moon with the horns turned
+downwards.  The tribe possesses all the country west of Mosambique;
+and they will not allow any of the Portuguese to pass into their
+country more than two hours' distance from the fort.  A hill some ten
+or twelve miles distant, called Pau, has been visited during the
+present generation only by one Portuguese and one English officer,
+and this visit was accomplished only by the influence of the private
+friendship of a chief for this Portuguese gentleman.  Our allies have
+occupied the Fort of Mosambique for three hundred years, but in this,
+as in all other cases, have no power further than they can see from a
+gun-carriage.
+
+The Makoa chief, Matingula, was hospitable and communicative, telling
+us all he knew of the river and country beyond.  He had been once to
+Iboe and once at Mosambique with slaves.  Our men understood his
+language easily.  A useless musket he had bought at one of the above
+places was offered us for a little cloth.  Having received a present
+of food from him, a railway rug was handed to him:  he looked at it--
+had never seen cloth like that before--did not approve of it, and
+would rather have cotton cloth.  "But this will keep you warm at
+night."--"Oh, I do not wish to be kept warm at night."--We gave him a
+bit of cotton cloth, not one-third the value of the rug, but it was
+more highly prized.  His people refused to sell their fowls for our
+splendid prints and drab cloths.  They had probably been taken in
+with gaudy-patterned sham prints before.  They preferred a very
+cheap, plain, blue stuff of which they had experience.  A great
+quantity of excellent honey is collected all along the river, by bark
+hives being placed for the bees on the high trees on both banks.
+Large pots of it, very good and clear, were offered in exchange for a
+very little cloth.  No wax was brought for sale; there being no
+market for this commodity, it is probably thrown away as useless.
+
+At Michi we lose the tableland which, up to this point, bounds the
+view on both sides of the river, as it were, with ranges of flat-
+topped hills, 600 or 800 feet high; and to this plateau a level
+fertile plain succeeds, on which stand detached granite hills.  That
+portion of the tableland on the right bank seems to bend away to the
+south, still preserving the appearance of a hill range.  The height
+opposite extends a few miles further west, and then branches off in a
+northerly direction.  A few small pieces of coal were picked up on
+the sandbanks, showing that this useful mineral exists on the Rovuma,
+or on some of its tributaries:  the natives know that it will burn.
+At the lakelet Chidia, we noticed the same sandstone rock, with
+fossil wood on it, which we have on the Zambesi, and knew to be a
+sure evidence of coal beneath.  We mentioned this at the time to
+Captain Gardner, and our finding coal now seemed a verification of
+what we then said; the coal-field probably extends from the Zambesi
+to the Rovuma, if not beyond it.  Some of the rocks lower down have
+the permanent water-line three feet above the present height of the
+water.
+
+A few miles west of the Makoa of Matingula, we came again among the
+Makonde, but now of good repute.  War and slavery have driven them to
+seek refuge on the sand-banks.  A venerable-looking old man hailed us
+as we passed, and asked us if we were going by without speaking.  We
+landed, and he laid down his gun and came to us; he was accompanied
+by his brother, who shook hands with every one in the boat, as he had
+seen people do at Kilwa.  "Then you have seen white men before?" we
+said.  "Yes," replied the polite African, "but never people of your
+quality."  These men were very black, and wore but little clothing.
+A young woman, dressed in the highest style of Makonde fashion,
+punting as dexterously as a man could, brought a canoe full of girls
+to see us.  She wore an ornamental head-dress of red beads tied to
+her hair on one side of her head, a necklace of fine beads of various
+colours, two bright figured brass bracelets on her left arm, and
+scarcely a farthing's worth of cloth, though it was at its cheapest.
+
+As we pushed on westwards, we found that the river makes a little
+southing, and some reaches were deeper than any near the sea; but
+when we had ascended about 140 miles by the river's course from the
+sea, soft tufa rocks began to appear; ten miles beyond, the river
+became more narrow and rocky, and when, according to our measurement,
+we had ascended 156 miles, our further progress was arrested.  We
+were rather less than two degrees in a straight line from the Coast.
+The incidents worth noticing were but few:  seven canoes with loads
+of salt and rice kept company with us for some days, and the further
+we went inland, the more civil the people became.
+
+When we came to a stand, just below the island of Nyamatolo, Long. 38
+degrees 36 minutes E., and Lat. 11 degrees 53 minutes, the river was
+narrow, and full of rocks.  Near the island there is a rocky rapid
+with narrow passages fit only for native canoes; the fall is small,
+and the banks quite low; but these rocks were an effectual barrier to
+all further progress in boats.  Previous reports represented the
+navigable part of this river as extending to the distance of a
+month's sail from its mouth; we found that, at the ordinary heights
+of the water, a boat might reach the obstructions which seem peculiar
+to all African rivers in six or eight days.  The Rovuma is remarkable
+for the high lands that flank it for some eighty miles from the
+ocean.  The cataracts of other rivers occur in mountains, those of
+the Rovuma are found in a level part, with hills only in the
+distance.  Far away in the west and north we could see high blue
+heights, probably of igneous origin from their forms, rising out of a
+plain.
+
+The distance from Ngomano, a spot thirty miles further up, to the
+Arab crossing-places of Lake Nyassa Tsenga or Kotakota was said to be
+twelve days.  The way we had discovered to Lake Nyassa by Murchison's
+Cataracts had so much less land carriage, that we considered it best
+to take our steamer thither, by the route in which we were well
+known, instead of working where we were strangers; and accordingly we
+made up our minds to return.
+
+The natives reported a worse place above our turning-point--the
+passage being still narrower than this.  An Arab, they said, once
+built a boat above the rapids, and sent it down full of slaves; but
+it was broken to pieces in these upper narrows.  Many still
+maintained that the Rovuma came from Nyassa, and that it is very
+narrow as it issues out of the lake.  One man declared that he had
+seen it with his own eyes as it left the lake, and seemed displeased
+at being cross-questioned, as if we doubted his veracity.
+
+More satisfactory information, as it appeared to us, was obtained
+from others.  Two days, or thirty miles, beyond where we turned back,
+the Rovuma is joined by the Liende, which, coming from the south-
+west, rises in the mountains on the east side of Nyassa.  The great
+slave route to Kilwa runs up the banks of this river, which is only
+ankle-deep at the dry season of the year.  The Rovuma itself comes
+from the W.N.W., and after the traveller passes the confluence of the
+Liende at Ngomano or "meeting-place," the chief of which part is
+named Ndonde, he finds the river narrow, and the people Ajawa.
+
+Crocodiles in the Rovuma have a sorry time of it.  Never before were
+reptiles so persecuted and snubbed.  They are hunted with spears, and
+spring traps are set for them.  If one of them enters an inviting
+pool after fish, he soon finds a fence thrown round it, and a spring
+trap set in the only path out of the enclosure.  Their flesh is
+eaten, and relished.  The banks, on which the female lays her eggs by
+night, are carefully searched by day, and all the eggs dug out and
+devoured.  The fish-hawk makes havoc among the few young ones that
+escape their other enemies.  Our men were constantly on the look-out
+for crocodiles' nests.  One was found containing thirty-five newly-
+laid eggs, and they declared that the crocodile would lay as many
+more the second night in another place.  The eggs were a foot deep in
+the sand on the top of a bank ten feet high.  The animal digs a hole
+with its foot, covers the eggs, and leaves them till the river rises
+over the nest in about three months afterwards, when she comes back,
+and assists the young ones out.  We once saw opposite Tette young
+crocodiles in December, swimming beside an island in company with an
+old one.  The yolk of the egg is nearly as white as the real white.
+In taste they resemble hen's eggs with perhaps a smack of custard,
+and would be as highly relished by whites as by blacks, were it not
+for their unsavoury origin in men-eaters.
+
+Hunting the Senze (Aulacodus Swindernianus), an animal the size of a
+large cat, but in shape more like a pig, was the chief business of
+men and boys as we passed the reedy banks and low islands.  They set
+fire to a mass of reeds, and, armed with sticks, spears, bows and
+arrows, stand in groups guarding the outlets through which the seared
+Senze may run from the approaching flames.  Dark dense volumes of
+impenetrable smoke now roll over on the lee side of the islet, and
+shroud the hunters.  At times vast sheets of lurid flames bursting
+forth, roaring, crackling and exploding, leap wildly far above the
+tall reeds.  Out rush the terrified animals, and amid the smoke are
+seen the excited hunters dancing about with frantic gesticulations,
+and hurling stick, spear, and arrow at their burned out victims.
+Kites hover over the smoke, ready to pounce on the mantis and locusts
+as they spring from the fire.  Small crows and hundreds of swallows
+are on eager wing, darting into the smoke and out again, seizing
+fugitive flies.  Scores of insects, in their haste to escape from the
+fire, jump into the river, and the active fish enjoy a rare feast.
+
+We returned to the "Pioneer" on the 9th of October, having been away
+one month.  The ship's company had used distilled water, a condenser
+having been sent out from England; and there had not been a single
+case of sickness on board since we left, though there were so many
+cases of fever the few days she lay in the same spot last year.  Our
+boat party drank the water of the river, and the three white sailors,
+who had never been in an African river before, had some slight
+attacks of fever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+
+Return to the Zambesi--Bishop Mackenzie's grave--Frightful scenes
+with crocodiles--Death of Mr. Thornton--African poisons--Recall of
+the Expedition.
+
+We put to sea on the 18th of October, and, again touching at Johanna,
+obtained a crew of Johanna men and some oxen, and sailed for the
+Zambesi; but our fuel failing before we reached it, and the wind
+being contrary, we ran into Quillimane for wood.
+
+Quillimane must have been built solely for the sake of carrying on
+the slave-trade, for no man in his senses would ever have dreamed of
+placing a village on such a low, muddy, fever-haunted, and mosquito-
+swarming site, had it not been for the facilities it afforded for
+slaving.  The bar may at springs and floods be easily crossed by
+sailing-vessels, but, being far from the land, it is always dangerous
+for boats.  Slaves, under the name of "free emigrants," have gone by
+thousands from Quillimane, during the last six years, to the ports a
+little to the south, particularly to Massangano.  Some excellent
+brick-houses still stand in the place, and the owners are generous
+and hospitable:  among them our good friend, Colonel Nunez.  His
+disinterested kindness to us and to all our countrymen can never be
+forgotten.  He is a noble example of what energy and uprightness may
+accomplish even here.  He came out as a cabin-boy, and, without a
+single friend to help him, he has persevered in an honourable course
+until he is the richest man on the East Coast.  When Dr. Livingstone
+came down the Zambesi in 1856, Colonel Nunez was the chief of the
+only four honourable, trustworthy men in the country.  But while he
+has risen a whole herd has sunk, making loud lamentations, through
+puffs of cigar-smoke, over negro laziness; they might add, their own.
+
+All agricultural enterprise is virtually discouraged by Quillimane
+Government.  A man must purchase a permit from the Governor, when he
+wishes to visit his country farm; and this tax, in a country where
+labour is unpopular, causes the farms to be almost entirely left in
+the hands of a head slave, who makes returns to his master as
+interest or honesty prompts him.  A passport must also be bought
+whenever a man wishes to go up the river to Mazaro, Senna, or Tette,
+or even to reside for a month at Quillimane.  With a soil and a
+climate well suited for the growth of the cane, abundance of slave
+labour, and water communication to any market in the world, they have
+never made their own sugar.  All they use is imported from Bombay.
+"The people of Quillimane have no enterprise," said a young European
+Portuguese, "they do nothing, and are always wasting their time in
+suffering, or in recovering from fever."
+
+We entered the Zambesi about the end of November and found it
+unusually low, so we did not get up to Shupanga till the 19th of
+December.  The friends of our Mazaro men, who had now become good
+sailors and very attentive servants, turned out and gave them a
+hearty welcome back from the perils of the sea:  they had begun to
+fear that they would never return.  We hired them at a sixteen-yard
+piece of cloth a month--about ten shillings' worth, the Portuguese
+market-price of the cloth being then sevenpence halfpenny a yard,--
+and paid them five pieces each, for four-and-a-half months' work.  A
+merchant at the same time paid other Mazaro men three pieces for
+seven months, and they were with him in the interior.  If the
+merchants do not prosper, it is not because labour is dear, but
+because it is scarce, and because they are so eager on every occasion
+to sell the workmen out of the country.  Our men had also received
+quantities of good clothes from the sailors of the "Pioneer" and of
+the "Orestes," and were now regarded by their neighbours and by
+themselves as men of importance.  Never before had they possessed so
+much wealth:  they believed that they might settle in life, being now
+of sufficient standing to warrant their entering the married state;
+and a wife and a hut were among their first investments.  Sixteen
+yards were paid to the wife's parents, and a hut cost four yards.  We
+should have liked to have kept them in the ship, for they were well-
+behaved and had learned a great deal of the work required.  Though
+they would not themselves go again, they engaged others for us; and
+brought twice as many as we could take, of their brothers and
+cousins, who were eager to join the ship and go with us up the Shire,
+or anywhere else.  They all agreed to take half-pay until they too
+had learned to work; and we found no scarcity of labour, though all
+that could be exported is now out of the country.
+
+There had been a drought of unusual severity during the past season
+in the country between Lupata and Kebrabasa, and it had extended
+north-east to the Manganja highlands.  All the Tette slaves, except a
+very few household ones, had been driven away by hunger, and were now
+far off in the woods, and wherever wild fruit, or the prospect of
+obtaining anything whatever to keep the breath of life in them, was
+to be found.  Their masters were said never to expect to see them
+again.  There have been two years of great hunger at Tette since we
+have been in the country, and a famine like the present prevailed in
+1854, when thousands died of starvation.  If men like the Cape
+farmers owned this country, their energy and enterprise would soon
+render the crops independent of rain.  There being plenty of slope or
+fall, the land could be easily irrigated from the Zambesi and its
+tributary streams.  A Portuguese colony can never prosper:  it is
+used as a penal settlement, and everything must be done military
+fashion.  "What do I care for this country?" said the most
+enterprising of the Tette merchants, "all I want is to make money as
+soon possible, and then go to Bombay and enjoy it."  All business at
+Tette was now suspended.  Carriers could not be found to take the
+goods into the interior, and the merchants could barely obtain food
+for their own families.  At Mazaro more rain had fallen, and a
+tolerable crop followed.  The people of Shupanga were collecting and
+drying different wild fruits, nearly all of which are far from
+palatable to a European taste.  The root of a small creeper called
+"bise" is dug up and eaten.  In appearance it is not unlike the small
+white sweet potato, and has a little of the flavour of our potato.
+It would be very good, if it were only a little larger.  From another
+tuber, called "ulanga," very good starch can be made.  A few miles
+from Shupanga there is an abundance of large game, but the people
+here, though fond enough of meat, are not a hunting race, and seldom
+kill any.
+
+The Shire having risen, we steamed off on the 10th of January, 1863,
+with the "Lady Nyassa" in tow.  It was not long before we came upon
+the ravages of the notorious Mariano.  The survivors of a small
+hamlet, at the foot of Morambala, were in a state of starvation,
+having lost their food by one of his marauding parties.  The women
+were in the fields collecting insects, roots, wild fruits, and
+whatever could be eaten, in order to drag on their lives, if
+possible, till the next crop should be ripe.  Two canoes passed us,
+that had been robbed by Mariano's band of everything they had in
+them; the owners were gathering palm-nuts for their subsistence.
+They wore palm-leaf aprons, as the robbers had stripped them of their
+clothing and ornaments.  Dead bodies floated past us daily, and in
+the mornings the paddles had to be cleared of corpses, caught by the
+floats during the night.  For scores of miles the entire population
+of the valley was swept away by this scourge Mariano, who is again,
+as he was before, the great Portuguese slave-agent.  It made the
+heart ache to see the widespread desolation; the river-banks, once so
+populous, all silent; the villages burned down, and an oppressive
+stillness reigning where formerly crowds of eager sellers appeared
+with the various products of their industry.  Here and there might be
+seen on the bank a small dreary deserted shed, where had sat, day
+after day, a starving fisherman, until the rising waters drove the
+fish from their wonted haunts, and left him to die.  Tingane had been
+defeated; his people had been killed, kidnapped, and forced to flee
+from their villages.  There were a few wretched survivors in a
+village above the Ruo; but the majority of the population was dead.
+The sight and smell of dead bodies was everywhere.  Many skeletons
+lay beside the path, where in their weakness they had fallen and
+expired.  Ghastly living forms of boys and girls, with dull dead
+eyes, were crouching beside some of the huts.  A few more miserable
+days of their terrible hunger, and they would be with the dead.
+
+Oppressed with the shocking scenes around, we visited the Bishop's
+grave; and though it matters little where a good Christian's ashes
+rest, yet it was with sadness that we thought over the hopes which
+had clustered around him, as he left the classic grounds of
+Cambridge, all now buried in this wild place.  How it would have torn
+his kindly heart to witness the sights we now were forced to see!
+
+In giving vent to the natural feelings of regret, that a man so
+eminently endowed and learned, as was Bishop Mackenzie, should have
+been so soon cut off, some have expressed an opinion that it was
+wrong to use an instrument so valuable MERELY to convert the heathen.
+If the attempt is to be made at all, it is "penny wise and pound
+foolish" to employ any but the very best men, and those who are
+specially educated for the work.  An ordinary clergyman, however well
+suited for a parish, will not, without special training, make a
+Missionary; and as to their comparative usefulness, it is like that
+of the man who builds an hospital, as compared with that of the
+surgeon who in after years only administers for a time the remedies
+which the founder had provided in perpetuity.  Had the Bishop
+succeeded in introducing Christianity, his converts might have been
+few, but they would have formed a continuous roll for all time to
+come.
+
+The Shire fell two feet, before we reached the shallow crossing where
+we had formerly such difficulty, and we had now two ships to take up.
+A hippopotamus was shot two miles above a bank on which the ship lay
+a fortnight:  it floated in three hours.  As the boat was towing it
+down, the crocodiles were attracted by the dead beast, and several
+shots had to be fired to keep them off.  The bullet had not entered
+the brain of the animal, but driven a splinter of bone into it.  A
+little moisture with some gas issued from the wound, and this was all
+that could tell the crocodiles down the stream of a dead
+hippopotamus; and yet they came up from miles below.  Their sense of
+smell must be as acute as their hearing; both are quite
+extraordinary.  Dozens fed on the meat we left.  Our Krooman, Jumbo,
+used to assert that the crocodile never eats fresh meat, but always
+keeps it till it is high and tender--and the stronger it smells the
+better he likes it.  There seems to be some truth in this.  They can
+swallow but small pieces at a time, and find it difficult to tear
+fresh meat.  In the act of swallowing, which is like that of a dog,
+the head is raised out of the water.  We tried to catch some, and one
+was soon hooked; it required half-a-dozen hands to haul him up the
+river, and the shark-hook straightened, and he got away.  A large
+iron hook was next made, but, as the creatures could not swallow it,
+their jaws soon pressed it straight--and our crocodile-fishing was a
+failure.  As one might expect,--from the power even of a salmon--the
+tug of a crocodile was terribly strong.
+
+The corpse of a boy floated past the ship; a monstrous crocodile
+rushed at it with the speed of a greyhound, caught it and shook it,
+as a terrier dog does a rat.  Others dashed at the prey, each with
+his powerful tail causing the water to churn and froth, as he
+furiously tore off a piece.  In a few seconds it was all gone.  The
+sight was frightful to behold.  The Shire swarmed with crocodiles; we
+counted sixty-seven of these repulsive reptiles on a single bank, but
+they are not as fierce as they are in some rivers.  "Crocodiles,"
+says Captain Tuckey, "are so plentiful in the Congo, near the rapids,
+and so frequently carry off the women, who at daylight go down to the
+river for water, that, while they are filling their calabashes, one
+of the party is usually employed in throwing large stones into the
+water outside."  Here, either a calabash on a long pole is used in
+drawing water, or a fence is planted.  The natives eat the crocodile,
+but to us the idea of tasting the musky-scented, fishy-looking flesh
+carried the idea of cannibalism.  Humboldt remarks, that in South
+America the alligators of some rivers are more dangerous than in
+others.  Alligators differ from crocodiles in the fourth or canine
+tooth going into a hole or socket in the upper jaw, while in the
+crocodile it fits into a notch.  The forefoot of the crocodile has
+five toes not webbed, the hindfoot has four toes which are webbed; in
+the alligator the web is altogether wanting.  They are so much alike
+that they would no doubt breed together.
+
+One of the crocodiles which was shot had a piece snapped off the end
+of his tail, another had lost a forefoot in fighting; we saw actual
+leeches between the teeth, such as are mentioned by Herodotus, but we
+never witnessed the plover picking them out.  Their greater
+fierceness in one part of the country than another is doubtless owing
+to a scarcity of fish; in fact, Captain Tuckey says, of that part of
+the Congo, mentioned above, "There are no fish here but catfish," and
+we found that the lake crocodiles, living in clear water, and with
+plenty of fish, scarcely ever attacked man.  The Shire teems with
+fish of many different kinds.  The only time, as already remarked,
+when its crocodiles are particularly to be dreaded, is when the river
+is in flood.  Then the fish are driven from their usual haunts, and
+no game comes down to the river to drink, water being abundant in
+pools inland.  Hunger now impels the crocodile to lie in wait for the
+women who come to draw water, and on the Zambesi numbers are carried
+off every year.  The danger is not so great at other seasons; though
+it is never safe to bathe, or to stoop to drink, where one cannot see
+the bottom, especially in the evening.  One of the Makololo ran down
+in the dusk of the river; and, as he was busy tossing the water to
+his mouth with his hand, in the manner peculiar to the natives, a
+crocodile rose suddenly from the bottom, and caught him by the hand.
+The limb of a tree was fortunately within reach, and he had presence
+of mind to lay hold of it.  Both tugged and pulled; the crocodile for
+his dinner, and the man for dear life.  For a time it appeared
+doubtful whether a dinner or a life was to be sacrificed; but the man
+held on, and the monster let the hand go, leaving the deep marks of
+his ugly teeth in it.
+
+During our detention, in expectation of the permanent rise of the
+river in March, Dr. Kirk and Mr. C. Livingstone collected numbers of
+the wading-birds of the marshes--and made pleasant additions to our
+salted provisions, in geese, ducks, and hippopotamus flesh.  One of
+the comb or knob-nosed geese, on being strangled in order to have its
+skin preserved without injury, continued to breathe audibly by the
+broken humerus, or wing-bone, and other means had to be adopted to
+put it out of pain.  This was as if a man on the gallows were to
+continue to breathe by a broken armbone, and afforded us an
+illustration of the fact, that in birds, the vital air penetrates
+every part of the interior of their bodies.  The breath passes
+through and round about the lungs--bathes the surfaces of the
+viscera, and enters the cavities of the bones; it even penetrates
+into some spaces between the muscles of the neck--and thus not only
+is the most perfect oxygenation of the blood secured, but, the
+temperature of the blood being very high, the air in every part is
+rarefied, and the great lightness and vigour provided for, that the
+habits of birds require.  Several birds were found by Dr. Kirk to
+have marrow in the tibiae, though these bones are generally described
+as hollow.
+
+During the period of our detention on the shallow part of the river
+in March, Mr. Thornton came up to us from Shupanga:  he had, as
+before narrated, left the Expedition in 1859, and joined Baron van
+der Decken, in the journey to Kilimanjaro, when, by an ascent of the
+mountain to the height of 8000 feet, it was first proved to be
+covered with perpetual snow, and the previous information respecting
+it, given by the Church of England Missionaries, Krapf and Rebman,
+confirmed.  It is now well known that the Baron subsequently ascended
+the Kilimanjaro to 14,000 feet, and ascertained its highest peak to
+be at least 20,000 feet above the sea.  Mr. Thornton made the map of
+the first journey, at Shupanga, from materials collected when with
+the Baron; and when that work was accomplished, followed us.  He was
+then directed to examine geologically the Cataract district, but not
+to expose himself to contact with the Ajawa until the feelings of
+that tribe should be ascertained.
+
+The members of Bishop Mackenzie's party, on the loss of their head,
+fell back from Magomero on the highlands, to Chibisa's, in the low-
+lying Shire Valley; and Thornton, finding them suffering from want of
+animal food, kindly volunteered to go across thence to Tette, and
+bring a supply of goats and sheep.  We were not aware of this step,
+to which the generosity of his nature prompted him, till two days
+after he had started.  In addition to securing supplies for the
+Universities' Mission, he brought some for the Expedition, and took
+bearings, by which he hoped to connect his former work at Tette with
+the mountains in the Shire district.  The toil of this journey was
+too much for his strength, as with the addition of great scarcity of
+water, it had been for that of Dr. Kirk and Rae, and he returned in a
+sadly haggard and exhausted condition; diarrhoea supervened, and that
+ended in dysentery and fever, which terminated fatally on the 21st of
+April, 1863.  He received the unremitting attentions of Dr. Kirk, and
+Dr. Meller, surgeon of the "Pioneer," during the fortnight of his
+illness; and as he had suffered very little from fever, or any other
+disease, in Africa, we had entertained strong hopes that his youth
+and unimpaired constitution would have carried him through.  During
+the night of the 20th his mind wandered so much, that we could not
+ascertain his last wishes; and on the morning of the 21st, to our
+great sorrow, he died.  He was buried on the 22nd, near a large tree
+on the right bank of the Shire, about five hundred yards from the
+lowest of the Murchison Cataracts--and close to a rivulet, at which
+the "Lady Nyassa" and "Pioneer" lay.
+
+No words can convey an adequate idea of the scene of widespread
+desolation which the once pleasant Shire Valley now presented.
+Instead of smiling villages and crowds of people coming with things
+for sale, scarcely a soul was to be seen; and, when by chance one
+lighted on a native, his frame bore the impress of hunger, and his
+countenance the look of a cringing broken-spiritedness.  A drought
+had visited the land after the slave-hunting panic swept over it.
+Had it been possible to conceive the thorough depopulation which had
+ensued, we should have avoided coming up the river.  Large masses of
+the people had fled down to the Shire, only anxious to get the river
+between them and their enemies.  Most of the food had been left
+behind; and famine and starvation had cut off so many, that the
+remainder were too few to bury the dead.  The corpses we saw floating
+down the river were only a remnant of those that had perished, whom
+their friends, from weakness, could not bury, nor over-gorged
+crocodiles devour.  It is true that famine caused a great portion of
+this waste of human life:  but the slave-trade must be deemed the
+chief agent in the ruin, because, as we were informed, in former
+droughts all the people flocked from the hills down to the marshes,
+which are capable of yielding crops of maize in less than three
+months, at any time of the year, and now they were afraid to do so.
+A few, encouraged by the Mission in the attempt to cultivate, had
+their little patches robbed as successive swarms of fugitives came
+from the hills.  Who can blame these outcasts from house and home for
+stealing to save their wretched lives, or wonder that the owners
+protected the little all, on which their own lives depended, with
+club and spear?  We were informed by Mr. Waller of the dreadful
+blight which had befallen the once smiling Shire Valley.  His words,
+though strong, failed to impress us with the reality.  In fact, they
+were received, as some may accept our own, as tinged with
+exaggeration; but when our eyes beheld the last mere driblets of this
+cup of woe, we for the first time felt that the enormous wrongs
+inflicted on our fellow-men by slaving are beyond exaggeration.
+
+Wherever we took a walk, human skeletons were seen in every
+direction, and it was painfully interesting to observe the different
+postures in which the poor wretches had breathed their last.  A whole
+heap had been thrown down a slope behind a village, where the
+fugitives often crossed the river from the east; and in one hut of
+the same village no fewer than twenty drums had been collected,
+probably the ferryman's fees.  Many had ended their misery under
+shady trees--others under projecting crags in the hills--while others
+lay in their huts, with closed doors, which when opened disclosed the
+mouldering corpse with the poor rags round the loins--the skull
+fallen off the pillow--the little skeleton of the child, that had
+perished first, rolled up in a mat between two large skeletons.  The
+sight of this desert, but eighteen months ago a well peopled valley,
+now literally strewn with human bones, forced the conviction upon us,
+that the destruction of human life in the middle passage, however
+great, constitutes but a small portion of the waste, and made us feel
+that unless the slave-trade--that monster iniquity, which has so long
+brooded over Africa--is put down, lawful commerce cannot be
+established.
+
+We believed that, if it were possible to get a steamer upon the Lake,
+we could by her means put a check on the slavers from the East Coast;
+and aid more effectually still in the suppression of the slave-trade,
+by introducing, by way of the Rovuma, a lawful traffic in ivory.  We
+therefore unscrewed the "Lady Nyassa" at a rivulet about five hundred
+yards below the first cataract, and began to make a road over the
+thirty-five or forty miles of land portage, by which to carry her up
+piecemeal.  After mature consideration, we could not imagine a more
+noble work of benevolence, than thus to introduce light and liberty
+into a quarter of this fair earth, which human lust has converted
+into the nearest possible resemblance of what we conceive the
+infernal regions to be--and we sacrificed much of our private
+resources as an offering for the promotion of so good a cause.
+
+The chief part of the labour of road-making consisted in cutting down
+trees and removing stones.  The country being covered with open
+forest, a small tree had to be cut about every fifty or sixty yards.
+The land near the river was so very much intersected by ravines, that
+search had to be made, a mile from its banks, for more level ground.
+Experienced Hottentot drivers would have taken Cape wagons without
+any other trouble than that of occasionally cutting down a tree.  No
+tsetse infested this district, and the cattle brought from Johanna
+flourished on the abundant pasture.  The first half-mile of road led
+up, by a gradual slope, to an altitude of two hundred feet above the
+ship, and a sensible difference of climate was felt even there.  For
+the remainder of the distance the height increased,--till, at the
+uppermost cataract, we were more than 1200 feet above the sea.  The
+country here, having recovered from the effects of the drought, was
+bright with young green woodland, and mountains of the same
+refreshing hue.  But the absence of the crowds, which had attended us
+as we carried up the boat, when the women followed us for miles with
+fine meal, vegetables, and fat fowls for sale, and the boys were ever
+ready for a little job--and the oppressive stillness bore heavily on
+our spirits.  The Portuguese of Tette had very effectually removed
+our labourers.  Not an ounce of fresh provisions could be obtained,
+except what could be shot, and even the food for our native crew had
+to be brought one hundred and fifty miles from the Zambesi.
+
+The diet of salt provisions and preserved meats without vegetables,
+with the depression of spirits caused by seeing how effectually a few
+wretched convicts, aided by the connivance of officials, of whom
+better might have been hoped, could counteract our best efforts, and
+turn intended good to certain evil, brought on attacks of dysentery,
+which went the round of the Expedition--and, Dr. Kirk and Charles
+Livingstone having suffered most severely, it was deemed advisable
+that they should go home.  This measure was necessary, though much to
+the regret of all--for having done so much, they were naturally
+anxious to be present, when, by the establishing ourselves on the
+Lake, all our efforts should be crowned with success.  After it had
+been decided that these two officers, and all the whites who could be
+spared, should be sent down to the sea for a passage to England, Dr.
+Livingstone was seized in May with a severe attack of dysentery,
+which continued for a month, and reduced him to a shadow.  Dr. Kirk
+kindly remained in attendance till the worst was passed.  The parting
+took place on the 19th of May.
+
+After a few miles of road were completed, and the oxen broken in, we
+resolved to try and render ourselves independent of the south for
+fresh provisions, by going in a boat up the Shire, above the
+Cataracts, to the tribes at the foot of Lake Nyassa, who were still
+untouched by the Ajawa invasion.  In furtherance of this plan Dr.
+Livingstone and Mr. Rae determined to walk up to examine, and, if
+need be, mend the boat which had been left two seasons previously
+hung up to the limb of a large shady tree, before attempting to carry
+another past the Cataracts.  The "Pioneer," which was to be left in
+charge of our active and most trustworthy gunner, Mr. Edward D.
+Young, R.N., was thoroughly roofed over with euphorbia branches and
+grass, so as completely to protect her decks from the sun:  she also
+received daily a due amount of man-of-war scrubbing and washing; and,
+besides having everything put in shipshape fashion, was every evening
+swung out into the middle of the river, for the sake of the greater
+amount of air which circulated there.  In addition to their daily
+routine work of the ship, the three stokers, one sailor, and one
+carpenter--now our complement--were encouraged to hunt for guinea-
+fowl, which in June, when the water inland is dried up, come in large
+flocks to the river's banks, and roost on the trees at night.
+Everything that can be done to keep mind and body employed tends to
+prevent fever.
+
+While we were employed in these operations, some of the poor starved
+people about had been in the habit of crossing the river, and reaping
+the self-sown mapira, in the old gardens of their countrymen.  In the
+afternoon of the 9th, a canoe came floating down empty, and shortly
+after a woman was seen swimming near the other side, which was about
+two hundred yards distant from us.  Our native crew manned the boat,
+and rescued her; when brought on board, she was found to have an
+arrow-head, eight or ten inches long, in her back, below the ribs,
+and slanting up through the diaphragm and left lung, towards the
+heart--she had been shot from behind when stooping.  Air was coming
+out of the wound, and, there being but an inch of the barbed arrow-
+head visible, it was thought better not to run the risk of her dying
+under the operation necessary for its removal; so we carried her up
+to her own hut.  One of her relatives was less scrupulous, for he cut
+out the arrow and part of the lung.  Mr. Young sent her occasionally
+portions of native corn, and strange to say found that she not only
+became well, but stout.  The constitution of these people seems to
+have a wonderful power of self-repair--and it could be no slight
+privation which had cut off the many thousands that we saw dead
+around us.
+
+We regretted that, in consequence of Dr. Meller having now sole
+medical charge, we could not have his company in our projected trip;
+but he found employment in botany and natural history, after the
+annual sickly season of March, April, and May was over; and his
+constant presence was not so much required at the ship.  Later in the
+year, when he could be well spared, he went down the river to take up
+an appointment he had been offered in Madagascar; but unfortunately
+was so severely tried by illness while detained at the coast, that
+for nearly two years he was not able to turn his abilities as a
+naturalist to account by proceeding to that island.  We have no doubt
+but he will yet distinguish himself in that untrodden field.
+
+On the 16th of June we started for the Upper Cataracts, with a mule-
+cart, our road lying a distance of a mile west from the river.  We
+saw many of the deserted dwellings of the people who formerly came to
+us; and were very much struck by the extent of land under
+cultivation, though that, compared with the whole country, is very
+small.  Large patches of mapira continued to grow,--as it is said it
+does from the roots for three years.  The mapira was mixed with tall
+bushes of the Congo-bean, castor-oil plants, and cotton.  The largest
+patch of this kind we paced, and found it to be six hundred and
+thirty paces on one side--the rest were from one acre to three, and
+many not more than one-third of an acre.  The cotton--of very
+superior quality--was now dropping off the bushes, to be left to rot-
+-there was no one to gather what would have been of so much value in
+Lancashire.  The huts, in the different villages we entered, were
+standing quite perfect.  The mortars for pounding corn--the stones
+for grinding it--the water and beer pots--the empty corn-safes and
+kitchen utensils, were all untouched; and most of the doors were
+shut, as if the starving owners had gone out to wander in search of
+roots or fruits in the forest, and had never returned.  When opened,
+several huts revealed a ghastly sight of human skeletons.  Some were
+seen in such unnatural positions, as to give the idea that they had
+expired in a faint, when trying to reach something to allay the
+gnawings of hunger.
+
+We took several of the men as far as the Mukuru-Madse for the sake of
+the change of air and for occupation, and also to secure for the
+ships a supply of buffalo meat--as those animals were reported to be
+in abundance on that stream.  But though it was evident from the
+tracks that the report was true, it was impossible to get a glimpse
+of them.  The grass being taller than we were, and pretty thickly
+planted, they always knew of our approach before we saw them.  And
+the first intimation we had of their being near was the sound they
+made in rushing over the stones, breaking the branches, and knocking
+their horns against each other.  Once, when seeking a ford for the
+cart, at sunrise, we saw a herd slowly wending up the hill-side from
+the water.  Sending for a rifle, and stalking with intense eagerness
+for a fat beefsteak, instead of our usual fare of salted provisions,
+we got so near that we could hear the bulls uttering their hoarse
+deep low, but could see nothing except the mass of yellow grass in
+front; suddenly the buffalo-birds sounded their alarm-whistle, and
+away dashed the troop, and we got sight of neither birds nor beasts.
+This would be no country for a sportsman except when the grass is
+short.  The animals are wary, from the dread they have of the
+poisoned arrows.  Those of the natives who do hunt are deeply imbued
+with the hunting spirit, and follow the game with a stealthy
+perseverance and cunning, quite extraordinary.  The arrow making no
+noise, the herd is followed up until the poison takes effect, and the
+wounded animal falls out.  It is then patiently watched till it
+drops--a portion of meat round the wound is cut away, and all the
+rest eaten.
+
+Poisoned arrows are made in two pieces.  An iron barb is firmly
+fastened to one end of a small wand of wood, ten inches or a foot
+long, the other end of which, fined down to a long point, is nicely
+fitted, though not otherwise secured, in the hollow of the reed,
+which forms the arrow shaft.  The wood immediately below the iron
+head is smeared with the poison.  When the arrow is shot into an
+animal, the reed either falls to the ground at once, or is very soon
+brushed off by the bushes; but the iron barb and poisoned upper part
+of the wood remain in the wound.  If made in one piece, the arrow
+would often be torn out, head and all, by the long shaft catching in
+the underwood, or striking against trees.  The poison used here, and
+called kombi, is obtained from a species of strophanthus, and is very
+virulent.  Dr. Kirk found by an accidental experiment on himself that
+it acts by lowering the pulse.  In using his tooth-brush, which had
+been in a pocket containing a little of the poison, he noticed a
+bitter taste, but attributed it to his having sometimes used, the
+handle in taking quinine.  Though the quantity was small, it
+immediately showed its power by lowering his pulse which at the time
+had been raised by a cold, and next day he was perfectly restored.
+Not much can be inferred from a single case of this kind, but it is
+possible that the kombi may turn out a valuable remedy; and as
+Professor Sharpey has conducted a series of experiments with this
+substance, we look with interest for the results.  An alkaloid has
+been obtained from it similar to strychnine.  There is no doubt that
+all kinds of wild animals die from the effects of poisoned arrows,
+except the elephant and hippopotamus.  The amount of poison that this
+little weapon can convey into their systems being too small to kill
+those huge beasts, the hunters resort to the beam trap instead.
+
+Another kind of poison was met with on Lake Nyassa, which was said to
+be used exclusively for killing men.  It was put on small wooden
+arrow-heads, and carefully protected by a piece of maize-leaf tied
+round it.  It caused numbness of the tongue when the smallest
+particle was tasted.  The Bushmen of the northern part of the
+Kalahari were seen applying the entrails of a small caterpillar which
+they termed 'Nga to their arrows.  This venom was declared to be so
+powerful in producing delirium, that a man in dying returned in
+imagination to a state of infancy, and would call for his mother's
+breast.  Lions when shot with it are said to perish in agonies.  The
+poisonous ingredient in this case may be derived from the plant on
+which the caterpillar feeds.  It is difficult to conceive by what
+sort of experiments the properties of these poisons, known for
+generations, were proved.  Probably the animal instincts, which have
+become so obtuse by civilization, that children in England eat the
+berries of the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) without
+suspicion, were in the early uncivilized state much more keen.  In
+some points instinct is still retained among savages.  It is related
+that in the celebrated voyage of the French navigator, Bougainville,
+a young lady, who had assumed the male attire, performed all the hard
+duties incident to the calling of a common sailor; and, even as
+servant to the geologist, carried a bag of stones and specimens over
+hills and dales without a complaint, and without having her sex
+suspected by her associates; but on landing among the savages of one
+of the South Sea Islands, she was instantly recognized as a female.
+They began to show their impressions in a way that compelled her to
+confess her sex, and throw herself on the protection of the
+commander, which of course was granted.  In like manner, the earlier
+portions of the human family may have had their instincts as to
+plants more highly developed than any of their descendants--if indeed
+much more knowledge than we usually suppose be not the effect of
+direct revelation from above.
+
+The Mukuru-Madse has a deep rocky bed.  The water is generally about
+four feet deep, and fifteen or twenty yards broad.  Before reaching
+it, we passed five or six gullies; but beyond it the country, for two
+or three miles from the river, was comparatively smooth.  The long
+grass was overrunning all the native paths, and one species (sanu),
+which has a sharp barbed seed a quarter of an inch in length, enters
+every pore of woollen clothing and highly irritates the skin.  From
+its hard, sharp point a series of minute barbs are laid back, and
+give the seed a hold wherever it enters:  the slightest touch gives
+it an entering motion, and the little hooks prevent its working out.
+These seeds are so abundant in some spots, that the inside of the
+stocking becomes worse than the roughest hair shirt.  It is, however,
+an excellent self-sower, and fine fodder; it rises to the height of
+common meadow-grass in England, and would be a capital plant for
+spreading over a new country not so abundantly supplied with grasses
+as this is.
+
+We have sometimes noticed two or three leaves together pierced
+through by these seeds, and thus made, as it were, into wings to
+carry them to any soil suited to their growth.
+
+We always follow the native paths, though they are generally not more
+than fifteen inches broad, and so often have deep little holes in
+them, made for the purpose of setting traps for small animals, and
+are so much obscured by the long grass, that one has to keep one's
+eyes on the ground more than is pleasant.  In spite, however, of all
+drawbacks, it is vastly more easy to travel on these tracks than to
+go straight over uncultivated ground, or virgin forest.  A path
+usually leads to some village, though sometimes it turns out to be a
+mere game track leading nowhere.
+
+In going north, we came into a part called Mpemba where Chibisa was
+owned as chief, but the people did not know that he had been
+assassinated by the Portuguese Terera.  A great deal of grain was
+lying round the hut, where we spent the night.  Very large numbers of
+turtledoves feasted undisturbed on the tall stalked mapira ears, and
+we easily secured plenty of fine fat guinea-fowls--now allowed to
+feed leisurely in the deserted gardens.  The reason assigned for all
+this listless improvidence was "There are no women to grind the corn-
+-all are dead."
+
+The cotton patches in all cases seemed to have been so well cared
+for, and kept so free of weeds formerly, that, though now untended,
+but few weeds had sprung up; and the bushes were thus preserved in
+the annual grass burnings.  Many baobab-trees grow in different
+spots, and the few people seen were using the white pulp found
+between the seeds to make a pleasant subacid drink.
+
+On passing Malango, near the uppermost cataract, not a soul was to be
+seen; but, as we rested opposite a beautiful tree-covered island, the
+merry voices of children at play fell on our ears--the parents had
+fled thither for protection from the slave-hunting Ajawa, still urged
+on by the occasional visits of the Portuguese agents from Tette.  The
+Ajawa, instead of passing below the Cataracts, now avoided us, and
+crossed over to the east side near to the tree on which we had hung
+the boat.  Those of the Manganja, to whom we could make ourselves
+known, readily came to us; but the majority had lost all confidence
+in themselves, in each other, and in every one else.  The boat had
+been burned about three months previously, and the Manganja were very
+anxious that we should believe that this had been the act of the
+Ajawa; but on scanning the spot we saw that it was more likely to
+have caught fire in the grass-burning of the country.  Had we
+intended to be so long in returning to it, we should have hoisted it
+bottom upwards; for, as it was, it is probable that a quantity of
+dried leaves lay inside, and a spark ignited the whole.  All the
+trees within fifty yards were scorched and killed, and the nails,
+iron, and copper sheathing, all lay undisturbed beneath.  Had the
+Ajawa done the deed, they would have taken away the copper and iron.
+
+Our hopes of rendering ourselves independent of the south for
+provisions, by means of this boat, being thus disappointed, we turned
+back with the intention of carrying another up to the same spot; and,
+in order to find level ground for this, we passed across from the
+Shire at Malango to the upper part of the stream Lesungwe.  A fine,
+active, intelligent fellow, called Pekila, guided us, and was
+remarkable as almost the only one of the population left with any
+spirit in him.  The depressing effect which the slave-hunting scourge
+has upon the native mind, though little to be wondered at, is sad,
+very sad to witness.  Musical instruments, mats, pillows, mortars for
+pounding meal, were lying about unused, and becoming the prey of the
+white ants.  With all their little comforts destroyed, the survivors
+were thrown still further back into barbarism.
+
+It is of little importance perhaps to any but travellers to notice
+that in occupying one night a well-built hut, which had been shut up
+for some time, the air inside at once gave us a chill, and an attack
+of fever; both of which vanished when the place was well-ventilated
+by means of a fire.  We have frequently observed that lighting a fire
+early in the mornings, even in the hottest time of the year, gives
+freshness to the whole house, and removes that feeling of closeness
+and langour, which a hot climate induces.
+
+On the night of the 1st July, 1863, several loud peals of thunder
+awoke us; the moon was shining brightly, and not a cloud to be seen.
+All the natives remarked on the clearness of the sky at the time, and
+next morning said, "We thought it was God" (Morungo).
+
+On arriving at the ship on the 2nd July, we found a despatch from
+Earl Russell, containing instructions for the withdrawal of the
+Expedition.  The devastation caused by slave-hunting and famine lay
+all around.  The labour had been as completely swept away from the
+Great Shire Valley, as it had been from the Zambesi, wherever
+Portuguese intrigue or power extended.  The continual forays of
+Mariano had spread ruin and desolation on our south-east as far as
+Mount Clarendon.
+
+While this was going on in our rear, the Tette slave-hunters from the
+West had stimulated the Ajawa to sweep all the Manganja off the hills
+on our East; and slaving parties for this purpose were still passing
+the Shire above the Cataracts.  In addition to the confession of the
+Governor of Tette, of an intention to go on with this slaving in
+accordance with the counsel of his elder brother at Mosambique, we
+had reason to believe that slavery went on under the eye of his
+Excellency, the Governor-General himself; and this was subsequently
+corroborated by our recognizing two women at Mosambique who had lived
+within a hundred yards of the Mission-station at Magomero.  They were
+well known to our attendants, and had formed a part of a gang of
+several hundreds taken to Mosambique by the Ajawa at the very time
+when his Excellency was entertaining English officers with anti-
+slavery palavers.  To any one who understands how minute the
+information is, which Portuguese governors possess by means of their
+own slaves, and through gossiping traders who seek to curry their
+favour, it is idle to assert that all this slaving goes on without
+their approval and connivance.
+
+If more had been wanted to prove the hopelessness of producing any
+change in the system which has prevailed ever since our allies, the
+Portuguese, entered the country, we had it in the impunity with which
+the freebooter, Terera, who had murdered Chibisa, was allowed to
+carry on his forays.  Belchoir, another marauder, had been checked,
+but was still allowed to make war, as they term slave-hunting.
+
+Mr. Horace Waller was living for some five months on Mount Morambala,
+a position from which the whole process of the slave-trade, and
+depopulation of the country around could be well noted.  The mountain
+overlooks the Shire, the beautiful meanderings of which are
+distinctly seen, on clear days, for thirty miles.  This river was for
+some time supposed to be closed against Mariano, who, as a mere
+matter of form, was declared a rebel against the Portuguese flag.
+When, however, it became no longer possible to keep up the sham, the
+river was thrown open to him; and Mr. Waller has seen in a single day
+from fifteen to twenty canoes of different sizes going down, laden
+with slaves, to the Portuguese settlements from the so-called rebel
+camp.  These cargoes were composed entirely of women and children.
+For three months this traffic was incessant, and at last, so
+completely was the mask thrown off, that one of the officials came to
+pay a visit to Bishop Tozer on another part of the same mountain,
+and, combining business with pleasure, collected payment for some
+canoe work done for the Missionary party, and with this purchased
+slaves from the rebels, who had only to be hailed from the bank of
+the river.  When he had concluded the bargain he trotted the slaves
+out for inspection in Mr. Waller's presence.  This official, Senhor
+Mesquita, was the only officer who could be forced to live at the
+Kongone.  From certain circumstances in his life, he had fallen under
+the power of the local Government; all the other Custom-house
+officers refused to go to Kongone, so here poor Mesquita must live on
+a miserable pittance--must live, and perhaps slave, sorely against
+his will.  His name is not brought forward with a view of throwing
+any odium on his character.  The disinterested kindness which he
+showed to Dr. Meller, and others, forbids that he should be mentioned
+by us with anything like unkindness.
+
+Under all these considerations, with the fact that we had not found
+the Rovuma so favourable for navigation at the time of our visit as
+we expected, it was impossible not to coincide in the wisdom of our
+withdrawal; but we deeply regretted that we had ever given credit to
+the Portuguese Government for any desire to ameliorate the condition
+of the African race; for, with half the labour and expense anywhere
+else, we should have made an indelible mark of improvement on a
+section of the Continent.  Viewing Portuguese statesmen in the light
+of the laws they have passed for the suppression of slavery and the
+slave-trade, and by the standard of the high character of our own
+public men, it cannot be considered weakness to have believed in the
+sincerity of the anxiety to aid our enterprise, professed by the
+Lisbon Ministry.  We hoped to benefit both Portuguese and Africans by
+introducing free-trade and Christianity.  Our allies, unfortunately,
+cannot see the slightest benefit in any measure that does not imply
+raising themselves up by thrusting others down.  The official paper
+of the Lisbon Government has since let us know "that their policy was
+directed to frustrating the grasping designs of the British
+Government to the dominion of Eastern Africa."  We, who were on the
+spot, and behind the scenes, knew that feelings of private
+benevolence had the chief share in the operations undertaken for
+introducing the reign of peace and good will on the Lakes and central
+regions, which for ages have been the abodes of violence and
+bloodshed.  But that great change was not to be accomplished.  The
+narrow-minded would ascribe all that was attempted to the grasping
+propensity of the English.  But the motives that actuate many in
+England, both in public and private life, are much more noble than
+the world gives them credit for.
+
+Seeing, then, that we were not yet arrived at "the good time coming,"
+and that it was quite impossible to take the "Pioneer" down to the
+sea till the floods of December, we made arrangements to screw the
+"Lady Nyassa" together; and, in order to improve the time
+intervening, we resolved to carry a boat past the Cataracts a second
+time, sail along the eastern shore of the Lake, and round the
+northern end, and also collect data by which to verify the
+information collected by Colonel Rigby, that the 19,000 slaves, who
+go through the Custom-house of Zanzibar annually, are chiefly drawn
+from Lake Nyassa and the Valley of the Shire.
+
+Our party consisted of twenty natives, some of whom were Johanna men,
+and were supposed to be capable of managing the six oxen which drew
+the small wagon with a boat on it.  A team of twelve Cape oxen, with
+a Hottentot driver and leader, would have taken the wagon over the
+country we had to pass through with the greatest ease; but no sooner
+did we get beyond the part of the road already made, than our drivers
+encountered obstructions in the way of trees and gullies, which it
+would have been a waste of time to have overcome by felling timber
+and hauling out the wagon by block and tackle purchases.  The Ajawa
+and Manganja settled at Chibisa's were therefore sent for, and they
+took the boat on their shoulders and carried it briskly, in a few
+days, past all the Cataracts except one; then coming to a
+comparatively still reach of the river, they took advantage of it to
+haul her up a couple of miles.  The Makololo had her then entirely in
+charge; for, being accustomed to rapids in their own country, no
+better boatmen could be desired.  The river here is very narrow, and
+even in what are called still places, the current is very strong, and
+often obliged them to haul the boat along by the reeds on the banks,
+or to hand a tow-rope ashore.  The reeds are full of cowitch
+(Dolichos pruriens), the pods of which are covered with what looks a
+fine velvety down, but is in reality a multitude of fine prickles,
+which go in by the million, and caused an itching and stinging in the
+naked bodies of those who were pulling the tow-rope, that made them
+wriggle as if stung by a whole bed of nettles.  Those on board
+required to be men of ready resource with oars and punting-poles, and
+such they were.  But, nevertheless, they found, after attempting to
+pass by a rock, round which the water rushed in whirls, that the
+wiser plan would be to take the boat ashore, and carry her past the
+last Cataract.  When this was reported, the carriers were called from
+the various shady trees under which they had taken refuge from the
+sun.  This was midwinter, but the sun is always hot by day here,
+though the nights are cold.  Five Zambesi men, who had been all their
+lives accustomed to great heavy canoes,--the chief recommendation of
+which is said to be, that they can be run against a rock with the
+full force of the current without injury--were very desirous to show
+how much better they could manage our boat than the Makololo; three
+jumped into her when our backs were turned, and two hauled her up a
+little way; the tide caught her bow, we heard a shout of distress,
+the rope was out of their hands in a moment, and there she was,
+bottom upwards; a turn or two in an eddy, and away she went, like an
+arrow, down the Cataracts.  One of the men in swimming ashore saved a
+rifle.  The whole party ran with all their might along the bank, but
+never more did we see our boat.
+
+The five performers in this catastrophe approached with penitential
+looks.  They had nothing to say, nor had we.  They bent down slowly,
+and touched our feet with both hands.  "Ku kuata moendo"--"to catch
+the foot"--is their way of asking forgiveness.  It was so like what
+we have seen a little child do--try to bring a dish unbidden to its
+papa, and letting it fall, burst into a cry of distress--that they
+were only sentenced to go back to the ship, get provisions, and, in
+the ensuing journey on foot, carry as much as they could, and thus
+make up for the loss of the boat.
+
+It was excessively annoying to lose all this property, and be
+deprived of the means of doing the work proposed, on the east and
+north of the Lake; but it would have been like crying over spilt milk
+to do otherwise now than make the best use we could of our legs.  The
+men were sent back to the ship for provisions, cloth, and beads; and
+while they are gone, we may say a little of the Cataracts which
+proved so fatal to our boating plan.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+
+Dr. Livingstone's further explorations--Effects of slave-trade--
+Kirk's range--Ajawa migration--Native fishermen--Arab slave-crossing-
+-Splendid highlands.
+
+The Murchison Cataracts of the Shire river begin in 15 degrees 20
+minutes S., and end in lat. 15 degrees 55 minutes S., the difference
+of latitude is therefore 35 minutes.  The river runs in this space
+nearly north and south, till we pass Malango; so the entire distance
+is under 40 miles.  The principal Cataracts are five in number, and
+are called Pamofunda or Pamozima, Morewa, Panoreba or Tedzane,
+Pampatamanga, and Papekira.  Besides these, three or four smaller
+ones might be mentioned; as, for instance, Mamvira, where in our
+ascent we first met the broken water, and heard that gushing sound
+which, from the interminable windings of some 200 miles of river
+below, we had come to believe the tranquil Shire could never make.
+While these lesser cataracts descend at an angle of scarcely 20
+degrees, the greater fall 100 feet in 100 yards, at an angle of about
+45 degrees, and one at an angle of 70 degrees.  One part of Pamozima
+is perpendicular, and, when the river is in flood, causes a cloud of
+vapour to ascend, which, in our journey to Lake Shirwa, we saw at a
+distance of at least eight miles.  The entire descent from the Upper
+to the Lower Shire is 1200 feet.  Only on one spot in all that
+distance is the current moderate--namely, above Tedzane.  The rest is
+all rapid, and much of it being only fifty or eighty yards wide, and
+rushing like a mill-race, it gives the impression of water-power,
+sufficient to drive all the mills in Manchester, running to waste.
+Pamofunda, or Pamozima, has a deep shady grove on its right bank.
+When we were walking alone through its dark shade, we were startled
+by a shocking smell like that of a dissecting-room; and on looking up
+saw dead bodies in mats suspended from the branches of the trees, a
+mode of burial somewhat similar to that which we subsequently saw
+practised by the Parsees in their "towers of silence" at Poonah, near
+Bombay.  The name Pamozima means, "the departed spirits or gods"--a
+fit name for a place over which, according to the popular belief, the
+disembodied souls continually hover.
+
+The rock lowest down in the series is dark reddish-grey syenite.
+This seems to have been an upheaving agent, for the mica schists
+above it are much disturbed.  Dark trappean rocks full of hornblende
+have in many places burst through these schists, and appear in
+nodules on the surface.  The highest rock seen is a fine sandstone of
+closer grain than that at Tette, and quite metamorphosed where it
+comes into contact with the igneous rocks below it.  It sometimes
+gives place to quartz and reddish clay schists, much baked by heat.
+This is the usual geological condition on the right bank of the
+Cataracts.  On the other side we pass over masses of porphyritic
+trap, in contact with the same mica schists, and these probably give
+to the soil the great fertility we observed.  The great body of the
+mountains is syenite.  So much mica is washed into the river, that on
+looking attentively on the stream one sees myriads of particles
+floating and glancing in the sun; and this, too, even at low water.
+
+It was the 15th of August before the men returned from the ship,
+accompanied by Mr. Rae and the steward of the "Pioneer."  They
+brought two oxen, one of which was instantly slaughtered to put
+courage into all hearts, and some bottles of wine, a present from
+Waller and Alington.  We never carried wine before, but this was
+precious as an expression of kindheartedness on the part of the
+donors.  If one attempted to carry either wine or spirits, as a
+beverage, he would require a whole troop of followers for nothing
+else.  Our greatest luxury in travelling was tea or coffee.  We never
+once carried sugar enough to last a journey, but coffee is always
+good, while the sugarless tea is only bearable, because of the
+unbearable gnawing feeling of want and sinking which ensues if we
+begin to travel in the mornings without something warm in the
+stomach.  Our drink generally was water, and if cool, nothing can
+equal it in a hot climate.  We usually carried a bottle of brandy
+rolled up in our blankets, but that was used only as a medicine; a
+spoonful in hot water before going to bed, to fend off a chill and
+fever.  Spirits always do harm, if the fever has fairly begun; and it
+is probable that brandy-and-water has to answer for a good many of
+the deaths in Africa.
+
+Mr. Rae had made gratifying progress in screwing together the "Lady
+Nyassa."  He had the zealous co-operation of three as fine steady
+workmen as ever handled tools; and, as they were noble specimens of
+English sailors, we would fain mention the names of men who are an
+honour to the British navy--John Reid, John Pennell, and Richard
+Wilson.  The reader will excuse our doing so, but we desire to record
+how much they were esteemed, and how thankful we felt for their good
+behaviour.  The weather was delightfully cool; and, with full
+confidence in those left behind, it was with light hearts we turned
+our faces north.  Mr. Rae accompanied us a day in front; and, as all
+our party had earnestly advised that at least two Europeans should be
+associated together on the journey, the steward was at the last
+moment taken.  Mr. Rae returned to get the "Lady Nyassa" ready for
+sea; and, as she drew less water than the "Pioneer," take her down to
+the ocean in October.  One reason for taking the steward is worth
+recording.  Both he and a man named King, {5} who, though only a
+leading stoker in the Navy, had been a promising student in the
+University of Aberdeen, had got into that weak bloodless-looking
+state which residence in the lowlands without much to do or think
+about often induces.  The best thing for this is change and an active
+life.  A couple of days' march only as far as the Mukuru-Madse,
+infused so much vigour into King that he was able to walk briskly
+back.  Consideration for the steward's health led to his being
+selected for this northern journey, and the measure was so completely
+successful that it was often, in the hard march, a subject of regret
+that King had not been taken too.  A removal of only a hundred yards
+is sometimes so beneficial that it ought in severe cases never to be
+omitted.
+
+Our object now was to get away to the N.N.W., proceed parallel with
+Lake Nyassa, but at a considerable distance west of it, and thus pass
+by the Mazitu or Zulus near its northern end without contact--
+ascertain whether any large river flowed into the Lake from the west-
+-visit Lake Moelo, if time permitted, and collect information about
+the trade on the great slave route, which crosses the Lake at its
+southern end, and at Tsenga and Kota-kota.  The Makololo were eager
+to travel fast, because they wanted to be back in time to hoe their
+fields before the rains, and also because their wives needed looking
+after.
+
+In going in the first instance N.E. from the uppermost Cataract, we
+followed in a measure the great bend of the river towards the foot of
+Mount Zomba.  Here we had a view of its most imposing side, the west,
+with the plateau some 3000 feet high, stretching away to its south,
+and Mounts Chiradzuru and Mochiru towering aloft to the sky.  From
+that goodly highland station, it was once hoped by the noble
+Mackenzie, who, for largeness of heart and loving disposition, really
+deserved to be called the "Bishop of Central Africa," that light and
+liberty would spread to all the interior.  We still think it may be a
+centre for civilizing influences; for any one descending from these
+cool heights, and stepping into a boat on the Upper Shire, can sail
+three hundred miles without a check into the heart of Africa.
+
+We passed through a tract of country covered with mopane trees, where
+the hard baked soil refused to let the usual thick crops of grass
+grow; and here we came upon very many tracks of buffaloes, elephants,
+antelopes, and the spoor of one lion.  An ox we drove along with us,
+as provision for the way, was sorely bitten by the tsetse.  The
+effect of the bite was, as usual, quite apparent two days afterwards,
+in the general flaccidity of the muscles, the drooping ears, and
+looks of illness.  It always excited our wonder that we, who were
+frequently much bitten too by the same insects, felt no harm from
+their attacks.  Man shares the immunity of the wild animals.
+
+Finding a few people on the evening of the 20th of August, who were
+supporting a wretched existence on tamarinds and mice, we ascertained
+that there was no hope of our being able to buy food anywhere nearer
+than the Lakelet Pamalombe, where the Ajawa chief, Kainka, was now
+living; but that plenty could be found with the Maravi female chief,
+Nyango.  We turned away north-westwards, and struck the stream Ribve-
+ribve, or Rivi-rivi, which rises in the Maravi range, and flows into
+the Shire.
+
+As the Rivi-rivi came from the N.W. we continued to travel along its
+banks, until we came to people who had successfully defended
+themselves against the hordes of the Ajawa.  By employing the men of
+one village to go forward and explain who we were to the next, we
+managed to prevent the frightened inhabitants from considering us a
+fresh party of Ajawa, or of Portuguese slaving agents.  Here they had
+cultivated maize, and were willing to sell, but no persuasion could
+induce them to give us guides to the chieftainess, Nyango.  They
+evidently felt that we were not to be trusted; though, as we had to
+certify to our own character, our companions did not fail "to blow
+our own trumpet," with blasts in which modesty was quite out of the
+question.  To allay suspicion, we had at last to refrain from
+mentioning the lady's name.
+
+It would be wearisome to repeat the names of the villages we passed
+on our way to the north-west.  One was the largest we ever saw in
+Africa, and quite deserted, with the usual sad sight of many
+skeletons lying about.  Another was called Tette.  We know three
+places of this name, which fact shows it to be a native word; it
+seems to mean a place where the water rushes over rocks.  A third
+village was called Chipanga (a great work), a name identical with the
+Shupanga of the Portuguese.  This repetition of names may indicate
+that the same people first took these epithets in their traditional
+passage from north to south.
+
+At this season of the year the nights are still cold, and the people,
+having no crops to occupy their attention, do not stir out till long
+after the sun is up.  At other times they are off to their fields
+before the day dawns, and the first sound one hears is the loud
+talking of men and women, in which they usually indulge in the dark
+to scare off beasts by the sound of the human voice.  When no work is
+to be done, the first warning of approaching day is the hemp-smoker's
+loud ringing cough.
+
+Having been delayed one morning by some negotiation about guides, who
+were used chiefly to introduce us to other villages, we two whites
+walked a little way ahead, taking the direction of the stream.  The
+men having been always able to find out our route by the prints of
+our shoes, we went on for a number of miles.  This time, however,
+they lost our track, and failed to follow us.  The path was well
+marked by elephants, hyenas, pallahs, and zebras, but for many a day
+no human foot had trod it.  When the sun went down a deserted hamlet
+was reached, where we made comfortable beds for ourselves of grass.
+Firing muskets to attract the attention of those who have strayed is
+the usual resource in these cases.  On this occasion the sound of
+firearms tended to mislead us; for, hearing shots next morning, a
+long weary march led us only to some native hunters, who had been
+shooting buffaloes.  Returning to a small village, we met with some
+people who remembered our passing up to the Lake in the boat; they
+were as kind as they could be.  The only food they possessed was
+tamarinds, prepared with ashes, and a little cowitch meal.  The
+cowitch, as mentioned before, has a velvety brown covering of minute
+prickles, which, if touched, enter the pores of the skin and cause a
+painful tingling.  The women in times of scarcity collect the pods,
+kindle a fire of grass over them to destroy the prickles, then steep
+the beans till they begin to sprout, wash them in pure water, and
+either boil them or pound them into meal, which resembles our bean-
+meal.  This plant climbs up the long grass, and abounds in all reedy
+parts, and, though a plague to the traveller who touches its pods, it
+performs good service in times of famine by saving many a life from
+starvation.  Its name here is Kitedzi.
+
+Having travelled at least twenty miles in search of our party that
+day, our rest on a mat in the best hut of the village was very sweet.
+We had dined the evening before on a pigeon each, and had eaten only
+a handful of kitedzi porridge this afternoon.  The good wife of the
+village took a little corn which she had kept for seed, ground it
+after dark, and made it into porridge.  This, and a cup of wild
+vegetables of a sweetish taste for a relish, a little boy brought in
+and put down, with several vigorous claps of his hands, in the manner
+which is esteemed polite, and which is strictly enjoined on all
+children.
+
+On the third day of separation, Akosanjere, the headman of this
+village, conducted us forward to our party who had gone on to Nseze,
+a district to the westward.  This incident is mentioned, not for any
+interest it possesses, apart from the idea of the people it conveys.
+We were completely separated from our men for nearly three days, and
+had nothing wherewith to purchase food.  The people were sorely
+pressed by famine and war, and their hospitality, poor as it was, did
+them great credit, and was most grateful to us.  Our own men had
+become confused and wandered, but had done their utmost to find us;
+on our rejoining them, the ox was slain, and all, having been on
+short commons, rejoiced in this "day of slaughter."  Akosanjere was,
+of course, rewarded to his heart's content.
+
+As we pursued our way, we came close up to a range of mountains, the
+most prominent peak of which is called Mvai.  This is a great, bare,
+rounded block of granite shooting up from the rest of the chain.  It
+and several other masses of rock are of a light grey colour, with
+white patches, as if of lichens; the sides and summits are generally
+thinly covered with rather scraggy trees.  There are several other
+prominent peaks--one, for instance, still further north, called
+Chirobve.  Each has a name, but we could never ascertain that there
+was an appellation which applied to the whole.  This fact, and our
+wish to commemorate the name of Dr. Kirk, induced us afterwards, when
+we could not discover a particular peak mentioned to us formerly as
+Molomo-ao-koku, or Cock's-bill, to call the whole chain from the west
+of the Cataracts up to the north end of the Lake, "Kirk's Range."
+The part we slept at opposite Mvai was named Paudio, and was
+evidently a continuation of the district of one of our stations on
+the Shire, at which observations for latitude were formerly taken.
+
+Leaving Paudio, we had Kirk's Range close on our left and at least
+3000 feet above us, and probably not less than 5000 feet above the
+sea.  Far to our right extended a long green wooded country rising
+gradually up to a ridge, ornamented with several detached mountains,
+which bounded the Shire Valley.  In front, northwards, lay a valley
+as rich and lovely as we ever saw anywhere, terminating at the
+mountains, which, stretched away some thirty miles beyond our range
+of vision and ended at Cape Maclear.  The groups of trees had never
+been subjected to the landscape gardener's art; but had been cut down
+mercilessly, just as suited the convenience of the cultivator; yet
+the various combinations of open forest, sloping woodland, grassy
+lawns, and massive clumps of dark green foliage along the running
+streams, formed as beautiful a landscape as could be seen on the
+Thames.  This valley is named Goa or Gova, and as we moved through it
+we found that what was smooth to the eye was very much furrowed by
+running streams winding round innumerable knolls.  These little
+brooklets came down from the range on our left, and the water was
+deliciously cool.
+
+When we came abreast of the peak Chirobve, the people would no longer
+give us guides.  They were afraid of their enemies, whose dwellings
+we now had on our east; and, proceeding without any one to lead us,
+or to introduce us to the inhabitants, we were perplexed by all the
+paths running zigzag across instead of along the valley.  They had
+been made by the villagers going from the hamlets on the slopes to
+their gardens in the meadows below.  To add to our difficulties, the
+rivulets and mountain-torrents had worn gullies some thirty or forty
+feet deep, with steep sides that could not be climbed except at
+certain points.  The remaining inhabitants on the flank of the range
+when they saw strangers winding from side to side, and often
+attempting to cross these torrent beds at impossible places, screamed
+out their shrill war-alarm, and made the valley ring with their wild
+outcries.  It was war, and war alone, and we were too deep down in
+the valley to make our voices heard in explanation.  Fortunately,
+they had burned off the long grass to a great extent.  It only here
+and there hid them from us.  Selecting an open spot, we spent a night
+regarded by all around us as slave-hunters, but were undisturbed,
+though the usual way of treating an enemy in this part of the country
+is by night attack.
+
+The nights at the altitude of the valley were cool, the lowest
+temperature shown being 37 degrees; at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. it was 58
+degrees, about the average temperature of the day; at mid-day 82
+degrees, and sunset 70 degrees.  Our march was very much hindered by
+the imperfectly burned corn and grass stalks having fallen across the
+paths.  To a reader in England this will seem a very small obstacle.
+But he must fancy the grass stems as thick as his little finger, and
+the corn-stalks like so many walkingsticks lying in one direction,
+and so supporting each other that one has to lift his feet up as when
+wading through deep high heather.  The stems of grass showed the
+causes of certain explosions as loud as pistols, which are heard when
+the annual fires come roaring over the land.  The heated air inside
+expanding bursts the stalk with a loud report, and strews the
+fragments on the ground.
+
+A very great deal of native corn had been cultivated here, and we saw
+buffaloes feeding in the deserted gardens, and some women, who ran
+away very much faster than the beasts did.
+
+On the 29th, seeing some people standing under a tree by a village,
+we sat down, and sent Masego, one of our party, to communicate.  The
+headman, Matunda, came back with him, bearing a calabash with water
+for us.  He said that all the people had fled from the Ajawa, who had
+only just desisted from their career of pillage on being paid five
+persons as a fine for some offence for which they had commenced the
+invasion.  Matunda had plenty of grain to sell, and all the women
+were soon at work grinding it into meal.  We secured an abundant
+supply, and four milk goats.  The Manganja goat is of a very superior
+breed to the general African animal, being short in the legs and
+having a finely-shaped broad body.  By promising the Makololo that,
+when we no longer needed the milk, they should have the goats to
+improve the breed of their own at home, they were induced to take the
+greatest possible care of both goats and kids in driving and
+pasturing.
+
+After leaving Matunda, we came to the end of the highland valley;
+and, before descending a steep declivity of a thousand feet towards
+the part which may be called the heel of the Lake, we had the bold
+mountains of Cape Maclear on our right, with the blue water at their
+base, the hills of Tsenga in the distance in front, and Kirk's Range
+on our left, stretching away northwards, and apparently becoming
+lower.  As we came down into a fine rich undulating valley, many
+perennial streams running to the east from the hills on our left were
+crossed, while all those behind us on the higher ground seemed to
+unite in one named Lekue, which flowed into the Lake.
+
+After a long day's march in the valley of the Lake, where the
+temperature was very much higher than in that we had just left, we
+entered the village of Katosa, which is situated on the bank of a
+stream among gigantic timber trees, and found there a large party of
+Ajawa--Waiau, they called themselves--all armed with muskets.  We sat
+down among them, and were soon called to the chiefs court, and
+presented with an ample mess of porridge, buffalo meat, and beer.
+Katosa was more frank than any Manganja chief we had met, and
+complimented us by saying that "we must be his 'Bazimo' (good spirits
+of his ancestors); for when he lived at Pamalombe, we lighted upon
+him from above--men the like of whom he had never seen before, and
+coming he knew not whence."  He gave us one of his own large and
+clean huts to sleep in; and we may take this opportunity of saying
+that the impression we received, from our first journey on the hills
+among the villages of Chisunse, of the excessive dirtiness of the
+Manganja, was erroneous.  This trait was confined to the cool
+highlands.  Here crowds of men and women were observed to perform
+their ablutions daily in the stream that ran past their villages; and
+this we have observed elsewhere to be a common custom with both
+Manganja and Ajawa.
+
+Before we started on the morning of the 1st September, Katosa sent an
+enormous calabash of beer, containing at least three gallons, and
+then came and wished us to "stop a day and eat with him."  On
+explaining to him the reasons for our haste, he said that he was in
+the way by which travellers usually passed, he never stopped them in
+their journeys, but would like to look at us for a day.  On our
+promising to rest a little with him on our return, he gave us about
+two pecks of rice, and three guides to conduct us to a subordinate
+female chief, Nkwinda, living on the borders of the Lake in front.
+
+The Ajawa, from having taken slaves down to Quillimane and
+Mosambique, knew more of us than Katosa did.  Their muskets were
+carefully polished, and never out of these slaver's hands for a
+moment, though in the chiefs presence.  We naturally felt
+apprehensive that we should never see Katosa again.  A migratory
+afflatus seems to have come over the Ajawa tribes.  Wars among
+themselves, for the supply of the Coast slave-trade, are said to have
+first set them in motion.  The usual way in which they have advanced
+among the Manganja has been by slave-trading in a friendly way.
+Then, professing to wish to live as subjects, they have been welcomed
+as guests, and the Manganja, being great agriculturists, have been
+able to support considerable bodies of these visitors for a time.
+When the provisions became scarce, the guests began to steal from the
+fields; quarrels arose in consequence, and, the Ajawa having
+firearms, their hosts got the worst of it, and were expelled from
+village after village, and out of their own country.  The Manganja
+were quite as bad in regard to slave-trading as the Ajawa, but had
+less enterprise, and were much more fond of the home pursuits of
+spinning, weaving, smelting iron, and cultivating the soil, than of
+foreign travel.  The Ajawa had little of a mechanical turn, and not
+much love for agriculture, but were very keen traders and travellers.
+This party seemed to us to be in the first or friendly stage of
+intercourse with Katosa; and, as we afterwards found, he was fully
+alive to the danger.
+
+Our course was shaped towards the N.W., and we traversed a large
+fertile tract of rich soil extensively cultivated, but dotted with
+many gigantic thorny acacias which had proved too large for the
+little axes of the cultivators.  After leaving Nkwinda, the first
+village we spent a night at in the district Ngabi was that of Chembi,
+and it had a stockade around it.  The Azitu or Mazitu were said to be
+ravaging the country to the west of us, and no one was safe except in
+a stockade.  We have so often, in travelling, heard of war in front,
+that we paid little attention to the assertion of Chembi, that the
+whole country to the N.W. was in flight before these Mazitu, under a
+chief with the rather formidable name of Mowhiriwhiri; we therefore
+resolved to go on to Chinsamba's, still further in the same
+direction, and hear what he said about it.
+
+The only instrument of husbandry here is the short-handled hoe; and
+about Tette the labour of tilling the soil, as represented in the
+woodcut, is performed entirely by female slaves.  On the West Coast a
+double-handled hoe is employed.  Here the small hoe is seen in the
+hands of both men and women.  In other parts of Africa a hoe with a
+handle four feet long is used, but the plough is quite unknown.
+
+In illustration of the manner in which the native knowledge of
+agriculture strikes an honest intelligent observer, it may be
+mentioned that the first time good Bishop Mackenzie beheld how well
+the fields of the Manganja were cultivated on the hills, he remarked
+to Dr. Livingstone, then his fellow-traveller--"When telling the
+people in England what were my objects in going out to Africa, I
+stated that, among other things, I meant to teach these people
+agriculture; but I now see that they know far more about it than I
+do."  This, we take it, was an honest straightforward testimony, and
+we believe that every unprejudiced witness, who has an opportunity of
+forming an opinion of Africans who have never been debased by
+slavery, will rank them very much higher in the scale of
+intelligence, industry, and manhood, than others who know them only
+in a state of degradation.
+
+On coming near Chinsamba's two stockades, on the banks of the
+Lintipe, we were told that the Mazitu had been repulsed there the day
+before, and we had evidence of the truth of the report of the attack
+in the sad sight of the bodies of the slain.  The Zulus had taken off
+large numbers of women laden with corn; and, when driven back, had
+cut off the ears of a male prisoner, as a sort of credential that he
+had been with the Mazitu, and with grim humour sent him to tell
+Chinsamba "to take good care of the corn in the stockades, for they
+meant to return for it in a month or two."
+
+Chinsamba's people were drumming with might and main on our arrival,
+to express their joy at their deliverance from the Mazitu.  The drum
+is the chief instrument of music among the Manganja, and with it they
+express both their joy and grief.  They excel in beating time.
+Chinsamba called us into a very large hut, and presented us with a
+huge basket of beer.  The glare of sunlight from which we had come
+enabled him, in diplomatic fashion, to have a good view of us before
+our eyes became enough accustomed to the dark inside to see him.  He
+has a Jewish cast of countenance, or rather the ancient Assyrian
+face, as seen in the monuments brought to the British Museum by Mr.
+Layard.  This form of face is very common in this country, and leads
+to the belief that the true type of the negro is not that met on the
+West Coast, from which most people have derived their ideas of the
+African.
+
+Chinsamba had many Abisa or Babisa in his stockade, and it was
+chiefly by the help of their muskets that he had repulsed the Mazitu:
+these Babisa are great travellers and traders.
+
+We liked Chinsamba very well, and found that he was decidedly opposed
+to our risking our lives by going further to the N.W.  The Mazitu
+were believed to occupy all the hills in that direction, so we spent
+the 4th of September with him.
+
+It is rather a minute thing to mention, and it will only be
+understood by those who have children of their own, but the cries of
+the little ones, in their infant sorrows, are the same in tone, at
+different ages, here as all over the world.  We have been perpetually
+reminded of home and family by the wailings which were once familiar
+to parental ears and heart, and felt thankful that to the sorrows of
+childhood our children would never have superadded the heartrending
+woes of the slave-trade.
+
+Taking Chinsamba's advice to avoid the Mazitu in their marauding, we
+started on the 5th September away to the N.E., and passed mile after
+mile of native cornfields, with an occasional cotton-patch.
+
+After a long march, we passed over a waterless plain about N.N.W. of
+the hills of Tsenga to a village on the Lake, and thence up its
+shores to Chitanda.  The banks of the Lake were now crowded with
+fugitives, who had collected there for the poor protection which the
+reeds afforded.  For miles along the water's edge was one continuous
+village of temporary huts.  The people had brought a little corn with
+them; but they said, "What shall we eat when that is done?  When we
+plant corn, the wild beasts (Zinyama, as they call the Mazitu) come
+and take it.  When we plant cassava, they do the same.  How are we to
+live?"  A poor blind woman, thinking we were Mazitu, rushed off in
+front of us with outspread arms, lifting the feet high, in the manner
+peculiar to those who have lost their sight, and jumped into the
+reeds of a stream for safety.
+
+In our way along the shores we crossed several running rivulets of
+clear cold water, which, from having reeds at their confluences, had
+not been noticed in our previous exploration in the boat.  One of
+these was called Mokola, and another had a strong odour of
+sulphuretted hydrogen.  We reached Molamba on the 8th September, and
+found our old acquaintance, Nkomo, there still.  One of the
+advantages of travelling along the shores of the Lake was, that we
+could bathe anywhere in its clear fresh water.  To us, who had been
+obliged so often to restrain our inclination in the Zambesi and Shire
+for fear of crocodiles, this was pleasant beyond measure.  The water
+now was of the same temperature as it was on our former visit, or 72
+degrees Fahr.  The immense depth of the Lake prevents the rays of the
+sun from raising the temperature as high as that of the Shire and
+Zambesi; and the crocodiles, having always clear water in the Lake,
+and abundance of fish, rarely attack man; many of these reptiles
+could be seen basking on the rocks.
+
+A day's march beyond Molamba brought us to the lakelet Chia, which
+lies parallel with the Lake.  It is three or four miles long, by from
+one to one and a half broad, and communicates with the Lake by an arm
+of good depth, but with some rocks in it.  As we passed up between
+the Lake and the eastern shore of this lakelet, we did not see any
+streams flowing into it.  It is quite remarkable for the abundance of
+fish; and we saw upwards of fifty large canoes engaged in the
+fishery, which is carried on by means of hand-nets with side-frame
+poles about seven feet long.  These nets are nearly identical with
+those now in use in Normandy--the difference being that the African
+net has a piece of stick lashed across the handle-ends of the side
+poles to keep them steady, which is a great improvement.  The fish
+must be very abundant to be scooped out of the water in such
+quantities as we saw, and by so many canoes.  There is quite a trade
+here in dried fish.
+
+The country around is elevated, undulating, and very extensively
+planted with cassava.  The hoe in use has a handle of four feet in
+length, and the iron part is exactly of the same form as that in the
+country of the Bechuanas.  The baskets here, which are so closely
+woven together as to hold beer, are the same with those employed to
+hold milk in Kaffirland--a thousand miles distant.
+
+Marching on foot is peculiarly conducive to meditation--one is glad
+of any subject to occupy the mind, and relieve the monotony of the
+weary treadmill-like trudge-trudging.  This Chia net brought to our
+mind that the smith's bellows made here of a goatskin bag, with
+sticks along the open ends, are the same as those in use in the
+Bechuana country far to the south-west.  These, with the long-handled
+hoe, may only show that each successive horde from north to south
+took inventions with it from the same original source.  Where that
+source may have been is probably indicated by another pair of
+bellows, which we observed below the Victoria Falls, being found in
+Central India and among the Gipsies of Europe.
+
+Men in remote times may have had more highly-developed instincts,
+which enabled them to avoid or use poisons; but the late Archbishop
+Whately has proved, that wholly untaught savages never could invent
+anything, or even subsist at all.  Abundant corroboration of his
+arguments is met with in this country, where the natives require but
+little in the way of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs.
+Although possessing a knowledge of all the edible roots and fruits in
+the country, having hoes to dig with, and spears, bows, and arrows to
+kill the game,--we have seen that, notwithstanding all these
+appliances and means to boot, they have perished of absolute
+starvation.
+
+The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa.  The
+smelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the ores, are
+also similar.  Yellow haematite, which bears not the smallest
+resemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, is employed near
+Kolobeng for the production of iron.  Malachite, the precious green
+stone used in civilized life for vases, would never be suspected by
+the uninstructed to be a rich ore of copper, and yet it is
+extensively smelted for rings and other ornaments in the heart of
+Africa.  A copper bar of native manufacture four feet long was
+offered to us for sale at Chinsamba's.  These arts are monuments
+attesting the fact, that some instruction from above must at some
+time or other have been supplied to mankind; and, as Archbishop
+Whately says, "the most probable conclusion is, that man when first
+created, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, by the Creator
+Himself, to a state above that of a mere savage."
+
+The argument for an original revelation to man, though quite
+independent of the Bible history, tends to confirm that history.  It
+is of the same nature with this, that man could not have MADE
+himself, and therefore must have had a Divine CREATOR.  Mankind could
+not, in the first instance, have CIVILIZED themselves, and therefore
+must have had a superhuman INSTRUCTOR.
+
+In connection with this subject, it is remarkable that throughout
+successive generations no change has taken place in the form of the
+various inventions.  Hammers, tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles to
+them; needles, bows and arrows, with the mode of feathering the
+latter; spears, for killing game, with spear-heads having what is
+termed "dish" on both sides to give them, when thrown, the rotatory
+motion of rifle-balls; the arts of spinning and weaving, with that of
+pounding and steeping the inner bark of a tree till it serves as
+clothing; millstones for grinding corn into meal; the manufacture of
+the same kind of pots or chatties as in India; the art of cooking, of
+brewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient Egypt; fish-
+hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, and weirs, the same as
+in the Highlands of Scotland; traps for catching animals, etc.,
+etc.,--have all been so very permanent from age to age, and some of
+them of identical patterns are so widely spread over the globe, as to
+render it probable that they were all, at least in some degree,
+derived from one Source.  The African traditions, which seem
+possessed of the same unchangeability as the arts to which they
+relate, like those of all other nations refer their origin to a
+superior Being.  And it is much more reasonable to receive the hints
+given in Genesis, concerning direct instruction from God to our first
+parents or their children in religious or moral duty, and probably in
+the knowledge of the arts of life, {6} than to give credence to the
+theory that untaught savage man subsisted in a state which would
+prove fatal to all his descendants, and that in such helpless state
+he made many inventions which most of his progeny retained, but never
+improved upon during some thirty centuries.
+
+We crossed in canoes the arm of the Lake, which joins Chia to Nyassa,
+and spent the night on its northern bank.  The whole country adjacent
+to the Lake, from this point up to Kota-kota Bay, is densely peopled
+by thousands who have fled from the forays of the Mazitu in hopes of
+protection from the Arabs who live there.  In three running rivulets
+we saw the Shuare palm, and an oil palm which is much inferior to
+that on the West Coast.  Though somewhat similar in appearance, the
+fruit is not much larger than hazel-nuts, and the people do not use
+them, on account of the small quantity of oil which they afford.
+
+The idea of using oil for light never seems to have entered the
+African mind.  Here a bundle of split and dried bamboo, tied together
+with creeping plants, as thick as a man's body, and about twenty feet
+in length, is employed in the canoes as a torch to attract the fish
+at night.  It would be considered a piece of the most wasteful
+extravagance to burn the oil they obtain from the castor-oil bean and
+other seeds, and also from certain fish, or in fact to do anything
+with it but anoint their heads and bodies.
+
+We arrived at Kota-kota Bay in the afternoon of the 10th September,
+1863; and sat down under a magnificent wild fig-tree with leaves ten
+inches long, by five broad, about a quarter of a mile from the
+village of Juma ben Saidi, and Yakobe ben Arame, whom we had met on
+the River Kaombe, a little north of this, in our first exploration of
+the Lake.  We had rested but a short time when Juma, who is evidently
+the chief person here, followed by about fifty people, came to salute
+us and to invite us to take up our quarters in his village.  The hut
+which, by mistake, was offered, was so small and dirty, that we
+preferred sleeping in an open space a few hundred yards off.
+
+Juma afterwards apologized for the mistake, and presented us with
+rice, meal, sugar-cane, and a piece of malachite.  We returned his
+visit on the following day, and found him engaged in building a dhow
+or Arab vessel, to replace one which he said had been wrecked.  This
+new one was fifty feet long, twelve feet broad, and five feet deep.
+The planks were of a wood like teak, here called Timbati, and the
+timbers of a closer grained wood called Msoro.  The sight of this
+dhow gave us a hint which, had we previously received it, would have
+prevented our attempting to carry a vessel of iron past the
+Cataracts.  The trees around Katosa's village were Timbati, and they
+would have yielded planks fifty feet long and thirty inches broad.
+With a few native carpenters a good vessel could be built on the Lake
+nearly as quickly as one could be carried past the Cataracts, and at
+a vastly less cost.  Juma said that no money would induce him to part
+with this dhow.  He was very busy in transporting slaves across the
+Lake by means of two boats, which we saw returning from a trip in the
+afternoon.  As he did not know of our intention to visit him, we came
+upon several gangs of stout young men slaves, each secured by the
+neck to one common chain, waiting for exportation, and several more
+in slave-sticks.  These were all civilly removed before our interview
+was over, because Juma knew that we did not relish the sight.
+
+When we met the same Arabs in 1861, they had but few attendants:
+according to their own account, they had now, in the village and
+adjacent country, 1500 souls.  It is certain that tens of thousands
+had flocked to them for protection, and all their power and influence
+must be attributed to the possession of guns and gunpowder.  This
+crowding of refugees to any point where there is a hope for security
+for life and property is very common in this region, and the
+knowledge of it made our hopes beat high for the success of a
+peaceful Mission on the shores of the Lake.  The rate, however, in
+which the people here will perish by the next famine, or be exported
+by Juma and others, will, we fear, depopulate those parts which we
+have just described as crowded with people.  Hunger will ere long
+compel them to sell each other.  An intelligent man complained to us
+of the Arabs often seizing slaves, to whom they took a fancy, without
+the formality of purchase; but the price is so low--from two to four
+yards of calico--that one can scarcely think this seizure and
+exportation without payment worth their while.  The boats were in
+constant employment, and, curiously enough, Ben Habib, whom we met at
+Linyanti in 1855, had been taken across the Lake, the day before our
+arrival at this Bay, on his way from Sesheke to Kilwa, and we became
+acquainted with a native servant of the Arabs, called Selele
+Saidallah, who could speak the Makololo language pretty fairly from
+having once spent some months in the Barotse Valley.
+
+From boyhood upwards we have been accustomed, from time to time, to
+read in books of travels about the great advances annually made by
+Mohammedanism in Africa.  The rate at which this religion spreads was
+said to be so rapid, that in after days, in our own pretty extensive
+travels, we have constantly been on the look out for the advancing
+wave from North to South, which, it was prophesied, would soon reduce
+the entire continent to the faith of the false prophet.  The only
+foundation that we can discover for the assertions referred to, and
+for others of more recent date, is the fact that in a remote corner
+of North-Western Africa the Fulahs, and Mandingoes, and some others
+in Northern Africa, as mentioned by Dr. Barth, have made conquests of
+territory; but even they care so very little for the extension of
+their faith, that after the conquest no pains whatever are taken to
+indoctrinate the adults of the tribe.  This is in exact accordance
+with the impression we have received from our intercourse with
+Mohammedans and Christians.  The followers of Christ alone are
+anxious to propagate their faith.  A quasi philanthropist would
+certainly never need to recommend the followers of Islam, whom we
+have met, to restrain their benevolence by preaching that "Charity
+should begin at home."
+
+Though Selele and his companions were bound to their masters by
+domestic ties, the only new idea they had imbibed from Mohammedanism
+was, that it would be wrong to eat meat killed by other people.  They
+thought it would be "unlucky."  Just as the inhabitants of Kolobeng,
+before being taught the requirements of Christianity, refrained from
+hoeing their gardens on Sundays, lest they should reap an unlucky
+crop.  So far as we could learn, no efforts had been made to convert
+the natives, though these two Arabs, and about a dozen half-castes,
+had been in the country for many years; and judging from our
+experience with a dozen Mohammedans in our employ at high wages for
+sixteen months, the Africans would be the better men in proportion as
+they retained their native faith.  This may appear only a harsh
+judgment from a mind imbued with Christian prejudices; but without
+any pretention to that impartiality, which leaves it doubtful to
+which side the affections lean, the truth may be fairly stated by one
+who viewed all Mohammedans and Africans with the sincerest good will.
+
+Our twelve Mohammedans from Johanna were the least open of any of our
+party to impression from kindness.  A marked difference in general
+conduct was apparent.  The Makololo, and other natives of the
+country, whom we had with us, invariably shared with each other the
+food they had cooked, but the Johanna men partook of their meals at a
+distance.  This, at first, we attributed to their Moslem prejudices;
+but when they saw the cooking process of the others nearly complete,
+they came, sat beside them, and ate the portion offered without ever
+remembering to return the compliment when their own turn came to be
+generous.  The Makololo and the others grumbled at their greediness,
+yet always followed the common custom of Africans of sharing their
+food with all who sit around them.  What vexed us most in the Johanna
+men was their indifference to the welfare of each other.  Once, when
+they were all coming to the ship after sleeping ashore, one of them
+walked into the water with the intention of swimming off to the boat,
+and while yet hardly up to his knees was seized by a horrid crocodile
+and dragged under; the poor fellow gave a shriek, and held up his
+hand for aid, but none of his countrymen stirred to his assistance,
+and he was never seen again.  On asking his brother-in-law why he did
+not help him, he replied, "Well, no one told him to go into the
+water.  It was his own fault that he was killed."  The Makololo on
+the other hand rescued a woman at Senna by entering the water, and
+taking her out of the crocodile's mouth.
+
+It is not assumed that their religion had much to do in the matter.
+Many Mohammedans might contrast favourably with indifferent
+Christians; but, so far as our experience in East Africa goes, the
+moral tone of the follower of Mahomed is pitched at a lower key than
+that of the untutored African.  The ancient zeal for propagating the
+tenets of the Koran has evaporated, and been replaced by the most
+intense selfishness and grossest sensuality.  The only known efforts
+made by Mohammedans, namely, those in the North-West and North of the
+continent, are so linked with the acquisition of power and plunder,
+as not to deserve the name of religious propagandism; and the only
+religion that now makes proselytes is that of Jesus Christ.  To those
+who are capable of taking a comprehensive view of this subject,
+nothing can be adduced of more telling significance than the well-
+attested fact, that while the Mohammedans, Fulahs, and others towards
+Central Africa, make a few proselytes by a process which gratifies
+their own covetousness, three small sections of the Christian
+converts, the Africans in the South, in the West Indies, and on the
+West Coast of Africa actually contribute for the support and spread
+of their religion upwards of 15,000 pounds annually. {7}  That
+religion which so far overcomes the selfishness of the human heart
+must be Divine.
+
+Leaving Kota-kota Bay, we turned away due West on the great slave
+route to Katanga's and Cazembe's country in Londa.  Juma lent us his
+servant, Selele, to lead us the first day's march.  He said that the
+traders from Kilwa and Iboe cross the Lake either at this bay, or at
+Tsenga, or at the southern end of the Lake; and that wherever they
+may cross they all go by this path to the interior.  They have slaves
+with them to carry their goods, and when they reach a spot where they
+can easily buy others, they settle down and begin the traffic, and at
+once cultivate grain.  So much of the land lies waste, that no
+objection is ever made to any one taking possession of as much as he
+needs; they can purchase a field of cassava for their present wants
+for very little, and they continue trading in the country for two or
+three years, and giving what weight their muskets possess to the
+chief who is most liberal to them.
+
+The first day's march led us over a rich, well-cultivated plain.
+This was succeeded by highlands, undulating, stony, and covered with
+scraggy trees.  Many banks of well rounded shingle appear.  The
+disintegration of the rocks, now going on, does not round off the
+angles; they are split up by the heat and cold into angular
+fragments.  On these high downs we crossed the River Kaombe.  Beyond
+it we came among the upland vegetation--rhododendrons, proteas, the
+masuko, and molompi.  At the foot of the hill, Kasuko-suko, we found
+the River Bua running north to join the Kaombe.  We had to go a mile
+out of our way for a ford; the stream is deep enough in parts for
+hippopotami.  The various streams not previously noticed, crossed in
+this journey, had before this led us to the conclusion, independently
+of the testimony of the natives, that no large river ran into the
+north end of the Lake.  No such affluent was needed to account for
+the Shire's perennial flow.
+
+On September 15th we reached the top of the ascent which, from its
+many ups and downs, had often made us puff and blow as if broken-
+winded.  The water of the streams we crossed was deliciously cold,
+and now that we had gained the summit at Ndonda, where the boiling-
+point of water showed an altitude of 3440 feet above the sea, the air
+was delightful.  Looking back we had a magnificent view of the Lake,
+but the haze prevented our seeing beyond the sea horizon.  The scene
+was beautiful, but it was impossible to dissociate the lovely
+landscape whose hills and dales had so sorely tried our legs and
+lungs, from the sad fact that this was part of the great slave route
+now actually in use.  By this road many "Ten thousands" have here
+seen "the Sea," "the Sea," but with sinking hearts; for the universal
+idea among the captive gangs is, that they are going to be fattened
+and eaten by the whites.  They cannot of course be so much shocked as
+we should be--their sensibilities are far from fine, their feelings
+are more obtuse than ours--in fact, "the live eels are used to being
+skinned," perhaps they rather like it.  We who are not philosophic,
+blessed the Providence which at Thermopylae in ancient days rolled
+back the tide of Eastern conquest from the West, and so guided the
+course of events that light and liberty and gospel truth spread to
+our distant isle, and emancipating our race freed them from the fear
+of ever again having to climb fatiguing heights and descend wearisome
+hollows in a slave-gang, as we suppose they did when the fair English
+youths were exposed for sale at Rome.
+
+Looking westwards we perceived that, what from below had the
+appearance of mountains, was only the edge of a table-land which,
+though at first undulating, soon became smooth, and sloped towards
+the centre of the country.  To the south a prominent mountain called
+Chipata, and to the south-west another named Ngalla, by which the Bua
+is said to rise, gave character to the landscape.  In the north,
+masses of hills prevented our seeing more than eight or ten miles.
+
+The air which was so exhilarating to Europeans had an opposite effect
+on five men who had been born and reared in the malaria of the Delta
+of the Zambesi.  No sooner did they reach the edge of the plateau at
+Ndonda, than they lay down prostrate, and complained of pains all
+over them.  The temperature was not much lower than that on the
+shores of the Lake below, 76 degrees being the mean temperature of
+the day, 52 degrees the lowest, and 82 degrees the highest during the
+twenty-four hours; at the Lake it was about l0 degrees higher.  Of
+the symptoms they complained of--pains everywhere--nothing could be
+made.  And yet it was evident that they had good reason for saying
+that they were ill.  They scarified almost every part of their bodies
+as a remedial measure; medicines, administered on the supposition
+that their malady was the effect of a sudden chill, had no effect,
+and in two days one of them actually died in consequence of, as far
+as we could judge, a change from a malarious to a purer and more
+rarefied atmosphere.
+
+As we were on the slave route, we found the people more churlish than
+usual.  On being expostulated with about it, they replied, "We have
+been made wary by those who come to buy slaves."  The calamity of
+death having befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their
+sympathies.  They pointed out their usual burying-place, lent us
+hoes, and helped to make the grave.  When we offered to pay all
+expenses, they showed that they had not done these friendly offices
+without fully appreciating their value; for they enumerated the use
+of the hut, the mat on which the deceased had lain, the hoes, the
+labour, and the medicine which they had scattered over the place to
+make him rest in peace.
+
+The primitive African faith seems to be that there is one Almighty
+Maker of heaven and earth; that he has given the various plants of
+earth to man to be employed as mediators between him and the spirit
+world, where all who have ever been born and died continue to live;
+that sin consists in offences against their fellow-men, either here
+or among the departed, and that death is often a punishment of guilt,
+such as witchcraft.  Their idea of moral evil differs in no respect
+from ours, but they consider themselves amenable only to inferior
+beings, not to the Supreme.  Evil-speaking--lying--hatred--
+disobedience to parents--neglect of them--are said by the intelligent
+to have been all known to be sin, as well as theft, murder, or
+adultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their teaching.  The
+only new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong to have
+more wives than one.  This, until the arrival of Europeans, never
+entered into their minds even as a doubt.
+
+Everything not to be accounted for by common causes, whether of good
+or evil, is ascribed to the Deity.  Men are inseparably connected
+with the spirits of the departed, and when one dies he is believed to
+have joined the hosts of his ancestors.  All the Africans we have met
+with are as firmly persuaded of their future existence as of their
+present life.  And we have found none in whom the belief in the
+Supreme Being was not rooted.  He is so invariably referred to as the
+Author of everything supernatural, that, unless one is ignorant of
+their language, he cannot fail to notice this prominent feature of
+their faith.  When they pass into the unseen world, they do not seem
+to be possessed with the fear of punishment.  The utensils placed
+upon the grave are all broken as if to indicate that they will never
+be used by the departed again.  The body is put into the grave in a
+sitting posture, and the hands are folded in front.  In some parts of
+the country there are tales which we could translate into faint
+glimmerings of a resurrection; but whether these fables, handed down
+from age to age, convey that meaning to the natives themselves we
+cannot tell.  The true tradition of faith is asserted to be "though a
+man die he will live again;" the false that when he dies he is dead
+for ever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+
+Important geographical discoveries in the Wabisa countries--Cruelty
+of the slave-trade--The Mazitu--Serious illness of Dr. Livingstone--
+Return to the ship.
+
+In our course westwards, we at first passed over a gently undulating
+country, with a reddish clayey soil, which, from the heavy crops,
+appeared to be very fertile.  Many rivulets were crossed, some
+running southwards into the Bua, and others northwards into the
+Loangwa, a river which we formerly saw flowing into the Lake.
+Further on, the water was chiefly found in pools and wells.  Then
+still further, in the same direction, some watercourses were said to
+flow into that same "Loangwa of the Lake," and others into the
+Loangwa, which flows to the south-west, and enters the Zambesi at
+Zumbo, and is here called the "Loangwa of the Maravi."  The trees
+were in general scraggy, and covered, exactly as they are in the damp
+climate of the Coast, with lichens, resembling orchilla-weed.  The
+maize, which loves rather a damp soil, had been planted on ridges to
+allow the superfluous moisture to run off.  Everything indicated a
+very humid climate, and the people warned us that, as the rains were
+near, we were likely to be prevented from returning by the country
+becoming flooded and impassable.
+
+Villages, as usual encircled by euphorbia hedges, were numerous, and
+a great deal of grain had been cultivated around them.  Domestic
+fowls, in plenty, and pigeons with dovecots like those in Egypt were
+seen.  The people call themselves Matumboka, but the only difference
+between them and the rest of the Manganja is in the mode of tattooing
+the face.  Their language is the same.  Their distinctive mark
+consists of four tattooed lines diverging from the point between the
+eyebrows, which, in frowning, the muscles form into a furrow.  The
+other lines of tattooing, as in all Manganja, run in long seams,
+which crossing each other at certain angles form a great number of
+triangular spaces on the breast, back, arms, and thighs.  The cuticle
+is divided by a knife, and the edges of the incision are drawn apart
+till the true skin appears.  By a repetition of this process, lines
+of raised cicatrices are formed, which are thought to give beauty, no
+matter how much pain the fashion gives.
+
+It would not be worth while to advert for a moment to the routine of
+travelling, or the little difficulties that beset every one who
+attempts to penetrate into a new country, were it not to show the
+great source of the power here possessed by slave-traders.  We needed
+help in carrying our goods, while our men were ill, though still able
+to march.  When we had settled with others for hire, we were often
+told, that the dealers in men had taken possession of some, and had
+taken them away altogether.  Other things led us to believe that the
+slave-traders carry matters with a high hand; and no wonder, for the
+possession of gunpowder gives them almost absolute power.  The mode
+by which tribes armed with bows and arrows carry on warfare, or
+defend themselves, is by ambuscade.  They never come out in open
+fight, but wait for the enemy ensconced behind trees, or in the long
+grass of the country, and shoot at him unawares.  Consequently, if
+men come against them with firearms, when, as is usually the case,
+the long grass is all burned off, the tribe attacked are as helpless
+as a wooden ship, possessing only signal guns, would be before an
+iron-clad steamer.  The time of year selected for this kind of
+warfare is nearly always that in which the grass is actually burnt
+off, or is so dry as readily to take fire.  The dry grass in Africa
+looks more like ripe English wheat late in the autumn, than anything
+else we can compare it to.  Let us imagine an English village
+standing in a field of this sort, bounded only by the horizon, and
+enemies setting fire to a line of a mile or two, by running along
+with bunches of burning straw in their hands, touching here and there
+the inflammable material,--the wind blowing towards the doomed
+village--the inhabitants with only one or two old muskets, but ten to
+one no powder,--the long line of flames, leaping thirty feet into the
+air with dense masses of black smoke--and pieces of charred grass
+falling down in showers.  Would not the stoutest English villager,
+armed only with the bow and arrow against the enemy's musket, quail
+at the idea of breaking through that wall of fire?  When at a
+distance, we once saw a scene like this, and had the charred grass,
+literally as thick as flakes of black snow, falling around us, there
+was no difficulty in understanding the secret of the slave-trader's
+power.
+
+On the 21st of September, we arrived at the village of the chief
+Muasi, or Muazi; it is surrounded by a stockade, and embowered in
+very tall euphorbia-trees; their height, thirty or forty feet, shows
+that it has been inhabited for at least one generation.  A visitation
+of disease or death causes the headmen to change the site of their
+villages, and plant new hedges; but, though Muazi has suffered from
+the attacks of the Mazitu, he has evidently clung to his birthplace.
+The village is situated about two miles south-west of a high hill
+called Kasungu, which gives the name to a district extending to the
+Loangwa of the Maravi.  Several other detached granite hills have
+been shot up on the plain, and many stockaded villages, all owing
+allegiance to Muazi, are scattered over it.
+
+On our arrival, the chief was sitting in the smooth shady place,
+called Boalo, where all public business is transacted, with about two
+hundred men and boys around him.  We paid our guides with due
+ostentation.  Masiko, the tallest of our party, measured off the
+fathom of cloth agreed upon, and made it appear as long as possible,
+by facing round to the crowd, and cutting a few inches beyond what
+his outstretched arms could reach, to show that there was no
+deception.  This was by way of advertisement.  The people are
+mightily gratified at having a tall fellow to measure the cloth for
+them.  It pleases them even better than cutting it by a tape-line--
+though very few men of six feet high can measure off their own length
+with their outstretched arms.  Here, where Arab traders have been,
+the cubit called mokono, or elbow, begins to take the place of the
+fathom in use further south.  The measure is taken from the point of
+the bent elbow to the end of the middle finger.
+
+We found, on visiting Muazi on the following day, that he was as
+frank and straightforward as could reasonably be expected.  He did
+not wish us to go to the N.N.W., because he carries on a considerable
+trade in ivory there.  We were anxious to get off the slave route, to
+people not visited before by traders; but Muazi naturally feared,
+that if we went to what is said to be a well-watered country,
+abounding in elephants, we might relieve him of the ivory which he
+now obtains at a cheap rate, and sells to the slave-traders as they
+pass Kasungu to the east; but at last he consented, warning us that
+"great difficulty would be experienced in obtaining food--a district
+had been depopulated by slave wars--and a night or two must be spent
+in it; but he would give us good guides, who would go three days with
+us, before turning, and then further progress must depend on
+ourselves."  Some of our men having been ill ever since we mounted
+this highland plain, we remained two days with Muazi.
+
+A herd of fine cattle showed that no tsetse existed in the district.
+They had the Indian hump, and were very fat, and very tame.  The boys
+rode on both cows and bulls without fear, and the animals were so fat
+and lazy, that the old ones only made a feeble attempt to kick their
+young tormentors.  Muazi never milks the cows; he complained that,
+but for the Mazitu having formerly captured some, he should now have
+had very many.  They wander over the country at large, and certainly
+thrive.
+
+After leaving Muazi's, we passed over a flat country sparsely covered
+with the scraggy upland trees, but brightened with many fine flowers.
+The grass was short, reaching no higher than the knee, and growing in
+tufts with bare spaces between, though the trees were draped with
+many various lichens, and showed a moist climate.  A high and very
+sharp wind blew over the flats; its piercing keenness was not caused
+by low temperature, for the thermometer stood at 80 degrees.
+
+We were now on the sources of the Loangwa of the Maravi, which enters
+the Zambesi at Zumbo, and were struck by the great resemblance which
+the boggy and sedgy streams here presented to the sources of the
+Leeba, an affluent of the Zambesi formerly observed in Londa, and of
+the Kasai, which some believe to be the principal branch of the Congo
+or Zaire.
+
+We had taken pains to ascertain from the travelled Babisa and Arabs
+as much as possible about the country in front, which, from the
+lessening time we had at our disposal, we feared we could scarcely
+reach, and had heard a good deal of a small lake called Bemba.  As we
+proceeded west, we passed over the sources not only of the Loangwa,
+but of another stream, called Moitawa or Moitala, which was
+represented to be the main feeder of Lake Bemba.  This would be of
+little importance, but for the fact that the considerable river
+Luapula, or Loapula is said to flow out of Bemba to the westward, and
+then to spread out into another and much larger lake, named Moero, or
+Moelo.  Flowing still further in the same direction, the Loapula
+forms Lake Mofue, or Mofu, and after this it is said to pass the town
+of Cazembe, bend to the north, and enter Lake Tanganyika.  Whither
+the water went after it entered the last lake, no one would venture
+an assertion.  But that the course indicated is the true watershed of
+that part of the country, we believe from the unvarying opinion of
+native travellers.  There could be no doubt that our informants had
+been in the country beyond Cazembe's, for they knew and described
+chiefs whom we afterwards met about thirty-five or forty miles west
+of his town.  The Lualaba is said to flow into the Loapula--and when,
+for the sake of testing the accuracy of the travelled, it was
+asserted that all the water of the region round the town of Cazembe
+flowed into the Luambadzi, or Luambezi (Zambesi), they remarked with
+a smile, "He says, that the Loapula flows into the Zambesi--did you
+ever hear such nonsense?" or words to that effect.  We were forced to
+admit, that according to native accounts, our previous impression of
+the Zambesi's draining the country about Cazembe's had been a
+mistake.  Their geographical opinions are now only stated, without
+any further comment than that the itinerary given by the Arabs and
+others shows that the Loapula is twice crossed on the way to
+Cazembe's; and we may add that we have never found any difficulty
+from the alleged incapacity of the negro to tell which way a river
+flows.
+
+The boiling-point of water showed a descent, from the edge of the
+plateau to our furthest point west, of 170 feet; but this can only be
+considered as an approximation, and no dependence could have been
+placed on it, had we not had the courses of the streams to confirm
+this rather rough mode of ascertaining altitudes.  The slope, as
+shown by the watershed, was to the "Loangwa of the Maravi," and
+towards the Moitala, or south-west, west, and north-west.  After we
+leave the feeders of Lake Nyassa, the water drains towards the centre
+of the continent.  The course of the Kasai, a river seen during Dr.
+Livingstone's journey to the West Coast, and its feeders was to the
+north-east, or somewhat in the same direction.  Whether the water
+thus drained off finds its way out by the Congo, or by the Nile, has
+not yet been ascertained.  Some parts of the continent have been said
+to resemble an inverted dinner-plate.  This portion seems more of the
+shape, if shape it has, of a wide-awake hat, with the crown a little
+depressed.  The altitude of the brim in some parts is considerable;
+in others, as at Tette and the bottom of Murchison's Cataracts, it is
+so small that it could be ascertained only by eliminating the daily
+variations of the barometer, by simultaneous observations on the
+Coast, and at points some two or three hundred miles inland.  So long
+as African rivers remain in what we may call the brim, they present
+no obstructions; but no sooner do they emerge from the higher lands
+than their utility is impaired by cataracts.  The low lying belt is
+very irregular.  At times sloping up in the manner of the rim of an
+inverted dinner-plate--while in other cases, a high ridge rises near
+the sea, to be succeeded by a lower district inland before we reach
+the central plateau.  The breadth of the low lands is sometimes as
+much as three hundred miles, and that breadth determines the limits
+of navigation from the seaward.
+
+We made three long marches beyond Muazi's in a north-westerly
+direction; the people were civil enough, but refused to sell us any
+food.  We were travelling too fast, they said; in fact, they were
+startled, and before they recovered their surprise, we were obliged
+to depart.  We suspected that Muazi had sent them orders to refuse us
+food, that we might thus be prevented from going into the depopulated
+district; but this may have been mere suspicion, the result of our
+own uncharitable feelings.
+
+We spent one night at Machambwe's village, and another at Chimbuzi's.
+It is seldom that we can find the headman on first entering a
+village.  He gets out of the way till he has heard all about the
+strangers, or he is actually out in the fields looking after his
+farms.  We once thought that when the headman came in from a visit of
+inspection, with his spear, bow and arrows, they had been all taken
+up for the occasion, and that he had all the while been hidden in
+some hut slily watching till he heard that the strangers might be
+trusted; but on listening to the details given by these men of the
+appearances of the crops at different parts, and the astonishing
+minuteness of the speakers' topography, we were persuaded that in
+some cases we were wrong, and felt rather humiliated.  Every knoll,
+hill, mountain, and every peak on a range has a name; and so has
+every watercourse, dell, and plain.  In fact, every feature and
+portion of the country is so minutely distinguished by appropriate
+names, that it would take a lifetime to decipher their meaning.  It
+is not the want, but the superabundance of names that misleads
+travellers, and the terms used are so multifarious that good scholars
+will at times scarcely know more than the subject of conversation.
+Though it is a little apart from the topic of the attention which the
+headmen pay to agriculture, yet it may be here mentioned, while
+speaking of the fulness of the language, that we have heard about a
+score of words to indicate different varieties of gait--one walks
+leaning forward, or backward, swaying from side to side, loungingly,
+or smartly, swaggeringly, swinging the arms, or only one arm, head
+down or up, or otherwise; each of these modes of walking was
+expressed by a particular verb; and more words were used to designate
+the different varieties of fools than we ever tried to count.
+
+Mr. Moffat has translated the whole Bible into the language of the
+Bechuana, and has diligently studied this tongue for the last forty-
+four-years; and, though knowing far more of the language than any of
+the natives who have been reared on the Mission-station of Kuruman,
+he does not pretend to have mastered it fully even yet.  However
+copious it may be in terms of which we do not feel the necessity, it
+is poor in others, as in abstract terms, and words used to describe
+mental operations.
+
+Our third day's march ended in the afternoon of the 27th September,
+1863, at the village of Chinanga on the banks of a branch of the
+Loangwa.  A large, rounded mass of granite, a thousand feet high,
+called Nombe rume, stand on the plain a few miles off.  It is quite
+remarkable, because it has so little vegetation on it.  Several other
+granitic hills stand near it, ornamented with trees, like most
+heights of this country, and a heap of blue mountains appears away in
+the north.
+
+The effect of the piercing winds upon the men had never been got rid
+of.  Several had been unable to carry a load ever since we ascended
+to the highlands; we had lost one, and another poor lad was so ill as
+to cause us great anxiety.  By waiting in this village, which was so
+old that it was full of vermin, all became worse.  Our European food
+was entirely expended, and native meal, though finely ground, has so
+many sharp angular particles in it, that it brought back dysentery,
+from which we had suffered so much in May.  We could scarcely obtain
+food for the men.  The headman of this village of Chinanga was off in
+a foray against some people further north to supply slaves to the
+traders expected along the slave route we had just left; and was
+said, after having expelled the inhabitants, to be living in their
+stockade, and devouring their corn.  The conquered tribe had
+purchased what was called a peace by presenting the conqueror with
+three women.
+
+This state of matters afforded us but a poor prospect of finding more
+provisions in that direction than we could with great difficulty and
+at enormous prices obtain here.  But neither want of food, dysentery,
+nor slave wars would have prevented our working our way round the
+Lake in some other direction, had we had time; but we had received
+orders from the Foreign Office to take the "Pioneer" down to the sea
+in the previous April.  The salaries of all the men in her were
+positively "in any case to cease by the 31st of December."
+
+We were said to be only ten days' distant from Lake Bemba.  We might
+speculate on a late rise of the river.  A month or six weeks would
+secure a geographical feat, but the rains were near.  We had been
+warned by different people that the rains were close at hand, and
+that we should then be bogged and unable to travel.  The flood in the
+river might be an early one, or so small in volume as to give but one
+chance of the "Pioneer" descending to the ocean.  The Makololo too
+were becoming dispirited by sickness and want of food, and were
+naturally anxious to be back to their fields in time for sowing.  But
+in addition to all this and more, it was felt that it would not be
+dealing honestly with the Government, were we, for the sake of a
+little eclat, to risk the detention of the "Pioneer" up the river
+during another year; so we decided to return; and though we had
+afterwards the mortification to find that we were detained two full
+months at the ship waiting for the flood which we expected
+immediately after our arrival there, the chagrin was lessened by a
+consciousness of having acted in a fair, honest, above-board manner
+throughout.
+
+On the night of the 29th of September a thief came to the sleeping-
+place of our men and stole a leg of a goat.  On complaining to the
+deputy headman, he said that the thief had fled, but would be caught.
+He suggested a fine, and offered a fowl and her eggs; but wishing
+that the thief alone should be punished, it was advised that HE
+should be found and fined.  The Makololo thought it best to take the
+fowl as a means of making the punishment certain.  After settling
+this matter on the last day of September, we commenced our return
+journey.  We had just the same time to go back to the ship, that we
+had spent in coming to this point, and there is not much to interest
+one in marching over the same ground a second time.
+
+While on our journey north-west, a cheery old woman, who had once
+been beautiful, but whose white hair now contrasted strongly with her
+dark complexion, was working briskly in her garden as we passed.  She
+seemed to enjoy a hale, hearty old age.  She saluted us with what
+elsewhere would be called a good address; and, evidently conscious
+that she deserved the epithet, "dark but comely," answered each of us
+with a frank "Yes, my child."  Another motherly-looking woman,
+sitting by a well, began the conversation by "You are going to visit
+Muazi, and you have come from afar, have you not?"  But in general
+women never speak to strangers unless spoken to, so anything said by
+them attracts attention.  Muazi once presented us with a basket of
+corn.  On hinting that we had no wife to grind our corn, his buxom
+spouse struck in with roguish glee, and said, "I will grind it for
+you; and leave Muazi, to accompany and cook for you in the land of
+the setting sun."  As a rule the women are modest and retiring in
+their demeanour, and, without being oppressed with toil, show a great
+deal of industry.  The crops need about eight months' attention.
+Then when the harvest is home, much labour is required to convert it
+into food as porridge, or beer.  The corn is pounded in a large
+wooden mortar, like the ancient Egyptian one, with a pestle six feet
+long and about four inches thick.  The pounding is performed by two
+or even three women at one mortar.  Each, before delivering a blow
+with her pestle, gives an upward jerk of the body, so as to put
+strength into the stroke, and they keep exact time, so that two
+pestles are never in the mortar at the same moment.  The measured
+thud, thud, thud, and the women standing at their vigorous work, are
+associations inseparable from a prosperous African village.  By the
+operation of pounding, with the aid of a little water, the hard
+outside scale or husk of the grain is removed, and the corn is made
+fit for the millstone.  The meal irritates the stomach unless cleared
+from the husk; without considerable energy in the operator, the husk
+sticks fast to the corn.  Solomon thought that still more vigour than
+is required to separate the hard husk or bran from wheat would fail
+to separate "a fool from his folly."  "Though thou shouldst bray a
+fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, YET will not his
+foolishness depart from him."  The rainbow, in some parts, is called
+the "pestle of the Barimo," or gods.  Boys and girls, by constant
+practice with the pestle, are able to plant stakes in the ground by a
+somewhat similar action, in erecting a hut, so deftly that they never
+miss the first hole made.
+
+Let any one try by repeatedly jobbing a pole with all his force to
+make a deep hole in the ground, and he will understand how difficult
+it is always to strike it into the same spot.
+
+As we were sleeping one night outside a hut, but near enough to hear
+what was going on within, an anxious mother began to grind her corn
+about two o'clock in the morning.  "Ma," inquired a little girl, "why
+grind in the dark?"  Mamma advised sleep, and administered material
+for a sweet dream to her darling, by saying, "I grind meal to buy a
+cloth from the strangers, which will make you look a little lady."
+An observer of these primitive races is struck continually with such
+little trivial touches of genuine human nature.
+
+The mill consists of a block of granite, syenite, or even mica
+schist, fifteen or eighteen inches square and five or six thick, with
+a piece of quartz or other hard rock about the size of a half brick,
+one side of which has a convex surface, and fits into a concave
+hollow in the larger and stationary stone.  The workwoman kneeling,
+grasps this upper millstone with both hands, and works it backwards
+and forwards in the hollow of the lower millstone, in the same way
+that a baker works his dough, when pressing it and pushing from him.
+The weight of the person is brought to bear on the movable stone, and
+while it is pressed and pushed forwards and backwards, one hand
+supplies every now and then a little grain to be thus at first
+bruised and then ground on the lower stone, which is placed on the
+slope so that the meal when ground falls on to a skin or mat spread
+for the purpose.  This is perhaps the most primitive form of mill,
+and anterior to that in oriental countries, where two women grind at
+one mill, and may have been that used by Sarah of old when she
+entertained the Angels.
+
+On 2nd October we applied to Muazi for guides to take us straight
+down to Chinsamba's at Mosapo, and thus cut off an angle, which we
+should otherwise make, by going back to Kota-kota Bay.  He replied
+that his people knew the short way to Chinsamba's that we desired to
+go, but that they all were afraid to venture there, on account of the
+Zulus, or Mazitu.  We therefore started back on our old route, and,
+after three hours' march, found some Babisa in a village who promised
+to lead us to Chinsamba.
+
+We meet with these keen traders everywhere.  They are easily known by
+a line of horizontal cicatrices, each half an inch long, down the
+middle of the forehead and chin.  They often wear the hair collected
+in a mass on the upper and back part of the head, while it is all
+shaven off the forehead and temples.  The Babisa and Waiau or Ajawa
+heads have more of the round bullet-shape than those of the Manganja,
+indicating a marked difference in character; the former people being
+great traders and travellers, the latter being attached to home and
+agriculture.  The Manganja usually intrust their ivory to the Babisa
+to be sold at the Coast, and complain that the returns made never
+come up to the high prices which they hear so much about before it is
+sent.  In fact, by the time the Babisa return, the expenses of the
+journey, in which they often spend a month or two at a place where
+food abounds, usually eat up all the profits.
+
+Our new companions were trading in tobacco, and had collected
+quantities of the round balls, about the size of nine pounder shot,
+into which it is formed.  One of them owned a woman, whose child had
+been sold that morning for tobacco.  The mother followed him, weeping
+silently, for hours along the way we went; she seemed to be well
+known, for at several hamlets, the women spoke to her with evident
+sympathy; we could do nothing to alleviate her sorrow--the child
+would be kept until some slave-trader passed, and then sold for
+calico.  The different cases of slave-trading observed by us are
+mentioned, in order to give a fair idea of its details.
+
+We spent the first night, after leaving the slave route, at the
+village of Nkoma, among a section of Manganja, called Machewa, or
+Macheba, whose district extends to the Bua.
+
+The next village at which we slept was also that of a Manganja smith.
+It was a beautiful spot, shaded with tall euphorbia-trees.  The
+people at first fled, but after a short time returned, and ordered us
+off to a stockade of Babisa, about a mile distant.  We preferred to
+remain in the smooth shady spot outside the hamlet, to being pent up
+in a treeless stockade.  Twenty or thirty men came dropping in, all
+fully armed with bows and arrows, some of them were at least six feet
+four in height, yet these giants were not ashamed to say, "We thought
+that you were Mazitu, and, being afraid, ran away."  Their orders to
+us were evidently inspired by terror, and so must the refusal of the
+headman to receive a cloth, or lend us a hut have been; but as we
+never had the opportunity of realizing what feelings a successful
+invasion would produce, we did not know whether to blame them or not.
+The headman, a tall old smith, with an enormous, well-made knife of
+his own workmanship, came quietly round, and, inspecting the shelter,
+which, from there being abundance of long grass and bushes near, our
+men put up for us in half an hour, gradually changed his tactics,
+and, in the evening, presented us with a huge pot of porridge and a
+deliciously well-cooked fowl, and made an apology for having been so
+rude to strangers, and a lamentation that he had been so foolish as
+to refuse the fine cloth we had offered.  Another cloth was of course
+presented, and we had the pleasure of parting good friends next day.
+
+Our guide, who belonged to the stockade near to which we had slept,
+declined to risk himself further than his home.  While waiting to
+hire another, Masiko attempted to purchase a goat, and had nearly
+concluded the bargain, when the wife of the would-be seller came
+forward, and said to her husband, "You appear as if you were
+unmarried; selling a goat without consulting your wife; what an
+insult to a woman!  What sort of man are you?"  Masiko urged the man,
+saying, "Let us conclude the bargain, and never mind her;" but he
+being better instructed, replied, "No, I have raised a host against
+myself already," and refused.
+
+We now pushed on to the east, so as to get down to the shores of the
+Lake, and into the parts where we were known.  The country was
+beautiful, well wooded, and undulating, but the villages were all
+deserted; and the flight of the people seemed to have been quite
+recent, for the grain was standing in the corn-safes untouched.  The
+tobacco, though ripe, remained uncut in the gardens, and the whole
+country was painfully quiet:  the oppressive stillness quite unbroken
+by the singing of birds, or the shrill calls of women watching their
+corn.
+
+On passing a beautiful village, called Bangwe, surrounded by shady
+trees, and placed in a valley among mountains, we were admiring the
+beauty of the situation, when some of the much dreaded Mazitu, with
+their shields, ran out of the hamlet, from which we were a mile
+distant.  They began to scream to their companions to give us chase.
+Without quickening our pace we walked on, and soon were in a wood,
+through which the footpath we were following led.  The first
+intimation we had of the approaching Mazitu was given by the Johanna
+man, Zachariah, who always lagged behind, running up, screaming as if
+for his life.  The bundles were all put in one place to be defended;
+and Masiko and Dr. Livingstone walked a few paces back to meet the
+coming foe.  Masiko knelt down anxious to fire, but was ordered not
+to do so.  For a second or two dusky forms appeared among the trees,
+and the Mazitu were asked, in their own tongue, "What do you want?"
+Masiko adding, "What do you say?"  No answer was given, but the dark
+shade in the forest vanished.  They had evidently taken us for
+natives, and the sight of a white man was sufficient to put them to
+flight.  Had we been nearer the Coast, where the people are
+accustomed to the slave-trade, we should have found this affair a
+more difficult one to deal with; but, as a rule, the people of the
+interior are much more mild in character than those on the confines
+of civilization.
+
+The above very small adventure was all the danger we were aware of in
+this journey; but a report was spread from the Portuguese villages on
+the Zambesi, similar to several rumours that had been raised before,
+that Dr. Livingstone had been murdered by the Makololo; and very
+unfortunately the report reached England before it could be
+contradicted.
+
+One benefit arose from the Mazitu adventure.  Zachariah, and others
+who had too often to be reproved for lagging behind, now took their
+places in the front rank; and we had no difficulty in making very
+long marches for several days, for all believed that the Mazitu would
+follow our footsteps, and attack us while we slept.
+
+A party of Babisa tobacco-traders came from the N.W. to Molamba,
+while we were there; and one of them asserted several times that the
+Loapula, after emerging from Moelo, received the Lulua, and then
+flowed into Lake Mofu, and thence into Tanganyika; and from the last-
+named Lake into the sea.  This is the native idea of the geography of
+the interior; and, to test the general knowledge of our informant, we
+asked him about our acquaintances in Londa; as Moene, Katema, Shinde
+or Shinte, who live south-west of the rivers mentioned, and found
+that our friends there were perfectly well-known to him and to others
+of these travelled natives.  In the evening two of the Babisa came
+in, and reported that the Mazitu had followed us to the village
+called Chigaragara, at which we slept at the bottom of the descent.
+The whole party of traders set off at once, though the sun had set.
+We ourselves had given rise to the report, for the women of
+Chigaragara, supposing us in the distance to be Mazitu, fled, with
+all their household utensils on their heads, and had no opportunity
+afterwards of finding out their mistake.  We spent the night where we
+were, and next morning, declining Nkomo's entreaty to go and kill
+elephants, took our course along the shores of the Lake southwards.
+
+We have only been at the Lake at one season of the year:  then the
+wind blows strongly from the east, and indeed this is its prevailing
+direction hence to the Orange River; a north or a south wind is rare,
+and seldom lasts more than three days.  As the breeze now blew over a
+large body of water, towards us, it was delightful; but when facing
+it on the table-land it was so strong as materially to impede our
+progress, and added considerably to the labour of travelling.  Here
+it brought large quantities of the plant (Vallisneriae), from which
+the natives extract salt by burning, and which, if chewed, at once
+shows its saline properties by the taste.  Clouds of the kungo, or
+edible midges, floated on the Lake, and many rested on the bushes on
+land.
+
+The reeds along the shores of the Lake were still crowded with
+fugitives, and a great loss of life must since have taken place; for,
+after the corn they had brought with them was expended, famine would
+ensue.  Even now we passed many women and children digging up the
+roots, about the size of peas, of an aromatic grass; and their wasted
+forms showed that this poor hard fare was to allay, if possible, the
+pangs of hunger.  The babies at the breast crowed to us as we passed,
+their mothers kneeling and grubbing for the roots; the poor little
+things still drawing nourishment from the natural fountain were
+unconscious of that sinking of heart which their parents must have
+felt in knowing that the supply for the little ones must soon fail.
+No one would sell a bit of food to us:  fishermen, even, would not
+part with the produce of their nets, except in exchange for some
+other kind of food.  Numbers of newly-made graves showed that many
+had already perished, and hundreds were so emaciated that they had
+the appearance of human skeletons swathed in brown and wrinkled
+leather.  In passing mile after mile, marked with these sad proofs
+that "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn," one
+experiences an overpowering sense of helplessness to alleviate human
+woe, and breathes a silent prayer to the Almighty to hasten the good
+time coming when "man and man the world o'er, shall brothers be for
+all that."  One small redeeming consideration in all this misery
+could not but be felt; these ills were inflicted by heathen Mazitu,
+and not by, or for, those who say to Him who is higher than the
+highest, "We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge."
+
+We crossed the Mokole, rested at Chitanda, and then left the Lake,
+and struck away N.W. to Chinsamba's.  Our companions, who were so
+much oppressed by the rarefied air of the plateau, still showed signs
+of exhaustion, though now only 1300 feet above the sea, and did not
+recover flesh and spirits till we again entered the Lower Shire
+Valley, which is of so small an altitude, that, without simultaneous
+observations with the barometer there and on the sea-coast, the
+difference would not be appreciable.
+
+On a large plain on which we spent one night, we had the company of
+eighty tobacco traders on their way from Kasungu to Chinsamba's.  The
+Mazitu had attacked and killed two of them, near the spot where the
+Zulus fled from us without answering our questions.  The traders were
+now so frightened that, instead of making a straight course with us,
+they set off by night to follow the shores of the Lake to Tsenga, and
+then turn west.  It is the sight of shields, or guns that inspires
+terror.  The bowmen feel perfectly helpless when the enemy comes with
+even the small protection the skin shield affords, or attacks them in
+the open field with guns.  They may shoot a few arrows, but they are
+such poor shots that ten to one if they hit.  The only thing that
+makes the arrow formidable is the poison; for if the poisoned barb
+goes in nothing can save the wounded.  A bow is in use in the lower
+end of Lake Nyassa, but is more common in the Maravi country, from
+six to eight inches broad, which is intended to be used as a shield
+as well as a bow; but we never saw one with the mark on it of an
+enemy's arrow.  It certainly is no match for the Zulu shield, which
+is between four and five feet long, of an oval shape, and about two
+feet broad.  So great is the terror this shield inspires that we
+sometimes doubted whether the Mazitu here were Zulus at all, and
+suspected that the people of the country took advantage of that fear,
+and, assuming shields, pretended to belong to that nation.
+
+On the 11th October we arrived at the stockade of Chinsamba in
+Mosapo, and had reason to be very well satisfied with his kindness.
+A paraffin candle was in his eyes the height of luxury, and the
+ability to make a light instantaneously by a lucifer match, a marvel
+that struck him with wonder.  He brought all his relatives in
+different groups to see the strange sights,--instantaneous fire-
+making, and a light, without the annoyance of having fire and smoke
+in the middle of the floor.  When they wish to look for anything in
+the dark, a wisp of dried grass is lighted.
+
+Chinsamba gave us a great deal of his company during our visits.  As
+we have often remarked in other cases, a chief has a great deal to
+attend to in guiding the affairs of his people.  He is consulted on
+all occasions, and gives his advice in a stream of words, which show
+a very intimate acquaintance with the topography of his district; he
+knows every rood cultivated, every weir put in the river, every
+hunting-net, loom, gorge, and every child of his tribe.  Any addition
+made to the number of these latter is notified to him; and he sends
+thanks and compliments to the parents.
+
+The presents which, following the custom of the country, we gave to
+every headman, where we either spent a night or a longer period,
+varied from four to eight yards of calico.  We had some Manchester
+cloths made in imitation of the native manufactured robes of the West
+Coast, each worth five or six shillings.  To the more important of
+the chiefs, for calico we substituted one of these strong gaudy
+dresses, iron spoons, a knife, needles, a tin dish, or pannikin, and
+found these presents to be valued more than three times their value
+in cloth would have been.  Eight or ten shillings' worth gave
+abundant satisfaction to the greediest; but this is to be understood
+as the prime cost of the articles, and a trader would sometimes have
+estimated similar generosity as equal to from 30 to 50 pounds.  In
+some cases the presents we gave exceeded the value of what was
+received in return; in others the excess of generosity was on the
+native side.
+
+We never asked for leave to pass through the country; we simply told
+where we were going, and asked for guides; if they were refused, or
+if they demanded payment beforehand, we requested to be put into the
+beginning of the path, and said that we were sorry we could not agree
+about the guides, and usually they and we started together.  Greater
+care would be required on entering the Mazitu or Zulu country, for
+there the Government extends over very large districts, while among
+the Manganja each little district is independent of every other.  The
+people here have not adopted the exacting system of the Banyai, or of
+the people whose country was traversed by Speke and Grant.
+
+In our way back from Chinsamba's to Chembi's and from his village to
+Nkwinda's, and thence to Katosa's, we only saw the people working in
+their gardens, near to the stockades.  These strongholds were
+strengthened with branches of acacias, covered with strong hooked
+thorns; and were all crowded with people.  The air was now clearer
+than when we went north, and we could see the hills of Kirk's Range
+five or six miles to the west of our path.  The sun struck very hot,
+and the men felt it most in their feet.  Every one who could get a
+bit of goatskin made it into a pair of sandals.
+
+While sitting at Nkwinda's, a man behind the court hedge-wall said,
+with great apparent glee, that an Arab slaving party on the other
+side of the confluence of the Shire and Lake were "giving readily two
+fathoms of calico for a boy, and two and a half for a girl; never saw
+trade so brisk, no haggling at all."  This party was purchasing for
+the supply of the ocean slave-trade.  One of the evils of this
+traffic is that it profits by every calamity that happens in a
+country.  The slave-trader naturally reaps advantage from every
+disorder, and though in the present case some lives may have been
+saved that otherwise would have perished, as a rule he intensifies
+hatreds, and aggravates wars between the tribes, because the more
+they fight and vanquish each other the richer his harvest becomes.
+Where slaving and cattle are unknown the people live in peace.  As we
+sat leaning against that hedge, and listened to the harangue of the
+slave-trader's agent, it glanced across our mind that this was a
+terrible world; the best in it unable, from conscious imperfections,
+to say to the worst "Stand by! for I am holier than thou."  The
+slave-trader, imbued no doubt with certain kindly feelings, yet
+pursuing a calling which makes him a fair specimen of a human fiend,
+stands grouped with those by whom the slave-traders are employed, and
+with all the workers of sin and misery in more highly-favoured lands,
+an awful picture to the All-seing Eye.
+
+We arrived at Katosa's village on the 15th October, and found about
+thirty young men and boys in slave-sticks.  They had been bought by
+other agents of the Arab slavers, still on the east side of the
+Shire.  They were resting in the village, and their owners soon
+removed them.  The weight of the goree seemed very annoying when they
+tried to sleep.  This taming instrument is kept on, until the party
+has crossed several rivers and all hope of escape has vanished from
+the captive's mind.
+
+On explaining to Katosa the injury he was doing in selling his people
+as slaves, he assured us that those whom we had seen belonged to the
+Arabs, and added that he had far too few people already.  He said he
+had been living in peace at the lakelet Pamalombe; that the Ajawa, or
+Machinga, under Kainka and Karamba, and a body of Babisa, under
+Maonga, had induced him to ferry them over the Shire; that they had
+lived for a considerable time at his expense, and at last stole his
+sheep, which induced him to make his escape to the place where he now
+dwelt, and in this flight he had lost many of his people.  His
+account of the usual conduct of the Ajawa quite agrees with what
+these people have narrated themselves, and gives but a low idea of
+their moral tone.  They have repeatedly broken all the laws of
+hospitality by living for months on the bounty of the Manganja, and
+then, by a sudden uprising, overcoming their hosts, and killing or
+chasing them out of their inheritances.  The secret of their success
+is the possession of firearms.  There were several of these Ajawa
+here again, and on our arrival they proposed to Katosa that they
+should leave; but he replied that they need not be afraid of us.
+They had red beads strung so thickly on their hair that at a little
+distance they appeared to have on red caps.  It is curious that the
+taste for red hair should be so general among the Africans here and
+further north; in the south black mica, called Sebilo, and even soot
+are used to deepen the colour of the hair; here many smear the head
+with red-ochre, others plait the inner bark of a tree stained red
+into it; and a red powder called Mukuru is employed, which some say
+is obtained from the ground, and others from the roots of a tree.
+
+It having been doubted whether sugar-cane is indigenous to this
+country or not, we employed Katosa to procure the two varieties
+commonly cultivated, with the intention of conveying them to Johanna.
+One is yellow, and the other, like what we observed in the Barotse
+Valley, is variegated with dark red and yellow patches, or all red.
+We have seen it "arrow," or blossom.  Bamboos also run to seed, and
+the people are said to use the seed as food.  The sugar-cane has
+native names, which would lead us to believe it to be indigenous.
+Here it is called Zimbi, further south Mesari, and in the centre of
+the country Meshuati.  Anything introduced in recent times, as maize,
+superior cotton, or cassava, has a name implying its foreign origin.
+
+Katosa's village was embowered among gigantic trees of fine timber:
+several caffiaceous bushes, with berries closely resembling those of
+the common coffee, grew near, but no use had ever been made of them.
+There are several cinchonaceous trees also in the country; and some
+of the wild fruits are so good as to cause a feeling of regret that
+they have not been improved by cultivation, or whatever else brought
+ours to their present perfection.  Katosa lamented that this locality
+was so inferior to his former place at Pamalombe; there he had maize
+at the different stages of growth throughout the year.  To us,
+however, he seemed, by digging holes, and taking advantage of the
+moisture beneath, to have succeeded pretty well in raising crops at
+this the driest time.  The Makololo remarked that "here the maize had
+no season,"--meaning that the whole year was proper for its growth
+and ripening.  By irrigation a succession of crops of grain might be
+raised anywhere within the south intertropical region of Africa.
+
+When we were with Motunda, on the 20th October, he told us frankly
+that all the native provisions were hidden in Kirk's Range, and his
+village being the last place where a supply of grain could be
+purchased before we reached the ship, we waited till he had sent to
+his hidden stores.  The upland country, beyond the mountains now on
+our right, is called Deza, and is inhabited by Maravi, who are only
+another tribe of Manganja.  The paramount chief is called Kabambe,
+and he, having never been visited by war, lives in peace and plenty.
+Goats and sheep thrive; and Nyango, the chieftainess further to the
+south, has herds of horned cattle.  The country being elevated is
+said to be cold, and there are large grassy plains on it which are
+destitute of trees.  The Maravi are reported to be brave, and good
+marksmen with the bow; but, throughout all the country we have
+traversed, guns are enabling the trading tribes to overcome the
+agricultural and manufacturing classes.
+
+On the ascent at the end of the valley just opposite Mount Mvai, we
+looked back for a moment to impress the beauties of the grand vale on
+our memory.  The heat of the sun was now excessive, and Masiko,
+thinking that it was overpowering, proposed to send forward to the
+ship and get a hammock, in which to carry any one who might knock up.
+He was truly kind and considerate.  Dr. Livingstone having fallen
+asleep after a fatiguing march, a hole in the roof of the hut he was
+in allowed the sun to beat on his head, and caused a splitting
+headache and deafness:  while he was nearly insensible, he felt
+Masiko repeatedly lift him back to the bed off which he had rolled,
+and cover him up.
+
+On the 24th we were again in Banda, at the village of Chasundu, and
+could now see clearly the hot valley in which the Shire flows, and
+the mountains of the Manganja beyond to our south-east.  Instead of
+following the road by which we had come, we resolved to go south
+along the Lesungwe, which rises at Zunje, a peak on the same ridge as
+Mvai, and a part of Kirk's Range, which bounds the country of the
+Maravi on our west.  This is about the limit of the beat of the
+Portuguese native traders, and it is but recently that, following our
+footsteps, they have come so far.  It is not likely that their
+enterprise will lead them further north, for Chasundu informed us
+that the Babisa under-sell the agents from Tette.  He had tried to
+deal with the latter when they first came; but they offered only ten
+fathoms of calico for a tusk, for which the Babisa gave him twenty
+fathoms and a little powder.  Ivory was brought to us for sale again
+and again, and, as far as we could judge, the price expected would be
+about one yard of calico per pound, or possibly more, for there is no
+scale of prices known.  The rule seems to be that buyer and seller
+shall spend a good deal of time in trying to cheat each other before
+coming to any conclusion over a bargain.
+
+We found the Lesungwe a fine stream near its source, and about forty
+feet wide and knee-deep, when joined by the Lekudzi, which comes down
+from the Maravi country.
+
+Guinea-fowl abounded, but no grain could be purchased, for the people
+had cultivated only the holmes along the banks with maize and
+pumpkins.  Time enough had not elapsed since the slave-trader's
+invasion, and destruction of their stores, for them to raise crops of
+grain on the adjacent lands.  To deal with them for a few heads of
+maize was the hungry bargaining with the famished, so we hastened on
+southwards as fast as the excessive heat would allow us.  It was
+impossible to march in the middle of the day, the heat was so
+intolerable; and we could not go on at night, because, if we had
+chanced to meet any of the inhabitants, we should have been taken for
+marauders.
+
+We had now thunder every afternoon; but while occasional showers
+seemed to fall at different parts, none fell on us.  The air was
+deliciously clear, and revealed all the landscape covered everywhere
+with forest, and bounded by beautiful mountains.  On the 31st October
+we reached the Mukuru-Madse, after having travelled 660 geographical
+miles, or 760 English miles in a straight line.  This was
+accomplished in fifty-five travelling days, twelve miles per diem on
+an average.  If the numerous bendings and windings, and ups and downs
+of the paths could have been measured too, the distance would have
+been found at least fifteen miles a day.
+
+The night we slept at the Mukuru-Madse it thundered heavily, but, as
+this had been the case every afternoon, and no rain had followed, we
+erected no shelter, but during this night a pouring rain came on.
+When very tired a man feels determined to sleep in spite of
+everything, and the sound of dropping water is said to be conducive
+to slumber, but that does not refer to an African storm.  If, when
+half asleep in spite of a heavy shower on the back of the head, he
+unconsciously turns on his side, the drops from the branches make
+such capital shots into his ear, that the brain rings again.
+
+We were off next morning, the 1st of November, as soon as the day
+dawned.  In walking about seven miles to the ship, our clothes were
+thoroughly dried by the hot sun, and an attack of fever followed.  We
+relate this little incident to point out the almost certain
+consequence of getting wet in this climate, and allowing the clothes
+to dry on the person.  Even if we walk in the mornings when the dew
+is on the grass, and only get our feet and legs wet, a very uneasy
+feeling and partial fever with pains in the limbs ensue, and continue
+till the march onwards bathes them in perspiration.  Had Bishop
+Mackenzie been aware of this, which, before experience alone had
+taught us, entailed many a severe lesson, we know no earthly reason
+why his valuable life might not have been spared.  The difference
+between getting the clothes soaked in England and in Africa is this:
+in the cold climate the patient is compelled, or, at any rate,
+warned, by discomfort to resort at once to a change of raiment; while
+in Africa it is cooling and rather pleasant to allow the clothes to
+dry on the person.  A Missionary in proportion as he possesses an
+athletic frame, hardened by manly exercises, in addition to his other
+qualifications, will excel him who is not favoured with such bodily
+endowments; but in a hot climate efficiency mainly depends on
+husbanding the resources.  He must never forget that, in the tropics,
+he is an exotic plant.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+
+Confidence of natives--Bishop Tozer--Withdrawal of the Mission party-
+-The English leave--Hazardous voyage to Mosambique--Dr. Livingstone's
+voyage to Bombay--Return to England.
+
+We were delighted and thankful to find all those left at the ship in
+good health, and that from the employments in which they had been
+occupied they had suffered less from fever than usual during our
+absence.  My companion, Thomas Ward, the steward, after having
+performed his part in the march right bravely, rejoined his comrades
+stronger than he had ever been before.
+
+An Ajawa chief, named Kapeni, had so much confidence in the English
+name that he, with most of his people, visited the ship; and asserted
+that nothing would give his countrymen greater pleasure than to
+receive the associates of Bishop Mackenzie as their teachers.  This
+declaration, coupled with the subsequent conduct of the Ajawa, was
+very gratifying, inasmuch as it was clear that no umbrage had been
+taken at the check which the Bishop had given to their slaving; their
+consciences had told them that the course he had pursued was right.
+
+When we returned, the contrast between the vegetation about Muazi's
+and that near the ship was very striking.  We had come so quickly
+down, that while on the plateau in latitude 12 degrees S., the young
+leaves had in many cases passed from the pink or other colour they
+have on first coming out to the light fresh green which succeeds it,
+here, on the borders of 16 degrees S., or from 150 to 180 miles
+distant, the trees were still bare, the grey colour of the bark
+predominating over every other hue.  The trees in the tropics here
+have a very well-marked annual rest.  On the Rovuma even, which is
+only about ten degrees from the equator, in September the slopes up
+from the river some sixty miles inland were of a light ashy-grey
+colour; and on ascending them, we found that the majority of the
+trees were without leaves; those of the bamboo even lay crisp and
+crumpled on the ground.  As the sun is usually hot by day, even in
+the winter, this withering process may be owing to the cool nights;
+Africa differing so much from Central India in the fact that, in
+Africa, however hot the day may be, the air generally cools down
+sufficiently by the early morning watches to render a covering or
+even a blanket agreeable.
+
+The first fortnight after our return to the ship was employed in the
+delightful process of resting, to appreciate which a man must have
+gone through great exertions.  In our case the muscles of the limbs
+were as hard as boards, and not an ounce of fat existed on any part
+of the body.  We now had frequent showers; but, these being only the
+earlier rains, the result on the rise of the river was but a few
+inches.  The effect of these rains on the surrounding scenery was
+beautiful in the extreme.  All trace of the dry season was soon
+obliterated, and hills and mountains from base to summit were covered
+with a mantle of living green.  The sun passed us on his way south
+without causing a flood, so all our hopes of a release were centred
+on his return towards the Equator, when, as a rule, the waters of
+inundation are made to flow.  Up to this time the rains descended
+simply to water the earth, fill the pools, and make ready for the
+grand overflow for which we had still to wait six weeks.  It is of no
+use to conceal that we waited with much chagrin; for had we not been
+forced to return from the highlands west of Nyassa we might have
+visited Lake Bemba; but unavailing regrets are poor employment for
+the mind; so we banished them to the best of our power.
+
+About the middle of December, 1863, we were informed that Bishop
+Mackenzie's successor, after spending a few months on the top of a
+mountain about as high as Ben Nevis in Scotland, at the mouth of the
+Shire, where there were few or no people to be taught, had determined
+to leave the country.  This unfortunate decision was communicated to
+us at the same time that six of the boys reared by Bishop Mackenzie
+were sent back into heathenism.  The boys were taken to a place about
+seven miles from the ship, but immediately found their way up to us.
+We told them that if they wished to remain in the country they had
+better so arrange at once, for we were soon to leave.  The sequel
+will show their choice.
+
+As soon as the death of Bishop Mackenzie was known at the Cape, Dr.
+Gray, the excellent Bishop there, proceeded at once to England, with
+a view of securing an early appointment of another head to the
+Mission, which in its origin owed so much to his zeal for the spread
+of the gospel among the heathen, and whose interests he had
+continually at heart.  About the middle of 1862 we heard that Dr.
+Gray's efforts had been successful, and that another clergyman would
+soon take the place of our departed friend.  This pleasing
+intelligence was exceedingly cheering to the Missionaries, and
+gratifying also to the members of the Expedition.  About the
+beginning of 1863 the new Bishop arrived at the mouth of the river in
+a man-of-war, and after some delay proceeded inland.  The Bishop of
+the Cape had taken a voyage home at considerable inconvenience to
+himself, for the sole object of promoting this Mission to the
+heathen; and it was somehow expected that the man he would secure
+would be an image of himself; and we must say, that whatever others,
+from the representations that have gone abroad, may think of his
+character, we invariably found Dr. Gray to be a true, warm-hearted
+promoter of the welfare of his fellow-men; a man whose courage and
+zeal have provoked very many to good works.
+
+It was hoped that the presence of a new head to the Mission would
+infuse new energy and life into the small band of Missionaries, whose
+ranks had been thinned by death; and who, though discouraged by the
+disasters which the slave war and famine had induced, and also
+dispirited by the depressing influences of a low and unhealthy
+position in the swampy Shire Valley, were yet bravely holding out
+till the much-needed moral and material aid should arrive.
+
+We believe that we are uttering the sentiments of many devout members
+of different sections of Christians, when we say, it was a pity that
+the Mission of the Universities was abandoned.  The ground had been
+consecrated in the truest sense by the lives of those brave men who
+first occupied it.  In bare justice to Bishop Mackenzie, who was the
+first to fall, it must be said, that the repudiation of all he had
+done, and the sudden abandonment of all that had cost so much life
+and money to secure, was a serious line of conduct for one so
+unversed in Missionary operations as his successor, to inaugurate.
+It would have been no more than fair that Bishop Tozer, before
+winding up the affairs of the Mission, should actually have examined
+the highlands of the Upper Shire; he would thus have gratified the
+associates of his predecessor, who believed that the highlands had
+never had a fair trial, and he would have gained from personal
+observation a more accurate knowledge of the country and the people
+than he could possibly have become possessed of by information
+gathered chiefly on the coast.  With this examination, rather than
+with a stay of a few months on the humid, dripping top of misty
+Morambala, we should have felt much more satisfied.
+
+In January, 1864, the natives all confidently asserted that at next
+full moon the river would have its great and permanent flood.  It had
+several times risen as much as a foot, but fell again as suddenly.
+It was curious that their observation coincided exactly with ours,
+that the flood of inundation happens when the sun comes overhead on
+his way back to the Equator.  We mention this more minutely because,
+from the observation of several years, we believe that in this way
+the inundation of the Nile is to be explained.  On the 19th the Shire
+suddenly rose several feet, and we started at once; and stopping only
+for a short time at Chibisa's to bid adieu to the Ajawa and Makololo,
+who had been extremely useful to us of late in supplying maize and
+fresh provisions, we hastened on our way to the ocean.  In order to
+keep a steerage way on the "Pioneer," we had to go quicker than the
+stream, and unfortunately carried away her rudder in passing suddenly
+round a bank.  The delay required for the repairs prevented our
+reaching Morambala till the 2nd of February.
+
+The flood-water ran into a marsh some miles above the mountain, and
+became as black as ink; and when it returned again to the river
+emitted so strong an effluvium of sulphuretted hydrogen, that one
+could not forget for an instant that the air was most offensive.  The
+natives said this stench did not produce disease.  We spent one night
+in it, and suffered no ill effects, though we fully expected an
+attack of fever.  Next morning every particle of white paint on both
+ships was so deeply blackened, that it could not be cleaned by
+scrubbing with soap and water.  The brass was all turned to a bronze
+colour, and even the iron and ropes had taken a new tint.  This is an
+additional proof that malaria and offensive effluvia are not always
+companions.  We did not suffer more from fever in the mangrove
+swamps, where we inhaled so much of the heavy mousey smell that it
+was distinguishable in the odour of our shirts and flannels, than we
+did elsewhere.
+
+We tarried in the foul and blackening emanations from the marsh
+because we had agreed to receive on board about thirty poor orphan
+boys and girls, and a few helpless widows whom Bishop Mackenzie had
+attached to his Mission.  All who were able to support themselves had
+been encouraged by the Missionaries to do so by cultivating the
+ground, and they now formed a little free community.  But the boys
+and girls who were only from seven to twelve years of age, and
+orphans without any one to help them, could not be abandoned without
+bringing odium on the English name.  The effect of an outcry by some
+persons in England, who knew nothing of the circumstances in which
+Bishop Mackenzie was placed, and who certainly had not given up their
+own right of appeal to the sword of the magistrate, was, that the new
+head of the Mission had gone to extremes in the opposite direction
+from his predecessor; not even protesting against the one monstrous
+evil of the country, the slave-trade.  We believed that we ought to
+leave the English name in the same good repute among the natives that
+we had found it; and in removing the poor creatures, who had lived
+with Mackenzie as children with a father, to a land where the
+education he began would be completed, we had the aid and sympathy of
+the best of the Portuguese, and of the whole population.  The
+difference between shipping slaves and receiving these free orphans
+struck us as they came on board.  As soon as permission to embark was
+given, the rush into the boat nearly swamped her--their eagerness to
+be safe on the "Pioneer's" deck had to be repressed.
+
+Bishop Tozer had already left for Quillimane when we took these
+people and the last of the Universities' Missionaries on board and
+proceeded to the Zambesi.  It was in high flood.  We have always
+spoken of this river as if at its lowest, for fear lest we should
+convey an exaggerated impression of its capabilities for navigation.
+Instead of from five to fifteen feet, it was now from fifteen to
+thirty feet, or more, deep.  All the sandbanks and many of the
+islands had disappeared, and before us rolled a river capable, as one
+of our naval friends thought, of carrying a gunboat.  Some of the
+sandy islands are annually swept away, and the quantities of sand
+carried down are prodigious.
+
+The process by which a delta, extending eighty or one hundred miles
+from the sea, has been formed may be seen going on at the present
+day--the coarser particles of sand are driven out into the ocean,
+just in the same way as we see they are over banks in the beds of
+torrents.  The finer portions are caught by the returning tide, and,
+accumulating by successive ebbs and flows, become, with the decaying
+vegetation, arrested by the mangrove roots.  The influence of the
+tide in bringing back the finer particles gives the sea near the
+mouth of the Zambesi a clean and sandy bottom.  This process has been
+going on for ages, and as the delta has enlarged eastwards, the river
+has always kept a channel for itself behind.  Wherever we see an
+island all sand, or with only one layer of mud in it, we know it is
+one of recent formation, and that it may be swept away at any time by
+a flood; while those islands which are all of mud are the more
+ancient, having in fact existed ever since the time when the ebbing
+and flowing tides originally formed them as parts of the delta.  This
+mud resists the action of the river wonderfully.  It is a kind of
+clay on which the eroding power of water has little effect.  Were
+maps made, showing which banks and which islands are liable to
+erosion, it would go far to settle where the annual change of the
+channel would take place; and, were a few stakes driven in year by
+year to guide the water in its course, the river might be made of
+considerable commercial value in the hands of any energetic European
+nation.  No canal or railway would ever be thought of for this part
+of Africa.  A few improvements would make the Zambesi a ready means
+of transit for all the trade that, with a population thinned by
+Portuguese slaving, will ever be developed in our day.  Here there is
+no instance on record of the natives flocking in thousands to the
+colony, as they did at Natal, and even to the Arabs on Lake Nyassa.
+This keeping aloof renders it unlikely that in Portuguese hands the
+Zambesi will ever be of any more value to the world than it has been.
+
+After a hurried visit to Senna, in order to settle with Major Sicard
+and Senhor Ferrao for supplies we had drawn thence after the
+depopulation of the Shire, we proceeded down to the Zambesi's mouth,
+and were fortunate in meeting, on the 13th February, with H.M.S.
+"Orestes."  She was joined next day by H.M.S. "Ariel."  The "Orestes"
+took the "Pioneer," and the "Ariel" the "Lady Nyassa" in tow, for
+Mosambique.  On the 16th a circular storm proved the sea-going
+qualities of the "Lady of the Lake;" for on this day a hurricane
+struck the "Ariel," and drove her nearly backwards at a rate of six
+knots.  The towing hawser wound round her screw and stopped her
+engines.  No sooner had she recovered from this shock than she was
+again taken aback on the other tack, and driven stem on towards the
+"Lady Nyassa's" broadside.  We who were on board the little vessel
+saw no chance of escape unless the crew of the "Ariel" should think
+of heaving ropes when the big ship went over us; but she glided past
+our bow, and we breathed freely again.  We had now an opportunity of
+witnessing man-of-war seamanship.  Captain Chapman, though his
+engines were disabled, did not think of abandoning us in the heavy
+gale, but crossed the bows of the "Lady Nyassa" again and again,
+dropping a cask with a line by which to give us another hawser.  We
+might never have picked it up, had not a Krooman jumped overboard and
+fastened a second line to the cask; and then we drew the hawser on
+board, and were again in tow.  During the whole time of the hurricane
+the little vessel behaved admirably, and never shipped a single green
+sea.  When the "Ariel" pitched forwards we could see a large part of
+her bottom, and when her stern went down we could see all her deck.
+A boat, hung at her stern davits, was stove in by the waves.  The
+officers on board the "Ariel" thought that it was all over with us:
+we imagined that they were suffering more than we were.  Nautical men
+may suppose that this was a serious storm only to landsmen; but the
+"Orestes," which was once in sight, and at another time forty miles
+off during the same gale, split eighteen sails; and the "Pioneer" had
+to be lightened of parts of a sugar-mill she was carrying; her round-
+house was washed away, and the cabin was frequently knee-deep in
+water.  When the "Orestes" came into Mosambique harbour nine days
+after our arrival there, our vessel, not being anchored close to the
+"Ariel," for we had run in under the lee of the fort, led to the
+surmise on board the "Orestes" that we had gone to the bottom.
+Captain Chapman and his officers pronounced the "Lady Nyassa" to be
+the finest little sea-boat they had ever seen.  She certainly was a
+contrast to the "Ma-Robert," and did great credit to her builders,
+Ted and Macgregor of Glasgow.  We can but regret that she was not
+employed on the Lake after which she was named, and for which she was
+intended and was so well adapted.
+
+What struck us most, during the trip from the Zambesi to Mosambique,
+was the admirable way in which Captain Chapman handled the "Ariel" in
+the heavy sea of the hurricane; the promptitude and skill with which,
+when we had broken three hawsers, others were passed to us by the
+rapid evolutions of a big ship round a little one; and the ready
+appliance of means shown in cutting the hawser off the screw nine
+feet under water with long chisels made for the occasion; a task
+which it took three days to accomplish.  Captain Chapman very kindly
+invited us on board the "Ariel," and we accepted his hospitality
+after the weather had moderated.
+
+The little vessel was hauled through and against the huge seas with
+such force that two hawsers measuring eleven inches each in
+circumference parted.  Many of the blows we received from the billows
+made every plate quiver from stem to stern, and the motion was so
+quick that we had to hold on continually to avoid being tossed from
+one side to the other or into the sea.  Ten of the late Bishop's
+flock whom we had on board became so sick and helpless that do what
+we could to aid them they were so very much in the way that the idea
+broke in upon us, that the close packing resorted to by slavers is
+one of the necessities of the traffic.  If this is so, it would
+account for the fact that even when the trade was legal the same
+injurious custom was common, if not universal.  If, instead of ten
+such passengers, we had been carrying two hundred, with the wind
+driving the rain and spray, as by night it did, nearly as hard as
+hail against our faces, and nothing whatever to be seen to windward
+but the occasional gleam of the crest of a wave, and no sound heard
+save the whistling of the storm through the rigging, it would have
+been absolutely necessary for the working of the ship and safety of
+the whole that the live cargo should all have been stowed down below,
+whatever might have been the consequences.
+
+Having delivered the "Pioneer" over to the Navy, she was towed down
+to the Cape by Captain Forsyth of the "Valorous," and after
+examination it was declared that with repairs to the amount of 300
+pounds she would be as serviceable as ever.  Those of the Bishop's
+flock whom we had on board were kindly allowed a passage to the Cape.
+The boys went in the "Orestes," and we are glad of the opportunity to
+record our heartfelt thanks to Captains Forsyth, Gardner, and Chapman
+for rendering us, at various times, every aid in their power.  Mr.
+Waller went in the "Pioneer," and continued his generous services to
+all connected with the Mission, whether white or black, till they
+were no longer needed; and we must say that his conduct to them
+throughout was truly noble, and worthy of the highest praise.
+
+After beaching the "Lady Nyassa" at Caboceira, opposite the house of
+a Portuguese gentleman well known to all Englishmen, Joao da Costa
+Soares, we put in brine cocks, and cleaned and painted her bottom.
+Mr. Soares appeared to us to have been very much vilified in a
+publication in England a few years ago; our experience proved him to
+be extremely kind and obliging.  All the members of the Expedition
+who passed Mosambique were unanimous in extolling his generosity and,
+from the general testimony of English visitors in his favour, we very
+much regret that his character was so grievously misrepresented.  To
+the authorities at Mosambique our thanks are also due for obliging
+accommodation; and though we differ entirely from the Portuguese
+officials as to the light in which we regard the slave-trade, we
+trust our exposure of the system, in which unfortunately they are
+engaged, will not be understood as indicating any want of kindly
+feeling and good will to them personally.  Senhor Canto e Castro, who
+arrived at Mosambique two days after our departure to take the office
+of Governor-General, was well known to us in Angola.  We lived two
+months in his house when he was Commandant of Golungo Alto; and,
+knowing him thoroughly, believe that no better man could have been
+selected for the office.  We trust that his good principles may
+enable him to withstand the temptations of his position; but we
+should be sorry to have ours tried in a den of slave-traders with the
+miserable pittance he receives for his support.
+
+While at Mosambique, a species of Pedalia called by Mr. Soares
+Dadeleira, and by the natives--from its resemblance to Gerzilin, or
+sesamum--"wild sesamum," was shown to us, and is said to be well
+known among native nurses as a very gentle and tasteless aperient for
+children.  A few leaves of it are stirred in a cup of cold water for
+eight or nine seconds, and a couple of teaspoonfuls of the liquid
+given as a dose.  The leaves form a sort of mucilage in the water by
+longer stirring, which is said to have diuretic properties besides.
+
+On the 16th April we steamed out from Mosambique; and, the currents
+being in our favour, in a week reached Zanzibar.  Here we experienced
+much hospitality from our countrymen, and especially from Dr. Seward,
+then acting consul and political agent for Colonel Playfair.
+
+Dr. Seward was very doubtful if we could reach Bombay before what is
+called the break of the monsoon took place.  This break occurs
+usually between the end of May and the 12th of June.  The wind still
+blows from Africa to India, but with so much violence, and with such
+a murky atmosphere, that few or no observations for position can be
+taken.  We were, however, at the time very anxious to dispose of the
+"Lady Nyassa," and, the only market we could reach being Bombay, we
+resolved to run the risk of getting there before the stormy period
+commenced; and, after taking fourteen tons of coal on board, we
+started on the 30th April from Zanzibar.
+
+Our complement consisted of seven native Zambesians, two boys, and
+four Europeans; namely, one stoker, one sailor, one carpenter, whose
+names have been already mentioned, and Dr. Livingstone, as navigator.
+The "Lady Nyassa" had shown herself to be a good sea-boat.  The
+natives had proved themselves capital sailors, though before
+volunteering not one of them had ever seen the sea.  They were not
+picked men, but, on paying a dozen whom we had in our employment for
+fifteen months, they were taken at random from several hundreds who
+offered to accompany us.  Their wages were ten shillings per mensem,
+and it was curious to observe, that so eager were they to do their
+duty, that only one of them lay down from sea-sickness during the
+whole voyage.  They took in and set sail very cleverly in a short
+time, and would climb out along a boom, reeve a rope through the
+block, and come back with the rope in their teeth, though at each
+lurch the performer was dipped in the sea.  The sailor and carpenter,
+though anxious to do their utmost, had a week's severe illness each,
+and were unfit for duty.
+
+It is pleasant enough to take the wheel for an hour or two, or even
+for a watch, but when it comes to be for every alternate four hours,
+it is utterly wearisome.  We set our black men to steer, showing them
+which arm of the compass needle was to be kept towards the vessel's
+head, and soon three of them could manage very well, and they only
+needed watching.  In going up the East Coast to take advantage of the
+current of one hundred miles a day, we would fain have gone into the
+Juba or Webbe River, the mouth of which is only 15 minutes south of
+the line, but we were too shorthanded.  We passed up to about ten
+degrees north of the Equator, and then steamed out from the coast.
+Here Maury's wind chart showed that the calm-belt had long been
+passed, but we were in it still; and, instead of a current carrying
+us north, we had a contrary current which bore us every day four
+miles to the south.  We steamed as long as we dared, knowing as we
+did that we must use the engines on the coast of India.
+
+After losing many days tossing on the silent sea, with innumerable
+dolphins, flying-fish, and sharks around us, we had six days of
+strong breezes, then calms again tried our patience; and the near
+approach of that period, "the break of the monsoon," in which it was
+believed no boat could live, made us sometimes think our epitaph
+would be "Left Zanzibar on 30th April, 1864, and never more heard
+of."  At last, in the beginning of June, the chronometers showed that
+we were near the Indian coast.  The black men believed it was true
+because we told them it was so, but only began to dance with joy when
+they saw sea-weed and serpents floating past.  These serpents are
+peculiar to these parts, and are mentioned as poisonous in the
+sailing directions.  We ventured to predict that we should see land
+next morning, and at midday the high coast hove in sight, wonderfully
+like Africa before the rains begin.  Then a haze covered all the
+land, and a heavy swell beat towards it.  A rock was seen, and a
+latitude showed it to be the Choule rock.  Making that a fresh
+starting-point, we soon found the light-ship, and then the forest of
+masts loomed through the haze in Bombay harbour.  We had sailed over
+2500 miles.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  A remedy composed of from six to eight grains of resin of jalap,
+the same of rhubarb, and three each of calomel and quinine, made up
+into four pills, with tincture of cardamoms, usually relieved all the
+symptoms in five or six hours.  Four pills are a full dose for a man-
+-one will suffice for a woman.  They received from our men the name
+of "rousers," from their efficacy in rousing up even those most
+prostrated.  When their operation is delayed, a dessert-spoonful of
+Epsom salts should be given.  Quinine after or during the operation
+of the pills, in large doses every two or three hours, until deafness
+or cinchonism ensued, completed the cure.  The only cases in which,
+we found ourselves completely helpless, were those in which obstinate
+vomiting ensued.
+
+{2}  The late Mr. Robson.
+
+{3}  In 1865, four years after these forebodings were penned, we
+received intelligence that they had all come to pass.  Sekeletu died
+in the beginning of 1864--a civil war broke out about the succession
+to the chieftainship; a large body of those opposed to the late
+chief's uncle, Impololo, being regent, departed with their cattle to
+Lake Ngami; an insurrection by the black tribes followed; Impololo
+was slain, and the kingdom, of which, under an able sagacious
+mission, a vast deal might have been made, has suffered the usual
+fate of African conquests.  That fate we deeply deplore; for,
+whatever other faults the Makololo might justly be charged with, they
+did not belong to the class who buy and sell each other, and the
+tribes who have succeeded them do.
+
+{4}  It was with sorrow that we learned by a letter from Mr. Moffat,
+in 1864, that poor Sekeletu was dead.  As will be mentioned further
+on, men were sent with us to bring up more medicine.  They preferred
+to remain on the Shire, and, as they were free men, we could do no
+more than try and persuade them to hasten back to their chief with
+iodine and other remedies.  They took the parcel, but there being
+only two real Makololo among them, these could neither return
+themselves alone or force their attendants to leave a part of the
+country where they were independent, and could support themselves
+with ease.  Sekeletu, however, lived long enough to receive and
+acknowledge goods to the value of 50 pounds, sent, in lieu of those
+which remained in Tette, by Robert Moffat, jun., since dead.
+
+{5} A brother, we believe, of one who accompanied Burke and Willis in
+the famous but unfortunate Australian Expedition.
+
+{6}  Genesis, chap. iii., verses 21 and 23, "make coats of skins, and
+clothed them"--"sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the
+ground" imply teaching.  Vide Archbishop Whately's "History of
+Religious Worship."  John W. Parker, West Strand, London, 1849.
+
+{7}  "In 1854 the native church at Sierra-Leone undertook to pay for
+their primary schools, and thereby effected a saving to the Church
+Missionary Society of 800 pounds per annum.  In 1861 the
+contributions of this one section of native Christians had amounted
+to upwards of 10,000 pounds."--"Manual of Church Missionary Society's
+African Missions."
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg eText The Zambesi and Its Tributaries
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