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.
