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.
