30 UNINTERESTING SCENERY. СНАР. І. 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 afterward 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. The sketch opposite represents the scene of action, and is interesting in an historical point of view, because the opening in which a large old canoe, with a hole in its bottom, is seen lying on its side, is the mouth of the creek Mutu, which in 1861 appeared in a map published by the Portuguese "Minister of Marine and the Colonies" as that through which the chief portion of the Zambesi, here about a mile wide, flowed to Quillimane. In reality, this creek, eight or ten yards wide, is filled with grass, and its bed is six feet or more above the level of the Zambesi. The side of the creek opposite to the canoe is seen in the right of the picture, and sloping down from the bed to one of the dead bodies may be marked the successive heights at which the water of the main stream stood from flood-time in March to its medium height in June. 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 CHAP. I. BIRDS AND BEASTS ON RIVER. 33 distance, when its gray trunk can not 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 water-fowl, 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 from the bottom, where he has been enjoying his morning bath after the labors of the night on shore, blows a puff of spray out of 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. left, and There is All the As we approach Mazaro the scenery improves. We see the well-wooded Shupanga ridge stretching to the in front blue hills rise dimly far in the distance. no trade whatever on the Zambesi below Mazaro. 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 C 34 BURDEN OF TRIBUTE. CHAP. I. 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-humoredly giving their reason for insisting on being invariably paid in advance in the words of their favorite 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 their 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 endeavor 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, |