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CONTACT WITH THE "REBELS."

CHAP. I.

asperated with him for stopping their trade and harboring their runaway slaves; but we learned afterward 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 slaveowners to treat their human chattels as well as men do other animals of value, but the slave-trade seems always to engen. der an unreasoning ferocity, if not bloodthirstiness.

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 of June we first came into contact with the "rebels." They appeared as a crowd of wellarmed 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. Henceforth 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

CHAP. I. FIGHT BETWEEN NATIVES AND PORTUGUESE.

29

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 sand-bank in the Zambesi, and thence to an island opposite Shupanga, where they lay for some weeks, looking at the rebels on the main land 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 a three and a half hours' hard fighting. Two months afterward Mariano's stockade was burned, the garrison having fled in a panic; and as Bonga

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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

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VIEW OF MAZARO.-FIGHT OF PORTUGUESE AND REBELS IN THE DISTANCE.

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