468 CROCODILES-THEIR EGGS. CHAP. XXI. most value was a climbing dye-wood, which attains the thickness of a man's leg, and which Dr. Kirk has found experimentally to be of considerable value as a fast yellow color. Baobab-trees on the Rovuma, though not nearly so gigantic in size as those on the Zambesi, bear fruit more than twice as large. The great white blossoms were just out, and much of last year's fruit was still hanging on the branches. 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 inclosure. 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 afterward, 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 unsavory origin in men-eaters. Hunting the Senze (Aulacodus Swindernianus), an animal CHAP. XXI. RETURN TO THE PIONEER. 469 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 scared 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. 470 QUILLIMANE. CHAP. XXII. CHAPTER XXII. Quillimane.-Colonel Nuñez.-Government opposed to Agriculture.-Passport System. The Quillimane "Do-nothings."-Return to the Zambesi.—Shupanga, December 19th, 1862.-Our Mazaro Men and their Relations.-Famine at Tette.-Dispersion of Slaves.-"The Portuguese don't Farm" nor Hunt.-January 10th, the Lady Nyassa in tow.-Mariano's Atrocities.The Bishop's Grave.-Smell and Hearing in Animals.-Angling for Crocodile.-Frightful Sight.-Crocodile versus Makololo.-Penetration of Air throughout the Systems of Birds.-Return of Mr. Thornton.-Kilimanjaro. —Mr. Thornton's generous Kindness to the Mission.—Journey to Tette too much for him.-His Death and Grave.-Wide-spread Desolation.-Slavetrade and Famine.-Marsh Culture.-Lethargy of the remnant of the People.-Skeletons.-Abolition of the Slave-trade a sine quâ non.-Influence of the English Steamer on Lake Nyassa.-Road-making.-Green Freshness of Hills.-No Provisions to be bought.-No Labor.-Poor Food and depressed Spirits the forerunners of Disease.-Dr. Kirk and C. Livingstone ordered home.-Dr. Livingstone Ill.-Dr. Kirk remains to attend him.-19th of May, Dr. Kirk and C. Livingstone leave.-Remonstrance to the Lisbon Government.-Empty Results.-Conduct of Portuguese Statesmen toward Africa. Dr. Livingstone and Mr. Rae start to look after our old Boat.Employments of those left behind.-Woman wounded by an Arrow.-Tenacity of Life.-Dr. Meller. 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 musquito-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. CHAP. XXII. COLONEL NUNEZ. 471 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 Nuñez. 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 honorable course until he is the richest man on the East Coast. When Dr. Livingstone came down the Zambesi in 1856, Colonel Nuñez was the chief of the only four honorable, 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. 472 RETURN TO THE ZAMBESI. CHAP. XXII. All agricultural enterprise is virtually discouraged by the 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 labor 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 labor, 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 marketprice 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 labor 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 |