ards Mariano's stockade was burned, the
garrison having fled in a panic; and as Bonga 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 afterwards 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.

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 distance, when its grey trunk cannot 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 waterfowl,
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 out of the bottom, where he has been enjoying his
morning bath after the labours of the night on shore, blows a puff of
spray from 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.

As we approach Mazaro the scenery improves. We see the well-wooded
Shupanga ridge stretching to the left, and in front blue hills rise dimly
far in the distance. There is no trade whatever on the Zambesi below
Mazaro. All the merchandise of Senna and Tette is brought to that point
in large canoes, and thence carried six miles across the