r the growth of the
cane, abundance of slave labour, 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 market-price 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 labour 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 from the sailors of the "Pioneer" and
of the "Orestes," and were now regarded by their neighbours and by
themselves as men of importance. Never before had they possessed so much
wealth: they believed that they might settle in life, being now of
sufficient standing to warrant their entering the married state; and a
wife and a hut were among their first investments. Sixteen yards were
paid to the wife's parents, and a hut cost four yards. We should have
liked to have kept them in the ship, for they were well-behaved and had
learned a great deal of the work required. Though they would not
themselves go again, they engaged others for us; and brought twice as
many as we could take, of their brothers and cousins, who were eager to
join the ship and go with us up the Shire, or anywhere else. They all
agreed to take half-pay until they too had learned to work; and we found
no scarcity of labour, though all that could be exported is now out of
the country.

There had been a drought of unusual severity during the past season in
the country between Lupata and Kebrabasa, and it had extended north-east
to the Manganja highlands. All the Tet