te slaves, except a very few
household ones, had been driven away by hunger, and were now far off in
the woods, and wherever wild fruit, or the prospect of obtaining anything
whatever to keep the breath of life in them, was to be found. Their
masters were said never to expect to see them again. There have been two
years of great hunger at Tette since we have been in the country, and a
famine like the present prevailed in 1854, when thousands died of
starvation. If men like the Cape farmers owned this country, their
energy and enterprise would soon render the crops independent of rain.
There being plenty of slope or fall, the land could be easily irrigated
from the Zambesi and its tributary streams. A Portuguese colony can
never prosper: it is used as a penal settlement, and everything must be
done military fashion. "What do I care for this country?" said the most
enterprising of the Tette merchants, "all I want is to make money as soon
possible, and then go to Bombay and enjoy it." All business at Tette was
now suspended. Carriers could not be found to take the goods into the
interior, and the merchants could barely obtain food for their own
families. At Mazaro more rain had fallen, and a tolerable crop followed.
The people of Shupanga were collecting and drying different wild fruits,
nearly all of which are far from palatable to a European taste. The root
of a small creeper called "bise" is dug up and eaten. In appearance it
is not unlike the small white sweet potato, and has a little of the
flavour of our potato. It would be very good, if it were only a little
larger. From another tuber, called "ulanga," very good starch can be
made. A few miles from Shupanga there is an abundance of large game, but
the people here, though fond enough of meat, are not a hunting race, and
seldom kill any.

The Shire having risen, we steamed off on the 10th of January, 1863, with
the "Lady Nyassa" in tow. It was not long before we came upon the
ravages of the notorious Mariano. The survivors of a small hamlet, at
the foot of Morambala, were in a state of starvation, having lost their
food by one of his marauding parties. The women were in the fields
collecting insects, roots, wild fruits, and whatever could be eaten, in
order to drag on their lives, if possible, till the next crop should be
ripe. Two canoes passed us, that had been robbed by Mariano's band of
everything they had in them; the owners were gathering palm-nu