the Universities was abandoned. The ground had been
consecrated in the truest sense by the lives of those brave men who first
occupied it. In bare justice to Bishop Mackenzie, who was the first to
fall, it must be said, that the repudiation of all he had done, and the
sudden abandonment of all that had cost so much life and money to secure,
was a serious line of conduct for one so unversed in Missionary
operations as his successor, to inaugurate. It would have been no more
than fair that Bishop Tozer, before winding up the affairs of the
Mission, should actually have examined the highlands of the Upper Shire;
he would thus have gratified the associates of his predecessor, who
believed that the highlands had never had a fair trial, and he would have
gained from personal observation a more accurate knowledge of the country
and the people than he could possibly have become possessed of by
information gathered chiefly on the coast. With this examination, rather
than with a stay of a few months on the humid, dripping top of misty
Morambala, we should have felt much more satisfied.

In January, 1864, the natives all confidently asserted that at next full
moon the river would have its great and permanent flood. It had several
times risen as much as a foot, but fell again as suddenly. It was
curious that their observation coincided exactly with ours, that the
flood of inundation happens when the sun comes overhead on his way back
to the Equator. We mention this more minutely because, from the
observation of several years, we believe that in this way the inundation
of the Nile is to be explained. On the 19th the Shire suddenly rose
several feet, and we started at once; and stopping only for a short time
at Chibisa's to bid adieu to the Ajawa and Makololo, who had been
extremely useful to us of late in supplying maize and fresh provisions,
we hastened on our way to the ocean. In order to keep a steerage way on
the "Pioneer," we had to go quicker than the stream, and unfortunately
carried away her rudder in passing suddenly round a bank. The delay
required for the repairs prevented our reaching Morambala till the 2nd of
February.

The flood-water ran into a marsh some miles above the mountain, and
became as black as ink; and when it returned again to the river emitted
so strong an effluvium of sulphuretted hydrogen, that one could not
forget for an instant that the air was most offensive. The natives said
this stench d