ow a tithe of the gratitude I felt
for the commandant's increasing kindness. My quinine and other remedies
were nearly all expended, and no fresh supply was to be found here,
there being no doctors at Tete, and only one apothecary with the
troops, whose stock of medicine was also small. The Portuguese,
however, informed me that they had the cinchona bark growing in their
country--that there was a little of it to be found at Tete--whole
forests of it at Senna and near the delta of Kilimane. It seems quite
a providential arrangement that the remedy for fever should be found in
the greatest abundance where it is most needed. On seeing the leaves,
I stated that it was not the 'Cinchona longifolia' from which it
is supposed the quinine of commerce is extracted, but the name and
properties of this bark made me imagine that it was a cinchonaceous
tree. I could not get the flower, but when I went to Senna I tried to
bring away a few small living trees with earth in a box. They, however,
all died when we came to Kilimane. Failing in this mode of testing
the point, I submitted a few leaves and seed-vessels to my friend,
Dr. Hooker, who kindly informs me that they belong "apparently to an
apocyneous plant, very nearly allied to the Malouetia Heudlotii (of
Decaisne), a native of Senegambia." Dr. H. adds, "Various plants of this
natural order are reputed powerful febrifuges, and some of them are
said to equal the cinchona in their effects." It is called in the native
tongue Kumbanzo.

The flowers are reported to be white. The pods are in pairs, a foot or
fifteen inches in length, and contain a groove on their inner sides.
The thick soft bark of the root is the part used by the natives; the
Portuguese use that of the tree itself. I immediately began to use a
decoction of the bark of the root, and my men found it so efficacious
that they collected small quantities of it for themselves, and kept it
in little bags for future use. Some of them said that they knew it in
their own country, but I never happened to observe it. The decoction is
given after the first paroxysm of the complaint is over. The Portuguese
believe it to have the same effects as the quinine, and it may prove a
substitute for that invaluable medicine.

There are numbers of other medicines in use among the natives, but I
have always been obliged to regret want of time to ascertain which were
useful and which of no value. We find a medicine in use by a tribe
in one par