About twenty-five returned in all to live at Tette.  Some were drawn away by promises made to them as elephant-hunters.  I had no objection to their trying to better their condition, but was annoyed at finding that they would not tell their intentions, but ran away as if I were using compulsion.  I have learned more of the degrading nature of slavery of late than I ever conceived before.  Our 20 millions were well spent in ridding ourselves of the incubus, and I think we ought to assist our countrymen in the West Indies to import free labor from India....  I cannot tell you how glad I am at a prospect of a better system being introduced into Eastern Africa than that which has prevailed for ages, the evils of which have only been intensified by Portuguese colonization, as it is called.  Here we are passing through a well-peopled, fruitful region—­a prolonged valley, for we have the highlands far on our right.  I did not observe before that all the banks of the Zambesi are cotton-fields.  I never intended to write a book and take no note of cotton, which I now see everywhere.  On the Chongwe we found a species which is cultivated south of the Zambesi, which resembles some kinds from South America.

“All that is needed is religious and mercantile establishments to begin a better system and promote peaceful intercourse.  Here we are among a people who go stark naked with no more sense of shame than we have with our clothes on.  The women have more sense and go decently.  You see great he-animals all about your camp carrying their indispensable tobacco-pipes and iron tongs to lift fire with, but the idea of a fig-leaf has never entered the mind.  They cultivate largely have had enormous crops of grain, work well in iron, and show taste in their dwellings, stools, baskets, and musical instruments.  They are very hospitable, too, and appreciate our motives; but shame has been unaccountably left out of the question.  They can give no reason for it except that all their ancestors went exactly as they do.  Can you explain why Adam’s first feeling has no trace of existence in his offspring?”

When the party reached the outskirts of Sekeletu’s territory the news they heard was not encouraging.  Some of the men heard that in their absence some of their wives had been variously disposed of.  One had been killed for witchcraft, another had married again, while Masakasa was told that two years ago a kind of wild Irish wake had been celebrated in honor of his memory; the news made him resolve, when he presented himself among them, to declare himself an inhabitant from another world!  One poor fellow’s wail of anguish for his wife was most distressing to hear.