themselves.  She was already two months behind her time, and the rainy season was half over.  Then, if the party were taken to Chibisa’s, the Mission would he left without a medical attendant, in an unhealthy region, at the beginning of the most sickly season of the year, and without means of reaching the healthy highlands, or of returning to the sea.  We dreaded that, in the absence of medical aid and all knowledge of the treatment of fever, there might be a repetition of the sorrowful fate which befell the similar non-medical Mission at Linyanti.

On the 25th of February the “Pioneer” anchored in the mouth of the Rovuma, which, unlike most African rivers, has a magnificent bay and no bar.  We wooded, and then waited for the Bishop till the 9th of March, when he came in the “Lyra.”  On the 11th we proceeded up the river, and saw that it had fallen four or five feet during our detention.  The scenery on the lower part of the Rovuma is superior to that on the Zambesi, for we can see the highlands from the sea.  Eight miles from the mouth the mangroves are left behind, and a beautiful range of well-wooded hills on each bank begins.  On these ridges the tree resembling African blackwood, of finer grain than ebony, grows abundantly, and attains a large size.  Few people were seen, and those were of Arab breed, and did not appear to be very well off.  The current of the Rovuma was now as strong as that of the Zambesi, but the volume of water is very much less.  Several of the crossings had barely water enough for our ship, drawing five feet, to pass.  When we were thirty miles up the river, the water fell suddenly seven inches in twenty-four hours.  As the March flood is the last of the season, and it appeared to be expended, it was thought prudent to avoid the chance of a year’s detention, by getting the ship back to the sea without delay.  Had the Expedition been alone, we would have pushed up in boats, or afoot, and done what we could towards the exploration of the river and upper end of the lake; but, though the Mission was a private one, and entirely distinct from our own, a public one, the objects of both being similar, we felt anxious to aid our countrymen in their noble enterprise; and, rather than follow our own inclination, decided to return to the Shire, see the Mission party settled safely, and afterwards explore Lake Nyassa and the Rovuma, from the Lake downwards.  Fever broke out on board the “Pioneer,” at the mouth of the Rovuma, as we thought from our having anchored close to a creek coming out of the mangroves; and it remained in her until we completely isolated the engine-room from the rest of the ship.  The coal-dust rotting sent out strong effluvia, and kept up the disease for more than a twelvemonth.

Soon after we started the fever put the “Pioneer” almost entirely into the hands of the original Zambesi Expedition, and not long afterwards the leader had to navigate the ocean as well as the river.  The habit of finding the geographical positions on land renders it an easy task to steer a steamer with only three or four sails at sea; where, if one does not run ashore, no one follows to find out an error, and where a current affords a ready excuse for every blunder.