We started for Tette on the 17th August, 1858; the navigation was rather difficult, the Zambesi from Shupanga to Senna being wide and full of islands; our black pilot, John Scisssors, a serf, sometimes took the wrong channel and ran us aground.  Nothing abashed, he would exclaim in an aggrieved tone, “This is not the path, it is back yonder.”  “Then why didn’t you go yonder at first?” growled out our Kroomen, who had the work of getting the vessel off.  When they spoke roughly to poor Scissors, the weak cringing slave-spirit came forth in, “Those men scold me so, I am ready to run away.”  This mode of finishing up an engagement is not at all uncommon on the Zambesi; several cases occurred, when we were on the river, of hired crews decamping with most of the goods in their charge.  If the trader cannot redress his own wrongs, he has to endure them.  The Landeens will not surrender a fugitive slave, even to his master.  One belonging to Mr. Azevedo fled, and was, as a great favour only, returned after a present of much more than his value.

We landed to wood at Shamoara, just below the confluence of the Shire.  Its quartz hills are covered with trees and gigantic grasses; the buaze, a small forest-tree, grows abundantly; it is a species of polygala; its beautiful clusters of sweet-scented pinkish flowers perfume the air with a rich fragrance; its seeds produce a fine drying oil, and the bark of the smaller branches yields a fibre finer and stronger than flax; with which the natives make their nets for fishing.  Bonga, the brother of the rebel Mariano, and now at the head of the revolted natives, with some of his principal men came to see us, and were perfectly friendly, though told of our having carried the sick Governor across to Shupanga, and of our having cured him of fever.  On our acquainting Bonga with the object of the expedition, he remarked that we should suffer no hindrance from his people in our good work.  He sent us a present of rice, two sheep, and a quantity of firewood.  He never tried to make any use of us in the strife; the other side showed less confidence, by carefully cross-questioning our pilot whether we had sold any powder to the enemy.  We managed, however, to keep on good terms with both rebels and Portuguese.

Senna is built on a low plain, on the right bank of the Zambesi, with some pretty detached hills in the background; it is surrounded by a stockade of living trees to protect its inhabitants from their troublesome and rebellious neighbours.  It contains a few large houses, some ruins of others, and a weather-beaten cross, where once stood a church; a mound shows the site of an ancient monastery, and a mud fort by the river is so dilapidated, that cows were grazing peacefully over its prostrate walls.