On at last reaching Chibisa’s, we heard that there was war in the Manganja country, and the slave-trade was going on briskly.  A deputation from a chief near Mount Zomba had just passed on its way to Chibisa, who was in a distant village, to implore him to come himself, or send medicine, to drive off the Waiao, Waiau, or Ajawa, whose marauding parties were desolating the land.  A large gang of recently enslaved Manganja crossed the river, on their way to Tette, a few days before we got the ship up.  Chibisa’s deputy was civil, and readily gave us permission to hire as many men to carry the Bishop’s goods up to the hills as were willing to go.  With a sufficient number, therefore, we started for the highlands on the 15th of July, to show the Bishop the country, which, from its altitude and coolness, was most suitable for a station.  Our first day’s march was a long and fatiguing one.  The few hamlets we passed were poor, and had no food for our men, and we were obliged to go on till 4 p.m., when we entered the small village of Chipindu.  The inhabitants complained of hunger, and said they had no food to sell, and no hut for us to sleep in; but, if we would only go on a little further, we should come to a village where they had plenty to eat; but we had travelled far enough, and determined to remain where we were.  Before sunset as much food was brought as we cared to purchase, and, as it threatened to rain, huts were provided for the whole party.

Next forenoon we halted at the village of our old friend Mbame, to obtain new carriers, because Chibisa’s men, never before having been hired, and not having yet learned to trust us, did not choose to go further.  After resting a little, Mbame told us that a slave party on its way to Tette would presently pass through his village.  “Shall we interfere?” we inquired of each other.  We remembered that all our valuable private baggage was in Tette, which, if we freed the slaves, might, together with some Government property, be destroyed in retaliation; but this system of slave-hunters dogging us where previously they durst not venture, and, on pretence of being “our children,” setting one tribe against another, to furnish themselves with slaves, would so inevitably thwart all the efforts, for which we had the sanction of the Portuguese Government, that we resolved to run all risks, and put a stop, if possible, to the slave-trade, which had now followed on the footsteps of our discoveries.  A few minutes after Mbame had spoken to us, the slave party, a long line of manacled men, women, and children, came wending their way round the hill and into the valley, on the side of which the village stood.  The black drivers, armed with muskets, and bedecked with various articles of finery, marched jauntily in the front, middle, and rear of the line; some of them blowing exultant notes out of long tin horns.  They seemed to feel that they were doing a very noble thing, and might proudly march with an air of triumph.  But the