and muddy from the frequent visits of large game.  The tsetse abounded.  The country was level, and large tracts of it covered with mopane forest, the leaves of which afford but scanty shade to the baked earth, so that scarcely any grass grows upon it.  The sun was so hot, that the men frequently jumped from the path, in the vain hope of cooling, for a moment, their scorched feet under the almost shadeless bushes; and the native who carried the provision of salt pork got lost, and came into Tette two days after the rest of the party, with nothing but the fibre of the meat left, the fat, melted by the blazing sun, having all run down his back.  This path was soon made a highway for slaving parties by Captain Raposo, the Commandant.  The journey nearly killed our two active young friends; and what the slaves must have since suffered on it no one can conceive; but slaving probably can never be conducted without enormous suffering and loss of life.

Mankokwe now sent a message to say that he wished us to stop at his village on our way down.  He came on board on our arrival there with a handsome present, and said that his young people had dissuaded him from visiting us before; but now he was determined to see what every one else was seeing.  A bald square-headed man, who had been his Prime Minister when we came up, was now out of office, and another old man, who had taken his place accompanied the chief.  In passing the Elephant Marsh, we saw nine large herds of elephants; they sometimes formed a line two miles long.

On the 2nd of November we anchored off Shamoara, and sent the boat to Senna for biscuit and other provisions.  Senhor Ferrao, with his wonted generosity, gave us a present of a bullock, which he sent to us in a canoe.  Wishing to know if a second bullock would be acceptable to us, he consulted his Portuguese and English dictionary, and asked the sailor in charge if he would take another; but Jack, mistaking the Portuguese pronunciation of the letter h, replied, “Oh no, sir, thank you, I don’t want an otter in the boat, they are such terrible biters!”

We had to ground the vessel on a shallow sandbank every night; she leaked so fast, that in deep water she would have sunk, and the pump had to be worked all day to keep her afloat.  Heavy rains fell daily, producing the usual injurious effects in the cabin; and, unable to wait any longer for our associates, who had gone overland from the Shire to Tette, we ran down the Kongone and beached her for repairs.  Her Majesty’s ship “Lynx,” Lieut.  Berkeley commanding, called shortly afterwards with supplies; the bar, which had been perfectly smooth for some time before, became rather rough just before her arrival, so that it was two or three days before she could communicate with us.  Two of her boats tried to come in on the second day, and one of them, mistaking the passage, capsized in the heavy breakers abreast of the island.  Mr. Hunt, gunner, the