officer in charge of the second boat, behaved nobly, and by his skilful and gallant conduct succeeded in rescuing every one of the first boat’s crew.  Of course the things that they were bringing to us were lost, but we were thankful that all the men were saved.  The loss of the mail-bags, containing Government despatches and our friends’ letters for the past year, was felt severely, as we were on the point of starting on an expedition into the interior, which might require eight or nine months; and twenty months is a weary time to be without news of friends and family.  In the repairing of our crazy craft, we received kind and efficient aid from Lieutenant Berkeley, and we were enabled to leave for Tette on December 16th.

We had now frequent rains, and the river rose considerably; our progress up the stream was distressingly slow, and it was not until the 2nd of February, 1860, that we reached Tette.  Mr. Thornton returned on the same day from a geological tour, by which some Portuguese expected that a fabulous silver-mine would be rediscovered.  The tradition in the country is, that the Jesuits formerly knew and worked a precious lode at Chicova.  Mr. Thornton had gone beyond Zumbo, in company with a trader of colour; he soon after this left the Zambesi and, joining the expedition of the Baron van der Decken, explored the snow mountain Kilimanjaro, north-west of Zanzibar.  Mr. Thornton’s companion, the trader, brought back much ivory, having found it both abundant and cheap.  He was obliged, however, to pay heavy fines to the Banyai and other tribes, in the country which is coolly claimed in Europe as Portuguese.  During this trip of six mouths 200 pieces of cotton cloth of sixteen yards each, besides beads and brass wire, were paid to the different chiefs, for leave to pass through their country.  In addition to these sufficiently weighty exactions, the natives of this dominion have got into the habit of imposing fines for alleged milandos, or crimes, which the traders’ men may have unwittingly committed.  The merchants, however, submit rather than run the risk of fighting.

The general monotony of existence at Tette is sometimes relieved by an occasional death or wedding.  When the deceased is a person of consequence, the quantity of gunpowder his slaves are allowed to expend is enormous.  The expense may, in proportion to their means, resemble that incurred by foolishly gaudy funerals in England.  When at Tette, we always joined with sympathizing hearts in aiding, by our presence at the last rites, to soothe the sorrows of the surviving relatives.  We are sure that they would have done the same to us had we been the mourners.  We never had to complain of want of hospitality.  Indeed, the great kindness shown by many of whom we have often spoken, will never be effaced from our memory till our dying day.  When we speak of their failings it is in sorrow, not in anger.  Their trading in slaves is an enormous mistake.  Their Government places them in a false position by cutting them off from the rest of the world; and of this they always speak with a bitterness which, were it heard, might alter the tone of the statesmen of Lisbon.  But here there is no press, no booksellers’ shops, and scarcely a schoolmaster.  Had we been born in similar untoward circumstances—­we tremble to think of it!