We laid the ship alongside of the island Kanyimbe, opposite Tette; and, before starting for the country of the Makololo, obtained a small plot of land, to form a garden for the two English sailors who were to remain in charge during our absence.  We furnished them with a supply of seeds, and they set to work with such zeal, that they certainly merited success.  Their first attempt at African horticulture met with failure from a most unexpected source; every seed was dug up and the inside of it eaten by mice.  “Yes,” said an old native, next morning, on seeing the husks, “that is what happens this month; for it is the mouse month, and the seed should have been sown last mouth, when I sowed mine.”  The sailors, however, sowed more next day; and, being determined to outwit the mice, they this time covered the beds over with grass.  The onions, with other seeds of plants cultivated by the Portuguese, are usually planted in the beginning of April, in order to have the advantage of the cold season; the wheat a little later, for the same reason.  If sown at the beginning of the rainy season in November, it runs, as before remarked, entirely to straw; but as the rains are nearly over in May, advantage is taken of low-lying patches, which have been flooded by the river.  A hole is made in the mud with a hoe, a few seeds dropped in, and the earth shoved back with the foot.  If not favoured with certain misty showers, which, lower down the river, are simply fogs, water is borne from the river to the roots of the wheat in earthern pots; and in about four months the crop is ready for the sickle.  The wheat of Tette is exported, as the best grown in the country; but a hollow spot at Maruru, close by Mazaro, yielded very good crops, though just at the level of the sea, as a few inches rise of tide shows.

A number of days were spent in busy preparation for our journey; the cloth, beads, and brass wire, for the trip were sewn up in old canvas, and each package had the bearer’s name printed on it.  The Makololo, who had worked for the Expedition, were paid for their services, and every one who had come down with the Doctor from the interior received a present of cloth and ornaments, in order to protect them from the greater cold of their own country, and to show that they had not come in vain.  Though called Makololo by courtesy, as they were proud of the name, Kanyata, the principal headman, was the only real Makololo of the party; and he, in virtue of his birth, had succeeded to the chief place on the death of Sekwebu.  The others belonged to the conquered tribes of the Batoka, Bashubia, Ba-Selea, and Barotse.  Some of these men had only added to their own vices those of the Tette slaves; others, by toiling during the first two years in navigating canoes, and hunting elephants, had often managed to save a little, to take back to their own country, but had to part with it all for food to support the rest in times of hunger, and, latterly, had fallen into the improvident habits of slaves, and spent their surplus earnings in beer and agua ardiente.