spectators, instantly killing the chief and twenty
of his people. The survivors fled in horror.
The children and young women were seized as slaves,
and the village sacked. Sequasha sent the message
to Namakusuru: “I have killed the lion
that troubled you; come and let us talk over the matter.”
He came and brought the ivory. “No,”
said the half-caste, “let us divide the land:”
and he took the larger share for himself, and compelled
the would-be usurper to deliver up his bracelets, in
token of subjection on becoming the child or vassal
of Sequasha. These were sent in triumph to the
authorities at Tette. The governor of Quillimane
had told us that he had received orders from Lisbon
to take advantage of our passing to re-establish Zumbo;
and accordingly these traders had built a small stockade
on the rich plain of the right bank of Loangwa, a mile
above the site of the ancient mission church of Zumbo,
as part of the royal policy. The bloodshed was
quite unnecessary, because, the land at Zumbo having
of old been purchased, the natives would have always
of their own accord acknowledged the right thus acquired;
they pointed it out to Dr. Livingstone in 1856 that,
though they were cultivating it, is was not theirs,
but white man’s land. Sequasha and his
mate had left their ivory in charge of some of their
slaves, who, in the absence of their masters, were
now having a gay time of it, and getting drunk every
day with the produce of the sacked villages.
The head slave came and begged for the musket of the
delinquent ferryman, which was returned. He
thought his master did perfectly right to kill Mpangwe,
when asked to do it for the fee of ten tusks, and
he even justified it thus: “If a man invites
you to eat, will you not partake?”
We continued our journey on the 28th of June.
Game was extremely abundant, and there were many
lions. Mbia drove one off from his feast on
a wild pig, and appropriated what remained of the pork
to his own use. Lions are particularly fond of
the flesh of wild pigs and zebras, and contrive to
kill a large number of these animals. In the
afternoon we arrived at the village of the female
chief, Ma-mburuma, but she herself was now living
on the opposite side of the river. Some of her
people called, and said she had been frightened by
seeing her son and other children killed by Sequasha,
and had fled to the other bank; but when her heart
was healed, she would return and live in her own village,
and among her own people. She constantly inquired
of the black traders, who came up the river, if they
had any news of the white man who passed with the
oxen. “He has gone down into the sea,”
was their reply, “but we belong to the same
people.” “Oh no; you need not tell
me that; he takes no slaves, but wishes peace:
you are not of his tribe.” This antislavery
character excites such universal attention, that any
missionary who winked at the gigantic evils involved
in the slave-trade would certainly fail to produce
any good impression on the native mind.