English potatoes, when planted at Quillimane on soil resembling this, in the course of two years become in taste like sweet potatoes (Convolvulus batatas), and are like our potato frosted.  The whole of the fertile region extending from the Kongone canal to beyond Mazaro, some eighty miles in length, and fifty in breadth, is admirably adapted for the growth of sugar-cane; and were it in the hands of our friends at the Cape, would supply all Europe with sugar.  The remarkably few people seen appear to be tolerably well fed, but there was a dearth of clothing among them; all were blacks, and nearly all Portuguese “colonos” or serfs.  They manifested no fear of white men, and stood in groups on the bank gazing in astonishment at the steamers, especially at the “Pearl,” which accompanied us thus far up the river.  One old man who came on board remarked that never before had he seen any vessel so large as the “Pearl,” it was like a village, “Was it made out of one tree?” All were eager traders, and soon came off to the ship in light swift canoes with every kind of fruit and food they possessed; a few brought honey and beeswax, which are found in quantities in the mangrove forests.  As the ships steamed off, many anxious sellers ran along the bank, holding up fowls, baskets of rice and meal, and shouting “Malonda, Malonda,” “things for sale,” while others followed in canoes, which they sent through the water with great velocity by means of short broad-bladed paddles.

Finding the “Pearl’s” draught too great for that part of the river near the island of Simbo, where the branch called the Doto is given off to the Kongone on the right bank, and another named Chinde departs to the secret canal already mentioned on the left, the goods belonging to the expedition were taken out of her, and placed on one of the grassy islands about forty miles from the bar.  The “Pearl” then left us, and we had to part with our good friends Duncan and Skead; the former for Ceylon, the latter to return to his duties as Government Surveyor at the Cape.

Of those who eventually did the work of the expedition the majority took a sober common-sense view of the enterprise in which we were engaged.  Some remained on Expedition Island from the 18th June until the 13th August, while the launch and pinnace were carrying the goods up to Shupanga and Senna.  The country was in a state of war, our luggage was in danger, and several of our party were exposed to disease from inactivity in the malaria of the delta.  Here some had their first introduction to African life, and African fever.  Those alone were safe who were actively employed with the vessels, and of course, remembering the perilous position of their fellows, they strained every nerve to finish the work and take them away.

Large columns of smoke rose daily from different points of the horizon, showing that the natives were burning off the immense crops of tall grass, here a nuisance, however valuable elsewhere.  A white cloud was often observed to rest on the head of the column, as if a current of hot damp air was sent up by the heat of the flames and its moisture was condensed at the top.  Rain did not follow, though theorists have imagined that in such cases it ought.