XV JOAC^UIM MENDON^A 311 



numbers of hippopotami during the day, there being 

 often two or three hirge herds of from fifteen to 

 twenty in the course of a mile. Slept at the mouth 

 of a small sand river, the Umtolanyange. A large 

 troop of lions must have caught a head of game on 

 the southern bank of the river, as they kept roaring 

 in the same spot half the night. 



November 2%th. — Crossed the Losito river, and 

 about 10 A.M. reached Nhaucoe at last. 



November 29///. — In the afternoon, after a good 

 cieal of trouble with the Shakundas — who will do 

 nothing for nothing, and uncommonly little for six- 

 pence — we crossed the river, and a walk of seven 

 or eight miles brought us opposite a little island 

 (Cassoko), on which resides a Portuguese trader, 

 Senhor Joaquim Mendon^a. My boy Franz took 

 the donkeys, and followed along the northern bank. 

 We were now out of the Batongas, the aboriginal 

 inhabitants of the country, and amongst the 

 Shakundas, who are all freed slaves, or runaway 

 slaves, of Portuguese from the countries near the 

 mouth of the Zambesi. The most of them possess 

 flint-lock muskets, and here they owed allegiance 

 to Canyemba, a black man, who held some sort of 

 official position under the Portuguese governor ot Tete. 

 Nearly all these fellows had been engaged in the late 

 raid upon the Batongas. Whilst they were away 

 from Nhaucoe, a party of Batongas came rounci in 

 their rear and attacked the place, burning down 

 almost all the houses ; the inhabitants lett behind, 

 however, all managed to escape in their canoes across 

 the river. They were now living in little straw 

 makeshifts for huts, on the white sand along the 

 water's edfje. There were the remains at Nhaucoe 

 of about eight square houses with verandahs round 



