Chinde to Blantyre 



Zambesi are unsuited to the higher altitudes and 

 colder climates of the Transvaal. 



Occasionally we put into the bank in order to 

 drop a mail-bag or pick up a passenger at one 

 place to take in a consignment of potatoes and 

 when the steamer again got under way there was 

 great poling and shoving off. The weather was 

 ideal, but at certain times of the year violent storms 

 are not infrequent, and are sometimes so terrific 

 that barges have to be cast off, and have been 

 known to founder with all their contents. 



Our rate of progress was about eight miles an 

 hour; the first day by sunset, when we tied up for 

 the night, we had covered between seventy and 

 eighty miles. The only points of interest along the 

 river were several sugar factories and a Portuguese 

 Jesuit Mission, where Mrs. Livingstone lies buried. 



The mornings were foggy, which delayed the 

 steamer's start and caused us some anxiety as to 

 whether we should catch Saturday's train, for there 

 are only two trains a week to Blantyre, and it would 

 have been most inconvenient to have been kept at 

 Port Herald. 



About ii A.M. the third day after leaving 

 Chinde we reached the junction of the Shire and 

 Zambesi rivers, entering the former. After this 

 our surroundings changed entirely. We found the 

 Shire not more than a quarter of a mile broad, with 

 high reed-grown banks, hardly any current, and but 

 little water. At first the scenery was pretty enough ; 

 for although the country to our left was flat and 

 uninteresting, to our right there was a range of well- 



9 



