SPORT IN MOZAMBIQUE 



cabin, congratulating myself on the fine crossing I 

 should have. Alas ! one must never be too sure of 

 anything, especially on the sea. I was awakened by 

 the violent motion of the vessel, for our poor little 

 walnut-shell was rolling and pitching madly. People 

 were running about the deck giving contradictory 

 orders. I rubbed my eyes, thinking it must be day. 

 Looking through the small port-hole I saw the whole 

 bay lit up with incessant flashes of lightning. We 

 were passing through the edge of a cyclone. At Beira 

 the water was streaming off the roofs. I went on 

 deck to admire this extraordinary sight. I then saw 

 the semaphore signalling : " Order from the harbour- 

 master : the Nyasaland must put out from the bay 

 immediately." It was on account of our cargo of 

 dynamite that we were thus expelled. The captain 

 stormed, like all Englishmen, and waited stolidly, 

 in spite of reiterated orders, until he could get up 

 steam. We at length left our moorings, leaving our 

 awning behind us, for it was whirled away like a leaf 

 at the first squall and deposited like a wounded gull 

 on the crest of a wave some hundred yards away. I 

 did not mind the pitching so long as we rode at anchor, 

 but as soon as we were under way I had to he in my 

 berth and was unable to leave it until we reached 

 Chinde\ Unfortunately this passage, which generally 

 takes six hours, lasted three days. After sixty hours 

 we arrived opposite the mouth of the river, but as the 

 tide had begun to ebb and the bar of the Zambezi can 



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