NYASALAND AND LOWER ZAMBESI 139 



confluence of the Zambesi and the Shire, and 

 on to Chimbwe of the Sena sugar factory. 



There is much in this journey to dehght the 

 eye and interest the mind, and to one who had 

 walked 2,200 miles, and had not lived on the 

 fat of the land for several months past because 

 most of the land had no fat to offer, it was a 

 sublime luxury to have good water to drink and 

 food to eat, and to lazily lounge in a deck-chair 

 and watch the bush-clad land with its moun- 

 tainous background glide past in the warm 

 sunshine. 



Scores of pure white rice-birds — the " Paddy 

 birds " of India — flew past, native dug-outs 

 pushed along the great mother stream of South- 

 Eastern Africa, occasionally a school of hippos 

 or a wicked-looking crocodile would rise in front, 

 and then, hearing the swish of the stern-wheels, 

 would sink and come up again a long way behind. 



Navigating the Zambesi is indeed a fine art. 

 There are channels and sand-spits, stony bottoms 

 and currents, and long experience alone can 

 pilot a steamer down such a tricky waterway. 

 At the confluence of the Shire and Zambesi 

 the Centipede got on sand, and only after a good 

 deal of manoeuvring and pontooning did the 

 stern-wheeler and her four attendant barges 

 carrying cotton, tobacco, firewood, etc. clear 

 herself and proceed to Chimbwe. In the evening 

 a bit of a storm came up, and again the Centipede 

 got on to the sand. 



Lacerdonia was reached the next morning, 

 and a little farther on the Jesuit Mission Station 

 of Shupanga, where lie the remains of the wife 

 of the great explorer, David Livingstone. The 

 sugar industry, under the auspices of Messrs. 

 Hornung & Co., has assumed very important 



