86 THE RIVER ZAMBEZI AND ITS SCENERY 



Tete itself is disappointing. The river, as I have 

 just said, is wide and commanding, but the banks 

 on both sides arid, stony, and uninteresting in the 

 extreme. Such small quantities of coarse grass 

 as are visible are thin and poor, and among the 

 trees leafless baobabs predominate. The town 

 itself, overlooked by the table- topped Carrueira 

 Mountain, covers a large area, but so scattered are 

 the habitations that here and there small groups 

 of native huts have sprung up between them, a 

 circumstance which my knowledge of native habits 

 and customs leads me to beheve can scarcely make 

 for sanitation and health. Immediately above the 

 well-built stone mole to which the steamers make 

 fast, the church of the Sacred Heart, lime-washed 

 pale blue and white, stands upon a small eminence. 

 The streets are rough, stony, and destitute of 

 sidewalks, the principal European houses standing 

 on three almost equidistant ridges running parallel 

 with the river, the hollows between forming the main 

 roads. Several very fine modern houses have been 

 built of late years, but the more ancient dwellings 

 are fast falUng into disrepair. The latter are of 

 solid stone, with tiled roofs and wide verandahs. 

 There are two fortresses, the land fort at the back 

 of the town, and the river fort commanding the 

 water. These are both strong and substantial, 

 probably impregnable to native assaults, and the 

 former is of great age. His Excellency Captain 

 E. .T. Bettencourt, the accomplished Governor of 

 Tete, assured me that although excessively hot in 

 the summer months, he had not found the climate 

 either disagreeable or unhealthy. Whatever may 



