THE HOSPITABLE PORTUGUESE 105 



expect with guns like these? They have been 

 good ones ; yes, that is true, but now they lend 

 themselves to nothing." 



An excellent dinner follows, with no lack of 

 good, sound Portuguese wine, somewhat inter- 

 rupted by the large fluffy moths which persistently 

 fall into the soup, and the hundred-and-one other 

 winged abominations of the night, which in all 

 the extent of the Zambezi Valley seem to have 

 been specially devised for the annoyance of man. 



On the morrow, as you take your leave, you 

 notice for the first time in the morning light that 

 your host's house contains but three rooms, and is 

 surrounded by a shghtly raised verandah, and that 

 the corrugated-iron roof is covered with thatch for 

 coolness, and also to deaden the thunder of the 

 summer rain-storms. As he accompanies you 

 courteously to the confines of his domain, reiterat- 

 ing perfectly sincere regrets that your stay with 

 him has been such a short one, you look back as 

 you leave him, and sympathy for a life so cut off 

 from its kind almost stifles the last vestige of repro- 

 bation of any lax principles which may by accident 

 have forced themselves upon your notice. 



There is probably no more hospitable nation in 

 the world than the Portuguese ; and not only do 

 they practise this virtue themselves, but, in most 

 parts of the country, they impose it as a law upon 

 the natives also. 



It would be weU both for our natives and our 

 own reputation were we in some of our own 

 colonies to adopt the same excellent practice. 



The Luabo Company's concession, compared 



