414 GOLD-WASHING. 



to return since the peace. They have no cattle, the only 

 place where we found no tsetse being the district of Tete 

 itself; and the cattle in the possession of the Portuguese 

 ai'e a mere remnant of what they formerly owned. 



When visiting the hot fountain, I examined what were 

 formerly the gold-washings in the rivulet Mokoroze, which 

 is nearly on the 16th parallel of latitude. The banks are 

 covered with large groves of fine mango-trees, among which 

 the Portuguese lived while superintending the washing for 

 the precious metal. The process of washing is very labo- 

 rious and tedious. A quantity of sand is put into a wooden 

 bowl with water: a half-rotatory motion is given to the 

 dish, which causes the coarser particles of sand to collect 

 on one side of the bottom. These are carefully removed 

 with the hand, and the process of rotation renewed until 

 the whole of the sand is taken away and the gold alone 

 remains. It is found in very minute scales, and, unless I 

 had been assured to the contrary, I should have taken it to 

 be mica ; for, knowing the gold to be of greater specific 

 gravity than the sand, I imagined that a stream of water 

 would remove the latter and leave the former; but here 

 the practice is to remove the whole of the sand by the 

 hand. This process was no doubt a profitable one to the 

 Portuguese, and it is probable that, with the improved plan 

 by means of mercury, the sands would be lucrative. I had 

 an opportunity of examining the gold-dust from different 

 parts to the east and northeast of Tete. There are six 

 well-known washing-places. These are called Mashinga, 

 Shindundo, Missala, Kapata, Mano, and Jawa. From the 

 description of the rock I received, I suppose gold is found 

 both in clay shale and in quartz. At the range Mushinga 

 to the N.N. W. the rock is said to be so soft that the women 

 pound it into powder in wooden mortars previous to wash- 

 ing. 



Pound toward the westward, the old Portuguese indicate 

 a station which was near to Zumbo on the river Panyame. 

 and called Dambarari, near which much gold was found 



