674 TETE: ITS POPULATION. 



Banyai, and Major Sicard assured me that to strangers its "bite is 

 more especially dangerous, as it sometimes causes fatal fever. It 

 may please our homoeopathic friends to hear that, in curing the "bite 

 of the tampan, the natives administer one of the insects bruised in 

 the medicine employed. 



The village of Tete is built on a long slope down to the river, 

 the fort being close to the water. The rock beneath is gray sand- 

 stone, and has the appearance of being crushed away from the 

 river : the strata have thus a crumpled form. The hollow between 

 each crease is a street, the houses being built upon the projecting 

 fold. The rocks at the top of the slope are much higher than the 

 fort, and of course completely command it. There is then a large 

 valley, and beyond that an oblong hill called Karueira. The 

 whole of the adjacent country is rocky and broken, but every 

 available spot is under cultivation. The stone houses in Tete 

 are cemented with mud instead of lime, and thatched with reeds 

 and grass. The rains, having washed out the mud between the 

 stones, give all the houses a rough, untidy appearance. No lime 

 was known to be found nearer than Mozambique ; some used in 

 making seats in the verandas had actually been brought all that 

 distance. The Portuguese evidently knew nothing of the pink 

 and white marbles which I found at the Mbai, and another rivu- 

 let, named the Unguesi, near it, and of which I brought home 

 specimens, nor yet of the dolomite which lies so near to Zumbo : 

 they might have burned the marble into lime without going so far 

 as Mozambique. There are about thirty European houses ; the 

 rest are native, and of wattle and daub. A wall about ten feet 

 high is intended to inclose the village, but most of the native in- 

 habitants prefer to live on different spots outside. There are 

 about twelve hundred huts in all, which with European households 

 would give a population of about four thousand five hundred 

 souls. Only a small proportion of these, however, live on the 

 spot ; the majority are engaged in agricultural operations in the 

 adjacent country. Generally there are not more than two thou- 

 sand people resident, for, compared with what it was, Tete is now 

 a ruin. The number of Portuguese is very small ; if we exclude 

 the military, it is under twenty. Lately, however, one hundred 

 and five soldiers were sent from Portugal to Senna, where in one 

 year twenty-five were cut off by fever. They were then removed 



