678 SEAMS OF COAL. 



the spot. We heard of him among the Banyai as a man with 

 whom they would never fight, because " he had a good heart." 

 Had I come down to this coast instead of going to Loanda in 

 1853, I should have come among the belligerents while the war 

 was still raging, and should probably have been cut off. My 

 present approach was just at the conclusion of the peace ; and 

 when the Portuguese authorities here were informed, through the 

 kind offices of Lord Clarendon and Count de Lavradio, that I was 

 expected to come this way, they all declared that such was the 

 existing state of affairs that no European could possibly pass 

 through the tribes. Some natives at last came down the river to 

 Tete and said, alluding to the sextant and artificial horizon, that 

 "the Son of God had come," and that he was "able to take the 

 sun down from the heavens and place it under his arm!" Major 

 Sicard then felt sure that this was the man mentioned in Lord 

 Clarendon's dispatch. 



On mentioning to the commandant that I had discovered a 

 small seam of coal, he stated that the Portuguese were already 

 aware of nine such seams, and that five of them were on the op- 

 posite bank of the river. As soon as I had recovered from my 

 fatigue I went to examine them. We proceeded in a boat to the 

 mouth of the Lofubu or Revubu, which is about two miles be- 

 low Tete, and on the opposite or northern bank. Ascending this 

 about four miles against a strong current of beautifully clear wa- 

 ter, we landed near a small cataract, and walked about two miles 

 through very fertile gardens to the seam, which we found to be 

 in one of the feeders of the Lofubu, called Muatize or Motize. 

 The seam is in the perpendicular bank, and dips into the riv- 

 ulet, or in a northerly direction. There is, first of all, a seam 

 10 inches in diameter, then some shale, below which there is an- 

 other seam, 58 inches of which are seen, and, as the bottom 

 touches the water of the Muatize, it may be more. This part of 

 the seam is about 30 yards long. There is then a fault. About 

 100 yards higher up the stream black vesicular trap is seen, pen- 

 etrating in thin veins the clay shale of the country, converting it 

 into porcellanite, and partially crystallizing the coal with which it 

 came into contact. On the right bank of the Lofubu there is an- 

 other feeder entering that river near its confluence with the Mua- 

 tize, which is called the Morongozi, in which there is another and 



