628 GENEROSITY OF THE COMMANDANT. Chap. XXXI. 



CHAPTEE XXXI. 



Kind reception from the Commandant — His generosity to my men — The 

 village of Tete — The population — Distilled spirits — The fort — Cause of 

 the decadence of Portuguese power — Former trade — Slaves employed in 

 gold-washing — Slave-trade drained the country of labourers — The rebel 

 Nyaude's stockade — - He burns Tete — Kisaka's revolt and ravages — 

 Extensive field of sugar-cane — The Commandant's good reputation among 

 the natives — Providential guidance — Seams of coal — A hot spring — 

 Picturesque country — Water-carriage to the coal-fields — Workmen's 

 wages — Exports — Price of provisions — Visit gold- washings — The pro- 

 cess of obtaining the precious metal — Coal within a gold-field — Present 

 from Major Sicard — Natives raise wheat, &c. — Liberality of the Com- 

 mandant — Geographical information from Senhor Candido — Earthquakes 

 — ■ Native ideas of a Supreme Being — Also of the immortality and trans- 

 migration of souls — Fondness for display at funerals — Trade restrictions 



— Former Jesuit establishment — State of religion and education at Tete 



— Inundation of the Zambesi — Cotton cultivated — The fibrous plants 

 conge and buaze — Detained by fever — The Kumbanzo bark — Native 

 medicines — Iron, its quality — Hear of famine at Kilimane — Death of a 

 Portuguese lady — The funeral — Disinterested kindness of the Portuguese. 



I was most kindly received by the Commandant Tito Augusto 

 d'Araujo Sicard, who did everything in his power to restore me 

 from my emaciated condition ; and as this was still the unhealthy 

 period at Kilimane, he advised me to remain with him until the 

 following month. He also generously presented my men with 

 abundant provisions of millet ; and by giving them lodgings in a 

 house of his own, until they could erect their own huts, he pre- 

 served them from the bite of the tampans, here named Carapatos.* 

 We had heard frightful accounts of tins insect while among the 



* Another insect, resembling a maggot, burrows into the feet of the natives 

 and sucks their blood. Mr. Westwood says, " The tampan is a large species of 

 mite, closely allied to the poisonous bug (as it is called) of Persia, Argos reflexus, 

 respecting which such marvellous accounts have been recorded, and which the 

 statement respecting the carapato or tampan would partially confirm." Mr. W. 

 also thinks that the poison-yielding larvaa called N'gwa is a " species of chryso- 

 melidfe. The larva? of the British species of that family exude a fetid yellow 

 thickish fluid when alarmed, but he has not heard that any of them are at all 

 poisonous." 



