670 THE MUTU. Chap. XXXII. 



It ought to be remembered that the testimony of these gen- 

 tlemen is all the more valuable, because they visited the river 

 when the water was at its lowest, and the surface of the Zambesi 

 was not, as it was now, on a level with and flowing into the 

 Mutu, but 16 feet beneath its bed. The Mutu, at the point of 

 departure, was only 10 or 12 yards broad, shallow, and filled 

 with aquatic plants. Trees and reeds along the bank overhang 

 it so much, that, though we had brought canoes and a boat 

 from Tete, we were unable to enter the Mutu with them, and 

 left them at Mazaro. During most of the year, this part of 

 the Mutu is dry, and we were even now obliged to carry all 

 our luggage by land for about fifteen miles. As Kilimane is 

 called, in all the Portuguese documents, the capital of the rivers 

 of Senna, it seemed strange to me that the capital should be 

 built at a point where there was no direct water conveyance to 

 the magnificent river whose name it bore ; and on inquiry, I 

 was informed that the whole of the Mutu was large in days of 

 yore, and admitted of the free passage of great launches from 

 Kilimane all the year round ; but that now this part of the Mutu 

 had been filled up. 



I was seized by a severe tertian fever at Mazaro, but went 

 along the right bank of the Mutu to the N.N.E. and E. for 

 about 15 miles. We then found that it was made navigable by 

 a river called the Pangazi, which comes into it from the north. 

 Another river, flowing from the same direction, called the 

 Luare, swells it still more ; and, last of all, the Likuare, with 

 the tide, make up the river of Kilimane. The Mutu at Ma- 

 zaro is simply a connecting link, such as is so often seen in 

 Africa, and neither its flow nor stoppage affects the river of 

 Iviliniane. The waters of the Pangazi were quite clear com- 

 pared with those of the Zambesi.* 



* I owe the following information, of a much later date, also to the 

 politeness of Captain Washington. H. M. sloop " Grecian " visited the 

 coast in 1852-3, and the master remarks that " the entrance to the Luaho 

 is in lat. 18° 51' S., long. 36° 12' E., and may be known by a range of hum- 

 mocks on its eastern side, and very low land to the S.W. The entrance is 

 narrow, and, as with all the rivers on this coast, is fronted by a bar, 

 which renders the navigation, particularly for boats, very dangerous with 

 the wind to the south of east or west. Our boats proceeded 20 miles 

 up this river, 2 fathoms on the bar, then 2| — 4 — 6 — 7 fathoms. It was 



