282 HOT SPRINGS NEAR TETE. 



simple process represents all our subsoil plowing, liming, manur- 

 ing, and harrowing, for in four months after planting a good 

 crop is ready for the sickle, and has been known to yield a 

 hundred-fold. No irrigation is required, because here there are 

 gentle rains, almost like mist, in winter, which go by the name 

 of " wheat-showers," and are unknown in the interior, where no 

 winter rain ever falls. 



The plantations of coffee, which were a source of very con- 

 siderable revenue previous to the opening of the slave trade, 

 had been abandoned, and hardly a tree eeuld be found. In- 

 digo and senna, which were mentioned as growing in the streets 

 of Tete, are found growing everywhere, but are allowed to decay, 

 crop after crop uncared for. 



But we must not fail to mention the existence of a number 

 of hot springs which are to be found in the neighborhood of 

 Tete. Dr. Livingstone visited one called Nyamboronda, situated 

 in the bed of a small stream named Nyaondo ; the little spring 

 bubbles up just beside the rivulet, and a great quantity of acrid 

 steam was seen rising up from the ground adjacent, about 

 twelve feet square of which was so hot that men could not 

 stand on it with bare feet. There were several little holes from 

 which the water was trickling, but the principal spring was in 

 a hole about a foot in diameter and as much in depth ; bubbles 

 were rising constantly ; the thermometer being a few seconds 

 in the water the mercury stood steadily at 160°. A frog which 

 tried the experiment of a bath was taken out in a few minutes 

 well cooked. The stones over which the waters of this spring 

 flowed were found to be incrusted with white salt, and the water 

 had a saline taste ; about the spring were rocks, syenitic, por- 

 phyry, in broad dikes, and gneiss tilted on edge ; there were 

 also many specimens of half-formed pumice, with green-stone 

 and lava. 



Indeed it was with ever-increasing interest and astonishment 

 that the traveller wandered over this wonderful region so richly 

 endowed and so sadly neglected. He was satisfied from his own 

 experience with the Africans that a wise policy would find the 

 people no obstacle to the opening of the singular treasuries 

 which God had put just near enough to the coast to be easily 

 found by the vanguard of civilization, and far enough toward 



