THE FIRST WORK. 329 



the midst of savages, for the Portuguese settlements were only a 

 burlesque on colonization ; their pretensions were so poorly sus- 

 tained and their influence so corrupting, that it would have 

 been better, on many grounds, if Livingstone had found the 

 natives entirely ignorant of white people. 



It was the 18th of June when they were landed on the 

 island. The first thing to be done was to transport the stores 

 of the expedition to Shupanga and Senna. The difficulty and 

 anxiety of this work was greatly increased by the distressingly 

 unsettled state of the country. War was prevailing all around, 

 but they were favored by delightful weather, and were enabled 

 to rest from their initiatory labors on the 13th of August. 

 During these months it was of course necessary for a portion of 

 the party to remain on the island. From their little kingdom, 

 over which they asserted squatter sovereignty, they could easily 

 see the large game of the neighborhood moving about in the 

 forests or coming down to the water's edge ; or they could watch 

 the strange manoeuvres of thousands of little seed-birds, which, 

 like flocks of other small birds in Africa, are wonderfully expert 

 in the performance of most eccentric " gyrations and evolutions," 

 separating and wheeling into columns again with the most 

 thorough military precision. There were all sorts of living 

 things in sight except human beings. The tedium of long 

 wilderness journeys by land is beguiled by many little perils 

 and difficulties and hunting exploits; but our party felt the 

 unvarying wilderness becoming dully monotonous before they 

 reached Mazaro. The uninhabited expanse on either hand was 

 unquestionably dreary, and the sporting of the water-fowls be- 

 came very commonplace ; even their interest in the enormous 

 monsters, which they might see at any time, became objects of 

 contempt as they became familiar. As far as Mazaro there 

 were found no traces which contradicted the claim of Dr. 

 Livingstone to being the true discoverer of the mouth of the 

 Zambesi. There was no trade whatever below that point. All 

 the merchandise of Senna and Tete was conveyed between that 

 point and a small stream about six miles distant, on men's 

 heads. On that little stream they were reshipped and found 

 their way to Quilimane along the Kwakwa. The scenery was 

 better about Mazaro. The well-wooded Shupanga ridge 



