336 SHUPANGA. 



will be pardoned, as it is of quite as much importance that we 

 have just impressions of the actors in any of the affairs of real 

 life in colonial regions as it is that we have a simple record of 

 incidents. 



A single, one-storied house at Shupanga, occupying the pret- 

 tiest site on the river, engrossed the attention of the expedition. 

 It is a stone house ; there is a splendid sloping lawn in front 

 with a fine mango orchard at its southern end ; the lawn extends 

 down to the water's edge, and the Zambesi, widening grandly, 

 flows softly by, and there are little green islands reposing on its 

 sunny, tranquil bosom. If you look northward, beyond the 

 house, there are — there were then— forests of tropical trees, and 

 beyond the forests the massive mountains of Morumbwa, tower- 

 ing amidst white clouds, and farther still distant hills are dimly 

 defined against the blue horizon. The surveying expedition of 

 Captain Owen rested at the " Shupanga house," in 1826, and 

 buried one of their number under a noble baobab tree. The 

 grave of an explorer, far away in a wilderness land, suggested 

 very solemn thoughts to the serious men and the devoted wo- 

 men who stood by it. They may have wondered whether it 

 would be so, but they did not know that the shadow of that 

 baobab tree would yet become a doubly sacred spot to them ; 

 they did not know that of their number there should be left 

 companion dust for that which years ago had been laid there 

 with sorrow and left in loneliness. 



After a few days, which were improved in wooding up with 

 African ebony and lignum-vitse, the expedition advanced toward 

 Tete. From Shupanga to Senna they suffered great annoyance 

 from the seeming conspiracy of sand and stupidity — sand in the 

 river and stupidity in the black pilot. This interesting indi- 

 vidual was named John Scissors, a serf. Every now and then 

 he ran the " Ma Robert " aground. The inconvenience and delay 

 were atoned for in some measure, for a time, by the ludicrous 

 simplicity of his aggrieved manner as he ventured the very un- 

 questionable assertion, "Oh, this is not the way ; it is back 

 yonder ! " But even the charm of folly is easily exhausted, and 

 we find it hard to laugh at stupidity which puts us to much 

 trouble, however grotesquely it may express itself, and it is no 

 wonder that the party felt that their dull Scissors was an unmit- 



