13G GOVERNOR AT SHUPANGA. Chap. VI. 



and it was on this account he applied to us. His Excellency 

 next morning unfortunately caught fever, and returned 

 before he reached the river's mouth. A Portuguese naval 

 officer was subsequently sent by his Government to examine 

 the different entrances. He looked only, and then made a 

 report, in which our published soundings were used without 

 acknowledgment. His own countrymen smiled at the silly 

 vanity exhibited by their Government in thus seeking in- 

 formation, and all the while pretending to antecedent know- 

 ledge. When opposite Expedition Island, the furnace bridge 

 of our steamer broke down, as it had often done before. 

 Luckily it occurred at a good place for game, so we got 

 buffalo beef and venison whilst it was undergoing repair. 



On the 31st December, 1859, we reached Shupanga, 

 where we had to remain eight days, awaiting the arrival 

 of cotton cloth from Quillimane. Grey calico or sheet- 

 ing is the usual currency of Eastern Africa, and this 

 supply was to serve as money during our expedition into 

 the interior. The governor and his two handsome grown-up 

 daughters were staying in the Shupanga-house. It is seldom 

 that the Portuguese show any repugnance to being served by 

 blacks, but he preferred to be waited on by his daughters, 

 and they performed their duty with graceful ease. This was 

 the more agreeable to us, inasmuch as one rarely meets the 

 Portuguese ladies at table in this country. His Excellency, 

 talking in no way confidentially, but quite openly, — indeed 

 it is here the common mode of speaking of lamentable truths 

 —said, that the Portuguese in tin's country were a miserable 

 lot, quite debased by debauchery, and with no enterprise 

 whatever. A few of the large slaveholders, had they any 

 vigour left, might each send fifty or a hundred slaves to 

 the Cape, Mauritius, and England, to learn sugar-making 



