260 DONNA EUGENIA. Chap. XIT. 



the spot on which they are planted, and they prove one of 

 the civilizing influences. 



Before leaving the most wonderful Falls in the world, one 

 may be excused for referring to the fact that, though they had 

 produced a decided impression on the native mind in the 

 interior, no intelligence of their existence ever reached the 

 Portuguese. About 1809 two black slaves, named Pedro 

 Baptista and Andre Jose, were sent from Cassange, a village 

 three hundred miles from the West Coast, through the country 

 of Cazembe, to Tette, nearly an equal distance from the East 

 Coast. A lady now living at Tette, Donna Eugenia, re- 

 members distinctly these slaves — their woolly hair dressed 

 in the Londa fashion — arriving and remaining at Tette, till 

 letters came from the Governor-General of Mosambique, 

 which they successfully carried back to Cassange. On this 

 slender fibre hangs all the Portuguese pretension to having 

 possessed a road across Africa. Their maps show the 

 source of the Zambesi S.S.W. of Zumbo, about where the 

 Falls were found ; and on this very questionable authority 

 an untravelled English map-maker, with most amusing as- 

 surance, asserts that the river above the Falls runs under 

 the Kalahari Desert and is lost. 



Where one Englishman goes, others are sure to follow. Mr. 

 Baldwin, a gentleman from Natal, succeeded in reaching the 

 Falls guided by his pocket-compass alone. On meeting 

 the second subject of Her Majesty, who had ever beheld the 

 greatest of African wonders, we found him a sort of prisoner 

 at large. He had called on Mashotlane to ferry him over to 

 the north side of the river, and, when nearly over, he took 

 a bath, by jumping in and swimming ashore. " If, " said 

 Mashotlane, " he had been devoured by one of the crocodiles 

 which abound there, the English would have blamed us for 



