398 CONDUCT OF THE MANGANJA. Chap. XIX. 



destroyed by these huge beasts. They frequently chew the 

 branches for the bark and the sap alone. 



Crowds of carriers offered their services after we left the 

 river. Several sets of them placed so much confidence in 

 us, as to decline receiving payment at the end of the first 

 day ; they wished to work another day, and so receive both 

 days' wages in one piece. The young headman of a new 

 village himself came on with his men. The march was a 

 pretty long one, and one of the men proposed to lay the 

 burdens down beside a hut a mile or more from the next 

 village. The headman scolded the fellow for his meanness 

 in wishing to get rid of our goods where we could not 

 procure carriers, and made him carry them on. The village, 

 at the foot of the cataracts, had increased very much 

 in size and wealth since we passed it on our way up. A 

 number of large new huts had been built ; and the people 

 had a good stock of cloth and beads. We could not 

 account for this sudden prosperity, until we saw some fine 

 large canoes, instead of the two old, leaky things which lay 

 there before. This had become a crossing-place for the slaves 

 that the Portuguese agents were carrying to Tette, because 

 they were afraid to take them across nearer to where the ship 

 lay, about seven miles off. Nothing was more disheartening 

 than this conduct of the Manganja, in profiting by the entire 

 breaking up of their nation. It was nearly as bad as the 

 behaviour of our own countrymen, who bought up muskets 

 and sent them out to the Chinese engaged in war with our 

 own soldiers ; or of those who, at the Cape, supplied ammu- 

 nition to the Kaffirs, under similar circumstances, and coolly 

 fathered the traffic on the Missionaries. 



