448 DROUGHT AND SCARCITY. Chap. XXII. 



of the Pioneer and of the Orestes, and were now re- 

 garded by their neighbours and by themselves as men 

 of importance. Never before had they possessed so much 

 wealth : they believed that they might settle in life, 

 being now of sufficient standing to warrant their entering 

 the married state ; and a wife and a hut were among 

 their first investments. Sixteen yards were paid to the 

 wife's parents, and a hut cost four yards. We should have 

 liked to have kept them in the ship, for they were well- 

 behaved and had learned a great deal of the work required. 

 Though they would not themselves go again, they engaged 

 others for us ; and brought twice as many as we could take, of 

 their brothers and cousins, who were eager to join the ship 

 and go with us up the Shire, or anywhere else. They all 

 agreed to take half-pay until they too had learned to work ; 

 and we found no scarcity of labour, though all that could be 

 exported is now out of the country. 



There had been a drought of unusual severity during the 

 past season in the country between Lupata and Kebrabasa, 

 and it had extended north-east to the Manganja highlands. 

 All the Tette slaves, except a very few household ones, 

 had been driven away by hunger, and were now far off 

 in the woods, and wherever wild fruit, or the prospect of 

 obtaining anything whatever to keep the breath of life in 

 them, was to be found. Their masters were said never to 

 expect to see them again. There have been two years of 

 great hunger at Tette since we have been in the country, 

 and a famine like the present prevailed in 1854, when 

 thousands died of starvation. If men like the Cape farmers 

 owned this country, their energy and enterprise would soon 

 render the crops independent of rain. There being plenty of 

 slope or fall, the land could be easily irrigated from the 

 Zambesi and its tributary streams. A Portuguese colony can 



