500 CHINSAMBA'S STOCKADES. Chap. XXIV. 



on the hills, he remarked to Dr. Livingstone, then his fellow- 

 traveller — " When telling the people in England what were 

 my objects in going out to Africa, I stated that, among other 

 things, I meant to teach these people agriculture ; but I 

 now see that they know far more about it than I do." This, 

 we take it, was an honest straightforward testimony, and we 

 believe that every unprejudiced witness, who has an oppor- 

 tunity of forming an opinion of Africans who have never 

 been debased by slavery, will rank them very much higher 

 in the scale of intelligence, industry, and manhood, than 

 others who know them only in a state of degradation. 



In two days' march we counted twenty-four cotton 

 patches, each at least one-fourth of an acre in extent. One 

 was 240 paces broad. All, as before observed, had been 

 kept so clear of weeds, that the fires passed by the cotton 

 bushes in the regular grass-burnings without touching them. 



Men and women were seen carrying their grain from vil- 

 lages towards the stockades ; much corn strewed along the path 

 evinced the haste with which it had been borne to the places 

 of safety. Some were cutting down the large old euphorbia- 

 trees and an umbelliferous tree, which surrounded the vil- 

 lages, in order that a clear view of the approach of the 

 enemy might be obtained. Then one dead body lay in our 

 path with a wound in the back ; then another, and another, 

 lying in the postures assumed in mortal agony, which no 

 painter can reproduce. On coming near Chinsamba's two 

 stockades, on the banks of the Lintipe, we were told that the 

 Mazitu had been repulsed there the day before, and we had 

 evidence of the truth of the report of the attack in the sad 

 sight of the bodies of the slain. The Zulus had taken off 

 large numbers of women laden with corn; and, when driven 

 back, had cut off the ears of a male prisoner, as a sort of 

 credential that he had been with the Mazitu, and with grim 



