418 KINDNESS OF PORTUGUESE. Chap. XXXI. 



gave them a portion of land on which to cultivate their own 

 food, generously supplying them with corn in the mean time. 

 He also said that my young men might hunt elephants in 

 company with his servants, and purchase goods with the ivory 

 and dried meat, in order that they might have something to 

 take with them on their return to Sekelctu. The men were 

 delighted with his liberality, and soon sixty or seventy of 

 them set off to engage in this enterprise ; the rest had estab- 

 lished a brisk trade in firewood, as their countiymen did at 

 Loanda. I chose sixteen of those who could manage canoes 

 to convey me down the river. Many more would have come, 

 but we were informed that there had been a failure of the 

 crops at Kilimane from the rains not coming at the proper 

 time, and that thousands had died of hunger. I did not hear 

 of a single effort having been made to relieve the famishing by 

 sending them food down the river. The mortality raged most 

 violently among the natives inhabiting the delta, who, though 

 in a state of slavery, are kept on farms and mildly treated. 



Major Si card lent me a boat which had been built on the 

 river, and sent Lieutenant Miranda to conduct me to the coast. 

 He also provided most abundantly for the journey, and sent 

 messages to his friends to treat me as they would himself, 

 from every one of whom I am happy to acknowledge that I 

 received most disinterested kindness. We were accompanied 

 by three large canoes which had lately come up with goods 

 from Senna. They are made so strong that they might strike 

 with great force against a rock without being broken. The 

 men sit at the stern when paddling, and there is usually a 

 little shed made over a part of the canoe to shade the passen- 

 gers from the sun. 



