20 BURDEN OF TRIBUTE. CHAP. I. 



The Landeens or Zulus are lords of the right bank of 

 the Zambesi ; and the Portuguese, by paying this fighting 

 tribe a pretty heavy annual tribute, practically admit 

 this. Eegularly every year come the Zulus in force to 

 Senna and Shupanga for the accustomed tribute. The 

 few wealthy merchants of Senna groan under the burden, 

 for it falls chiefly on them. They submit to pay annually 

 200 pieces of cloth, of sixteen yards each, besides beads 

 and brass wire, knowing that refusal involves war, which 

 might end in the loss of all they possess. The Zulus 

 appear to keep as sharp a look out on the Senna and 

 Shupanga people as ever landlord did on tenant ; the more 

 they cultivate, the more tribute they have to pay. On 

 asking some of them why they did not endeavour to raise 

 certain highly profitable products, we were answered, 

 "What's the use of our cultivating any more than we 

 do ? the Landeens would only come down on us for more 

 tribute." 



In the forests of Shupanga the Mokundu-kundu tree 

 abounds ; its bright yellow wood makes good boat-masts, 

 and yields a, strong bitter medicine for fever ; the Gunda- 

 tree attains to an immense size ; its timber is hard, rather 

 cross-grained, with masses of silica deposited in its sub- 

 stance ; the large canoes, capable of carrying three or 

 four tons, are made of its wood. For permission to cut 

 these trees, a Portuguese gentleman of Quillimane was 

 paying the Zulus, in 1858, two hundred dollars a year, 

 and his successor now pays three hundred. 



At Shupanga, a one-storied stone house stands on the 

 prettiest site on the river. In front a sloping lawn, with 

 a fine mango orchard at its southern end, leads down to 

 the broad Zambesi, whose green islands repose on the 

 sunny bosom of the tranquil waters. Beyond, north- 

 wards, lie vast fields and forests of palm and tropical 

 trees, with the massive mountain of Morambala towering 



