96 RETURN TO THE SHIP. Chap. IV. 



supplies in the interior, that we can crush the slave- 

 trade on the Coast. The plan proposed would stop the 

 slave-trade from the Zambesi on one side and Kilwa on 

 the other ; and would leave, beyond this tract, only the 

 Portuguese port of Inhambane on the south, and a portion 

 of the Sultan of Zanzibar's dominion on the north, for 

 our cruisers to look after. The Lake people grow abun- 

 dance of cotton for their own consumption, and can sell it 

 for a penny a pound or even less. Water-carriage exists 

 by the Shire and Zambesi all the way to England, with 

 the single exception of a portage of about thirty-five 

 miles past the Murchison Cataracts, along which a road 

 of less than forty miles could be made at a trifling 

 expense ; and it seems feasible that a legitimate and 

 thriving trade might, in a short time, take the place of 

 the present unlawful traffic. 



Colonel Rigby, Captains Wilson, Oldfield, and Chap- 

 man, and all the most intelligent officers on the Coast, 

 were unanimous in the belief, that one small vessel on the 

 Lake would have decidedly more influence, and do more 

 good in suppressing the slave-trade, than half a dozen 

 men-of-war on the ocean. By judicious operations, there- 

 fore, on a small scale inland, little expense would be 

 incurred, and the English slave-trade policy on the East 

 would have the same fair chance of success, as on the 

 West Coast. 



After a land-journey of forty days, we returned to the 

 ship on the 6th of October, 1859, in a somewhat exhausted 

 condition, arising more from a sort of poisoning, than 

 from the usual fatigue of travel. We had taken a little 

 mulligatawney paste, for making soup, in case of want 

 of time to cook other food. Late one afternoon, at the 

 end of an unusually long march, we reached Mikena, near 

 the base of Mount Njongone to the north of Zomba, and 

 the cook was directed to use a couple of spoonfuls of the 



