Chap. IX. POOR HAMLETS. 245 



few hamlets we passed were poor, and had no food for our 

 men, and we were obliged to go on till 4 p.m., when we 

 entered the small village of Chipindu. The inhabitants 

 complained of hunger, and said they had no food to sell, 

 and no hut for us to sleep in ; but, if we would only go on 

 a little further, we should come to a village where they 

 had plenty to eat ; but we had travelled far enough, and 

 determined to remain where we were. Before sunset as 

 much food was brought as we cared to purchase, and, as 

 it threatened to rain, huts were provided for the whole 

 party. 



Next forenoon we halted at the village of our old friend 

 Mbame, to obtain new carriers, because Chibisa's men, 

 never before having been hired, and not having yet 

 learned to trust us, did not choose to go further. After 

 resting a little, Mbame told us that a slave party on its 

 way to Tette would presently pass through his village. 

 " Shall we interfere ? " we inquired of each other. We 

 remembered that all our valuable private baggage was 

 in Tette, which, if we freed the slaves, might, together 

 with some Government property, be destroyed in retalia- 

 tion ; but this system of slave-hunters dogging us where 

 previously they durst not venture, and, on pretence of 

 being " our children," setting one tribe against another, 

 to furnish themselves with slaves, would so inevitably 

 thwart all the efforts, for which we had the sanction of 

 the Portuguese Government, that we resolved to run all 

 risks, and put a stop, if possible, to the slave-trade, which 

 had now followed on the footsteps of our discoveries. A 

 few minutes after Mbame had spoken to us, the slave 

 party, a long line of manacled men, women, and children, 

 came wending their way round the hill and into the 

 valley, on the side of which the village stood. The black 

 drivers, armed with muskets, and bedecked with various 

 articles of finery, marched jauntily in the front, middle. 



