Chap. X. REACH THE ZAMBESI. 283 



monly zealous and active. The remainder had been pur- 

 chased with the old clothes we had given them and their 

 store of hippopotamus meat : they had no fear of losing 

 them, or of being punished for aiding us. The system, in 

 which they had been trained, had eradicated the idea of 

 personal responsibility from their minds. The Portuguese 

 slaveholders would blame the English alone, they said ; 

 they were our servants at the time. No white man on 

 board could purchase so cheaply as these men could. 

 Many a time had their eloquence persuaded a native trader 

 to sell for a bit of dirty worn cloth things for which he 

 had, but a little before, refused twice the amount of clean 

 new calico. " Scissors " being troubled with a cough at 

 night, received a present of a quilted coverlet, which had 

 seen a good deal of service. A few days afterwards, a good 

 chance of investing in hoes offering itself, he ripped off 

 both* sides, tore them into a dozen pieces, and purchased 

 about a dozen hoes with them. 



We entered the Zambesi on the 11th of January, and 

 steamed down towards the coast, taking the side on which 

 we had come up ; but the channel had changed to the other 

 side during the summer, as it sometimes does, and we soon 

 grounded. A Portuguese gentleman, formerly a lieutenant 

 in the army, and now living on Sangwisa, one of the 

 islands of the Zambesi, came over with his slaves, to aid us 

 in getting the ship off. He said frankly, that his people 

 were all great thieves, and we must be on our guard not to 

 leave anything about. He next made a short speech to his 

 men, told them he knew what thieves they were, but im- 

 plored them not to steal from us, as we would give them a 

 present of cloth when the work was done. " The natives 

 of this country," he remarked to us, " think only of three 

 things, what they shall eat and drink, how many wives 

 they can have, and what they may steal from their master, 

 if not how they may murder him." He alwaj's slept with 



