290 DEATH OF BISHOP MACKENZIE. CHAP. XI. 



None of the Manganja being willing to take them 

 clown the river during the flood, three Makololo canoe-men 

 agreed to go with them. After paddling till near sunset, 

 they decided to stop and sleep on shore ; but the mosquitoes 

 were so numerous that they insisted on going on again ; 

 the Bishop, being a week behind the time he had engaged 

 to be at the Euo, reluctantly consented, and in the dark- 

 ness the canoe was upset in one of the strong eddies or 

 whirlpools, which suddenly boil up in flood time near the 

 outgoing branches of the river; clothing, medicines, tea, 

 coffee, and sugar were all lost. Wet and weary, and 

 tormented by mosquitoes, they lay in the canoe till morn- 

 ing dawned, and then proceeded to Malo, an island at the 

 mouth of the Ruo, where the Bishop was at once seized 

 with fever. 



Had they been in their usual health, they would doubt- 

 less have pushed on to Shupanga, or to the ship ; but fever 

 rapidly prostrates the energies, and induces a drowsy 

 stupor, from which, if not roused by medicine, the patient 

 gradually sinks into the sleep of death. Still mindful, 

 however, of his office, the Bishop consoled himself by 

 thinking that he might gain the friendship of the chief, 

 which would be of essential service to him in his future 

 labours. That heartless man, however, probably suspicious 

 of all foreigners from the knowledge he had acquired of 

 white slave-traders, wanted to turn the dying Bishop out 

 of the hut, as he required it for his corn, but yielded to 

 the expostulations of the Makololo. Day after day for 

 three weeks did these faithful fellows remain beside his 

 mat on the floor; till, without medicine or even proper 

 food, he died. They dug his grave on the edge of the 

 deep dark forest where the natives buried their dead. Mr. 

 Burrup, himself far gone with dysentery, staggered from 

 the hut, and, as in the dusk of evening they committed 

 the Bishop's body to the grave, repeated from memory 



