316 RETURN TO THE ZAMBESI. Chap. XII. 



must also be bought whenever a man wishes to go up the 

 river to Mazaro, Senna, or Tette, or even to reside for a 

 month at Quillimane. With a soil and a climate well 

 suited for the growth of the cane, abundance of slave 

 labour, and water communication to any market in the 

 world, they have never made their own sugar. All they 

 use is imported from Bombay. " The people of Quilli- 

 mane have no enterprise," said a young European Portu- 

 guese, "they do nothing, and are always wasting their 

 time in suffering, or in recovering from fever." 



We entered the Zambesi about the end of November 

 and found it unusually low, so we did not get up to 

 Shupanga till the 19th of December. The friends of our 

 Mazaro men, who had now become good sailors and very 

 attentive servants, turned out and gave them a hearty 

 welcome back from the perils of the sea : they had begun 

 to fear that they would never return. We hired them at 

 a sixteen-yard piece of cloth a month — about ten shillings' 

 worth,the Portuguese market-price of the cloth being then 

 seven pence halfpenny a yard, — and paid them five pieces 

 each, for four-and-a-half months' work. A merchant at 

 the same time paid other Mazaro men three pieces for 

 seven months, and they were with him in the interior. If 

 the merchants do not prosper, it is not because labour is 

 dear, but because it is scarce, and because they are so eager 

 on every occasion to sell the workmen out of the country. 

 Our men had also received quantities of good clothes 

 from the sailors of the " Pioneer " and of the " Orestes," 

 and were now regarded by their neighbours and by 

 themselves as men of importance. Never before had they 

 possessed so much wealth : they believed that they might 

 settle in life, being now of sufficient standing to warrant 

 their entering the married state ; and a wife and a hut 

 were among their first investments. Sixteen yards were 

 paid to the wife's parents, and a hut cost four yards. We 



