Chap. XII. DROUGHT AND SCARCITY. 317 



should have liked to have kept them in the ship, for they 

 were well-behaved and had learned a great deal of the 

 work required. Though they would not themselves go 

 again, they engaged others for us ; and brought twice as 

 many as we could take, of their brothers and cousins, who 

 were eager to join the ship and go with us up the Shire, or 

 anywhere else. They all agreed to take half-pay until 

 they too had learned to work ; and we found no scarcity 

 of labour, though all that could be exported is now out of 

 the country. 



There had been a drought of unusual severity during 

 the past season in the country between Lupata and 

 Kebrabasa, and it had extended north-east to the Man- 

 ganja highlands. All the Tette slaves, except a very few 

 household ones, had been driven away by hunger, and 

 were now far off in the woods, and wherever wild fruit, or 

 the prospect of obtaining anything whatever to keep the 

 breath of life in them, was to be found. Their masters 

 were said never to expect to see them again. There have 

 been two years of great hunger at Tette since we have 

 been in the country, and a famine like the present pre- 

 vailed in 1854, when thousands died of starvation. If 

 men like the Cape farmers owned this country, their 

 energy and enterprise would soon render the crops inde- 

 pendent of rain. There being plenty of slope or fall, the 

 land could be easily irrigated from the Zambesi and its 

 tributary streams. A Portuguese colony can never 

 prosper : it is used as a penal settlement, and everything 

 must be done military fashion. " What do I care for this 

 country ? " said the most enterprising of the Tette mer- 

 chants, " all I want is to make money as soon possible, 

 and then go to Bombay and enjoy it." All business at 

 Tette was now suspended. Carriers could not be found 

 to take the goods into the interior, and the merchants 

 could barely obtain food for their own families. At 



