UBERAUTY OF THE COMMANDANT. 599 



At Kilimane, where the cocoa-nut palm abounds, the toddy 

 from it, called " sura," is used for the same purpose, and 

 makes the bread still lighter. 



As it was necessary to leave most of my men at this place, 

 Major Sicard gave them a portion of land on which to 

 cultivate their own food, generously supplying them with 

 corn in the mean time. He also said that my young 

 men might go and hunt elephants in company with his 

 servants, and purchase goods with both the ivory and 

 dried meat, in order that they might have something to 

 take with them on their return to Sekeletu. The men 

 were delighted with his liberality, and soon sixty or seventy 

 of them set off to engage in this enterprise. There was no 

 calico to be had at this time in Tete, but the Commandant 

 handsomely furnished my men with clothing. I was in 

 a state of want myself, and, though I pressed him to 

 take payment in ivory for both myself and men, he 

 refused all recompence. I shall ever remember his kind- 

 ness with deep gratitude. He has written me, since my 

 arrival in Bngland, that my men had killed four elephants 

 in the course of two months after my departure. 



On the day of my arrival I was visited by all the gentle- 

 men of the village, both white and coloured, including the 

 padre. Not one of them had any idea as to where the 

 source of the Zambesi lay. They sent for the best travelled 

 natives, but none of them knew the river even as far as 

 Kansala. The father of one of the rebels who had been 

 fighting against them, had been a great traveller to the 

 south-west, and had even heard of our visit to I^ake 

 Ngami ; but he was equally ignorant with all the others 

 that the Zambesi flowed in the centre of the country. 

 They had, however, more knowledge of the country to 

 the north of Tete than I had. One man, who had gone 

 to Cazembe with Major Monteiro, stated that he had seen 

 the Luapura or I^oapula flowing past the town of that 

 chieftain into the I^uameji or L,eeambye, but imagined that 

 it found its way, somehow or other, into Angola. The 

 fact that sometimes rivers were seen to flow like this 

 towards the centre of the country, led geographers to the 

 supposition that inner Africa was composed of elevated 

 sandy plains, into which rivers ran and were lost. One 

 of the gentlemen present, Senhor Candido, had visited a 

 lake 45 days to the N.N.W. of Tete, which is probably 

 the Iyake Maravi of geographers, as in going thither they 



