SEWING-SCHOOL AT MOZAMBIQUE. 
7 
weight, 360 lb. The birds here were so tame and in- 
sensible to danger that the men were able to knock 
them over when on the ground with sticks and stones. 
Four living turtle were brought on board and placed 
on their backs, with a swab each as pillow. When 
the ship was at anchor they were lowered with a 
rope attached to them, and swam about playfully 
below the stern of the vessel, coming to the surface 
for air every thirty seconds. The butcher, while kill- 
ing one by cutting its throat all round and opening 
holes in its groins, remarked that its thick blood felt 
" cooler than a sheep's," and I observed it to be two 
degrees less than the atmosphere (78°). He also en- 
tertained the common belief that turtle will only die 
at sunset. 
On the 7th of August we lay off the wooden pier of 
the island of Mozambique, an extinct coral formation. 
Here Speke and I were able to converse, in their native 
tongue, with Indian traders living away from their 
wives and families, whom they had left behind in India. 
We saw an interesting sight at a ship-pro visioner's : 
in his back premises we found a sewing-school of ne- 
gro boys and girls, presided over by a black sempstress ; 
the boys were on one side and the girls on the other, 
Quaker fashion, all very neat and orderly, and en- 
gaged in making shirts. Farther on, in a dirtier quar- 
ter, women stood at a millstone grinding wheat, while 
others were alongside sifting it. One, a handsome 
gypsy-looking girl, had through her upper lip a large 
button of wood, which she sucked into her mouth most 
adeptly, in order to create a laugh and coquet for 
money. The cooks and henmen were of a lower grade ; 
and two lads, who also begged hard, were in chains, 
