spread his great wings for flight. The glossy ibis, acute of ear to a remarkable degree, hears from afar the unwonted sound of the paddles, and springing from the mud where his family has been quietly feasting, is off screaming out his loud, harsh, and defiant ha! ha! ha! long before the danger is near.

"The mangroves are now left behind, and are succeeded by vast level plains of rich dark soil, covered with gigantic grasses, so tall that they tower over one's head and render hunting impossible. Beginning in July the grass is burned off every year after it has become dry. . . .

Several native huts now peep out from the bananas and cocoa-palms on the right bank; they stand on piles a few feet above the level of the low damp ground, and their owners enter them by means of ladders." The native gardens were in a high state of cultivation-rice, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, cabbages, onions, peas, cotton, and sugar-cane being freely cultivated. The natives they met with were well fed, but very scantily clothed. They stood on the banks and gazed with wonder at the Pearl and the Ma-Robert, one of them, an old man, asking if the former was made out of one tree. They were all eager to trade, coming alongside the steamers in their canoes with fruit, and food, and honey, and beeswax, and shouting, "Malonda, Malonda!-Things for sale."

When the water became too shallow for the passage of the Pearl she left the party, Mr. Skead and a Mr. Duncan who had accompanied them from the Cape returning with her. Several members of the expedition were left on an island, which they named Expedition Island, from the 18th of June until the 13th of August, while the others were conveying the goods up to Shupanga and Senna. This was a work of some danger, as the country was in a state of war—a half-caste chief called Mariano, who ruled over the country from the Shire down to Mazaro at the head of the

delta, having waged war against the Portuguese for some time previous to their visit. He was a keen slave-hunter, and kept a large number of men well armed with muskets. So long as he confined himself to slave-hunting forays among the helpless tribes, and carried down his captives in chains to Kilimane, where they were sold and shipped as "free emigrants" to the French island of Bourbon, the Portuguese authorities did not interfere with him, although his slavehunting expeditions were conducted with the utmost atrocity, he frequently indulging his thirst for blood by spearing large numbers of helpless natives with his own hand. Getting bolder, he began to attack the natives who were under the protection of the Portuguese, and then war was declared against him. He resisted for a time, but fearing that he would ultimately get the worst of it, he went to Kilimane to endeavour to arrange for peace with the governor; but Colonel da Silva refused his proffered bribes, and sent him to Mozambique for trial. When Livingstone's party first came in contact with the rebels at Mazaro they looked formidable and threatening, but on being told that the party were English they fraternised with them, and warmly approved of the objects of the expedition.

A little later a battle was fought between the contending parties within a mile and a half of Livingstone's party; and on landing to pay his respects to several of his old friends who had treated him kindly on the occasion of his former appearance amongst them, he found himself among the mutilated bodies of the slain. The governor was ill of fever, and Livingstone was requested to convey him to Shupanga; and just as he had consented, the battle was renewed, the bullets whistling about his ears. Failing to get any assistance, Livingstone half supported and half carried the sick governor to the ship. His Excellency, who had taken nothing for the fever but a little camphor, and being a disbeliever in Livingstone's mode of treatment, was

after some difficulty cured against his will. A little after this, Bonga, Mariano's brother, made peace with the governor, and the war came to an end.

For miles before reaching Mazaro the scenery is uninteresting, consisting of long stretches of level grassy plains, the monotony of which is broken here and there by the round green tops of stately palm-trees. Sand martins flitted about in flocks, darting in and out of their holes in the banks. On the numerous islands which dot the broad expanse of the stream many kinds of water-fowl, such as geese, flamingoes, herons, spoonbills, &c., were seen in large numbers. Huge crocodiles lay basking on the low banks, gliding sluggishly into the stream as they caught sight of the steamer. The hippopotamus "rising from the bottom, where he has been enjoying his morning bath after the labour of the night on shore, blows a puff of spray out of his nostrils, shakes the water out of his ears, puts his enormous snout up straight and yawns, sounding a loud alarm to the rest of the herd, with notes as of a monstrous bassoon."

The Zulus or Landeens are the lords of the soil on the right bank of the Zambesi, and take tribute from the Portuguese at Senna and Shupanga. Each merchant pays annually two hundred pieces of cloth of sixteen yards each, beside beads and brass wire; and while they groan under this heavy levy of black-mail they are powerless, as a refusal to pay it would involve them in a war in which they would lose all they possess. In the forests near Shupanga, a tree called by the natives mokundu-kundu abounds; it attains to a great size, and being hard and cross-grained, is used for the manufacture of large canoes. At the time of Livingstone's visit, a Portuguese merchant at Kilimane paid the Zulus 300 dollars per annum for permission to cut it.

Livingstone's old friends, Colonel Nunes and Major Sicard, received the traveller and his party with much