As a temporary measure the Bishop decided to place his Mission Station on a small promontory formed by the windings of the little, clear stream of Magomero, which was so cold that the limbs were quite benumbed by washing in it in the July mornings.The site chosen was a pleasant spot to the eye, and completely surrounded by stately, shady trees.It was expected to serve for a residence, till the Bishop had acquired an accurate knowledge of the adjacent country, and of the political relations of the people, and could select a healthy and commanding situation, as a permanent centre of Christian civilization.Everything promised fairly.The weather was delightful, resembling the pleasantest part of an English summer;
provisions poured in very cheap and in great abundance.The Bishop, with characteristic ardour, commenced learning the language, Mr.
Waller began building, and Mr. Scudamore improvised a sort of infant school for the children, than which there is no better means for acquiring an unwritten tongue.
On the 6th of August, 1861, a few days after returning from Magomero, Drs. Livingstone and Kirk, and Charles Livingstone started for Nyassa with a light four-oared gig, a white sailor, and a score of attendants.We hired people along the path to carry the boat past the forty miles of the Murchison Cataracts for a cubit of cotton cloth a day.This being deemed great wages, more than twice the men required eagerly offered their services.The chief difficulty was in limiting their numbers.Crowds followed us; and, had we not taken down in the morning the names of the porters engaged, in the evening claims would have been made by those who only helped during the last ten minutes of the journey.The men of one village carried the boat to the next, and all we had to do was to tell the headman that we wanted fresh men in the morning.He saw us pay the first party, and had his men ready at the time appointed, so there was no delay in waiting for carriers.They often make a loud noise when carrying heavy loads, but talking and bawling does not put them out of breath.
The country was rough and with little soil on it, but covered with grass and open forest.A few small trees were cut down to clear a path for our shouting assistants, who were good enough to consider the boat as a certificate of peaceful intentions at least to them.
Several small streams were passed, the largest of which were the Mukuru-Madse and Lesungwe.The inhabitants on both banks were now civil and obliging.Our possession of a boat, and consequent power of crossing independently of the canoes, helped to develop their good manners, which were not apparent on our previous visit.
There is often a surprising contrast between neighbouring villages.
One is well off and thriving, having good huts, plenty of food, and native cloth; and its people are frank, trusty, generous, and eager to sell provisions; while in the next the inhabitants may be ill-housed, disobliging, suspicious, ill-fed, and scantily clad, and with nothing for sale, though the land around is as fertile as that of their wealthier neighbours.We followed the river for the most part to avail ourselves of the still reaches for sailing; but a comparatively smooth country lies further inland, over which a good road could be made.Some of the five main cataracts are very grand, the river falling 1200 feet in the 40 miles.After passing the last of the cataracts, we launched our boat for good on the broad and deep waters of the Upper Shire, and were virtually on the lake, for the gentle current shows but little difference of level.The bed is broad and deep, but the course is rather tortuous at first, and makes a long bend to the east till it comes within five or six miles of the base of Mount Zomba.The natives regarded the Upper Shire as a prolongation of Lake Nyassa; for where what we called the river approaches Lake Shirwa, a little north of the mountains, they said that the hippopotami, "which are great night travellers," pass from ONE LAKE INTO THE OTHER.There the land is flat, and only a short land journey would be necessary.Seldom does the current here exceed a knot an hour, while that of the Lower Shire is from two to two-and-a-half knots.Our land party of Makololo accompanied us along the right bank, and passed thousands of Manganja fugitives living in temporary huts on that side, who had recently been driven from their villages on the opposite hills by the Ajawa.
The soil was dry and hard, and covered with mopane-trees; but some of the Manganja were busy hoeing the ground and planting the little corn they had brought with them.The effects of hunger were already visible on those whose food had been seized or burned by the Ajawa and Portuguese slave-traders.The spokesman or prime minister of one of the chiefs, named Kalonjere, was a humpbacked dwarf, a fluent speaker, who tried hard to make us go over and drive off the Ajawa;
But he could not deny that by selling people Kalonjere had invited these slave-hunters to the country.This is the second humpbacked dwarf we have found occupying the like important post, the other was the prime minister of a Batonga chief on the Zambesi.
As we sailed along, we disturbed many white-breasted cormorants; we had seen the same species fishing between the cataracts.Here, with many other wild-fowls, they find subsistence on the smooth water by night, and sit sleepily on trees and in the reeds by day.Many hippopotami were seen in the river, and one of them stretched its wide jaws, as if to swallow the whole stern of the boat, close to Dr.
Kirk's back; the animal was so near that, in opening its mouth, it lashed a quantity of water on to the stern-sheets, but did no damage.
