Our objection was not to the people or to the hotel and its fare—but to the place; we wanted to get out of Quilimane. The Portuguese we found exceedingly kind to us, the only part of their sympathy that we did not relish was when they remarked that Quilimane might, after all, be a better place than Blantyre. Consumptive people were able to tell us that after being sent to Madeira without any benefit, they had recovered at once on coming to Quilimane. The town, built on the site first chosen by the missionary on account of the harbour, bids fair to become a flourishing place. It stands on an island: for besides the Quilimane river and another twelve miles further north, there is a third river connecting these two. So level is the country that this river flows sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the opposite—a phenomenon which the Portuguese are fond of pointing to as an explanation of the conflicting statements of travellers in the interior, one of whom states that a river flows north while another asserts that it flows south. The Portuguese treat the natives with kindness, although they keep them at a respectable distance. Their domestics live in whole families at the back of the houses. When a visitor takes a walk in the country, he is quite astonished at the multitude of natives that have crowded round the Portuguese. I marched on for miles before coming to the end of these villages—a circumstance which shows how much the natives prefer the government of the white man to the misrule of their own chiefs. But the Portuguese believe that the native is not capable of much improvement, and they assert this opinion with the greatest confidence. As we reflected that they had been face to face with the natives for generations, we were somewhat discouraged by the conclusions formed by these acute and practical Europeans. Language is a great difficulty here. In order to get on at Quilimane one requires to know both Portuguese and Kafir (or Ichuabo as the natives call it). We felt as strange as the foreigner, who, being unable to communicate with any one, was deprived of all human sympathy; at last he heard a cock crow when he exclaimed, “Ah! poor fowl, you are the only one that understands me”. It is a considerable trial for one to be in a country where he understands no human utterance except perhaps the cries of a child. In every way it is a great change to be transported from the snows of the North into the heart of tropical scenery and many are the thoughts called forth by the transition. Here the very birds seemed to sing in a foreign tongue. We were ready to sympathise with the stanza:— “The palm-tree waveth high, And fair the myrtle springs, And to the Indian Maid The bulbul sweetly sings. But I dinna see the broom Wi’ its tassels on the lea; Nor hear the lintie’s sang O’ my ain countrie.” It would not have been correct to add with reference to Quilimane,