I was obliged to shoot him, and his head now hangs over the sideboard in my dining-room. These slave-dealers, with their devilish counsels and temptations, were Mambari, a kind of half-caste Portuguese, who fifty years ago were agents for the export slave-trade. When the survivors of the gangs reached the coast they were packed away in a slave-ship, like herrings in a cask, and transported. Through the vigilance of English cruisers this iniquitous traffic has been greatly reduced, and, but for the refusal of the right of search by the French, would be very small and unremunerative; but the Arab curse still continues, and though, now that the sea-board is partially occupied by Europeans, greater difficulty will be placed in its way, I am of opinion that through the avarice and cupidity of man--African and European--it will not entirely disappear so long as there is any ivory left. That once exhausted, is there anything else worth bringing a ten-mile journey to the coast? In the late very cool partitioning of Africa we may congratulate ourselves in having obtained possession of Mashonaland, a district healthy enough for colonisation, and apparently rich enough to repay it. The tsétsé, that great enemy to the cattle-breeder, will disappear before the approach of civilisation, and the killing off of the game, especially the buffalo, its standing dish, as it has done many times already in African lore. I am speaking of the tracts south of the Zambesi. Of tropical lands to the north I know nothing, save from what I read and am told, and I cannot yet see how they are to be settled. Fever and general unhealthiness must weight immigration heavily, and even if the country is capable of supplying the needs of the world in the future, what philanthropic society will subsidise the workers until the industries are developed? It must be remembered the greatest prophylactics in an evil climate are movement, and its consequent excitement, and change of scene--the settler dies where the traveller lives. The railway, if made, will help to suppress slavery, by giving carriage for the ivory, its only cause at present--no ivory, no slavery. May the venture turn out better than many another has done, and not end in that very questionable blessing, a rum-civilisation!