Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and StanleyKingston, William Henry Giles
History
Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Africa -- Description and travel; Africa -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers
Running up the river Luawe, supposed to be a branch of the Zambesi, the
"Pearl" came to an anchor, and the "Ma-Robert," which had been brought
out in sections, was screwed together. The two vessels then went
together in search of the real mouth of the river, from which Quillimane
is some sixty miles distant, the Portuguese having concealed the real
entrance, if they were acquainted with it, in order to deceive the
English cruisers in search of slavers.
The goods for the expedition brought out by the "Pearl" having been
landed on a grassy island about forty miles from the bar, that vessel
sailed for Ceylon, while the little "Ma-Robert" was left to pursue her
course alone. Her crew consisted of about a dozen Krumen and a few
Europeans.
At Mazaro, the mouth of a creek communicating with the Quillimane or
Kilimane River, the expedition heard that the Portuguese were at war
with a half-caste named Mariano, a brother of Bonga, who had built a
stockade near the mouth of the Shire, and held possession of all the
intermediate country. He had been in the habit of sending out his armed
bands on slave-hunting expeditions among the helpless tribes to the
north-west, selling his victims at Quillimane, where they were shipped
as free emigrants to the French island of Bourbon. As long as his
robberies and murders were restricted to the natives at a distance, the
Portuguese did not interfere, but when he began to carry off and murder
the people near them, they thought it time to put a stop to his
proceedings. They spoke of him as a rare monster of inhumanity. He
frequently killed people with his own hand in order to make his name
dreaded. Having gone down to Quillimane to arrange with the governor,
or, in other words, to bribe him, Colonel Da Silva put him in prison and
sent him for trial to Mozambique. The war, however, was continued under
his brother Bonga, and had stopped all trade on the river.
The expedition witnessed a battle at Mazaro, between Bonga and the
Portuguese, when Dr Livingstone, landing, found himself in the
sickening smell and among the mutilated bodies of the slain. He brought
off the governor, who was in a fever, the balls whistling about his head
in all directions. The Portuguese then escaped to an island opposite
Shupanga, where, having exhausted their ammunition, they were compelled
to remain.
There is a one-storied house at Shupanga, from which there is a
magnificent view down the river. Near it is a large baobab-tree,
beneath which, a few years later, the remains of the beloved wife of Dr
Livingstone were to repose.
On the 17th of August the "Ma-Robert" commenced her voyage up the stream
for Tete. It was soon found that her furnaces being badly constructed,
and that from other causes she was ill adapted for the work before her.
She quickly, in consequence, obtained the name of the "Asthmatical."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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