A cart was constructed on two firm wheels, the wonder of its day. Eight donkeys were harnessed therein, with gear made out of every imaginable scrap. Three donkeys trotted gaily by its side, to be brought into requisition in case of sore backs and other disasters; and one wet evening we despatched our hopeful cart with our blessing on its road to the coast. It would take three or four days getting by the waggon-road to Massi-Kessi, whilst we could cross the mountains in one. So next morning, we on foot and my wife on horseback, started by the mountain road for Massi-Kessi, and got there as evening was coming on. A good walk in any of the mountainous districts of the British Isles would have been just the same. A drenching mist obscured every vision, the paths were slippery and uneven; occasionally a glimpse at a stream with bananas waving in the mist, or at a Kaffir kraal, would dispel the homelike illusion, and bring us back to Africa again. Towards evening the aggravating mist cleared away, and gave us a splendid panorama of the surrounding mountains as we approached Massi-Kessi and entered the valley of the River Revwe. Just here we walked for miles over ground which had been worked for alluvial gold in the olden days, the soil being honeycombed with low holes, and presenting the appearance of a ploughed field with circular furrows. Certainly the Portuguese, or rather the Mozambique Company, are to be congratulated on the possession of such a paradise as this Revwe Valley—fertile in soil, rich in water, glorious in its views over forest-clad mountains; and it is not to be wondered at that they keenly resented the temporary appropriation of it. Massi-Kessi and its neighbourhood are rich in reminiscences of the Portuguese past; the new fort, where the new company has its store, was built out of the remains of an old Portuguese fort, around which you may still pick up fragments of Nankin porcelain, relics of those days, now long since gone by, when the Portuguese of Africa, India, and the Persian Gulf lived in the lap of luxury, and fed off porcelain brought by their trading-ships from China. Higher up in the mountain valleys are forts and roads of this occupation. As in the Persian Gulf, as in Goa and elsewhere, the Portuguese influence vanished in East Africa after her union with Spain and the consequent drafting off of her soldiers to the wars in Flanders; barely a phantom of her former power remained to her in the province of Mozambique. A few futile expeditions under Barretto, Fernandez, and others were destroyed either by the natives or by fever, during one of which the legend is still told that the defenders of this fort of Massi-Kessi were obliged to cast bullets out of gold nuggets when cheaper material came to an end. After this the inland country was practically abandoned to the savages. Old treaties existed but were not renewed; lethargy seemed to have taken entire possession of the few