I Was Most Kindly Received By The Commandant Tito Augusto D'Araujo Sicard,
Who Did Every Thing In His Power To
Restore me from my emaciated condition;
and, as this was still the unhealthy period at Kilimane,
he advised me to
Remain with him until the following month.
He also generously presented my men with abundant provisions of millet;
and, by giving them lodgings in a house of his own until they could erect
their own huts, he preserved them from the bite of the tampans,
here named Carapatos.* We had heard frightful accounts of this insect
while among the Banyai, and Major Sicard assured me that to strangers
its bite is more especially dangerous, as it sometimes causes fatal fever.
It may please our homoeopathic friends to hear that, in curing
the bite of the tampan, the natives administer one of the insects bruised
in the medicine employed.
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* Another insect, resembling a maggot, burrows into the feet of the natives
and sucks their blood. Mr. Westwood says, "The tampan is
a large species of mite, closely allied to the poisonous bug
(as it is called) of Persia, `Argos reflexus', respecting which
such marvelous accounts have been recorded, and which the statement
respecting the carapato or tampan would partially confirm."
Mr. W. also thinks that the poison-yielding larva called N'gwa
is a "species of chrysomelidae. The larvae of the British species
of that family exude a fetid yellow thickish fluid when alarmed,
but he has not heard that any of them are at all poisonous."
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The village of Tete is built on a long slope down to the river,
the fort being close to the water. The rock beneath is gray sandstone,
and has the appearance of being crushed away from the river:
the strata have thus a crumpled form. The hollow between each crease
is a street, the houses being built upon the projecting fold.
The rocks at the top of the slope are much higher than the fort, and of course
completely command it. There is then a large valley, and beyond that
an oblong hill called Karueira. The whole of the adjacent country
is rocky and broken, but every available spot is under cultivation.
The stone houses in Tete are cemented with mud instead of lime,
and thatched with reeds and grass. The rains, having washed out
the mud between the stones, give all the houses a rough, untidy appearance.
No lime was known to be found nearer than Mozambique; some used in making
seats in the verandas had actually been brought all that distance.
The Portuguese evidently knew nothing of the pink and white marbles
which I found at the Mbai, and another rivulet, named the Unguesi, near it,
and of which I brought home specimens, nor yet of the dolomite
which lies so near to Zumbo: they might have burned the marble into lime
without going so far as Mozambique. There are about thirty European houses;
the rest are native, and of wattle and daub.
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