The Highest Articles Of Consumption
Are Tea And Coffee, The Tea Being Often As High As 15s. A Pound.
Food
Is cheaper down the river below Lupata, and, previous to the war,
the islands which stud the Zambesi were all
Inhabited, and, the soil being
exceedingly fertile, grain and fowls could be got to any amount.
The inhabitants disappeared before their enemies the Landeens,
but are beginning to return since the peace. They have no cattle,
the only place where we found no tsetse being the district of Tete itself;
and the cattle in the possession of the Portuguese are a mere remnant
of what they formerly owned.
When visiting the hot fountain, I examined what were formerly
the gold-washings in the rivulet Mokoroze, which is nearly
on the 16th parallel of latitude. The banks are covered
with large groves of fine mango-trees, among which the Portuguese lived
while superintending the washing for the precious metal.
The process of washing is very laborious and tedious. A quantity of sand
is put into a wooden bowl with water; a half rotatory motion
is given to the dish, which causes the coarser particles of sand to collect
on one side of the bottom. These are carefully removed with the hand,
and the process of rotation renewed until the whole of the sand is taken away,
and the gold alone remains. It is found in very minute scales, and,
unless I had been assured to the contrary, I should have taken it to be mica,
for, knowing the gold to be of greater specific gravity than the sand,
I imagined that a stream of water would remove the latter
and leave the former; but here the practice is to remove the whole of the sand
by the hand. This process was, no doubt, a profitable one to the Portuguese,
and it is probable that, with the improved plan by means of mercury,
the sands would be lucrative. I had an opportunity of examining
the gold-dust from different parts to the east and northeast of Tete.
There are six well-known washing-places. These are called
Mashinga, Shindundo, Missala, Kapata, Mano, and Jawa.
From the description of the rock I received, I suppose gold is found
both in clay shale and quartz. At the range Mushinga to the N.N.W.
the rock is said to be so soft that the women pound it into powder
in wooden mortars previous to washing.
Round toward the westward, the old Portuguese indicate a station
which was near to Zumbo on the River Panyame, and called Dambarari,
near which much gold was found. Farther west lay the now unknown
kingdom of Abutua, which was formerly famous for the metal; and then,
coming round toward the east, we have the gold-washings of the Mashona,
or Bazizulu, and, farther east, that of Manica, where gold is found
much more abundantly than in any other part, and which has been
supposed by some to be the Ophir of King Solomon.
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