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.
A wall about ten feet high
is intended to inclose the village, but most of the native inhabitants
prefer to live on different spots outside. There are about
twelve hundred huts in all, which with European households
would give a population of about four thousand five hundred souls.
Only a small proportion of these, however, live on the spot;
the majority are engaged in agricultural operations in the adjacent country.
Generally there are not more than two thousand people resident,
for, compared with what it was, Tete is now a ruin. The number of Portuguese
is very small; if we exclude the military, it is under twenty.
Lately, however, one hundred and five soldiers were sent from Portugal
to Senna, where in one year twenty-five were cut off by fever.
They were then removed to Tete, and here they enjoy much better health,
though, from the abundance of spirits distilled from various plants,
wild fruits, and grain, in which pernicious beverage they largely indulge,
besides partaking chiefly of unwholesome native food, better health
could scarcely have been expected. The natives here understand
the method of distillation by means of gun-barrels, and a succession
of earthen pots filled with water to keep them cool. The general report
of the fever here is that, while at Kilimane the fever is continuous,
at Tete a man recovers in about three days.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 940 of 1070
Words from 269889 to 270147
of 306638
