In Coming Up To The Luenya For This Purpose,
All Boats And Canoes Came Close To The Stockade To Be
Robbed.
Nyaude kept the Portuguese shut up in their fort at Tete during two years,
and they could only get
Goods sufficient to buy food by sending to Kilimane
by an overland route along the north bank of the Zambesi.
The mother country did not in these "Caffre wars" pay the bills,
so no one either became rich or blamed the missionaries.
The merchants were unable to engage in trade, and commerce,
which the slave-trade had rendered stagnant, was now completely obstructed.
The present commandant of Tete, Major Sicard, having great influence
among the natives, from his good character, put a stop to the war
more than once by his mere presence on the spot. We heard of him
among the Banyai as a man with whom they would never fight,
because "he had a good heart." Had I come down to this coast
instead of going to Loanda in 1853, I should have come among the belligerents
while the war was still raging, and should probably have been cut off.
My present approach was just at the conclusion of the peace;
and when the Portuguese authorities here were informed,
through the kind offices of Lord Clarendon and Count de Lavradio,
that I was expected to come this way, they all declared
that such was the existing state of affairs that no European
could possibly pass through the tribes.
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