The Present System
Is A Serious Difficulty In The Way Of Developing The Resources Of The Country,
And Might Prove Fatal To An Unarmed Expedition.
If this desirable
and most fertile field of enterprise is ever to be opened up,
men must proceed on
A different plan from that which has been followed,
and I do not apprehend there would be much difficulty in commencing
a new system, if those who undertook it insisted that it is not our custom
to pay for a highway which has not been made by man. The natives themselves
would not deny that the river is free to those who do not trade in slaves.
If, in addition to an open, frank explanation, a small subsidy were given
to the paramount chief, the willing consent of all the subordinates
would soon be secured.
On the 1st of April I went to see the site of a former establishment
of the Jesuits, called Micombo, about ten miles S.E. of Tete.
Like all their settlements I have seen, both judgment and taste had been
employed in the selection of the site. A little stream of mineral water
had been collected in a tank and conducted to their house,
before which was a little garden for raising vegetables at times of the year
when no rain falls. It is now buried in a deep shady grove of mango-trees.
I was accompanied by Captain Nunes, whose great-grandfather,
also a captain in the time of the Marquis of Pombal, received sealed orders,
to be opened only on a certain day.
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