His Excellency
Meanwhile, Being A Disciple Of Raspail, Had Taken Nothing For The
Fever But A Little Camphor, And After He Was Taken To Shupanga Became
Comatose.
More potent remedies were administered to him, to his
intense disgust, and he soon recovered.
The Colonel in attendance,
whom he never afterwards forgave, encouraged the treatment. "Give
what is right; never mind him; he is very (muito) impertinent:" and
all night long, with every draught of water the Colonel gave a
quantity of quinine: the consequence was, next morning the patient
was cinchonized and better.
For sixty or seventy miles before reaching Mazaro, the scenery is
tame and uninteresting. On either hand is a dreary uninhabited
expanse, of the same level grassy plains, with merely a few trees to
relieve the painful monotony. The round green top of the stately
palm-tree looks at a distance, when its grey trunk cannot be seen, as
though hung in mid-air. Many flocks of busy sand-martins, which
here, and as far south as the Orange River, do not migrate, have
perforated the banks two or three feet horizontally, in order to
place their nests at the ends, and are now chasing on restless wing
the myriads of tropical insects. The broad river has many low
islands, on which are seen various kinds of waterfowl, such as geese,
spoonbills, herons, and flamingoes. Repulsive crocodiles, as with
open jaws they sleep and bask in the sun on the low banks, soon catch
the sound of the revolving paddles and glide quietly into the stream.
The hippopotamus, having selected some still reach of the river to
spend the day, rises out of the bottom, where he has been enjoying
his morning bath after the labours of the night on shore, blows a
puff of spray from his nostrils, shakes the water out of his ears,
puts his enormous snout up straight and yawns, sounding a loud alarm
to the rest of the herd, with notes as of a monster bassoon.
As we approach Mazaro the scenery improves. We see the well-wooded
Shupanga ridge stretching to the left, and in front blue hills rise
dimly far in the distance. There is no trade whatever on the Zambesi
below Mazaro. All the merchandise of Senna and Tette is brought to
that point in large canoes, and thence carried six miles across the
country on men's heads to be reshipped on a small stream that flows
into the Kwakwa, or Quillimane river, which is entirely distinct from
the Zambesi. Only on rare occasions and during the highest floods
can canoes pass from the Zambesi to the Quillimane river through the
narrow natural canal Mutu. The natives of Maruru, or the country
around Mazaro, the word Mazaro meaning the "mouth of the creek" Mutu,
have a bad name among the Portuguese; they are said to be expert
thieves, and the merchants sometimes suffer from their adroitness
while the goods are in transit from one river to the other. In
general they are trained canoe-men, and man many of the canoes that
ply thence to Senna and Tette; their pay is small, and, not trusting
the traders, they must always have it before they start.
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