They submit to pay annually 200 pieces of cloth, of
sixteen yards each, besides beads and brass wire, knowing that
refusal involves war, which might end in the loss of all they
possess. The Zulus appear to keep as sharp a look out on the Senna
and Shupanga people as ever landlord did on tenant; the more they
cultivate, the more tribute they have to pay. On asking some of them
why they did not endeavour to raise certain highly profitable
products, we were answered, "What's the use of our cultivating any
more than we do? the Landeens would only come down on us for more
tribute."
In the forests of Shupanga the Mokundu-kundu tree abounds; its bright
yellow wood makes good boat-masts, and yields a strong bitter
medicine for fever; the Gunda-tree attains to an immense size; its
timber is hard, rather cross-grained, with masses of silica deposited
in its substance; the large canoes, capable of carrying three or four
tons, are made of its wood. For permission to cut these trees, a
Portuguese gentleman of Quillimane was paying the Zulus, in 1858, two
hundred dollars a year, and his successor now pays three hundred.
At Shupanga, a one-storied stone house stands on the prettiest site
on the river. In front a sloping lawn, with a fine mango orchard at
its southern end, leads down to the broad Zambesi, whose green
islands repose on the sunny bosom of the tranquil waters.
