All They Use Is Imported From Bombay.
"The People Of Quillimane Have No Enterprise," Said A Young European
Portuguese, "They Do Nothing, And Are Always Wasting Their Time In
Suffering, Or In Recovering From Fever."
We entered the Zambesi about the end of November and found it
unusually low, so we did not get up to Shupanga till the 19th of
December.
The friends of our Mazaro men, who had now become good
sailors and very attentive servants, turned out and gave them a
hearty welcome back from the perils of the sea: they had begun to
fear that they would never return. We hired them at a sixteen-yard
piece of cloth a month - about ten shillings' worth, the Portuguese
market-price of the cloth being then sevenpence halfpenny a yard, -
and paid them five pieces each, for four-and-a-half months' work. A
merchant at the same time paid other Mazaro men three pieces for
seven months, and they were with him in the interior. If the
merchants do not prosper, it is not because labour is dear, but
because it is scarce, and because they are so eager on every occasion
to sell the workmen out of the country. Our men had also received
quantities of good clothes from the sailors of the "Pioneer" and of
the "Orestes," and were now regarded by their neighbours and by
themselves as men of importance. Never before had they possessed so
much wealth: they believed that they might settle in life, being now
of sufficient standing to warrant their entering the married state;
and a wife and a hut were among their first investments.
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