The Journey Nearly Killed Our Two Active Young Friends;
And What The Slaves Must Have Since Suffered On It No One Can
Conceive; But Slaving Probably Can Never Be Conducted Without
Enormous Suffering And Loss Of Life.
Mankokwe now sent a message to say that he wished us to stop at his
village on our way down.
He came on board on our arrival there with
a handsome present, and said that his young people had dissuaded him
from visiting us before; but now he was determined to see what every
one else was seeing. A bald square-headed man, who had been his
Prime Minister when we came up, was now out of office, and another
old man, who had taken his place accompanied the chief. In passing
the Elephant Marsh, we saw nine large herds of elephants; they
sometimes formed a line two miles long.
On the 2nd of November we anchored off Shamoara, and sent the boat to
Senna for biscuit and other provisions. Senhor Ferrao, with his
wonted generosity, gave us a present of a bullock, which he sent to
us in a canoe. Wishing to know if a second bullock would be
acceptable to us, he consulted his Portuguese and English dictionary,
and asked the sailor in charge if he would take ANOTHER; but Jack,
mistaking the Portuguese pronunciation of the letter h, replied, "Oh
no, sir, thank you, I don't want an OTTER in the boat, they are such
terrible biters!"
We had to ground the vessel on a shallow sandbank every night; she
leaked so fast, that in deep water she would have sunk, and the pump
had to be worked all day to keep her afloat. Heavy rains fell daily,
producing the usual injurious effects in the cabin; and, unable to
wait any longer for our associates, who had gone overland from the
Shire to Tette, we ran down the Kongone and beached her for repairs.
Her Majesty's ship "Lynx," Lieut. Berkeley commanding, called shortly
afterwards with supplies; the bar, which had been perfectly smooth
for some time before, became rather rough just before her arrival, so
that it was two or three days before she could communicate with us.
Two of her boats tried to come in on the second day, and one of them,
mistaking the passage, capsized in the heavy breakers abreast of the
island. Mr. Hunt, gunner, the officer in charge of the second boat,
behaved nobly, and by his skilful and gallant conduct succeeded in
rescuing every one of the first boat's crew. Of course the things
that they were bringing to us were lost, but we were thankful that
all the men were saved. The loss of the mail-bags, containing
Government despatches and our friends' letters for the past year, was
felt severely, as we were on the point of starting on an expedition
into the interior, which might require eight or nine months; and
twenty months is a weary time to be without news of friends and
family.
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