by the white men who live in the sea.”  “Now,” added they to my men, “how can you Makololo trade with these ‘Mermen’?  Can you enter into the sea, and tell them to come ashore?” It was remarkable to hear this idea repeated so near the sea as we now were.  My men replied that they only wanted to see for themselves; and, as they were now getting some light on the nature of the trade carried on by the Mambari, they were highly amused on perceiving the reasons why the Mambari would rather have met them on the Zambesi than so near the sea-coast.

There is something so exhilarating to one of Highland blood in being near or on high mountains, that I forgot my fever as we wended our way among the lofty tree-covered masses of mica schist which form the highlands around the romantic residence of the chefe of Golungo Alto.  (Lat. 9d 8’ 30” S., long. 15d 2’ E.) The whole district is extremely beautiful.  The hills are all bedecked with trees of various hues of foliage, and among them towers the graceful palm, which yields the oil of commerce for making our soaps, and the intoxicating toddy.  Some clusters of hills look like the waves of the sea driven into a narrow open bay, and have assumed the same form as if, when all were chopping up perpendicularly, they had suddenly been congealed.  The cottages of the natives, perched on the tops of many of the hillocks, looked as if the owners possessed an eye for the romantic, but they were probably influenced more by the desire to overlook their gardens, and keep their families out of the reach of the malaria, which is supposed to prevail most on the banks of the numerous little streams which run among the hills.

We were most kindly received by the commandant, Lieutenant Antonio Canto e Castro, a young gentleman whose whole subsequent conduct will ever make me regard him with great affection.  Like every other person of intelligence whom I had met, he lamented deeply the neglect with which this fine country has been treated.  This district contained by the last census 26,000 hearths or fires; and if to each hearth we reckon four souls, we have a population of 104,000.  The number of carregadores (carriers) who may be ordered out at the pleasure of government to convey merchandise to the coast is in this district alone about 6000, yet there is no good road in existence.  This system of compulsory carriage of merchandise was adopted in consequence of the increase in numbers and activity of our cruisers, which took place in 1845.  Each trader who went, previous to that year, into the interior, in the pursuit of his calling, proceeded on the plan of purchasing ivory and beeswax, and a sufficient number of slaves to carry these commodities.  The whole were intended for exportation as soon as the trader reached the coast.  But when the more stringent measures of 1845 came into operation, and rendered the exportation of slaves almost impossible, there being no roads proper for the employment of wheel