* The following remarks are by a practical blacksmith, one of the most experienced men in the gun-trade.  In this trade various qualities of iron are used, and close attention is required to secure for each purpose the quality of iron peculiarly adapted to it: 

   The iron in the two spades strongly resembles Swedish or
   Russian; it is highly carbonized.

   The same qualities are found in both spades.

   When chilled in water it has all the properties of steel:  see
   the piece marked I, chilled at one end, and left soft at the
   other.

   When worked hot, it is very malleable:  but cold, it breaks
   quite short and brittle.

   The great irregularity found in the working of the iron
   affords evidence that it has been prepared by inexperienced
   hands.

   This is shown in the bending of the small spade; the thick
   portion retains its crystallized nature, while the thin part
   has been changed by the hammering it has undergone.

   The large spade shows a very brittle fracture.

   The iron is too brittle for gun-work; it would be liable to
   break.

This iron, if repeatedly heated and hammered, would become decarbonized, and would then possess the qualities found in the spear-head, which, after being curled up by being struck against a hard substance, was restored, by hammering, to its original form without injury.

   The piece of iron marked II is a piece of gun-iron of fibrous
   quality, such as will bend without breaking.

The piece marked III is of crystalline quality; it has been submitted to a process which has changed it to IIII; III and IIII are cut from the same bar.  The spade-iron has been submitted to the same process, but no corresponding effect can be produced.

The iron ore exists in great abundance, but I did not find any limestone in its immediate vicinity.  So far as I could learn, there is neither copper nor silver.  Malachite is worked by the people of Cazembe, but, as I did not see it, nor any other metal, I can say nothing about it.  A few precious stones are met with, and some parts are quite covered with agates.  The mineralogy of the district, however, has not been explored by any one competent to the task.

When my friend the commandant was fairly recovered, and I myself felt strong again, I prepared to descend the Zambesi.  A number of my men were out elephant-hunting, and others had established a brisk trade in firewood, as their countrymen did at Loanda.  I chose sixteen of those who could manage canoes to convey me down the river.  Many more would have come, but we were informed that there had been a failure of the crops at Kilimane from the rains not coming at the proper time, and thousands had died of hunger.  I did not hear of a single effort having been made to relieve the famishing by sending them food down