Another effort has been made to attract commercial enterprise to this region by offering any mining company permission to search for the ores and work them.  Such a company, however, would gain but little in the way of protection or aid from the government of Mozambique, as that can but barely maintain a hold on its own small possessions; the condition affixed of importing at the company’s own cost a certain number of Portuguese from the island of Madeira or the Azores, in order to increase the Portuguese population in Africa, is impolitic.  Taxes would also be levied on the minerals exported.  It is noticeable that all the companies which have been proposed in Portugal have this put prominently in the preamble, “and for the abolition of the inhuman slave-trade.”  This shows either that the statesmen in Portugal are enlightened and philanthropic, or it may be meant as a trap for English capitalists; I incline to believe the former.  If the Portuguese really wish to develop the resources of the rich country beyond their possessions, they ought to invite the co-operation of other nations on equal terms with themselves.  Let the pathway into the interior be free to all; and, instead of wretched forts, with scarcely an acre of land around them which can be called their own, let real colonies be made.  If, instead of military establishments, we had civil ones, and saw emigrants going out with their wives, plows, and seeds, rather than military convicts with bugles and kettle-drums, we might hope for a return of prosperity to Eastern Africa.

The village of Senna stands on the right bank of the Zambesi.  There are many reedy islands in front of it, and there is much bush in the country adjacent.  The soil is fertile, but the village, being in a state of ruin, and having several pools of stagnant water, is very unhealthy.  The bottom rock is the akose of Brongniart, or granitic grit, and several conical hills of trap have burst through it.  One standing about half a mile west of the village is called Baramuana, which has another behind it; hence the name, which means “carry a child on the back”.  It is 300 or 400 feet high, and on the top lie two dismounted cannon, which were used to frighten away the Landeens, who, in one attack upon Senna, killed 150 of the inhabitants.  The prospect from Baramuana is very fine; below, on the eastward, lies the Zambesi, with the village of Senna; and some twenty or thirty miles beyond stands the lofty mountain Morumbala, probably 3000 or 4000 feet high.  It is of an oblong shape, and from its physiognomy, which can be distinctly seen when the sun is in the west, is evidently igneous.  On the northern end there is a hot sulphurous fountain, which my Portuguese friends refused to allow me to visit, because the mountain is well peopled, and the mountaineers are at present not friendly with the Portuguese.  They have plenty of garden-ground and running water on its summit.  My friends at Senna declined the responsibility of taking me into