honour and hospitality usually
shown to distinguished strangers, and the women busied themselves in
cooking the best of their provisions for the repast to be set before him.
Of this, and also of the beer, the half-caste partook heartily. Mpangwe
was then asked by Sequasha to allow his men to fire their guns in
amusement. Innocent of any suspicion of treachery, and anxious to hear
the report of firearms, Mpangwe at once gave his consent; and the slaves
rose and poured a murderous volley into the merry group of unsuspecting
spectators, instantly killing the chief and twenty of his people. The
survivors fled in horror. The children and young women were seized as
slaves, and the village sacked. Sequasha sent the message to Namakusuru:
"I have killed the lion that troubled you; come and let us talk over the
matter." He came and brought the ivory. "No," said the half-caste, "let
us divide the land:" and he took the larger share for himself, and
compelled the would-be usurper to deliver up his bracelets, in token of
subjection on becoming the child or vassal of Sequasha. These were sent
in triumph to the authorities at Tette. The governor of Quillimane had
told us that he had received orders from Lisbon to take advantage of our
passing to re-establish Zumbo; and accordingly these traders had built a
small stockade on the rich plain of the right bank of Loangwa, a mile
above the site of the ancient mission church of Zumbo, as part of the
royal policy. The bloodshed was quite unnecessary, because, the land at
Zumbo having of old been purchased, the natives would have always of
their own accord acknowledged the right thus acquired; they pointed it
out to Dr. Livingstone in 1856 that, though they were cultivating it, is
was not theirs, but white man's land. Sequasha and his mate had left
their ivory in charge of some of their slaves, who, in the absence of
their masters, were now having a gay time of it, and getting drunk every
day with the produce of the sacked villages. The head slave came and
begged for the musket of the delinquent ferryman, which was returned. He
thought his master did perfectly right to kill Mpangwe, when asked to do
it for the fee of ten tusks, and he even justified it thus: "If a man
invites you to eat, will you not partake?"

We continued our journey on the 28th of June. Game was extremely
abundant, and there were many lions. Mbia drove one off from his feast
on a wild pig, and appropriated w