e party of explorers found
their animals woefully bitten by the tsetse fly, rhinoceroses and
elephants were too plentiful to be interesting, and the great white
ant made itself tiresome.

It was 3rd March before Livingstone reached Tete, two hundred and sixty
miles from the coast. The last stages of the journey had been very
beautiful. Many of the hills were of pure white marble, and pink marble
formed the bed of more than one of the streams. Through this country
the Zambesi rolled down toward the coast at the rate of four miles
an hour, while flocks of water-fowl swarmed upon its banks or flew
over its waters. Tete was the farthest outpost of the Portuguese.
Livingstone was most kindly received by the governor, but fever again
laid him low, and he had to remain here for three weeks before he was
strong enough to start for the last stage of his journey to the coast.
He left his Makololos here, promising to return some day to take them
home again. They believed in him implicitly, and remained there three
years, when he returned according to his word. Leaving Tete, he now
embarked on the waters of the Zambesi, high with a fourth annual rise,
which bore him to Sena in five days. So swift is the current at times
that twenty-four hours is enough to take a boat from Tete to Sena,
whereas the return journey may take twenty days.

"I thought the state of Tete quite lamentable," says Livingstone, but
that of Sena was ten times worse. "It is impossible to describe the
miserable state of decay into which the Portuguese possessions here
have sunk."

Though suffering badly from fever, Livingstone pushed on; he passed
the important tributary of the Zambesi, the Shire, which he afterwards
explored, and finally reached Quilimane on the shores of the Indian
Ocean. It was now 20th May 1856, just four years after he had left
Cape Town on his great journey from west to east, since when he had
travelled eleven thousand miles. After waiting six weeks on the "great
mud bank, surrounded by extensive swamps and rice grounds," which form
the site of Quilimane, Livingstone embarked on board a gunboat, the
_Frolic_, for England. He had one Makololo with him--the faithful
Sekwebu. The poor black man begged to be allowed to follow his master
on the seas.

"But," said Livingstone, "you will die if you go to such a cold country
as mine."

"Let me die at your feet," pleaded the black man.

He had not been to Loanda, so he had never seen the sea