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 the river.
Those who perished were mostly slaves, and others seemed to think that
their masters ought to pay for their relief. The sufferers were chiefly
among those natives who inhabit the delta, and who are subject to the
Portuguese. They are in a state of slavery, but are kept on farms and
mildly treated. Many yield a certain rental of grain only to their
owners, and are otherwise free. Eight thousand are said to have
perished. Major Sicard lent me a boat which had been built on the river,
and sent also Lieutenant Miranda to conduct me to the coast.

A Portuguese lady who had come with her brother from Lisbon, having been
suffering for some days from a severe attack of fever, died about three
o'clock in the morning of the 20th of April. The heat of the body having
continued unabated till six o'clock, I was called in, and found her
bosom quite as warm as I ever did in a living case of fever. This
continued for three hours more. As I had never seen a case in which
fever-heat continued so long after death, I del