men to explore their country, defend them from the slave-dealer, and
teach them about the true God. These men, of whom mention is made in
another chapter, had, some time before this, been sent by the Church of
England to the Manganja highlands, at the suggestion of Dr Livingstone,
and laid, we believe, the foundation-stone of Christian civilisation in
the interior of Africa, though God saw fit to arrest them in the raising
of the superstructure.

Among other pieces of useful knowledge conveyed by them to the negroes
of the Shire, was the fact that Englishmen are not cannibals, and that
they have no special longings after black man steaks!

It may perchance surprise some readers to learn that black men ever
entertain such a preposterous notion. Nevertheless, it is literally
true. The slavers--Arabs and Portuguese--find it in their interest to
instil this falsehood into the minds of the ignorant tribes of the
interior, from whom the slaves are gathered, in order that their
captives may entertain a salutary horror of Englishmen, so that if their
dhows should be chased by our cruisers while creeping northward along
the coast and run the risk of being taken, the slaves may willingly aid
their captors in trying to escape. That the lesson has been well learnt
and thoroughly believed is proved by the fact that when a dhow is
obliged to run ashore to avoid capture, the slaves invariably take to
the woods on the wings of terror, preferring, no doubt to be re-enslaved
rather than to be roasted and eaten by white fiends. Indeed, so
thoroughly has this been engrained into the native mind, that mothers
frequently endeavour to overawe their refractory offspring by
threatening to hand them over to the dreadful white monster who will eat
them up if they don't behave!

CHAPTER EIGHT.

RELATES ADVENTURES IN THE SHIRE VALLEY, AND TOUCHES ON ONE OR TWO PHASES
OF SLAVERY.

Everything depends upon taste, as the monkey remarked when it took to
nibbling the end of its own tail! If you like a thing, you take one
view of it; if you don't like it, you take another view. Either view,
if detailed, would be totally irreconcilable with the other.

The lower part of the river Shire, into which our travellers had now
entered, is a vast swamp. There are at least two opinions in regard to
that region. To do justice to those with whom we don't sympathise, we
give our opponent's view first. Our opponent, observe, is an honest and
compet