Religion & morality > David Livingstone

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Up the Shire.
specimens laboriously collected by Dr. Kirk, and
doing other mischief. A quantity of the stores with
which they had been supplied were spoiled. The
assertion of the Portuguese that they had known the
Kongone entrance to the Zambesi long before Living¬
stone went up it, was contradicted by the testimony
of one Paul, a relative of the rebel Mariano, who
had just been to Mozambique to “arrange” with
the authorities, and who now told Livingstone that
the Governor-General knew nothing of the Kongone,
but thought that the Zambesi entered the sea at
Quillimane.
About the middle of August the ship again left
Tette, and for the third time steamed up the Shire,
between the ranges of wooded hills which bound the
valley through which it flows. Past the hill called
Morambala—“the lofty watch tower’’—they go, from
whose precipitous side next the river a village peeps
out. Here the people have a bracing atmosphere, and
are above mosquito range; during the rainy season
fleecy clouds rest upon the top, farther down lemon
and orange trees grow wild, and pine-apples when
planted. Amid the great trees at the base are found
antelopes, rhinoceroses, monkeys, and large birds.
A hot spring bubbles up on the plain, at the north
end, which boils an egg in two or three minutes; to
the west is a rich plain, forming the tongue of land
between the Shire and Zambesi, with clumps of palm
and acacia trees. According to the reports of the
canoe-men, lions come here after the large game.
On, now, for many miles, winding through a marsh,