To find out why a consul is planted at Blantyre would
be as big a puzzle as any I know of. Without the pleasure
of hard labour being attached, the man is much to be pitied
who receives this appointment as plenipotential exile. The
appearance of a British representative where he is almost
powerless to act is rather farcical. He is reduced to the
position of a Kaffir policeman, without having even the
pleasure of using his club. Unquestionably he is invested
with sufficient powers to advise corporal punishment on
a few thieving natives, but the active exercise of administration
is even denied him, and given to a subordinate,
so as to avoid a breach of consular etiquette. The ways
of the Government are wise, and who shall know them?
Posts of this kind are not absolutely useless, but do not
let us send good men to them; they would be excellent
sinecures for political nuisances, demagogic windbags, and
others.
No matter how agreeable may be the luxuries of a home,
I invariably feel, after protracted experience of open-air
life, a feeling of suffocation on my return to domesticity.
Two nights of civilisation sufficed to make me restless, so
promising M. Giraud that I would return in three days,
I set out with four boys, bound for the Upper Shire and the
game country.
The distance to be covered before we could reach the
hunting-ground was too great for the time at our disposal.
We covered about seventy miles of ground, and only had
the satisfaction of smelling the menagerie. I saw lots of
buffalo spoor, but never discharged my rifle—not once.
I simply got rid of a lot of bottled energy that it would
have been much better to have reserved for more exacting
days to come, as we went on in our descent towards the sea.
My excuse for introducing this is to show how difficult
a matter it is to suddenly become quite tame after a long
spell of acting the wild man.
Simultaneously with my return from this bootless expedition,
Mr. Moir arrived with the report that he had been
successful in procuring a very fine canoe from a chief
Malalima, above Katunga’s. He also had the promise of
men, who were to be ready to start within two days; but
on account of warlike rumours it was very difficult to get
them to agree to go down water.
Disturbance seemed to be rife on all hands. Intelligence
was brought in by some men who had come from a village
beside the Shire rapids, that a Portuguese trader had been
robbed of a hundred guns and a quantity of ivory.
In the afternoon a number of the wives and daughters
used to congregate about the comers of the house, listening
as Mr. Moir impressively read a chapter from the Bible in
their own tongue. After the < reading was finished, the
happy and heedless creatures would break up and scamper
away, laughing and rollicking, being apparently highly
delighted with what they had heard. One Ajawa with
whom I spoke told me that they all liked to hear Mandala’s
stories.
Early rains had set in, and some heavy showers had
fallen over the mountain regions.
At length the time of departure came, and the morning
was grey and dull; the mists that at first hung in white
columns through the forest soon changing to rain, under
which we continued to press on our slippery way, passing
a few Yao villages nestling in the heart of the forest, some
of them resembling small hayricks tilted sideways by the
strength of the storm. Between them shallow courses of
water rushed along, heaping small piles of corn-stalks and
rubbish at every rock and stump. A few solitary goats,
Q 2