image was decorated the following week with a golden
coronal, worth 22?., for sending the long-delayed and
much-needed rain. We never looked with disdain on the
rites or ceremonies of any church; but, on witnessing the
acts of worship on this occasion, so great was the irreverence
manifested,—the kneeling worshippers laughing and joking
between the responses, not even ceasing their grins when
uttering “ Ora pro nobis,”—that we could not help believing
that if, like the natives, they have faith in rain-making, they
have faith in nothing else.
Most of the trees shed their leaves in May, the beginning
of winter, and remain bare until the rains come in November;
several kinds are in the curious habit of anticipating,
as it were, the rains by instinct; and in the beginning of
October, when the dry season has reached its driest point
and there is not a drop of dew, they begin to generate
buds, and in a few days put forth fresh and various-hued
foliage, and sometimes beautiful blossoms. In a somewhat
similar manner, the trees in the Arctic regions are said to
anticipate the coming spring, and display fresh green leaves,
when the ground is hard frozen, to a depth greater than that
to which roots ever penetrate.
The Portuguese of Tette have many slaves, with all the
usual vices of their class, as theft, lying, and impurity.
As a general rule the real Portuguese are tolerably humane
masters and rarely treat a slave cruelly; this may be due as
much to natural kindness of heart as to a fear of losing
the slaves by their running away. When they purchase an
adult slave they buy at the same time, if possible, all his
relations along with him. They thus contrive to secure him
to his new home by domestic ties. Running away then
would be to forsake all who hold a plaee in his heart, for the
mere chance of acquiring a freedom, which would probably
be forfeited on his entrance into the first native village, for
the Chief might, without compunction, again sell him into
slavery.
A rather singular case of voluntary slavery came to our
knowledge: a free black, an intelligent active young fellow,
called Chibanti, who had been our pilot on the river, told us
that he had sold himself into slavery. On asking why he had
done this, he replied that he was all alone in the world, had
neither father nor mother, nor any one else to give him
water when sick, or food when hungry; so he sold himself
to Major Sicard, a notoriously kind master, whose slaves
had little to do, and plenty to eat. “ And how much
did you get for yourself?” we asked. “ Three thirty-yard
pieces of cotton cloth,” he replied; “ and I forthwith hought
a man, a woman, and child, who cost me two of the pieces,
and I had one piece left.” This, at all events, showed a
cool and calculating spirit; he afterwards bought more
slaves, and in two years owned a sufficient number to man
one of the large canoes. His master subsequently employed
him in carrying ivory to Quillimane, and gave
him cloth to hire mariners for the voyage; he took
his own slaves, of course, and thus drove a thriving
business; and was fully convinced that he had made a good
speculation by the sale of himself, for had he been sick
his master must have supported him. Occasionally some
of the free blacks become slaves voluntarily by going through
the simple but significant ceremony of breaking a spear in
the presence of their future master. A Portuguese officer,
since dead, persuaded one of the Makololo to remain in
Tette, instead of returning to his own country, and tried
also to induce him to break a spear before him, and thus
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