had only a poor little goat and some fish to bestow. He insisted
also that there were but two sovereigns in the world, the Sultan
of Zanzibar and Victoria. When we went on a third occasion to
bid Casembe farewell, he was much less distant, and gave me the
impression that I could soon become friends with him; but he has
an ungainly look, and an outward squint in each eye. A number of
human skulls adorned the entrance to his courtyard; and great
numbers of his principal men having their ears cropped, and some
with their hands lopped off, showed his barbarous way of making
his ministers attentive and honest. I could not avoid indulging
a prejudice against him.

The Portuguese visited Casembe long ago; but as each new Casembe
builds a new town, it is not easy to fix on the exact spot to
which strangers came. The last seven Casembes have had their
towns within seven miles of the present one. Dr. Lacerda,
Governor of Tette, on the Zambesi, was the only visitor of
scientific attainments, and he died at the rivulet called
Chungu, three or four miles from this. The spot is called
Nshinda, or Inchinda, which the Portuguese wrote Lucenda or
Ucenda. The latitude given is nearly fifty miles wrong, but the
natives say that he lived only ten days after his arrival, and
if, as is probable, his mind was clouded with fever when he last
observed, those who have experienced what that is will readily
excuse any mistake he may have made. His object was to
accomplish a much-desired project of the Portuguese to have an
overland communication between their eastern and western
possessions. This was never made by any of the Portuguese
nation; but two black traders succeeded partially with a part of
the distance, crossing once from Cassangé, in Angola, to Tette