Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

OETUGUESE POSSESSIONS. 245
hurt or stole tlie niggers, and I believe that
many of them understood me.
The river Fernando Veloso, just above the
mouth, opens out immediately to a greater and
apparently increasing breadth, presenting a
vast sheet of water as far as the eye can reach,
the depth increasing on both sides for about
half a mile, which we sounded and found no
bottom at twenty fathoms. Surely, if the source
of the Nile is still somewhat of an interesting
mystery, so are the sources of these extensive
and unexplored rivers of the east coast, Fernando
Yeloso, Rovuma, Lufigi, Kingani, &c.,
and it is to be hoped that we shall yet see the
day when the dhows, and that
strange vessel,
the Metapa barge of Africa, shall be engaged in
conveying cargoes of grain, ivory, and even
cotton, and perhaps precious metals, down these
noble rivers, instead of the tortured living freight
they now carry.