Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/351

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Below the Shire confluence the Lower Zambese can scarcely be said to be inhabited. One of the principal villages on the right bank is Shupanga, near the spot where the spreading branches of a mighty baobab overshadow the lonely grave of Livingstone's wife, one of the victims of that fatal "Zambese Expedition" which in 1862 cost the lives of 80 many intrepid followers of the illustrious missionary. The tomb is still carefully looked after by the natives, who clear away the rank growth of weeds springing up with the return of every rainy season. Not far from the same place repose the remains of other explorers, who had accompanied Owen on his survey of the Lower Zambese.

Below Shupanga, but on the opposite bank, stand the stations of Mopea and Masaro, half embowered in the dense foliage of overhanging mango-trees. These villages enjoy some importance as landing-places for the riverain traffic, and as guardians of the portage between the Zambese and the Kwa-Kwa, or river of Quelimane. Recently, a domain of 125,000 acres, stretching along the left bank of the Lower Zambese as far as the neighbourhood of the Shire, was granted by the Portuguese Government to an "Opium Company," in the hope that it might compete successfully with the British growers of the baneful drug in India. The company also enjoyed several other privileges, besides the right of levying the mussoro tax on the natives. Nevertheless it proved a failure, having been purtly ruined by a revolt of the black populations in the

year 1884.