Another half-caste from Macao, called Kisaka or Choutama, on the opposite bank of the river, likewise rebelled. His father having died, he imagined that he had been bewitched by the Portuguese, and he therefore plundered and burned all the plantations of the rich merchants of Tete on the north bank. As I have before remarked, that bank is the most fertile, and there the Portuguese had their villas and plantations to which they daily retired from Tete. When these were destroyed the Tete people were completely impoverished. An attempt was made to punish this rebel, but it was also unsuccessful, and he has lately been pardoned by the home government. One point in the narrative of this expedition is interesting. They came to a field of sugar-cane so large that 4000 men eating it during two days did not finish the whole. The Portuguese were thus placed between two enemies, Nyaude on the right bank and Kisaka on the left, and not only so, but Nyaude, having placed his stockade on the point of land on the right banks of both the Luenya and Zambesi, and washed by both these rivers, could prevent intercourse with the sea. The Luenya rushes into the Zambesi with great force when the latter is low, and, in coming up the Zambesi, boats must cross it and the Luenya separately, even going a little way up that river, so as not to be driven away by its current in the bed of the Zambesi, and dashed on the rock which stands on the opposite shore. In coming up to the Luenya for this purpose, all boats and canoes came close to the stockade to be robbed. Nyaude kept the Portuguese shut up in their fort at Tete during two years, and they could only get goods sufficient to buy food by sending to Kilimane by an overland route along the north bank of the Zambesi. The mother country did not in these "Caffre wars" pay the bills, so no one either became rich or blamed the missionaries.
The merchants were unable to engage in trade, and commerce, which the slave-trade had rendered stagnant, was now completely obstructed. The present commandant of Tete, Major Sicard, having great influence among the natives, from his good character, put a stop to the war more than once by his mere presence on the spot. We heard of him among the Banyai as a man with whom they would never fight, because "he had a good heart." Had I come down to this coast instead of going to Loanda in 1853, I should have come among the belligerents while the war was still raging, and should probably have been cut off. My present approach was just at the conclusion of the peace; and when the Portuguese authorities here were informed, through the kind offices of Lord Clarendon and Count de Lavradio, that I was expected to come this way, they all declared that such was the existing state of affairs that no European could possibly pass through the tribes. Some natives at last came down the river to Tete and said, alluding to the sextant and artificial horizon, that "the Son of God had come," and that he was "able to take the sun down from the heavens and place it under his arm!" Major Sicard then felt sure that this was the man mentioned in Lord Clarendon's dispatch.
On mentioning to the commandant that I had discovered a small seam of coal, he stated that the Portuguese were already aware of nine such seams, and that five of them were on the opposite bank of the river. As soon as I had recovered from my fatigue I went to examine them. We proceeded in a boat to the mouth of the Lofubu or Revubu, which is about two miles below Tete, and on the opposite or northern bank. Ascending this about four miles against a strong current of beautifully clear water, we landed near a small cataract, and walked about two miles through very fertile gardens to the seam, which we found to be in one of the feeders of the Lofubu, called Muatize or Motize. The seam is in the perpendicular bank, and dips into the rivulet, or in a northerly direction. There is, first of all, a seam 10 inches in diameter, then some shale, below which there is another seam, 58 inches of which are seen, and, as the bottom touches the water of the Muatize, it may be more. This part of the seam is about 30 yards long. There is then a fault. About 100 yards higher up the stream black vesicular trap is seen, penetrating in thin veins the clay shale of the country, converting it into porcellanite, and partially crystallizing the coal with which it came into contact. On the right bank of the Lofubu there is another feeder entering that river near its confluence with the Muatize, which is called the Morongozi, in which there is another and still larger bed of coal exposed. Farther up the Lofubu there are other seams in the rivulets Inyavu and Makare; also several spots in the Maravi country have the coal cropping out. This has evidently been brought to the surface by volcanic action at a later period than the coal formation.