The dialect spoken here closely resembles that used at Senna and Tette.
We understood it at first only enough to know whether our interpreter was
saying what we bade him, or was indulging in his own version. After
stating pretty nearly what he was told, he had an inveterate tendency to
wind up with "The Book says you are to grow cotton, and the English are
to come and buy it," or with some joke of his own, which might have been
ludicrous, had it not been seriously distressing.

In the first ascent of the Shire our attention was chiefly directed to
the river itself. The delight of threading out the meanderings of
upwards of 200 miles of a hitherto unexplored river must be felt to be
appreciated. All the lower part of the river was found to be at least
two fathoms in depth. It became shallower higher up, where many
departing and re-entering branches diminished the volume of water, but
the absence of sandbanks made it easy of navigation. We had to exercise
the greatest care lest anything we did should be misconstrued by the
crowds who watched us. After having made, in a straight line, one
hundred miles, although the windings of the river had fully doubled the
distance, we found further progress with the steamer arrested, in 15
degrees 55 minutes south, by magnificent cataracts, which we called, "The
Murchison," after one whose name has already a world-wide fame, and whose
generous kindness we can never repay. The native name of that figured in
the woodcut is Mamvira. It is that at which the progress of the steamer
was first stopped. The angle of descent is much smaller than that of the
five cataracts above it; indeed, so small as compared with them, that
after they were discovered this was not included in the number.

A few days were spent here in the hope that there might be an opportunity
of taking observations for longitude, but it rained most of the time, or
the sky was overcast. It was deemed imprudent to risk a land journey