Need I say that there are times when masters of ships are charged with delicate commissions? The trip under notice was a case in point. The agent of a company, if properly accredited, is supposed to exercise the powers of the owners if need arises, but the master is also the owners’ representative so far as his ship is concerned. The point is a nice one, as to how far it lies in the power of an agent to supersede the master’s authority, but the problem is not perhaps now so difficult when there are so many facilities for cabling information. In my time, however, our masters were not taking more orders from the smaller agencies than they could comfortably manage. Our Zanzibar agent was a man rather awkward to deal with, but he always consulted me before deciding any point concerning any ship. When I left Cape Town I was charged by our chief agent, afterwards Sir T. E. Fuller, K.C.M.G. (as to whose authority there was no doubt), to confer with the Zanzibar agent as to the Company’s accounts, which were apparently in a somewhat backward condition. This was rather a delicate matter, but I did my best and the affair passed off very well as I thought, and I received the assurance that the accounts should be forthcoming without more delay. H.M.S. _London_ was the station ship at Zanzibar for the suppression of the slave traffic, and naturally we were on good terms with the various officers, and on the morning we were to leave I went to the Sultan’s levee with them. The preceding evening we had illuminated the ship with blue lights, as it was Ramadan time, and H.H. Seyyed Burghesh was kind enough to compliment me on the appearance of the _African_, for from his watch-tower he could see all that went on. The levee was over by 10 a.m. and I went on board in order to sail at noon.
About 12.30 the agent arrived with the ship’s papers, and I casually observed that I was very fond of punctuality, little dreaming of the mine I was setting fire to. Amongst other things he said something about wishing to send some particular sort of ox and a goat to Algoa Bay. I judged that he had intended to do so, and thought no more about it. We left the port and proceeded through the pass all right. But unknown to me, and while I was at the levee, the Sultan had sent on board (as it turned out eventually as a present to me in recognition of our fireworks) an ox and a goat, which I imagined when I saw them were the ox and the goat referred to by the agent to be landed in Algoa Bay. There that matter can rest for the present, but there is more to follow. At Mozambique we picked up both the old and the new Governors of Delagoa Bay and a Major Da Andrade who was to be landed at Quillimane. I think he has since played an important part in Portuguese East Africa. When we got to Quillimane there was no sign of craft coming out, so, after long waiting, we put the passengers, mails and specie on board an Arab schooner anchored outside, and left for Delagoa Bay. It may appear in these days a loose way of doing business, but there was then no help for it.