THE PORTUGUESE IN SOUTH AFRICA FROM 1505 TO 1700.

CHAPTER XX.

WEAKNESS OF PORTUGUESE RULE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

The Portuguese dependencies on the eastern coast of Africa below the Zambesi were already exhibiting all the marks of decrepitude and decay. The Portuguese nation was almost exhausted, the blood of the peasantry in its southern provinces had become degraded, and the chief sources of its wealth were for ever lost. This condition of things in the kingdom itself was reflected in its dependencies over sea, and in none of them to a greater extent than in those treated of in these volumes.

King Joao IV, the first monarch of the house of Bragança, died on the 6th of November 1656, leaving a son named Affonso, only thirteen years of age, heir to the throne. The queen dowager, a woman of unusual ability and force of character, then became regent, and held that office until the 21st of June 1662, when Affonso VI became king. His sister, Catherine of Braganca, only a few weeks before had been married to Charles II of England. A close connection between the two countries was thus commenced, which was of great advantage to Portugal by giving her assistance in her war with Spain, and which led some years later to important commercial arrangements. For more than a quarter of a century Spain strove to suppress what was termed at Madrid the rebellion of j the duke of Braganca, but at length a series of victories gained by the Portuguese with the assistance of their foreign friends made the attempt hopeless, and on the 13th of February 1668 peace was concluded by a treaty in which the independence of Portugal under the sovereigns of her choice was fully recognised. The character of Affonso VI was a compound o£ imbecility and brutality: he was one of the most worthless individuals that ever sat upon a throne. On the 23rd of November 1667 he was forced into retirement, and his brother Dom Pedro, duke of Beja, became regent. Sixteen years later Affonso died, and the regent then became King Pedro II. The Portuguese regard him as one of the best and most prudent of their sovereigns, though there was nothing particularly brilliant or even enterprising in his nature.

During the seventeenth century a general disintegration of the Bantu tribes between the Zambesi and Sabi rivers was taking place, and individual Portuguese who were possessed of ability, though they were devoid of anything like high morality, were busily engaged in forming new clans under their own control. The process commenced when the legitimate monomotapa Kapranzine was deposed, and it was furthered when the tshikanga was defeated and slain. The Batonga along the Zambesi were the first to be influenced by it. They had no affection for the Kalanga rulers, nor had those rulers any attachment to them, so that Portuguese who performed any service for the monomotapa could readily obtain from him grants of land more extensive than the largest county in England. The people on these lands as a rule submitted to the new head as long as he governed them in accordance with their ideas, and rebelled when he did not, but in the course of a few years his authority was usually firmly established. He was then to all intents and purposes a Kaffir chief, possessing absolute power over his people.

Father Manuel Barreto, superior of the Jesuit college at Sena, reported to the viceroy in 1667 that nearly the whole of the territory in the triangle formed by the river Zambesi, the sea coast, and a straight line drawn from Tshicova to Sofala, was thus held by individual Portuguese, though many of its Batonga inhabitants were in rebellion. Some of the prazos, as the districts were termed, were, he said, the size of kingdoms, especially those held by Antonio Lobo da Silva, Manuel d'Abreu, Andre Collaco, and Manuel Paez de Pinho. The last named had among his subjects the whole of the old tribe of Mongasi. But Kaffir chiefs as they were, these men wished to be considered Portuguese subjects, and were ambitious of holding office and obtaining titles of distinction from the crown. They professed even to hold their prazos from the king under grants for three lives, on payment of quitrent and performing military service with their followers when called upon to do so. The whole of the quitrent, however, that flowed into the royal treasury from this source amounted to little more than six hundred maticals of gold, or £268 2s. 6c?., a year. The holders of the prazos were constantly quarrelling, and at times were even carrying on war with each other, but they were always sufficiently loyal to obey a call to arms from the king's representative. For a long time they formed the sole military force of the territory south of the Zambesi.

Many of them amassed great wealth and lived in a style of barbaric splendour, but they were always exposed to the chances of war, for they had no protection beyond what they could supply themselves. On some of the prazos large buildings were erected, with lofty rooms and thick walls to keep out the heat, and their proprietors were noted for the most profuse hospitality to the strangers and travellers who occasionally visited them. Their tables were spread with vegetables and fruit of almost all varieties, grown in their gardens, with the flesh of domestic and wild animals, the costliest wines of Europe, and imported delicacies of every description. They were waited upon by numerous slaves, never moved from their premises except in a palanquin, and lived altogether in luxurious ease, the condition perhaps most respected by the Bantu around them. But such people were not colonists, nor did they set an example of morality that was worthy of being followed by their dependents.

After the Batonga territory was thus parcelled out, adven- turers sought to get possession of prazos elsewhere, and many were acquired by purchase from the monomotapa and from his subordinate chiefs. The adventurers did not scruple to use threats and commit acts of violence to obtain what they desired, until the monomotapa became seriously alarmed. In 1663 he sent a petition to the king to provide him with a bodyguard like that supplied to his predecessor, in order that he might be protected from insult and wrong. The king instructed the viceroy to comply with his request, but after a long delay, in 1668 he replied that he could not do so for want of men. The king also directed that the prazos which had been obtained by violence or by purchase from those who had no right to sell them should be restored to the monomotapa, who was a Christian prince; and an officer named Francisco Pires Eibeiro was sent to enforce the order. But the power of the king proved too weak in South-Eastern Africa to carry out a measure like this, which was in conflict with the opinions of the Portuguese landholders. They would not admit that the monomotapa was a Christian in anything but name, and instead of surrendering the prazos, they declared war against him.

The leader of this movement was a lawless individual named Antonio Rodrigues de Lima, who had previously been guilty of much misconduct. He and his associates got together an army of slaves and other dependents, with which they took the field. The monomotapa assembled his forces and marched to meet them, but when the armies were near each other, his captains rose in rebellion, murdered him, and submitted to the Portuguese, offering to admit as their head any one whom the white people might choose to appoint. Had he been their legitimate ruler in the right line of descent they would probably have preferred to die for him, but as he was in their eyes only a usurper he could command neither devotion nor respect. The Portuguese thereupon raised a young man of the ruling family to be monomotapa, expecting him to be a pliant tool in their hands, but he proved an able chief, and found means to make himself respected. To keep him in check, indeed, the government was obliged to send Antonio Lobo da Silva, the most powerful of all the prazo holders, to reside with him as the king's representative.

A condition of things in which mere adventurers, acting without authority from the nominal government, could appoint and depose chiefs of tribes at their will, and could establish themselves as practically independent sovereigns over great tracts of country, can only be described as one of anarchy. Father Manuel de Gouvea, of the Jesuit mission, wrote to the prince regent in 1673 that a military force of two hundred men was needed to restore order and compel the lawbreakers to respect the rights of others; but the reply was that they could not be sent, as there were no means of meeting the expense. In 1675 a plan was devised in Lisbon which it was hoped might meet the difficulty. This was to send out orphan girls from charitable institu- tions, to give them prazos as dowries, and upon their marrying Portuguese to appoint their husbands to civil, judicial, and military offices. The eldest daughter was to inherit the estate, upon condition of marrying a Portuguese born in Europe, and in the same manner it was to descend to the next generation. After the death of the third proprietress it was to revert to the crown.

l675] System of tenure of prazos.

But this scheme could only be carried out on a very limited scale, and in places where the Bantu had lost all their former spirit. To acquire a prazo in the first instance a man needed knowledge of Bantu habits, a strong will, reckless daring, and power of governing others. He established his right, and his heirs, if they were at all capable, might succeed him. Certainly they never could command such devotion as the ancient hereditary chiefs, because the religious element of loyalty was wanting in their case ; but as those chiefs had been displaced, and as the government of a strong man is willingly obeyed by the Bantu under such circumstances, they could remain the heads of clans. It was very different when a stranger, a woman too, was appointed to rule over the people of a district. They would not submit to such an innovation, and therefore the scheme could not be applied in many instances.

The prazos went on increasing until there were no fewer than eighty-five of them. In other words, there were eighty-five Bantu clans under Portuguese, Goanese, or half-breed chiefs, almost constantly at strife with each other. Most of them had black headmen, or petty chiefs, serving under them, through whom their orders were carried out. It was the ancient feudal system of Europe transplanted in Africa, but that system where the king was weakest and the barons most turbulent. There was still a monomotapa, a tshikanga, and a kiteve, ruling over remnants of once powerful tribes ; but the individuals who held these titles were little more than puppets. They were generally regarded with distrust and suspicion, and the slightest offence was sufficient pretext for war against them. The power of the Portuguese in South Africa had never been so great before, but the power of the Portuguese government had never been so small.

In his report to the viceroy in 1667, Father Manuel Barreto described Sena as containing thirty houses occupied by Portuguese and many others occupied by half-breeds. It was the principal place in the country, as the factory to which all the traders resorted was there, and its captain had greater power than any of the others, because with him rested decisions of peace and war. He was appointed by the captain of Mozambique. Tete contained forty houses of Portuguese and mixed breeds. Sofala was almost deserted, and no friar was then residing there. Its trade in gold was only five hundred pastas a year, whereas nearly three thousand pastas a year were obtained at other places and exported through Kilimane. In the monomotapa's country there were trading stations, with Portuguese captains, at Dambarare, Ongwe, Luanze, and Tshipiriviri, and a captain with a considerable body of followers at the residence of the chief, to keep that barbarian in check. The three captains of Sena, Tete, and Sofala were still the only administrators of justice in the country, but they could be tried by the supreme court at Goa for pronouncing illegal sentences.

There were sixteen places of worship in the country. Of these, six belonged to the Company of Jesus, one — at Sena — was ministered to by a secular priest, and nine belonged to the Dominicans, though they had then only six missionaries in the field. The distribution of these places of worship was, nine in the lands occupied and ruled by Portuguese, two in Manika, and five in the country of the monomotapa.

Corruption must have been prevalent everywhere, for Father Barreto states that even the office of ecclesiastical administrator at Mozambique was purchased with money. He laid oppression also to the charge of the highest officer in rank in East Africa. Trading privileges with the Bantu on the mainland north of the Zambesi had been granted by the king to the inhabitants of the island of Mozambique, in order to encourage people to settle there, but the captain had deprived them of their rights that he might secure the profit for himself. They were obliged to purchase merchandise from him at his own price, instead of importing it from India, and in the same way they could sell to no one but him.

Father Barreto was an enthusiast, who had day dreams of a great Portuguese empire in Africa, stretching from the Red sea to the Cape of Good Hope. He does not seem to have been aware that the Dutch had formed a settlement at the turning-point of the coast; or if he was, he ignored it as an obstacle to the extension of Portuguese authority. He speaks of the cruelty, rapacity, and lawlessness of the holders of the prazos then in existence, and fears that the wrath of the Almighty may be poured out on them for their sins. Yet he advises that they should be employed in conquering their Bantu neighbours, and that the system should be maintained until not only the whole of the mainland south of Abyssinia, but the island of Madagascar as well, was parcelled out in this manner. Then, indeed, there would be an empire surpassing the greatest in Asia. Then the Bantu could be compelled to wear cotton clothing and to dig for gold, and commerce would flourish and boundless wealth flow into the treasury of the king. As for mission work, it should be carried on with tenfold vigour. Instead of an ecclesiastical administrator, there should be an archbishop of Mozambique, with two or three suffragans and numerous zealous priests. Surely Cortes and Pizarro were more moderate in their schemes of conquest with slender resources than this Jesuit missionary at Sena.

As regular troops could not be provided to defend the country, the government at Lisbon was doing all that was in its power to promote colonisation. In 1665 an order was issued that no settler should be allowed to remove without special leave, and this was afterwards stringently enforced. In 1671 the prince regent instructed the viceroy to throw open the commerce of the Rivers to every one as soon as the contract then existing with the captain of Mozambique expired, principally with the object of inducing individuals to take up their residence in South-Eastern Africa, and in the following year this order was repeated, March 1673 being named as the date from which it was to have effect. It was anticipated that the volume of trade would be greatly increased by private competition, because the captains fixed very high prices for selling and very low ones for buying, so that there was little inducement for the black inhabitants of the country to collect gold and ivory. It was thought also that a larger sum would be realised from customs duties, after all expenses were met, than was paid by the captain for the monopoly, and that the administration could be conducted in a more satisfactory manner.

1673] Gloomy aspect of affairs.

The viceroy Luis de Mendonça Furtado, however, brought forward many objections to unrestricted trade, and suggested an alternative, which the prince regent left to his discretion to carry out. Accordingly, in 1673 the commerce of South-Eastern Africa was taken over by the state, to be carried on for the benefit of the royal treasury, and to be conducted under the direction of a council at Goa by a board of six members at Sena. It was about as clumsy and expensive a scheme as could well be devised, and it was made still more cumbersome by the conferring of extensive judicial power upon the board at Sena, some of whose members were ecclesiastics. Under the new system all persons employed received salaries, and the civil and military authority were separated. An officer named Joao de Sousa Freire, with the title of commander in chief, was appointed head of the military branch of the government, with power to call out the residents in the villages and the holders of prazos with their retainers to perform service in war. One of his first acts was to get ready a force to attack the monomotapa if the silver mines which were supposed to be known to that chief were not delivered to the Portuguese.

The aspect of affairs along the whole coast was at this time exceedingly gloomy. The weakness of the Portuguese was so apparent that the Mohamedans took courage, and in various places to the north attempted to recover their independence. In 1670 they even attacked Mozambique, and though they did not succeed in getting possession of Fort Sao Sebastiao, they inspired great alarm everywhere. In 1673 Father Manuel de Gouvea, a member of the board of commerce at Sena, wrote to the prince regent that without five or six small armed vessels it would be impossible to trade to the north ; but they were not supplied through want of means. Matters at length reached such a pass that the viceroy Louis de Mendonca Furtado, finding his despatches produced no effect, sent the Jesuit father André Furtado to Lisbon to represent that all East Africa must be lost unless a military and naval force to maintain Portuguese authority could be provided. North of the Zambesi the sheik of Pate and other petty rulers were in open rebellion, and south of that river the confusion and disorder caused by the jealousies and strife of the prazo holders were so great that — as one of the viceroy's advisers wrote — obedience to the government was regarded as a mere matter of courtesy.

The court at Lisbon was then compelled to make a supreme effort. In April 1677 Dom Pedro d'Almeida was appointed viceroy of India, and was directed to proceed to Goa and take over the administration, but very shortly afterwards to return to the rivers of Kuama to meet a force of six hundred soldiers that would leave the Tagus in five vessels in September. With these ships and men he was to restore order in East Africa, punishing the sheik of Pate first. During his absence from Goa the government there would be carried on by a board acting with full power, so that his whole time and thought might be devoted to the duty specially assigned to him. He was to remain two years in Africa, and then place Joao de Sousa Freire at the head of the local government and proceed again to Goa. The board of administration there was directed to give him all the assistance possible during his absence, though he was to have no control over it. Dom Pedro carried out these instructions, and though he died before everything was satisfactorily arranged, he managed to bring the petty sheiks of the north to submission once more and to establish comparative order south of the Zambesi.

The method of conducting trade on account of the govern- ment proved a complete failure. The council at Goa commenced with debt, not only for goods purchased and vessels chartered, but for the payment of thirty thousand xerafins, or nine million reis, to each of the prospective captains of Mozambique in return for relinquishing their rights. The goods it purchased in India were often bad in quality and unsuited to the requirements of the Bantu. The persons employed as agents were careless and indifferent, the costs were great, and the returns too small to meet the salaries and other expenses. Under these circumstances, in March 1680 the prince regent issued instructions that the affairs of the council were to be wound up, and that the commerce of the country south of the Zambesi was to be thrown open to all his subjects in Europe, Asia, Brazil, and Africa, upon payment of twenty per cent of the value of imports and exports as customs duties. The existing debts were to be a charge upon these duties.

When this order reached Goa a council of state was convened, and every member voted for suspending it until representations of the consequences could be made and fresh directions be given. But in February 1681 Francisco de Tavora was appointed viceroy, and was instructed to throw open the trade and to see that the monomotapa was so treated as to preserve his friendship.

In September 1681 the new viceroy reached Goa. Soon afterwards he laid his instructions before the council, when it was decided that the prince regent's orders, issued after full deliberation and advice, must be carried out, no matter what the consequences might be. In November, therefore, a proclamation to that effect was issued, and the affairs of the board of commerce were placed in the hands of liquidators. Custom houses were speedily thereafter opened at the African ports, and every one was free to buy and to sell whatever he chose. In March 1682 Caetano de Mello de Castro was appointed governor and commander in chief of Mozambique and the Rivers, the name by which the territory south of the Zambesi and the Kilimane mouth was usually known. He was allowed a salary of eight thousand cruzados a year. With him were sent two or three hundred such soldiers as could be raised, to enable him to defend Fort Sao Sebastiao and maintain his authority elsewhere, and he was particularly charged to see that the revenue was not defrauded by the system of unrestricted trade.

For a long time the government at Lisbon had been endeavouring to induce Portuguese men and women to settle in South Africa. In 1677 the troops that were sent out were accompanied by a few artisans and labourers, and by eight reclaimed women from a house of mercy, some of whom took up their residence at Mozambique and others on the banks of the Zambesi. After their arrival all trace of them is lost, but they can only have prospered in such pursuits as the former residents had followed. Nowhere in the world could a European labourer have been more out of place than in Portuguese South Africa, and as for mechanics, half a dozen masons and carpenters would have been too many for all the building that was to be done. There were in Groa a number of Portuguese and Eurasians sunk in the lowest depths of poverty, mere mendicants in fact, and it was under the consideration of the government to remove them to Africa to colonise the country. Common sense prevailed, however, and this most injudicious scheme was not carried out. And now the same government that desired the increase of the European population adopted a commercial system under which the few white men in the villages and at the trading stations must be driven out.

Against all the advantages that are derivable from an Asiatic possession, one tremendous disadvantage must be set down : that its inhabitants may become entitled to privileges ruinous to their conquerors. In what remained of Portuguese Asia there were numerous mixed-breeds, and besides these a large class of Indian traders, commonly termed Canarins or Banyans. These people are among the keenest traffickers in the world, whether as merchants or as pedlars, and no white man can compete with them, as it costs them the merest trifle to live. They add nothing to the strength of a country, as they are wholly unfit to bear arms in war, and they contribute little or nothing to its revenue beyond what they pay in customs duties. They are the most dangerous of all immigrants into a territory with a warm climate, where equal rights when they are concerned can only mean the removal or ruin of the Europeans.

1690] Effects of free trade.

As soon as the commerce of South-Eastern Africa was open, the Canarins began to take part in it, and the inevitable result quickly followed. Within six years no fewer than seventeen Banyan houses of business — some of course very paltry establishments — were opened on the island of Mozambique alone, and the Portuguese trading community had dwindled to fifteen individuals. Sena and Tete were threatened with utter extinction as Portuguese villages, and the outlying stations were rapidly being lost to white men. The price of gold too had been raised by competition until there was no longer a fair profit to be gained on it.

The country was involved in other troubles as well. The prazo holders were discontented and sullen, foreseeing the loss of their means of acquiring wealth. Some of them had been obliged by the government to surrender estates obtained in an improper manner, and all of them resented recent legislation so keenly that they no longer troubled themselves to search for gold, in consequence of which the quantity obtained was much less than formerly. Their turbulent and violent conduct was irritating the monomotapa, and war was constantly expected. The customs dues collected were insufficient to defray the charges of the administration, paltry as these were, and no means could be devised to increase the revenue. It was indeed in contemplation to collect ivory in payment of overdue quitrent, and to levy a yearly poll tax of a matical of gold upon every adult black male, but a little reflection showed both these schemes to be impracticable. If the prazo holder would not pay his quitrent in the normal manner he would not pay it in ivory, and as for the poll tax, the blacks would certainly flee from Portuguese jurisdiction rather than submit to it.

King Pedro II took all these circumstances into consideration, and on the 20th of March 1690 issued orders that free trade in South-Eastern Africa was to cease at once. An attempt was to be made to form a company to carry it on, and in the mean time the royal treasury would undertake it again as in former times. These orders preserved the country for the Portuguese crown, but the Banyans had got a hold upon the commerce which could not be entirely destroyed until 1783, when they were expelled from the country south of the Zambesi.

Caetano de Mello de Castro was succeeded as governor and commander in chief by Dom Miguel d'Almeida, whose term of office expired in 1688. Thomé de Sousa Correa, a very diligent and upright man, followed, and to him was entrusted the task of directing the commerce on behalf of the king. This he did with such care and ability that it yielded a considerable profit above all expenses, though the villages did not fully regain their European inhabitants.

Several years elapsed before a company could be formed with sufficient capital to undertake the trade. Some persons in India first subscribed for a number of shares, and a provisional charter was drawn up there, which was sent to Lisbon and altered by the king in council. As finally arranged, its principal clauses were : that any one in Portugal or India could subscribe for shares ; that the royal treasury was to take part in it to the value of the vessels then engaged in the commerce and of the merchandise on hand ; that every viceroy during his whole term of office should be a shareholder to' the extent of fifteen thousand xerafins, which sum was to be deducted from the first payment of his salary and repaid to him when received in like manner from his successor; that the management of business should be entrusted to a board of five directors to be selected in the first instance by the viceroy from the largest share- holders, and afterwards, as vacancies occurred, by the viceroy from a double list of names presented to him by the remaining directors ; that the company was to pay the same customs duties as individual traders had paid; that it was to pay yearly to the royal treasury fifty thousand cruzados towards the cost of the naval defence of India, thirty thousand cruzados, being the amount formerly paid by the captains of Mozambique for a monopoly of trade south of the Zambesi, and three thousand cruzados, being the amount formerly paid by the same official for a monopoly of the trade of the islands of Angosha; that the company was to have have an absolute monopoly of all the trade from Mombasa to Cape Correntes ; that it should be entirely commercial in its character and not interfere with the different governments; and that the charter was to hold good for twelve years, with three years notice thereafter before it could be cancelled.

The chartered company thus formed came into existence in 1697, but the amount of capital subscribed was too small to enable it to carry on the commerce of South-Eastern Africa successfully, and the obligations imposed were too heavy for it to bear, so after a feeble attempt during the next three years to maintain itself, in 1700 it was dissolved, and the trade was again undertaken by the royal treasury. Just at this time expectations of great wealth, derived from reports of the richness of the pearl fisheries and from specimens of ore sent to Lisbon, were cherished by the king and his court, so that the failure of the company and the reversion of the trade to the treasury were not regretted. King Pedro indeed believed for a while that the Rivers were the most valuable oversea possession in his dominions. In this strain he, the lord of Brazil, which had then already begun to pour its wealth into the mother country, wrote of them, regretting only his want of means to develop their immense resources at once; but, as on so many occasions before, high hopes regarding South African treasures were doomed to end in bitter disappointment.

The disturbed condition of the country was un-favourable to the progress of mission work, though the decadence of the ruling Bantu families made the conversion of the people more easy than before. The Jesuits were strong in Mozambique, where they had a large convent, and where they were often called upon to aid the government with advice in political and commercial matters. At one time even the superintendence of the repairs of the fortress was entrusted to them by the king, who believed that they would be more likely to see the work carried out properly than the civil or military officials. At Sena they had an establishment, and here also their services were requisitioned by the government for many purposes unconnected with religion. They were the most refined and most highly educated men of the day, so that they were naturally regarded as the most competent to give advice in all matters. Their reports are the clearest, best written, and far the most interesting documents now in existence upon the country. Compared with the ordinary state papers, they are as polished marble to unhewn stone.

In 1697 the Jesuits established a seminary at Sena for the education of the children of the Portuguese in the country and the sons of Bantu chiefs. This institution was aided by the state, and wealthy traders and prazo holders contributed largely to its support. At Tete they had also a mission, and further several stations along the river where they were favoured by prazo holders, and could thus remain notwith- standing the claim of the Dominicans to that territory as the sphere of labour assigned to them by royal order. Though the Jesuits were so active, they reported at a later date that their work among the Bantu at these places was almost fruitless. They had no difficulty in inducing people to call themselves Christians, but they could not persuade them to change their mode of living, to abandon polygamy, or to observe the ordinances of the church.

The order of Saint John of God had not yet sent any of its members to the Rivers, though in 1681 the hospital at Mozambique was entrusted to its care. This order was founded purposely to attend upon the sick, and its members were trained as hospital nurses are now. Previous to this date the sick sailors and soldiers at Mozambique had no other attendants than slaves, who acted under direction of the surgeons ; but henceforward they were tenderly looked after. Nearly half a century later a shipwrecked Dutch traveller, named Jacob de Bucquoi, who was for several weeks an inmate of this hospital, wrote of it in terms of unbounded admiration. He said that no one, however rich, could be cared for and tended better than the sick were there, without any exception, whether they were Portuguese or strangers.

The Dominican convent at Mozambique was still the principal station of that order in South-Eastern Africa, but the country south of the Zambesi was the field in which most of its missionaries laboured. Not long after the baptism of the monomotapa Domingos in 1652 — the same who was murdered by his own captains eighteen years later — their zeal began to flag. In the time of their prosperity, as is often the case with men in other pursuits, the friars did not display the great qualities which characterised them during the period of trial. Some of them fell into habits of indolence, and others into a spirit of indifference. Clearly the introduction of foreign blood and the condition of the mother country were producing their natural effects. The ecclesiastical administrator at Mozambique, though he had not the same control over members of religious associations as over secular priests, threatened to introduce some other order, and actually proceeded to Goa with that object. There, however, he was induced by the provincial of the Dominicans to desist from his purpose, on condition that a commissary and visitor should be sent at once to the country south of the Zambesi, and that some active missionaries should accompany him.

Friar Francisco da Trindade was appointed commissary, and brought five associates with him. One of these, the father Joao de Sao Thome, he stationed at Sofala, another, the father Damaso de Santa Rosa, he stationed with the monomotapa, the third, the father Diogo de Santa Rosa, he directed to renew the work that had been abandoned at Masapa, the fourth, the father Jorge de Sao Thome, he directed to do the same at Ongwe, and the fifth, the father Miguel dos Archanjos, he sent to the Kiteve country to establish a mission. The commissary was a man of great activity, and during the time that he had the oversight of the mission everything went on well. He resided first at Sena, and made himself master of the Bantu dialect spoken there, in which he prepared a catechism and another religious book termed a confessionario. He then proceeded to Tete, studied the dialect used by the clans in that part of the country, and translated his catechism into it. One of the sons of the monomotapa came under his influence, and was baptized and trained by him. This youth was afterwards sent to Goa, where he entered the Dominican order, and became known as the friar Constantino do Rosario. In another chapter it will be necessary to make a better acquaintance with him.

This period of activity, however, did not last long. There were energetic men of the Dominican order in South Africa at the close of the seventeenth century, but the spirit of languor in which Portugal and her foreign possessions were steeped embraced the great body of the friars also. Further many of them were Asiatics and Eurasians, and a few were Africans not half weaned from another creed, all quite unfit to carry on mission work unless under the close supervision of white men. Under these circumstances, though baptisms were numerous, real converts were few. In the interminable feuds of the country, stations were often destroyed, as Ongwe and Dambarare — the latter the principal gold market at the time — were in 1692. In 1696 Sofala was attacked by a powerful clan, which was repulsed, but a large portion of the back country was closed to Europeans during the next thirty-three years, and the station at the kiteve's kraal had to be abandoned. Without protection, without homes — much less church buildings, — the missionaries could have done very little except in the villages even if their zeal had not passed away.

It is impossible to ascertain how far westward missionaries had penetrated the country by this time, because they had no means of determining longitudes, and no descriptions of their travels are extant from which their routes can be traced. As they could not erect substantial buildings there are no ruins of churches to mark the sites of their stations, and even some of the old names of places mentioned in their records have long been forgotten. On the southern bank of the Zambesi they had occupied Dambarare, a little higher up than the present station of Zumbo, but it is improbable that they had gone much farther. At a distance from the river there is no reason to suppose that they had advanced so far, and every reason to believe that they had not. There was more than sufficient for them to do in the well-known and long occupied parts of the Kalanga country.

At Dhlodhlo, in latitude 19° 40' S., longitude 29° 25' east of Greenwich, a few years ago the seal of a priest bearing the name Bernabe de Ataide encircling the symbol I H S, a silver cross and gold neck chain partly fused by fire, a little bell with the handle burnt off, a fused silver plate, and some other articles were found, which lead to the conclusion that an ecclesiastic once resided there, whose dwelling was destroyed by fire. All these articles were found close together, and were covered with earth twenty to thirty centimetres, or eight to twelve inches, in depth. Not far off were two small cannons, one of bronze, the other of iron, with the arms of Portugal stamped upon them, though to a certainty no military station ever existed near that locality. At Khami, a little more than an hour's ride on horseback west of Bulawayo, a cross of stones and the stone foundation of a small rectangular building such as a church or a European dwelling house have been discovered, but no one can say when or by whom they were constructed.

There were never any Portuguese trading stations in the southern or western parts of the Rhodesia of our day, the area in which the most numerous and the richest of the ancient gold mines are found was never occupied, though it may have been occasionally visited, by them. In early days, just as in more recent times, the trader followed close on the heels of the missionary. It is safe to assert that one was not long without the companionship of the other, and as there is not the slightest trace in written records, or in any other form, of Portuguese traders or their agents establishing themselves so far inland, how can the evidence of the presence of Christian missionaries at Dhlodhlo and Khami be accounted for ? There is but one way of doing so that the writer can suggest. When the Jesuits were expelled from the Portuguese dominions in 1759, it is quite within the bounds of possibility that some of those in Eastern Africa may have turned their steps towards what was then the distant interior, rather than abandon their work. To them such a course would be obeying the command of God rather than that of man. There is the difficulty of the two cannons in opposition to this conjecture, but it is not so great as at first sight it may seem. No present to gain the favour of a Bantu chief would be more acceptable than these, taken perhaps from some deserted fort, none that would be transported more readily by Bantu carriers. Records still to be sought for and published may throw some light upon this seeming mystery, at present no other explanation can be given than the above.

At this period and later when dealing with the Portuguese in South Africa one is never certain whether he is re- counting the deeds of Caucasians, of Asiatics, of Africans, or of mixed breeds, unless he can trace their origin, which is not always possible. An individual with the name of a European grandee was as likely as not to be a negro or a half-caste from Goa. Who, for instance, would recognise a son of the kiteve under the name Dom Antonio Lancarote, who in 1681 applied to the king for permission to remove from Goa to Africa? If deeds performed are worthy of mention they should be related, but it would be more satisfactory if the nationality of the actors could be stated as well.

Since the accession of the house of Bragança to the throne of Portugal the closest friendship with England had existed, still English ships were causing much trouble and anxiety to the authorities on the eastern coast of Africa, though the British government was in no way responsible for what was being done by them. Some of these ships were avowedly pirates, similar to those that infested West Indian waters, that plundered and scuttled vessels under every flag but their own. Their crews were composed of ruffians of every maritime nation, though the vessels were British built, and all the names of the officers that are known are English. Delagoa Bay and the ports on the coast of Madagascar afforded them convenient places for repairing, provisioning, and otherwise fitting out for cruises in search of booty. These pirates were for many years a cause of terror to navigators in the eastern seas, though they only murdered the crews of their prizes when they were apprehensive of danger to themselves should their prisoners live. Sometimes a ship left India, and was not heard of again for years. Such was the fate of the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda, which was captured by two pirates off the African coast, when all on board were put to death except one Malay boy who was kept as a slave. In 1682 these same pirates put into Mozambique, where one of them was wrecked, and the Malay gave information of the destruction of the Indiaman and also of a vessel bound from that island to Brazil with slaves, which had afterwards been captured. Fort Sao Sebastiao was at the time provided with a fairly strong garrison, so the rovers were seized and sent to Goa for trial.

Another class was composed of ships that visited the coast for trading purposes in defiance of the English East India Company. They were either not provided with clearance papers from any English port, or they had papers giving some destination beyond the limits assigned in the East India Company's charter, so that in each case they were liable to be seized wherever there was sufficient force to capture them. Except at Mozambique no such force existed on the south-eastern coast of Africa or on the shores of Madagascar, which they therefore frequented. It had been the custom for nearly a century and a half to send a pan- gayo occasionally from Mozambique to Inhambane and Delagoa Bay to barter ivory from the Bantu, and in 1685 one left for that purpose. Upon her return, Domingos Lourenço, her master, reported that at Delagoa Bay he had found five English trading vessels provided with merchandise of a better quality than his, and that they had bought all the ivory and ambergris in the surrounding country.

On the 6th of August 1686 the governor of Mozambique, Dom Miguel d'Almeida, and his council met to consider this matter. The council consisted of the lieutenant-general Francisco d'Aviles Ramires, the castellan Paschoal dAbreu Sarmento e Moraes, the factor Joao Machado Sacoto, the rector of the Jesuit college Father Manuel Freire, the vicar of the parish church Father Domingos Dias Ribeiro, and the superior of the Dominican convent Friar Joao da Magdalena. The governor and council unanimously resolved not to send a pangayo to Delagoa Bay that year, because most probably English ships would continue to frequent that port and she might be robbed or insulted by them, and further because there would be little or nothing to obtain in barter, as that part of the country had been thoroughly cleared of its marketable produce.

This resolution was communicated to Dom Rodrigo da Costa, governor-general of India, who overruled it, and gave directions that a pangayo should be sent to the bay again, even at a pecuniary loss, in order that the English might not take possession of it under the pretext that it was neglected by the Portuguese. Our countrymen continued to trade there, and from an account given by one of them, Robert Everard by name, it is seen that they set about their business with characteristic energy. Everard was in Delagoa Bay in 1687, in the ship Bauden. They had materials ready on board, and put together a small vessel, which was sent up and down the coast to trade for ivory. At the bay itself they obtained only two thousand kilogrammes until some chiefs went on board, whom they put in irons and detained until more was brought for sale. One day a small boat arrived with three Englishmen in her, who had formed part of the crew of a trading vessel like the one they had put together. This vessel had been wrecked on the coast, and the boat's crew had suffered greatly from hunger before they reached the bay, for when they went ashore to try to get food the black people robbed them of their clothing, and would give them nothing to eat. The Bauden lay there at anchor three months, and then sailed for Madagascar.

So matters continued until the end of the century, both English and Portuguese vessels frequenting the bay ; but then the Portuguese abandoned it for many years. Their pangayo was seized when at anchor by a pirate ship that sailed in under French colours, and was plundered and destroyed, though most of her crew managed to escape to the shore. Then the effort to carry on a profitless and dangerous trade was given up, and the next century was far advanced before the Portuguese flag was again seen anywhere on the mainland south of Inhambane.

THE PORTUGUESE IN SOUTH AFRICA FROM 1505 TO 1700.