124 GOLD IN AFRICA book ii
of Mozambique has subject to him the commanders of Sofala ' and of Shupanga.2
The first of these two small governments is on the river Sena 60
leagues from its mouth, and the other is 10 leagues higher up. From the
mouth of the river up to these places on both sides there are many
settlements of negroes, each of which is commanded by a Portuguese.
These Portuguese have for a long time been masters of the country, and
act like petty princes, making war against one another on the smallest
pretext, there being some among them who have as many as 5,000 Cafres,
who are their slaves. The Governor of Mozambique, to whom these petty
princes are subject, furnishes them with cloth and other necessary
goods, each of which he sells according to its market value. When the
Governor of Mozambique 3 leaves Goa to assume charge of his
government, which is the best of those subject to the Viceroy, he takes
with him a great quantity of goods, and especially calicoes dyed black.
His correspondents at Goa also send him every year two vessels laden
with the same goods, which he forwards to Sofala and Shupanga, and up
to the town of Monomotapa,4 capital of a Kingdom of the same
name, otherwise called Voubebaran—the town being about 150 leagues
distant from Shupanga. The ruler of all
1
The position ascribed to Sofala is incorrect, as it was not on the
river named, but some two degrees, or say 70 leagues, to the south of
the Delta of the Zambezi, on which the town of Sena is situated. A very
interesting collection of notices referring to Sofala and its gold is
given in Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 849 f. Tavernier calls the river ' Sene'.
2
Chepon-Goura in the original. The modern Shupanga on the Zambezi is
probably Tavernier's Chepon-Goura ; it is between Sena and the coast.
3
Castanheda says that the Moors took from India to Mozambique ' silver,
linen cloth, pepper, ginger, silver rings, many pearls and rubies, and
from a country inland they procured gold'. He also states that much
gold was brought from the interior to Sofala. (See Kerr, Voyages and Travels, ii. 317, 427.)
*
The name is spelt Monomopata and Monomotapa in the original. Monomotapa
is the old name of an extensive region on the Zambezi, and to the south
of it. The meaning is uncertain, one explanation being that it means '
lord of the hippopotamus'. Its capital was Zumubany, a corruption of
Zimbabwe, the Voubebaran of the text. See a full account in Ency. Brit., xviii. 731 f.; Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa, 56; Barbosa, ed. Dames, i. 9 ff.; Sir R. Burton, Lands of Cazembe, 22; Linschoten, i. 26.
