might
mount on an elephant's back, but on nothing meaner, for nobody in that
wonderful country would ride on any other animal. It is small wonder
that the court of monarchs of this splendor, and their golden cities
of Davaque and Vigiti Magna, were ardently hunted for by adventurers,
thirsty for every romance gilding the dismal stretches of sand and
thickets and rocks which encircled them with the threads of a trail to
the glittering realm of Monomotapa. But the expeditions of Barreto and
Homem
were so painful, costly, and discouraging that for many years no more
explorations were undertaken by the Portuguese crown. The spirit of
chivalric adventure drooped low after the gallant young king Sebastian
fell in battle with the Moors in 1578, and even the spirit that had so
greatly spread the commerce of Portugal was losing its vigor. There
was a momentary arousal in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
when some rich silver ore was sent to Lisbon by the governor of
Mozambique. It was believed that this ore came from veins in a region
called the Kingdom of Chicova, stretching north from the bank of the
Zambesi; but there was no definite report of the location. Still there
was such an impulse in the sight of this silver that the order was sent
to despatch five hundred soldiers to Chicova. No such force could be
mustered, but Nuno Alvares Pereira set out from Mozambique with a
hundred men. Soon Pereira was the victim of jealous maligning, and was
superseded in his command by Diogo Sinoes Madeira. This commander
succeeded in placing a few
