The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

CHAPTER IX.MOZ.UIBIQUE.FnOM TIIK Z.VMBEsK TO RinUMA.IIE tcn-itory assigucd to Portugal bj- the late international treatiesstill continues north of the Zambese as far as the valley of theRovuma, and extends from the seaboard inland in the direction ofLake Xyassa. But Portuguese jurisdiction is verj' far from makingitself felt throughout the whole of this vast domain. Even theinfluence of the officials ai^pointed from Lisbon extends in many places littlebeyond the immediate vicinity of the coast. They possess nothing except merehearsay knowledge of the lands represented on the maps as belonging to the crownof Portugal. Even down to recent times the slave-trade was the only trafficcarried on in this region ; hence the beaten tracks were jealously guarded by thedealers in human merchandise, and these alone dared to venture into the interior,which they described as inhabited by hordes of ferocious anthropophagists.The station of Mozambique itself, mainstay of the Portuguese authority alongthe seaboard, is situated not on the mainland but on a neighbouring island, whilethe surrounding country might, till quite recently, be described as a ierra incognitato within a .short distance of the opposite coast. Like all other stations on the EastAfrican seaboard, except Sofala, Mozambique was regarded as little more than aport of call for vessels plying between Europe and India. It had never beenutilised as a starting-point for exploring expeditions in the interior, and thePortuguese continued to occupy it for three hundred years without collecting anyinformation regarding the neighbouring lauds and peoples that might, nevertheless,have easily been visited.The journeys of Lacerda and his successor Gamitto were the first seriousgeographical expeditions, and even these were directed towards the regions beyondNj-assa. Then came Roscher, Johnson, Last, Cardozo, and esjx-cially O'Xeill, bywhom the Jlozambique lands have been traversed in every direction during thelatter half of the present centurj'. Strictly speaking, this territory has become apart of the known world mainly through the labours of O'Xeill, by whom thebanks of the Shire and of Lake Xvassa have been connected with the maritime