NATI\1£S OF AFIUCA IN THE i6tH CHXTURV. I39 



^a\v a great man}- elephants, and the Blacks sold them tusks on 

 very favourable conditions. I'^or some beads worth three vintens 

 (three pence) they could get ivory worth loo cruzades (which 

 means in the present currency about £7). Lourengo Marques 

 sent a request to the Vice Rey of India, Dom Joao de Castro, 

 who forwarded it to the King of Portugal, Dom Joao III, and 

 the King gave orders to provide the explorer with a ship loaded 

 with goods for barter in the Bay. This was the beginning of 

 regular coinmercial transactions between the Portuguese of 

 Mozambique and the Natives of these regions. Each year a 

 " pangaio,"" 7'i^., a boat made of planks sewn together, went to 

 Delagoa ; the sailors stayed in the little uninhabited Elephant 

 Island (which D. de Couto calls Sentimuro) for months, feeling 

 themselves there better protected against any possible attack and 

 visiting the interior as far as they could, following the rivers ; 

 they exchanged their goods, which consisted of beads of ircn, 

 and stuff, against ivory and occasionally amber. Eater on, in 

 1580, the pagaio came onl}- every second year. A regular traffic 

 was also started with Inhambane in 1550 to 1590. 



These facts must be known in order that one may understand 

 that, for those rescued from the wrecked ships, the Bay of 

 Eourengo Marques or Rio de Santo Espirito was the great hope 

 of salvation. It was also called Bahia de Alagoa, the Bay of the 

 Lake, because the Portuguese believed that one or two of the 

 rivers flowing into it came from a big lake in the interior, that 

 from which flowed also the Nile to the North and the Zambesi 

 or Cuama to the A\'est. 



I. The (jiiUcoii S. JoCtc. 



This was the richest of all the ships that had yet left India 

 for Portugal. Her cargo was said to be worth one conto of 

 gold. One can guess the importance of the galleon by the fact 

 that the crew and passengers numbered about 600 souls, 200 

 Portuguese and 300 to 400 slaves. She was wrecked en the 

 coast somewhere on 31'' S.; 40 Portuguese and 60 slaves died, 

 and the 50b persons remaining, amongst them some women of 

 the best families of Portugal, succeeded in saving only very little 

 of their goods and a portion of their provision of rice. Their 

 journev to Delagoa Bay has been told by an anonymous writer, 

 who obtained the particulars from the "guardian" of the ship, 

 Alvarao Eernandes. The captain, Manuel Souza, took the lead; 

 he had with him his wife. Dona Leonora, and his uncle, Panteleon 

 de Sa. Thcv decided to follow the border of the sea, and started 

 on the 7th of July. The distance to be covered was 181 leagues 

 in a direct line ; but thcv. travelled more than 300. leagues, owing 

 to the difficult)- of the road. The first month they lived very 

 poorly on their rice; later on. they began to buy some food fiom 

 the Natives, but it seems that they did not know how to deal 

 properlv with them ; they often had to fight with them in order 

 to open their way ; the_\- endured untold sufl:'erings from hunger, 



