350 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



The histories of De Barros and Do Couto were continued by 

 Antonio Bocarro (fl. 1631-49), their successor as Keeper of the 

 Archives and Chronicler of Indian Affairs and of the Deeds of the 

 Portuguese in the East. His account of the decadent empire of 

 the ]VJ ononiotapa, in his day named Gasilusere, is a record of rebel- 

 lions and invasions. A coviple of brief chapters describes the customs 

 and religious observances of the Makalanga at the end of the sixteenth 

 centur}^ ; but, if we e.xclude the account of the gold-mining at Mount 

 Fura, the most interesting portion of his work for South Africans is 

 the journey of Gaspar Bocarro in 1616 overland from Tete to Kihva. 

 This forerunner of Livingstone traversed the country of the Ba-Roro 

 until he reached " tlie great river Manganja " (Nganga, Nyanza, 

 Nyassa), or a lake which looks like the sea, from which issues the river 

 Nhanha (Nyanga), which flows into the Zambesi below Sena, and there 

 it is called the river Chiry (Shire). Thence passing through the 

 territory called Manguro, he reached and crossed tlie Raumbara 

 (Loambala) and Rovuma rivers, beyond which the country, where not 

 deserted since the devastations of the Zimba, was ruled by a chief 

 Manhanga. 



The narrative of Francesco Vaz d'Almada ( 1 622), who was wrecked 

 at the n\outh of the Great Fisli River in 1622 in the Sao Joad Baptista, 

 and that obtained by Faria e Souza from the survivors of the wreck in 

 1635 of the Sao Gonzalo at Plettenberg Bay, both give some notes 

 of the Hottentot tribes, and in tlie accounts of the wrecks in 16-17 

 between the Fish and Kei river mouths we find a reference to the 

 Strand loopers. 



Bantu seem to have been first encouutei-ed at the Umzimvubu. 

 It may be urged that veiy few of these travellers, seamen, soldiers, 

 merchants, even geogi'aphers, whom we have mentioned have any 

 claim to being considered as " scientific observers." Yet the infor- 

 mation they have furnished is of the highest value so far cis it can 

 be i-egarded in the light of " recoi'ded fact." The ditficulty has lain in 

 distinguishing the sober narrative of the veracious eye-witness from 

 the flights of imagination of the marvel-monger. Tra\'ellers' tales 

 have passed into a proverb, although it has been abundantly made 

 manifest that truth is stranger than fiction. At the time at which 

 we have now arrived the dissemination of knowledge is still slow 

 and (Urticult, although "many run to and fro."' Yet it seems sti'ange 

 that while one European nation was acquiring an intimate acquaintance 

 with the various savage tribes which were tlie subjects or foes of tlie 

 jMonomotapa, the neighbouring settlers of another European nation 

 had to rely upon the Hottentots for semi-fabulous accounts of the 

 Chobona, " living very far off in the interior, rich in gold, which tiiey 

 call 'chory,' having large stone houses with beams, sowing white rice, 

 wearing clothes and speaking a language different from that spoken by 

 the trihes nearer the Cape." — D. Moodie, The Record, London, 1838, 



p. no.* 



* Van Hiebeck seems to liave l»een acquainted with T-iusclioteii's work. 



1 



