230 Progress and present State of Geograjjhicul 



formal and distinct embassies were sent, one from the Muata 

 and tlie other from his wife, bearing separate presents. These 

 Africans were clothed for the most part in European manufac- 

 tures, obtained from the Portugueze settlement in Mozam- 

 bique; and Count Saldanha remarked that they were not only 

 a much finer race of men than those in the vicinity of the coast, 

 but that they were also more civilized and intelligent." — " As 

 they requested that a Portugueze mart or fair might be esta- 

 blished in Moolooa, similar to those in Cassange, Count bal- 

 danha was encouraged to send another expedition with orders 

 to proceed to Mozambique, there to embark, and return by sea 

 to Loanda. Unfortunately, however, this enlightened and en- 

 terprising governor being scon afterwards recalled, and sent on 

 an embassy to Russia, the project from which so much benefit 

 might have resulted, fell to the ground through the negligence 

 of the Count's successor, and the opposition of the Cassanges 

 to the proposed commercial intercourse with the Moolooas." 



Colonel Lacerda, who has been mentioned in the preceding 

 extract, as having arrived on the borders of the territories of 

 the Mutua Janvo, was ordered by the Mozambique government 

 to penetrate inland from Tete, a considerable factory on the 

 river Zambezi, where he died; a copy of his last dispatch, 

 which was placed in Mr. Bowdich's hands, is dated at Tete in 

 March 1798, from which place he was to proceed with six 

 officers and fifty soldiers ; from this expedition he never re- 

 turned. His dispatch, however, contained much valuable in- 

 formation, — inclosed was the deposition of Gonsalvo Gaetano 

 Perreira, who had penetrated to the capital of the Cazembe, 

 which is situated more than half the distance to Benguela, 

 where immediately on his arrival " a messenger was dispatched 

 to the king of Mooropooa, infjrming him that if he had seen 

 white men from Angola, the Cazembe had received a visit of the 

 like kind from Mozambique." 



An ambassador from the Cazembe visited Col. Lacerda at 

 Tete, who furnished him with a route more southerly and di- 

 rect than that pursued by Perreira, and stated, that from the 

 capital of his sovereign to that of Mooropooa, (from which a 

 constant communication is kept up with Benguela and the 

 coast, canoes coming from Angola to within a short distance of 

 it,) was a journey of two months. Mooropooa is about 200 

 miles distant from St. Philip de Benguela, direct east. 



It will thus appear that two lines of communication have been 

 opened between the eastern and western colonies of Portugal. 

 In 1807, that from Benguela through the fair at Cassange to 

 the capital of the Mutua Janvo, who trades with Mozambique; 

 and tliat by Perreira previous to 1798, from the latter place 

 to the Cazembe, who maintains intercourse with Mooropooa, 



