172 THROUGH ANGOLA 



Diego Cao sent a small party of his people to 

 visit the Mani Congo, whose "Banza" or capital 

 was where San Salvador now stands. Impatient 

 of their return or overcome by an ambition to 

 carry back to the King of Portugal hostages from 

 the newly discovered kingdom, Diego sailed back 

 to Lisbon with a number of African chiefs, who 

 had been visiting his ship, and without waiting 

 for his own envoys. He comforted the terrified 

 natives on his ships and their friends ashore when 

 leaving, by promising to bring his captives back 

 in a few months, when he returned to fetch his 

 crew. 



The African nobles received every kindness 

 from the King and people of Portugal, and went 

 back to the Congo a year afterwards with Diego 

 Cao, content and laden with presents. When 

 the Portuguese ships arrived in the Congo, they 

 found a great crowd of natives awaiting them 

 on the shore, and among them those Portuguese 

 whom Diego Cao had left behind, and who had 

 been well treated in his absence. 



It must have been a strange and moving scene, 

 the arrival of the little Portuguese caravels, the 

 return of the Africans with their rich clothes and 

 stories of distant Portugal, and the meeting of 

 the sailors fresh from home with their comrades 

 who had lived with African savages for more than 

 a year, hoping against hope for a sight of the 

 familiar high-decked ships and the royal flag of 

 Portugal. It was possibly these lonely men who 

 carved on rocks near San Salvador those in- 

 scriptions and names of Diego Clio's company, 



