24 EARLY EAST AFRICA 



which was to be fraught in the end with the gravest 

 and most lamentable consequences. This was the 

 first attempt on the part of Portugal to evangehse 

 the Kingdom of Monomotapa. In his instructive 

 description of the Zambezi in its sixteenth-century 

 aspect, that observant friar Padre Joao dos Santos 

 tells us that nearly the whole of the great central 

 table-land south of the Zambezi, from the east 

 coast on the one hand to the confines of Angola on 

 the other, was ruled by a mighty chief who was 

 known and dreaded by the title of Monomotapa. 

 To bring in the teeming millions of the heathen over 

 whom his sway extended, therefore, from the outer 

 darkness of error and superstition into the inner 

 brilliant illumination scintillating from the maternal 

 bosom of holy mother church, was a duty which no 

 devout Portuguese of that long-dead era could 

 possibly see his way to evade. Thus, at the 

 instance of King Joao III., an earnest young priest 

 named Gon9alo da Silveira, of the Company of 

 Jesus, founded by Papal Bull sixteen years before, 

 left Portugal in 1556 for Goa, and a year or two 

 later, accompanied by a brother friar of the same 

 order, one Andr^ Fernandes, proceeded to Inham- 

 bane, whence he lost no time in reaching the main 

 town of one of the Monomotapa's lieutenants, a 

 Makaranga chieftain named Kamba (the tortoise). 

 Here they made many converts in a surprisingly 

 short space of time, among them being no less a 

 personage than Kamba himself. All went har- 

 moniously until these dusky proselytes realised the 

 extent of the responsibilities to which they had 

 committed themselves. With a fine disregard of 



