FIRST MISSIONARY EXPEDITION 25 



their undertakings, probably much more real than 

 the light-heartedness with which they had been 

 assumed, they expressed themselves clearly and 

 unmistakably on the subjects of polygamy, witch- 

 craft, war, and the many other habits and customs 

 to which they had been reared, and which they were 

 now pledged to abjure; and finally, the fulminations 

 of the clergy proving somewhat wearisome, the 

 overwrought chieftain cut the gordian knot of his 

 difficulties and Padre Gon9alo da Silveira's throat 

 at one and the same time. Thus it fell that by 

 ignorance of the native temperament on the one 

 hand, and unsatisfied cupidity on the other, the 

 first victim to the spread of Christianity in Africa 

 was sacrificed, and the first missionary expedition 

 to the Dark Continent nipped rudely in the bud. 



Thenceforward several years passed uneventfully, 

 until in 1569 an expedition, commanded by that 

 devoted Portuguese soldier and administrator 

 Francisco Barreto, sailed from the Tagus with 

 several ships bound for East Africa, and pledged 

 to undertake a sufficiently serious enterprise. This 

 was nothing less than the invasion and annexation 

 of the empire of Monomotapa. This expedition 

 consisted, it is stated, of no less than a thousand 

 men, and carte blanche was given to its commander 

 to avail himself of every possible means to bring it 

 to a successful conclusion. Only the preceding 

 year Dom Sebastiao had come to the throne of 

 Portugal at an age when most boys are still in a 

 lower school -form, and that singularly morose 

 youth would appear to have already formed ambi- 

 tions, of which the annexation of the whole of 



