26 EARLY EAST AFRICA 



South Africa was only an inconsiderable detail. 

 His enthusiasm for the expansion of his over-sea 

 influence reflected itself in the minds of his people, 

 who, in the success of Barreto's expedition, saw not 

 only a just and proper expiation of the sacrilege of 

 Gon9alo da Silveira's untimely death, but, inci- 

 dentally, a plenishing of the national coffers which 

 a succession of maritime enterprises, not always 

 attended by financial success, had done much in the 

 past to empty. Thus do we see that, even in that 

 era of almost fanatical religious fervour, the benefits 

 to be derived from the spread of the gospel in the 

 haunts of the heathen did not wholly dissociate 

 themselves from the value of the discoveries which 

 might be made in the process. 



Barreto was rather over a year in reaching 

 Mozambique from the Tagus, and wasted another 

 in unimportant expeditions to the north of that 

 port, when, suddenly realising that the blood of 

 the murdered priest must be getting rather tired 

 of calling out for vengeance, he marshalled his 

 troops and proceeded to the Zambezi in November 

 1571 — quite the hottest and worst season he could 

 possibly have selected for the purpose. With 

 immense labour, and admirable steadfastness, he 

 succeeded in reaching Sena with 600 arquebusiers, 

 a park of artillery, a baggage train of 25 waggons, 

 and several hundred camp followers and porters. 

 Envoys were immediately sent to the Monomotapa, 

 as the sacrilegious Makaranga chieftain had come to 

 be called, who, having been informed of the arrival 

 of Barreto's imposing force, was now, it would 

 appear, the prey of uneasiness hard to dissimulate. 



