THE "RIVERS OF CUAMA" 39 



of three pastas * of gold. In return for this treaty, 

 in 1631, he was appointed a Knight of the Order 

 of Christ. Fresh disturbances, however, broke out 

 in the succeeding years, from which it is not un- 

 natural to infer that the ill-starred chieftain found 

 his position one of extreme difficulty ; he was soon 

 afterwards deposed by the Portuguese, who ap- 

 pointed a successor whom they named Dom Filippe. 

 This individual also revolted, and gave place to a 

 third ruler, who, according to Lacerda, was not 

 baptised until after his accession. This rapid making 

 and unmaking of kings must have had a far-reaching 

 moral effect upon the tribes of Monomotapa, since 

 we learn that thereafter the Resident at the chiefs 

 Zimbabwe was granted, without any resistance on 

 the part of the chieftain, a Portuguese escort of 

 thirty men. 



About this time the commerce of the " Rivers 

 of Cuama," as the Zambezi was still called, was 

 thrown open to all Portuguese subjects, with the 

 exception of the traffic in gold, which was ex- 

 pressly reserved to the royal treasury. It so 

 happened, however, that a new industry was about 

 to spring up, so easy and lucrative in its pursuit 

 that the comparatively arduous toil involved in the 

 search for gold was with one consent abandoned. 

 This was the slave trade. The ports of Angola, 

 then under Dutch control, furnished but few negroes 

 for the Brazilian plantations ; here then was a 

 wide field for the supply of this indispensable and 

 valuable commodity, and, moreover, far from being 



* Plates of varying weighty but usually said to hi^ve been equa] 

 to about 12 oz, 



