CHAPTER II 



EARLY EAST AFRICA — THE OCCUPATION BY THE 

 PORTUGUESE OF THE VALLEY OF THE ZAMBEZI 

 FROM A.D. 1498 TO THE END OF THE NINE- 

 TEENTH CENTURY 



The position in which the early Portuguese navi- 

 gators found themselves when, in 1498, their vessels 

 appeared for the first time sailing northward along 

 the East African coast-line was one of some pre- 

 cariousness, and in order that it may be the better 

 understood, a few words on the conditions which 

 they discovered may not be regarded as inopportune. 



We must go back some centuries, however, and 

 shortly trace the history of the East African sea- 

 board, and, neglecting its complicated quarrels and 

 stormy episodes of war and rapine, consult the 

 impressions of the first observer, whose manuscript 

 accounts of the events of his day are, I believe, 

 since those of Ptolemy, the earliest records which 

 have been handed down to us. This was Abu el 

 Hassan el Massudi, a native of Bagdad, who in 

 the third century after the hegira became a great 

 traveller, and visited in turn many counti:ies, in- 

 cluding South-East Africa. 



Massudi's w^ritings are the first from which we 



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