120 THE PRAZOES 



recently made by a very distinguished authority 

 of the latter nationality in a report lately published 

 in Lisbon on the prazo-system of the district we 

 are considering. He said : " Whilst the Anglo- 

 Saxon colonist is par excellence practical, and his 

 primary object is the acquisition of wealth, the 

 Portuguese of the same class exerts himself no 

 more than may be necessary from the moment 

 that his income yields him a moderate and regular 

 livehhood. If, however, to the prospect of money- 

 making, in itself a consideration usually insufficient 

 to carry the Portuguese agriculturist far, be added 

 the possibility of compassing personal distinction, 

 as in the case of prazo-holders of the old type, then 

 he is capable of executing prodigies. It was the 

 desire of notoriety, a thirst for fame, rather than 

 purely a question of gain, which in the past led 

 the prazo-proprietor in his advance into the in- 

 terior, where he subjugated the tribes at the head 

 of his own forces." With this view of the question 

 I entirely concur, for I am persuaded that by no 

 other means could the Portuguese have acquired 

 and maintained the ascendency they possessed in 

 these regions in the middle decades of the nine- 

 teenth century, had it not been for the astonishing 

 enterprise of the early proprietors, who pushed, not 

 always by the most desirable means, it is true, the 

 knowledge of civilisation forward into the heart of 

 the African continent, and, be it noted, by the 

 strength of their own commanding personalities 

 and without any support from a preoccupied 

 Government. 



It would be difficult to ascertain correctly the 



