142 THE REGION OF THE BARUl^ 



only power in the land. So impressed became the 

 Portuguese Government with the necessity of 

 ensuring his benevolent regard, that he was created 

 Capitao-mdr of the whole of the vast area he 

 himself had subjugated, and received the commis- 

 sion of a colonel in the Portuguese army. There 

 never reigned a king possessed of more unquestioned 

 power. He made war, and led his usually vic- 

 torious armies in person. He concluded peace, and 

 himself made and ratified the conditions of the treaty. 



In this world, however, there is an unvarying rule 

 which after a longer or shorter period brings every- 

 thing to an end. In 1890 this Goanese freebooter, 

 who, as we have seen, possessed all the attributes 

 of an absolute monarch, in the course of one of 

 his raids, was suddenly defeated and taken prisoner, 

 whereupon his captains, judging it unlikely that he 

 would be allowed to escape alive, promptly divided 

 his nyanis and other appropriable property among 

 them, whilst the downtrodden descendants of the 

 last Makombe commenced to take measures to lay 

 claim to the throne. One of these, Kanga (the 

 guinea-fowl) by name, who had for many years 

 been hiding in Manica, returned, and through the 

 treachery of one of the guards succeeded in 

 murdering the Nyani Madziamanga at Masse- 

 guire and possessing himself of the greater part of 

 Gouveia's arms and ammunition there deposited. 

 He was soon joined by a considerable party, and 

 attacked the remaining aringas, and these, either 

 through want of ammunition or disheartened by the 

 capture of the redoubtable Goanese, fell one by one. 



In the meantime, the Nyani Adriana, who 



