688 FORMER JESUIT ESTABLISHMENT. 



is a serious difficulty in the way of developing the resources of 

 the country, and might prove fatal to an unarmed expedition. 

 If this desirable and most fertile field of enterprise is ever to be 

 opened up, men must proceed on a different plan from that which 

 has been followed, and I do not apprehend there would be much 

 difficulty in commencing a new system, if those who undertook it 

 insisted that it is not our custom to pay for a highway which has 

 not been made by man. The natives themselves would not deny 

 that the river is free to those who do not trade in slaves. If, in 

 addition to an open, frank explanation, a small subsidy were given 

 to the paramount chief, the willing consent of all the subordinates 

 would soon be secured. 



On the 1st of April I went to see the site of a former establish- 

 ment of the Jesuits, called Micombo, about ten miles S.E. of Tete. 

 Like all their settlements I have seen, both judgment and taste 

 had been employed in the selection of the site. A little stream 

 of mineral water had been collected in a tank and conducted to 

 their house, before which was a little garden for raising vege- 

 tables at times of the year when no rain falls. It is now buried 

 in a deep shady grove of mango-trees. I was accompanied by 

 Captain Nunes, whose great-grandfather, also a captain in the 

 time of the Marquis of Pombal, received sealed orders, to be 

 opened only on a certain day. When that day arrived, he found 

 the command to go with his company, seize all the Jesuits of this 

 establishment, and march them as prisoners to the coast. The 

 riches of the fraternity, which were immense, were taken posses- 

 sion of by the state. Large quantities of gold- had often been 

 sent to their superiors at Goa, inclosed in images. The Jesuits 

 here do not seem to have possessed the sympathies of the people 

 as their brethren in Angola did. They were keen traders in 

 ivory and gold-dust. All praise their industry. Whatever they 

 did, they did it with all their might, and probably their successful 

 labors in securing the chief part of the trade to themselves had 

 excited the envy of the laity. None of the natives here can 

 read ; and though the Jesuits are said to have translated some 

 of the prayers into the language of the country, I was unable to 

 obtain a copy. The only religious teachers now in this part of 

 the country are two gentlemen of color, natives of Goa. The 

 one who officiates at Tete, named Pedro Antonio d'Araujo, is a 



