704 ATTEMPTS TO EEVIVE TRADE. 



both Senna and Kilimane never think of standing to fight, but 

 invariably run away, and leave their officers to be killed. They 

 are brave only among the peaceable inhabitants. One of them, 

 sent from Kilimane with a packet of letters or expresses, arrived 

 while I was at Senna. He had been charged to deliver them 

 with all speed, but Senhor Isidore had in the mean time gone to 

 Kilimane, remained there a fortnight, and reached Senna again 

 before the courier came. He could not punish him. We gave 

 him a passage in our boat, but he left us in the way to visit his 

 wife, and, "on urgent private business," probably gave up the 

 service altogether, as he did not come to Kilimane all the tim6 

 I was there. It is impossible to describe the miserable state of 

 decay into which the Portuguese possessions here have sunk. 

 The revenues are not equal to the expenses, and every officer I 

 met told the same tale, that he had not received one farthing of 

 pay for the last four years. They are all forced to engage in 

 trade for the support of their families. Senhor Miranda had been 

 actually engaged against the enemy during these four years, and 

 had been highly lauded in the commandant's dispatches to the 

 home government, but when he applied to the Governor of Kili- 

 mane for part of his four years' pay, he offered him twenty dol- 

 lars only. Miranda resigned his commission in consequence. 

 The common soldiers sent out from Portugal received some pay 

 in calico. They all marry native women, and, the soil being- 

 very fertile, the wives find but little difficulty in supporting their 

 husbands. There is no direct trade with Portugal. A consid- 

 erable number of Banians, or natives of India, come annually in 

 small vessels with cargoes of English and Indian goods from 

 Bombay. It is not to be wondered at, then, that there have 

 been attempts made of late years by speculative Portuguese in 

 Lisbon to revive the trade of Eastern Africa by means of mercan- 

 tile companies. One was formally proposed, which was modeled 

 on the plan of our East India Company ; and it was actually im- 

 agined that all the forts, harbors, lands, etc., might be delivered 

 over to a company, which would bind itself to develop the re- 

 sources of the country, build schools, make roads, improve har- 

 bors, etc., and, after all, leave the Portuguese the option of resum- 

 ing possession. 



Another effort has been made to attract commercial enterprise 



