642 TRADE RESTRICTIONS. Chap. XXXI. 



making offerings of food, beer, &c. When undergoing the ordeal, 

 they hold up their hands to the Euler of Heaven, as if appealing 

 to him to assert their innocence. When they escape, or recover 

 from sickness, or are delivered from any danger, they offer a 

 sacrifice of a fowl or a sheep, pouring out the blood as a libation 

 to the soul of some departed relative. They believe in the 

 transmigration of souls ; and also that while persons are still 

 living they may enter into lions and alligators, and then return 

 again to their own bodies. 



While still at Tete the son of Monomotapa paid the Comman- 

 dant a visit. He is named Mozungo, or " White Man," has a 

 narrow tapering head, and probably none of the ability or energy 

 his father possessed. He was the favourite of his father, who 

 hoped that he would occupy his place. A strong party, however, in 

 the tribe placed Katalosa in the chieftainship, and the son became, 

 as they say, a child of this man. The Portuguese have repeatedly 

 received offers of territory if they would only attend the inter- 

 ment of the departed chief with troops, fire off many rounds of 

 cartridges over the grave, and then give e'clat to the instalment 

 of the new chief. Their presence would probably influence the 

 election, for many would vote on the side of power, and a candi- 

 date might feel it worth while to grant a good piece of land, if 

 thereby he could secure the chieftainship to himself. When the 

 Portuguese traders wish to pass into the country beyond Katalosa, 

 they present liim with about thirty-two yards of calico and some 

 other goods, and he then gives them leave to pass in whatever 

 direction they choose to go. They must, however, give certain 

 quantities of cloth to a number of inferior chiefs beside, and they 

 are subject to the game-laws. They have thus a body of ex- 

 clusive tribes around them, preventing direct intercourse between 

 them and the population beyond. It is strange that, when they 

 had the power, they did not insist on the free navigation of the 

 Zambesi. I can only account for tins in the same way in winch 

 I accounted for a similar state of tilings in the west. All the 

 traders have been in the hands of slaves, and have wanted that 

 moral courage which a free man, with free servants on whom he 

 can depend, usually possesses. If the English had been here, 

 they would have insisted on the free navigation of this pathway 

 as an indispensable condition of friendship. The present system 



