4 INTRODUCTION. 



haying passed through a district abounding with tsetse, an 

 insect whose bite is fatal to domestic animals, soon showed 

 the emaciation peculiar to the poison; and Senna being 

 notoriously unhealthy, the sickness of both men and horses 

 aroused Barreto's suspicion that poison had been admini- 

 stered by the inhabitants, most of whom, consequently, he 

 put to the sword or blew away from his guns. Marching 

 beyond Senna with a party five hundred and sixty strong, he 

 and his men suffered terribly from hunger and thirst, and, 

 after being repeatedly assaulted by a large body of natives, 

 the expedition was compelled to return without ever reaching 

 the gold-mines which Barreto so eagerly sought. 



Previous to this, however, devoted Eoman Catholic mis- 

 sionaries had penetrated where an army could not go ; for 

 Senhor Bordalo, in his excellent Historical Essays, mentions 

 that the Jesuit father Goncalo da Silveira had already 

 suffered martyrdom by command of the Chief of Monomotapa. 

 Indeed, missionaries of that body of Christians established 

 themselves in a vast number of places in Eastern Africa, as 

 the ruins of mission stations still testify ; but, not having suc- 

 ceeded in meeting with any reliable history of the labours of 

 these good men, it is painful for me to be unable to contradict 

 the calumnies which Portuguese writers still heap on their 

 memory. So far as the impression left on the native mind 

 goes, it is decidedly favourable to their zeal and piety ; while 

 the writers referred to roundly assert that the missionaries 

 engaged in the slave-trade ; which is probably as false as the 

 more modern scandals occasionally retailed against their 

 Protestant brethren. Philanthropists sometimes err in ac- 

 cepting the mere gossip of coast villages as facts, when 

 asserting the atrocities of our countrymen abroad ; while 

 others, pretending to regard all philanthropy as weakness, 



