CHAP. I. ATROCITIES OF MARIANO. 15 



On reaching Mazaro, the mouth of a narrow creek 

 which in floods communicates with the Quillimane river, 

 we found that the Portuguese were at war with a half- 

 caste named Mariano alias Matakenya, from whom they 

 had generally fled, and who, having built a stockade near 

 the mouth of the Shire, owned all the country between 

 that river and Mazaro. Mariano was best known by his 

 native name Matakenya, which in their tongue means 

 " trembling," or quivering as trees do in a storm. He was 

 a keen slave-hunter, and kept a large number of men, well 

 armed with muskets. It is an entire mistake to suppose 

 that the slave trade is one of buying and selling alone; 

 or that engagements can be made with labourers in Africa 

 as they are in India ; Mariano, like other Portuguese, had 

 no labour to spare. He had been in the habit of sending 

 out armed parties on slave-hunting forays among the 

 helpless tribes to the north-east, and carrying down the 

 kidnapped victims in chains to Quillimane, where they 

 were sold by his brother-in-law Cruz Coimbra, and shipped 

 as " Free emigrants " to the French island of Bourbon. 

 So long as his robberies and murders were restricted to the 

 natives at a distance, the authorities did not interfere ; 

 but his men, trained to deeds of violence and bloodshed in 

 their slave forays, naturally began to practise on the people 

 nearer at hand, though belonging to the Portuguese, and 

 even in the village of Senna, under the guns of the fort. 

 A gentleman of the highest standing told us that, while 

 at dinner with his family, it was no uncommon event for 

 a slave to rush into the room pursued by one of Mariano's 

 men with spear in hand to murder him. 



The atrocities of this villain, aptly termed by the late 

 governor of Quillimane a "notorious robber and murderer," 

 became at length intolerable. All the Portuguese spoke of 

 him as a rare monster of inhumanity. It is unaccountable 

 why half-castes, such as he, are so much more cruel than 

 the Portuguese, but such is undoubtedly the case. 



