ATTEMPTS TO REVIVE TRADE. 6lJ 



time gone to Kilimane, remained there a fortnight, and 

 reached Senna again before the conrier came. Pie conld 

 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 time 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 despatches to the Home Govern- 

 ment ; but when he applied to the Governor of Kilimane 

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

 dollars only. Miranda resigned his commission in con- 

 sequence. 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 considerable 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 mercantile companies. One was 

 formally proposed, which was modelled on the plan of our 

 East India Company ; and it was actually imagined that 

 all the forts, harbours, lands, &c, might be delivered 

 over to a company, which would bind itself to develop 

 the resources of the country, build schools, make roads,, 

 improve harbours, &c, and after all leave the Portuguese 

 the option of resuming possession. 



Another effort has been made to attract commercial 

 enterprise to this region by offering any mining company 

 permission to search for the ores and work them. Such 

 a company, however, would gain but little in the way of 

 protection or aid from the government of Mozambique, as 

 that can but barely maintain a hold on its own small 

 possessions ; the condition affixed of importing at the 

 company's own cost a certain number of Portuguese from 



