APPENDIX. 219 
is stationed there for the purpose of keeping up a continual 
correspondence with the Governor-General, and to prevent 
his countrymen, who frequent these markets periodically, 
from abusing the confidence of the natives or offending them 
by any other injury. 
«The first attempt to open a direct communication with 
Mozambique was made during the government of Count 
Saldanha. M. de Costa, arespectable Portuguese merchant, 
who formerly commanded the militia in the interior, having 
retired, from some disgust, went and established himself as 
a trader in Cassange, where he lived many years in har- 
mony with the natives. To this gentleman Count Sal- 
danha, soon after his arrival at the seat of government in 
1807, applied for information respecting the practicability 
of employing an expedition on a route of discovery: 
« After receiving several communications favourable to the 
object he had in view, the Count authorised M. de Costa 
to send a Portuguese mulatto, stationed at one of the fairs 
in Cassange, accompanied by native guides and interpreters, 
to penetrate, if possible, to Mooloaa, a country hitherto un- 
known to Europeans except by the report of its populousness 
and power. The mulatto, after a journey of two months, 
from the southernmost fair in Cassange, reached the capital 
of Mooloaa *, where he met with a liberal reception from the 
monarch Muata Janvo. This Muata, for that it seems is the 
titular name, lives at a considerable distance from his wife, whe 
governs another state perfectly independent of her husband, 
with whom she only resides on particular days of the year. 
The town of the Mooloaas is laid out in streets, which are 
watered daily, and there are held in it regular markets. A 
horrid practice of sacrificing from fifteen to twenty negroes 
every day, prevails both at the court of the Muata and that 
* Situated at about lat. 11° 30’, long. 32° 20/. 
