26 
MOSAMBIQUE. 
opinion that all attempts to penetrate into tlie interior from this 
side would be attended with insuperable difficulties. 
He added, that it had long been anxiously desired by the Por- 
tuguese government to form a communication with their western 
settlements, but all their efforts to effect it had failed. Some 
persons sent from the opposite coast did indeed report that they 
had crossed far enough to see great waters and boats like those 
on the Angola side, but that he believed that the conjecture of 
this being the eastern sea was totally unfounded. One of the 
governors of Sena, about seven years ago, undertook a journey 
inland, and advanced several hundred miles along the course of 
the great river Zambezi, but he had failed also in his endeavours to 
discover any connection with the western side. In this incursion 
he suffered great annoyance from the opposition of the natives. 
This gentleman is since dead, but the observations which he left 
are valuable and in the hands of the Brazil government. 
The Governor farther observed, that the little advantage actur; 
ally to be derived from such an undertaking rendered the attempt 
scarcely worth the risk, as the articles of commerce are too much 
alike on either coast to bear the expense of carriage. In a geo- 
graphical point of view it certainly might prove interesting, but 
at that time he was too much engaged to enter into any plans of 
the kind, on account of the great disorder in which he had found 
affairs on his arrival. After the death of his predecessor the 
Government fell into the hands of the Council, consisting of three 
persons. They had quarrelled among themselves, and the con- 
sequence was, that great confusion had prevailed in every 
department, and general discoiitent had arisen among the 
