MOSAMBiaUE. 
27 
inhabitants. Innocent men had been imprisoned with the guilty, 
and every thing regulated by caprice and iojnstice. One case he 
shewed me where a murder had been clearly proved against a 
soldier, for which another poor fellow had been since without 
cause negligently confined for five months. While this conversa- 
tion occurred we were walking in the government garden, which 
seemed to have been as much neglected as the government itself, 
containing nothing but a few cabbages, lettuces and capsicums, 
growing wild under the shade of some mimosa, papaw and 
pomegranate trees. 
On the same day we dined at the government-house with a 
large party of the principal inhabitants belonging to the Settle- 
ment. The dinner was well served, with great profusion of meat, 
dressed partly after the Indian and partly after the European 
fashion. The rice, which came from Sofala, was small but re- 
markably fine, and the bread exceedingly white and excellent, 
owing to its being prepared with a small quantity of toddy drawn 
from the cocoa-nut tree. In compliment to the English present a 
toast was given during dinner to the health of His Majesty the 
King of Great Britain, at which time the company all stood up, 
and a royal salute was fired from the fort. We gave in return the 
Prince Regent of Portugal, and a royal salute was fired from the 
Racehorse. 
After dinner we retired to another apartment where tea and 
coffee were set out in a splendid service of pure gold from Sena, 
of excellent workmanship, executed by the Banians resident 
on the island. The Governor, when in his official dress, wears a 
very costly and curiously wrought chain of the same metal, and, 
E 
