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MESURIL. 37 
During the time that I stayed at Mesuril, I amused myself by 
making excursions into different parts of the peninsula, and in 
gaining information respecting the native tribes, and I generally 
found those I conversed with, who were chiefly native soldiers, 
not only willing, but anxious to gratify my curiosity. They are 
so unaccustomed to be treated with common attention by Euro- 
peans, that the poor fellows were grateful for the slightest civility 
I shewed them, and I often observed their eyes glisten with satis- 
faction at any little inquiry I made respecting their mode of living 
or their families : I must however remark, in this instance, to 
the honour of the Portuguese, that the situation of this class of 
men is generally comfortable ; their pay, though not large, is 
amply sufficient for all their wants, and the duty which they have 
to perform is never laborious. The greater part of them were by 
birth Makooa, who had been made slaves in early youth. 
The Makooa, or Makooana. as they are often called, comprise 
a people consisting of a number of very powerful tribes lying 
behind Mosambique, which extend northward as far as Melinda, 
and southward to the mouth of the river Zambezi, while hordes of 
the same nation are to be found in a south-west direction, perhaps 
almost to the neighbourhood of the KalFers bordering on the 
Cape of Good Hope. A late traveller in that settlement mentions 
them as a tribe of Kaffers, and says the name is derived from the 
Arabic language, signifying workers in iron/' In this he is 
surely mistaken, as the Makooa are Negroes, which the KafFers 
are not,* and as there is no word in Arabic bearing such a signi- 
• This is allowed by all travellers. . Mr. Barrow, from their colour, features and 
manners, considers the KafFers as descendants of Arab Bedowee. In this I think him , 
