38 
M E S U R I L. 
ficatioii. Still his notice of the name is satisfactory, as it tends to 
prove that such a people has been heard of by the KaiFers, which 
thus establishes the link of connection between the tribes of the 
Cape and the Mosambique. 
The Makooa are a strong athletic race of people, very formi- 
dable, and constantly in the habit of making incursions into the 
small tract of territory which the Portuguese possess on the 
coast. Their enmity is inveterate, and is confessed to have 
arisen from the shameful practices of the traders who have gone 
among them to purchase slaves. They fight chiefly with spears^ 
darts, and poisoned arrows ; but they also possess no inconsi- 
derable number of musquets, which they procure in the northern 
districts from the Arabs, and very frequently, as the Governor 
assured me, from the Portuguese dealers themselves ; who, in the 
eager pursuit of wealth, are thus content to barter their own secu- 
rity for the gold, slaves and ivory, which they get in return. 
These obnoxious neighbours have latterly been quiet, but in their 
last incursion they advanced with such a force into the peninsula 
of Caba^eiro, as actually to oblige the Portuguese to quit the 
field. In their progress they destroyed the plantations, burnt 
the slave-huts, and killed or carried off every person who fell 
into their hands.* They penetrated even into the fort of Mesuril 
and threw down the image of St. John which was in the chapel, 
plundered the one adjoining the Government House, and converted 
mistaken, as I believe them to be part of the Ethiopian tribes of which an almost 
unbroken chain may be still traced from the borders of Egypt. Of these I shall have oc- 
lasion to speak more fully in a subsequent part of the work. 
* A similar incursion of these people is mentioned in Purchas, which happened in 1585. 
Vide Vol. n, page 1553. 
