MOS AMBIQtJE. 
63 
gained battle was a trace, by which the Portuguese were to be 
allowed free admittance into the country. This enabled them in 
some degree to examine the interior, and for the first time they 
passed the forest of Lupata,* which they foolishly named " the 
spine of the world," on account of th e high and terrible rocks 
by which it is environed, that appear, as well as the trees, to 
stretch their heads into the clouds/' From this probably exag- 
gerated description sprung that formidable chain of mountains 
which has ever since ornamented the maps of Eastern Africa, 
furnishing a remarkable instance of the ill effects that may arise 
fi'om a name originally being misapplied. 
From Lupata the Portuguese advanced eastward, in hopes of 
reaching the silver mines of Chicova, and, as they confined them- 
selves during this march to the line of the river Zambezi, they 
met with little opposition, the natives having, as before, retired 
to the woods : still all their search after the valuable commodity 
they looked for proved fruitless, and their leader was at last, as 
it is said, ingeniously outwitted by one of the natives, who hid 
some silver in the ground, and persuaded the Portuguese it was a 
mine. Soon afterwards, being unable to maintain a large force in 
the country, they retired to Sena, leaving two hundred men in a 
new fort constructed at Tete, with positive orders not to give up 
the enterprise until the party had discovered the object of their 
research. All trouble, however, on this head was unavailing; 
for the whole detachment, together with its unfortunate leader 
Antony Cardosa d'Almeyda, was drawn into an ambuscade by 
the natives, and cut off to a man. 
* There is a curious account of this in Purchas, Part II. 1547. 
