MOSAMBIQUE. 
77 
west monsoon, build huts round the towns, which are walled, and 
remain blockading them until the latter end of the north-east 
monsoon, which occupies a period of eight months, as they 
never attempt the passage but with a fair wind. 
I have seen one of their canoes, which was about forty-five 
feet long by ten or twelve broad, ingeniously put together upon a 
construction very similar to that of a whale boat, and joined by 
wooden pegs driven into both edges of the planks. The plan 
adopted by this people is to send every fifth year upwards of one 
hundred canoes, with from fifteen to thirty-five men in each, armed 
with muskets, while during the other four years, they dispatch 
not more than thirty, on account of the want of provisions they 
might experience;, and with a view^ to leave time for the planta- 
tions to be restored to their usually flourishing condition. The 
King told me that during the siege last year nearly two hundred 
women and children died from hunger, owing to their not daring 
to go outside the walls for provisions, and that many of the women 
actually eat their own children. 
" The town of Johanna, called Sultan's Town, has, in different 
parts of its walls and in a fort on the hill close behind it, upwards 
of fifty guns mounted, though in a wretched state. The King 
keeps in his possession papers from Admiral Renier and Blanket, 
requesting captains of ships of war to assist them with po wder 
and arms. Their chief reliance for a supply of these articles is 
on the Governor and Council of Bombay, who last year sent them 
in an Arab boat 40 half-barrels of powder, 80 muskets, and one 
iron six pounder, 1500 flints, and 2000 musket-balls. A French 
cruiser unfortunately fell in with this boat, and plundered it of 
