THE GIAGAS ZINGHA. 
9^ 
to surpass them in every species of savage enor- 
mity. The Giagas were her immediate neigh- 
bours ; every thing was to be dreaded from them 
as enemies ; every thing to be hoped as friends. 
She embraced their diabolical system ; she im- 
posed upon them by a pretence of supernatural 
power ; and finally succeeded in being chosen as 
their queen. At the head of such formidable al- 
lies, she soon became the most powerful sovereign 
in this part of Africa, and the terror of all the 
neighbouring regions. In this career of conquest, 
crime, and butchery, combined with brutal volup- 
tuousness, she spent twenty-eight years. Yet she 
is said to have afterwards assured the missionaries 
that she plunged into these excesses with loath- 
ing and disgust ; and from no motive but the 
dread of losing her influence over her subjects, 
and even of driving them into open revolt. The 
assertion seems confirmed by the narrative of 
some fathers who were in mission at O van do, 
when that territory was conquered by Zingha. 
As all the people of the town were precipitately 
flying, the fathers, who could hope for no safety 
in speed, retired to the church to await the stroke 
of death. The soldiers, however, entering, merely 
put fetters on their hands, and carried them be- 
fore the queen. That princess received them in 
the most gracious manner, and having dismissed 
her attendants, privately assured them, that it 
