37^ 
THE EASTEKN COAST, 
was totally defeated in an attack against Mom- 
baca. Upon the whole, the Portuguese appear 
to have been merely able to maintain, with diffi- 
culty, a chain of forts along the Zambese, for the 
protection of their trade with the district in which 
the gold mines are situated. 
In 1720, Captain Hamilton sailed along the 
eastern coast of Africa. At that time Mombaca 
and Patta had been wrested from the Portuguese, 
and were in the power of the Arabs of Muskat. 
Mosambique was, as it has always been, the prin- 
cipal Portuguese settlement. He agrees, how- 
ever, with De Barros in describing it as unhealthy 
in an extraordinary degree. Criminals condemned 
to death at Goa were, as a punishment nearly 
equivalent, sent to this settlement, where five or 
six years were accounted a long life. He was 
told that the gold and ivory obtained in the in- 
terior were purchased at a very easy rate. The 
natives, on receiving a certain quantity of toys 
and glass beads, dug a hole in the earth, into 
which they put these articles, then taking them 
out, they filled the same hole with gold dust, and 
gave it in exchange. Ivory was given for its 
bulk in a certain species of Indian cloth. The 
author, however, does not pledge himself for 
these terms of trade. The slaves brought from 
Mosambique were highly esteemed in India. Pe- 
