42 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
can be little doubt. We find such potentates at various 
times and various parts of Central Africa ; but, as a 
rule, these so-called “ empires ” soon broke up into a 
number of small chief skips. This is what happened 
with the Monomatapa empire, all traces of which are 
long ago obliterated. As to the treaties which the Por- 
tuguese say they made with the emperor, they need not 
detain us. It may be of interest here to quote the 
earliest description of this empire, which we find in the 
narrative of Duarte Barbosa in the beginning of the 
O O 
sixteenth century :— 
“ On entering within this country of Sofala, there is 
JOHN RUYSCH 
AD. 150 8. 
the kingdom of Benamatapa, which is very large and 
peopled by Gentiles, whom the Moors call Cafers. These 
are brown men, who go bare, but covered from the 
waist downwards with coloured stuffs or skins of wild 
animals ; and the persons most in honour among them 
wear some of the tails of the skin behind them, which 
go trailing on the ground for state and show, and they 
make bounds and movements of their bodies, by which 
they make these tails wag on either side of them. They 
carry swords in scabbards of wood bound with gold or 
other metals, and they wear them on the left-hand side, 
as we do, in sashes of coloured stuffs, which they make 
