HISTORY 
57 
and mining adventurers came lion-hearted Jesuit Missionaries, resolved on 
repeating in the Zambezi countries the successes they had obtained in 
Christianising the kingdom of the Congo. Several of these men were 
martyred by the orders of the Emperor of Monomotapa; but eventually 
they established themselves at Zumbo, on the Central Zambezi, at the con¬ 
fluence of the great Luangwa River. 
The modern capital of Tete, 1 which is the most important town on the 
Zambezi, was not founded until the middle of the seventeenth century, and was 
merely a station of Jesuit Missionaries originally, though afterwards taken over 
by the Portuguese Government. At first, however, the principal towns were 
Zumbo and Sena. 
governor’s house, tete 
The Portuguese soon penetrated northward of the Zambezi, in the direction 
of the Maravi country and the watershed of Lake Nyasa. Here they dis¬ 
covered, or re-discovered, from hints given by Arabs or natives, the gold 
deposits of Misale, 2 and for some century or so afterwards these gold mines 
were extensively worked. Curiously enough, however, the chief mineral dis¬ 
coveries of the Portuguese at this time lay in the direction of silver, though 
at the present time we have no knowledge of any existing silver mines in the 
Zambezi countries. 
In 1616 a Portuguese, named Jaspar Bocarro, offered to carry samples of 
Zambezi silver overland from the Central Zambezi to Malindi, a Portuguese 
settlement to the north of Mombasa, without going near Mozambique. The 
1 Tete is the name for a reed. The plural “ Matete ” means “ a reed-bed.” It is possible that this 
was the etymology of the name, as the shore is very reedy about that part of the Zambezi. But the 
native name of Tete is “ Nyungwi.” 
2 Nowadays Misale lies within the British sphere of influence, and a British company is attempting 
to work its gold. 
