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BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
THE ISLAND OF MOZAMBIQUE, SEEN FROM THE MAINLAND 
motive of this offer lay in the fact that considerable friction existed between 
the Central Government of Mozambique, which was under the Viceroys of 
India, and the Portuguese adventurers on the Zambezi, who strongly objected 
to the grinding monopolies which the Mozambique Government sought to 
establish. Jaspar Bocarro apparently journeyed from where the town of Tete 
now stands to the Upper Shire River, crossing that stream near its junction 
with the Ruo; and then, passing through the Anguru country in the vicinity 
of Lake Chilwa, he entered the Lujenda Valley, and so travelled on to the 
Ruvuma River, and thence to the coast at Mikindani. From Mikindani he 
continued his journey to Malindi by sea. So far as reliable records go, this was 
the first European to enter what is now styled “ British Central Africa.” 
The Jesuit priests from Zumbo had journeyed westward into the country 
of the Batonga or Batoka, 1 and northwards up the Luangwa River. They 
1 Sir John Kirk, when travelling with Livingstone, in 1859, discovered groves of fruit trees in the 
Batoka country which may have been introduced by the Jesuits. 
