Trip to Shark's Point. 
67 
Most of the Squaline villagers appeared to be 
women, the men being engaged in making money 
elsewhere. Besides illicit trade, which has now 
become very dangerous, a little is done in the licit 
line : grotesquely carved sticks, calabashes rudely 
ornamented with ships and human figures, the 
neat bead-work grass-strings used by the women 
to depress the bosom, and cashimbos or pipes mostly 
made about Boma. All were re-baptized in 1853, 
but they show no sign of Christianity save crosses, 
and they are the only prostitutes on the river. 
Following Tom Peter, and followed by a noisy 
tail, we walked to the west end of Shark Point, 
to see if aught remained of the Padrao, the first 
memorial column, planted in 1485 by the explorer 
Diogo Cam, knight of the king’s household, Dom 
Joao II. “O principe perfeito,” who, says De 
Barros (“Asia,” Decad. I. lib. iii. chap. 3), “to im¬ 
mortalize the memory of his captains,” directed 
them to plant these pillars in all remarkable places. 
The Padroes, which before the reign of D. Joao 
were only wooden, crosses, assumed the shape of 
“ columns, twice the height of a man (estado), with 
the scutcheon bearing the royal arms. At the 
sides they were to be inscribed in Latin and Portu¬ 
guese (to which James Barbot adds Arabic), with 
the name of the monarch who sent the expedition, 
the date of discovery, and the captain who made 
it ; on the summit was to be raised a stone cross 
