The Makoa Are Known By A Cicatrice In
The Forehead Shaped Like The New Moon With The Horns Turned
Downwards.
The tribe possesses all the country west of Mosambique;
and they will not allow any of the Portuguese to pass into their
country more than two hours' distance from the fort.
A hill some ten
or twelve miles distant, called Pau, has been visited during the
present generation only by one Portuguese and one English officer,
and this visit was accomplished only by the influence of the private
friendship of a chief for this Portuguese gentleman. Our allies have
occupied the Fort of Mosambique for three hundred years, but in this,
as in all other cases, have no power further than they can see from a
gun-carriage.
The Makoa chief, Matingula, was hospitable and communicative, telling
us all he knew of the river and country beyond. He had been once to
Iboe and once at Mosambique with slaves. Our men understood his
language easily. A useless musket he had bought at one of the above
places was offered us for a little cloth. Having received a present
of food from him, a railway rug was handed to him: he looked at it -
had never seen cloth like that before - did not approve of it, and
would rather have cotton cloth. "But this will keep you warm at
night." - "Oh, I do not wish to be kept warm at night." - We gave him a
bit of cotton cloth, not one-third the value of the rug, but it was
more highly prized. His people refused to sell their fowls for our
splendid prints and drab cloths. They had probably been taken in
with gaudy-patterned sham prints before. They preferred a very
cheap, plain, blue stuff of which they had experience. A great
quantity of excellent honey is collected all along the river, by bark
hives being placed for the bees on the high trees on both banks.
Large pots of it, very good and clear, were offered in exchange for a
very little cloth. No wax was brought for sale; there being no
market for this commodity, it is probably thrown away as useless.
At Michi we lose the tableland which, up to this point, bounds the
view on both sides of the river, as it were, with ranges of flat-
topped hills, 600 or 800 feet high; and to this plateau a level
fertile plain succeeds, on which stand detached granite hills. That
portion of the tableland on the right bank seems to bend away to the
south, still preserving the appearance of a hill range. The height
opposite extends a few miles further west, and then branches off in a
northerly direction. A few small pieces of coal were picked up on
the sandbanks, showing that this useful mineral exists on the Rovuma,
or on some of its tributaries: the natives know that it will burn.
At the lakelet Chidia, we noticed the same sandstone rock, with
fossil wood on it, which we have on the Zambesi, and knew to be a
sure evidence of coal beneath.
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