After Don Francisco De Mascarenhas Had Enjoyed The Viceroyalty For Three
Years, Don Duarte De Menezes Came Out In 1581 As His Successor.
His
first measure was to restore peace at Cochin, where a revolt was
threatened by the natives in consequence
Of the Portuguese having
usurped the management of the custom-house to the prejudice of the
Rajah; but an accommodation was now entered into, and the people
appeased by restoring matters to their ancient footing. The naik of
Sanguicer, a place dependent upon the king of Visiapour, having
converted his place of residence into a nest of pirates, to the great
injury of the Portuguese trade on the coast of Canara, an agreement was
entered into with the king of Visiapour for his punishment; the governor
of Ponda named Kosti Khan being to march against him by land with 40,000
men, while the Portuguese were to attack the naik by sea. This was
accordingly executed, and the naik being driven to take refuge is the
woods, implored mercy, and was restored to his ruined district.
Some years before the present period a prodigious inundation of Kafrs
or Negro barbarians from the interior of Africa invaded the country of
Monomotapa, in multitudes that were utterly innumerable. They came from
that part of the interior in which the great lake of Maravi is
situated, out of which springs the great rivers whose source was
formerly unknown. Along with this innumerable multitude, a part of whom
were of the tribes called Macabires and Ambei, bordering upon
Abyssinia, came their wives, children, and old people, as if emigrating
bodily in search of new habitations, from their own being unable to
contain them. They were a rude and savage people, whose chosen food was
human flesh, only using that of beasts in defect of the other; and such
was the direful effect of their passage through any part of the country,
that they marked their way by the utter ruin of the habitations, leaving
nothing behind but the bones of the inhabitants. When these failed them,
they supplied their craving hunger by feeding on their own people,
beginning with the sick and aged. Even their women, though ugly and
deformed, were as hardy and warlike as their husbands, carrying their
children and household goods on their backs, and going armed with bows
and arrows, which they used with as much courage and dexterity as the
men. These barbarians used defensive armour, and even employed the
precaution of fortifying their camp wherever they happened to halt.
While passing the castle of Tete upon the Zambeze in the interior of
Mocaranga, Jerome de Andrada who commanded the Portuguese garrison sent
out against them a party of musketeers, and in two encounters killed
above 5000 of them, while the multitude fled in the utmost dismay,
having never, before experienced the effects of fire arms. Passing
onwards from thence, the barbarous multitude came to the neighbourhood
of Mozambique, destroying every thing in their course like an inundation
of fire; and as the situation appeared inviting to one of their chiefs
named Mambea, who commanded about 6000 warriors, he built a fort and
some towns on the main, about two leagues from Mozambique. As the fort
of Cuama, where Nuno Vello Pereyra commanded, was much incommoded by the
neighbourhood of these barbarians, he sent out Antonio Pimentel against
them with 400 men, four only of whom were Portuguese, who falling
unexpectedly on the barbarians slew many of them and burnt the fort; but
retiring in disorder, the enemy fell upon Pimentel and his men, all of
whom they slew except three Portuguese and a small number of negroes.
All the slain were devoured by the victorious Kafrs, except their
heads, hands, and feet.
The country about Mozambique is full of orchards and fruit trees,
especially citrons, lemons, and oranges, and has all kinds of wild and
tame beasts like those in Europe, together with prodigious numbers of
elephants. The principal food of the people is maize. The woods mostly
consist of ebony, being a very lofty tree with leaves like those of our
apple trees, and fruit resembling medlars, but not eatable, the whole
stem and branches being thickly covered with thorns. The bark is as
susceptible of fire as tinder, and when one of these trees is cut down
it never springs up again. There is another sort of a yellowish colour,
which is reckoned valuable. The best manna is produced in this country.
Among the fish of this river is one equally voracious with the
crocodile, from which no man escapes that gets within their reach, but
they never injure women. One of these of a prodigious size was caught
having gold rings in its ears, which was supposed to have been done as
some species of witchcraft or incantation by the Kafrs to clear the
river from these dangerous animals. In confirmation of this opinion, we
read in an Arabian author named Matude, giving an account of
prodigies, that about the year 863 a brazen crocodile was found under
the ruins of an Egyptian temple, on which certain characters or
symbolical letters were impressed, and when this image was broken in
pieces the crocodiles of the Nile began again to devour men.
During the viceroyalty of Don Duarte de Menezes fresh troubles broke out
in the kingdom of Visiapour, in consequence of which the Moguls invaded
the country, and after laying it waste to a great extent possessed
themselves of many of its towns cities and districts. The occasions of
these troubles was this: The king being ill of a contagious distemper,
his two favourite ministers, Acede Khan and Calabate Khan, kept him
concealed in the palace, so that no person was allowed to see him. The
prince and the people had recourse to arms, in order to force these
tyrants to admit them into the kings presence; on which they persuaded
the infirm king that the prince wished to depose him, so that the king
went to war against the prince, and defeated him with great slaughter,
upon which the Moguls were called in to their assistance, and used the
opportunity to plunder the country and appropriate it to themselves.
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