The Zevera, or Zebra.
The Portugals make war against the negroes in this manner. They have out of Congo a nobleman, which isknown to be a good Christian and of good behaviour. He bringeth out of Congo some one hundred negroes that are his followers. ThisMacicongo[mwishi-Kongo]is madeTandala,193or general over the black camp, and hath authority to kill, to put down Lords and make Lords, and hath all the chief doings with the negroes. And when any Lord cometh to obey he first cometh to Tandala and bringeth his present, as slaves, kine and goats. Then the Tandala carrieth him before the Portugal Governor, and bringeth two slaves for the Governor’s page, before he goeth in. Then he must have a great gift for the Governor, which is sometimes thirty or forty slaves, besides cattle. But when he cometh before the Governor he kneeleth down and clappeth his hands, and falleth down with his face upon the ground, and then he riseth and saith: “I have been an enemy, and now I protest to be true, and never more to lift my hand against you.” Then the Governor calleth a soldier, which hath deserved a reward, and giveth the Lord to him. This soldier seeth that he have no wrong; and the Lord acknowledgeth him to be his master, and he doth maintain the soldier and maketh him rich. Also, in the wars he commandeth his master’s house to be built before his own, and whatsoever he hath taken that day in the wars, he passeth [divideth] with his master. So that there is no Portugal soldier of any account, but hath his negrosova, or Lord.194
They use upon this coast to fish with harping irons, and wait upon a great fish that cometh once a day to fish along the shore, which is like a grampus. He runneth very near the shore and driveth great shoals of fish before him; and the negroes run along the shore as fast as they are able to follow him, and strike their harping irons round about him, and kill great store of fish, and leave them upon the sand till, the fish hath done feeding; and then they come and gather their fish up.
This fish will many times run himself on ground, but they will presently shove him off again, which is as much as four or five men can do. They call himEmboa, which is in their speech a dog, and will by no means hurt or kill any of them.195
Also, they use in the bays and rivers, where shoal water is, to fish with mats, which are made of long rushes, and they make them of an hundred fathoms long. The mats swim upon the water, and have long rushes hanged upon one edge of the mat, and so they draw the mat in compass, as we do our nets. The fishes, fearing the rushes that hang down, spring out of the water and fall upon the mat, that lyeth flat on the water, and so are taken.
They have four sorts of corn in Longo. The first is calledMasanga,196and it groweth upon a straw as big as a reed, and hath an ear a foot long, and is like hempseed. The second is calledMasembala.197This is of great increase, for of one kernel there springs four or five canes, which are ten foot high, and they bear half a pint of corn apiece. This grain is as big as tares, and very good. Thirdly, they have another that groweth low like grass, and is very like mustard-seed: and this is the best.198They have also the great Guinea wheat, which they callMas-impoto.199This is the least esteemed.
They have very good Peason [peas], somewhat bigger than ours, but they grow not as ours do; for the pods grow on the roots, underneath the ground, and by their leaves they know when they be ripe.200They have another kind of Peason, which they callWando.201This is a little tree,and the first year that it is planted it beareth no fruit; but after, it beareth fruit three years, and then it is cut down.202
Their plantain trees bear fruit but once, and then are cut down, and out of the root thereof spring three or four young trees.
They have great store of honey, which hangeth in theElicondytrees.203They gather it with a hollow piece of wood, or chest, which they hang in the top of the tree, and once a year it is full, by smoke rewarding the laborious creatures with robbery, exile, death.
[Purchas here adds in the margin, “out of Battell’s own reports”:—
ThisAlicundeorEliconditree is very tall and exceeding great, some as big as twelve men can fathom, spreading like an oak. Some of them are hollow, and from the liberal skies receive such plenty of water, that they are hospitable entertainers of thousands in this thirsty region. Once have I known three or four thousand remain at one of these trees, and thence receiving all their watery provision for four and twenty hours, and yet not empty.The negroes climbed up with pegs of hardwood (which that softer easily receiveth, the smoothness not admitting other climbing), and I think that some one tree hold forty tuns of water.
This tree affords not less bountiful hospitality to the back than belly, yielding (as her belly to their bellies, so) her back to their backs; excepting that this is better from the younger trees, whose tenderer backs being more seasonable for discipline, are so soundly beaten (for man’s fault, whence came the first nakedness), whereby one fathom cut from the tree is extended into twenty, and is presently fit for wearing, though not so fine as theIuzanda204tree yields. This tree yields excellent cloth from the inner bark thereof by like beating.]
Of their palm trees, which they keep with watering and cutting every year, they make velvets, satins, taffetas, damasks, sarsenets, and such like; out of the leaves, cleansed and purged, drawing long threads and even, for that purpose. They draw wine (as it is said) from the palm-tree. There is another kind of palm-tree which beareth a fruit good for the stomach and for the liver, and most admirable.205
One crocodile was so huge and greedy that he devoured anAlibamba,206that is, a chained company ofeight or nine slaves, but the indigestible iron paid him his wages, and murdered the murderer, found afterwards in his belly. I have seen them watch their prey, hauling in gennet, man, or other creature, into the water. But one soldier thus wrapt in shallower water drew his knife, took his taker in the belly, and slew him.
The following notes on the religion and customs of the Negroes of Angola, Congo and Loango, are taken from Book vii, chapters ix and x, ofPurchas His Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered from the Creation unto this Present. London (H. Fetherstone), 1617. This account is a compilation. Purchas quotes, among others, Duarte Lopez, De Barros, Osorio, Marmol, and Du Jarric. In what follows, we confine ourselves to the oral information which Purchas received from his friends or acquaintances, Andrew Battell and Thomas Turner.
MASTER THOMAS TURNER, one that had lived a long time in Brasil, and had also been at Angola, reported to me207that it was supposed eight and twenty thousand slaves (a number almost incredible, yet such as the Portugals told him) were yearly shipped from Angola and Congo, at the Haven of Loanda.208He namedto me a rich Portugal in Brasil, which had ten thousand of his own, working in hisIngenios209(of which he had eighteen) and in his other employments. His name was John du Paus, exiled from Portugal, and thus enriched in Brasil.210A thousand of his slaves at one time entered into conspiracy with nine thousand other slaves in the country, and barricaded themselves for their best defence against their master, who had much ado to reduce some of them into their former servitude.
To return to Angola, we may add the report of another of our countrymen, Andrew Battell (my near neighbour, dwelling at Leigh, in Essex) who served under Manuel Silvera Pereira,211Governor under the King of Spain, at his city of St. Paul, and with him went far into the country of Angola, their army being eight hundred Portugals and fifty thousand Naturals. This Andrew Battell telleth that they are all heathens in Angola. They had their idols of wood in the midst of their towns, fashioned like a negro, and at the foot thereof was a great heap of elephants’ teeth, containing three or four tuns of them: these were piled in the earth, and upon them were set the skulls of dead men, which they had slain in the wars, in monument of their victory.212The idol they callMokisso[Mukishi],and some of them have houses built over them. If any be sick, he accounteth itMokisso’shand, and sendeth to appease his angry God, with pouring wine (which they have of the palm tree) at his feet.213They have proper names of distinction for theirMokissos, asKissungo,Kalikete, etc., and use to swear by them,Kissungo wy, that is, byKissungo.214
They have another more solemn oath in trial of controversies: this trial is calledMotamba,215for which purpose they lay a kind of hatchet, which they have, in the fire, and theGanga-Mokisso, orMokisso’sPriest,216taketh the same red-hot, and draweth it near to the skin of the accused party; and if there be two, he causeth their legs to be set near together, and draweth this hot iron without touching between them; if it burns, that party is condemned as guilty, otherwise he is freed.
For the ceremonies about the dead, they first wash him, then paint him, thirdly apparel him in new clothes, and then bring him to his grave, which is made like a vault, after it is digged a little way down, undermined, and made spacious within; and there set him on a seat of earth, withhis beads (which they use on chains and bracelets for ornament), and the most part of his goods, with him in his last home. They kill goats and shed the blood in the graves, and pour wine there in memorial of the dead.
... Andrew Battell saith that the Dogs in these countries are all of one sort, prick-eared curs of a mean bigness, which they use also to hunt with, but they open not (for they cannot bark), and therefore they hang clappers made of little boards about their necks. He hath seen a mastiff sold for three slaves....
This kingdom [of Angola] hath many lordships subject thereto, as far as the sea-coast as Cape Negro. Towards a lake called Aquelunda219lieth a country called Quizama, the inhabitants whereof being governed after the manner of a commonwealth, have showed themselves friendly to the Portugals, and helped them in their wars against Angola. The houses in Angola are made in fashion like a bee-hive.
The women at the first sight of the new moon, turn up their bums in despite, as offended with their menstruous courses, which they ascribe unto her.
[Horses’ Tails.]220
The men sometimes, in a valorous resolution, will devote themselves unto some haughty attempt in the wars; and, taking leave of the king, will vow never to return until they bring him a horse-head, or some other thing, very dangerous in the enterprise, and will either do it or die. Horse-tails are great jewels, and two slaves will be given for one tail, which commonly they bring from the River of Plate, where horses are exceedingly increased and grown wild. They will, by firing the grass round about, hem the horses about with a fiery circle, the fire still straightening and growing nearer till they have advantage enough to kill them. Thus have the European cattle, of horse and kine, so increased in the other world, as they spare not to kill the one for their hides, and the other for their tails.
... Andrew Battell told me of a huge crocodile which was reported to have eaten a wholeAlibamba, that is, a company of eight or nine slaves chained together, and at last paid for his greediness: the chain holding him slave, as before it had the negroes, and by his undigestible nature devouring the devourer; remaining in the belly of him after he was found, in testimony of this victory. He hath seen them watch and take their prey, haling a gennet, man, or other creature into the water. A soldier thus drawn in by a crocodile, in shallower waters, with his knife wounded him in the belly, and slew him.
Having stated that they use in Congo to make “clothes of theEnzandatree,222of which some write the same things that are reported of the Indian fig-tree,” that it sends forth a hairy substance from the branches, which no sooner touch the ground but they take root, and grow up in such sort, that one tree would multiply itself into a wood if nature set not some obstacle (a marginal note adds that “Andrew Battell saith that the tree which thus strangely multiplieth itself is called theMangatree”223). Purchas continues as follows:—
“But more admirable is that huge tree calledAlicunde,224of which my friend Andrew Battell supposeth some are as big (besides their wonderful tallness) as twelve men can fathom. It spreads like a oak. Some of them are hollow, and the liberal clouds into those natural casks disperse such plenty of water, that one time three or four thousand of them, in that hot region, continued four and twenty hours at one of these, which yielded them all drink of her watery store, and was not emptied. Their negroes climbed up with pegs225(for the tree is smooth and not therefore otherwise to be climbed, and so soft that it easily receiveth pegs of harder wood, driven into her yielding substance with a stone), and dipped the water, as it had been out of a well. He supposed that there is forty tuns of water in some one of them. It yielded them a good opportunity for honey,to which end the country people make a kind of chest, with one hole in the same, and hang it upon one of these trees, which they take down once a year, and with fire or smoke chasing or killing the bees, take thence a large quantity of honey.226Neither is it liberal alone to the hungry or thirsty appetite, but very bountifully it clothes their backs, and the bark thereof, which, being taken from the youngerAlicundes[nkondo], and beaten, one fathom which they cut out from the tree will by this means extend itself into twenty, and presently is cloth fit for wearing, though not so fine as that which theInzanda227tree yieldeth. [It serves them also for boats, one of which cut out in proportion of a scute228will hold hundreds of men.”]229In a further marginal note Purchas adds: “These boats, saith Andrew Battell, are made of another tree, for theAlicundeis of too spongy a substance for that purpose.”
... Andrew Battell lived among them [the Bramas of Loango]230for two years and a half. They are, saith he, heathens, and observe many superstitions. They havetheirMokissosor images [nkishi] to which they offer in proportion to their sorts and suits;231the fisher offereth fish when he sueth for his help in his fishing; the countryman, wheat; the weaver,Alibungos,232[that is] pieces of cloth; others bring bottles of wine; all wanting that they would have, and bringing what they want, furnishing theirMokissowith those things whereof they complain themselves to be disfurnished.
Their ceremonies for the dead are divers. They bring goats and let them bleed at theMokisso’sfoot, which they after consume in a feasting memorial of the deceased party, which is continued four or five days together, and that four or five several times in the year, by all his friends and kindred. The days are known, and though they dwell twenty miles thence, yet they will resort to these memorial exequies, and, beginning in the night, will sing doleful and funeral songs till day, and then kill, as aforesaid, and make merry. The hope of this maketh such as have store of friends to contemn death; and the want of friends to bewail him makes a man conceive a more dreadful apprehension of death.233
Their conceit is so ravished with superstition that many die of none other death.Kin234is the name of unlawful andprohibited meat, which, according to each kindred’s devotion, to some family is some kind of fish; to another a hen; to another, a buffe [beef]; and so of the rest: in which they observe their vowed abstinence so strictly that if any should (though all unawares) eat of hisKin, he would die of conceit, always presenting to his accusing conscience the breach of his vow, and the anger ofMokisso. He hath known divers thus to have died, and sometimes would, when some of them had eaten with him, make them believe that they had eaten of theirKin, till, having sported himself with their superstitious agony, he would affirm the contrary.
They use to set in their fields and places where corn or fruits grow, a basket, with goat’s horns, parrot’s feathers, and other trash: this is theMokisso’sEnsign, or token, that it is commended to his custody; and therefore, the people very much addicted to theft, dare not meddle, or take anything. Likewise, if a man, wearied with his burthen, lay it down in the highway, and knit a knot of grass, and lay thereon; or leave any other note (known to them) to testify that he hath left it there in the name of his idol, it is secured from the lime-fingers of any passenger. Conceit would kill the man that should transgress in this kind.235
In thebanza[mbanza], or chief city, the chief idol is namedChekoke.236Every day they have there a market, and theChekokeis brought forth by theGanga, or priest, to keep good rule, and is set in the market-place to preventstealing. Moreover, the king hath a Bell,237the strokes whereof sound such terror into the heart of the fearful thief that none dare keep any stolen goods after the sound of that bell. Our author inhabited in a little reed-house, after the Loango manner, and had hanging by the walls, in a cloth case, his piece, wherewith he used to shoot fowls for the king, which, more for the love of the cloth than the piece, was stolen. Upon complaint, this bell (in form like a cow-bell) was carried about and rung, with proclamation to make restitution; and he had his piece next morning set at his door. The like another, found in a bag of beans of a hundred pound weight, stolen from him, and recovered by the sound of this bell.
They have a dreadful and deadly kind of trial in controversies, after this manner: there is a little tree, or shrub, with a small root (it is calledImbunda) about the bigness of one’s thumb, half a foot long, like a white carrot. Now, when any listeth to accuse a man, or a family, or whole street, of the death of any of his friends, saying, that such a man bewitched him, theGangaassembleth the accused parties, and scrapes that root, the scrapings whereof he mixeth with water, which makes it as bitter as gall (he tasted of it); one root will serve for the trial of a hundred men. TheGangabrews the same together in gourds, and with plantain stalks hitteth everyone, after they have drunk, with certain words. Those that have received the drink walk by, till they can make urine, and then they arethereby free’d. Others abide till either urine frees them, or dizziness takes them, which the people no sooner perceive but they cry,Undoke, Undoke,239that is “naughty witch”; and he is no sooner fallen by his dizziness, but they knock him on the head, and dragging him away, hurl him over the cliff. In every Liberty240they have such drinks, which they make in case of theft, and death of any person. Every week it falls out that some or other undergoes this trial, which consumeth multitudes of people.
There be certain persons calledDunda[ndundu], which are born by negro parents, and yet are, by some unknown cause, white. They are very rare, and when such happen to be born, they are brought to the king, and become great witches: they are his councillors, and advise him of lucky and unlucky days for execution of his enterprises. When the king goes any whither theDundasgo with him, and beat the ground round about with certain exorcisms before the king sits down, and then sit down by him. They will take anything in the market, none daring to contradict them.
Kenga is the landing-place of Loanga. They have there an idol calledGumbiri, and a holy house calledMunsa Gumbiri,242kept and inhabited by an old woman, where once a year is a solemn feast, which they celebrate with drums, dances, and palm-wines; and then, they say, he speaketh under the ground. The people call himMokisso Cola,243or a strongMokisso, and say, that he comes to stay withChekoke, the idol of the banza. ThatChekokeis a negro image, made sitting on a stool; a little house is then made him. They anoint him withToccola[tacula],244which is a red colour made of a certain wood, ground on a stone, and mixed with water, wherewith they daily paint themselves, from the waist upwards, esteeming it a great beauty; otherwise they account not themselves ready. It is for like purposes carried from hence to Angola.
Sometimes it falls out that some man or boy is taken with some sudden enthusiasm, or ravishment, becoming mad, and making a whooping and great clamours.
They call themMokisso-Moquat245that is, taken of theMokisso. They clothe them very handsomely, and whatever they bid in that fit (for it lasteth not very long), they execute as theMokisso’scharge.
Morumba247is thirty leagues northwards from hence, in the Mani Loango’s dominions, where he [Battell] lived nine months. There is a house, and in it a great basket, proportioned like to a hive, wherein is an image calledMorumba, whose religion extendeth far. They are sworn to this religion at ten or twelve years old; but, for probation are first put in a house, where they have hard diet, and must be mute for nine or ten days, any provocation tospeak notwithstanding. Then do they bring him beforeMorumba, and prescribe him hisKin[kina], or perpetual abstinence from some certain meat. They make a cut in his shoulder like to a half moon, and sprinkle the blood atMorumba’sfeet, and swear him to that religion. In the wound they put a certain white powder in token of his late admission; which, so long as it continueth, doth privilege him to take his meat and drink with whomsoever he pleaseth, none denying him the same, at free cost.
They also have their fatal trials before this image, where the accused party, kneeling down and clasping the hive, saith: “Mene quesa cabamba Morumba,” signifying that he comes thither to make trial of his innocence;248and if he be guilty he falls down dead; being free he is free’d.
Andrew Battell saith he knew six or seven, in his being there, that made this trial.
... Andrew Battel lived (by occasion of the Portugals treachery) with the Iagges a longer time than ever any Christian or white man had done, namely, sixteen months, and served them with their [his] musket in the wars; neither could Lopez (saith he) have true intelligence whence they came,250for the Christians at that time hadbut uncertain conjectures of them: neither after had the Portugals any conversing, but by way of commerce; but he, being betrayed, fled to them for his life, and after, by stealth, escaped from them: the only European that ever lived in their camp.
He saith they are called Iagges by the Portugals, by themselves Imbangolas*251(which name argues them to be of the Imbij and Galæ before mentioned) and come from Sierra Liona;*252that they are exceeding devourers of man’s flesh, for which they refuse beef and goats, whereof they take plenty. They have no settled habitation, but wander in an unsettled course.
They rise in harvest, and invading some country, there stay as long as they find the palms, or other sufficient means of maintenance, and then seek new adventure. For they neither plant nor sow, nor breed up cattle, and, which is more, strange, they nourish up none of their own children, although they have ten or twenty wives a man, of the properest and comeliest slaves they can take. But when they are in travail they dig a hole in the earth, which presently receiveth in that dark prison of death the newborncreature, not yet made happy with the light of life. Their reason is that they will not be troubled with education, nor in their flitting wanderings be troubled with such cumbersome burthens.253
Once, a secret providence both punisheth the father’s wickedness, and preventeth a viperous generation, if that maybe a prevention where there is a succession without generation; and as Pliny saith of the Esseni (lib. v, c. 15),Gens æterna est in qua nepto nascitur. For of the conquered nations they [the Jaga] preserve the boys from ten to twenty years of age, and bring them up as the hope of their succession, likeNegro-azimogli,254with education fitting their designs. These wear a collar about their neck in token of slavery, until they bring an enemy’s head slain in battle, and then they are uncollared, free’d, and dignified with the title of soldiers; if one of them runs away he is killed and eaten; so that, hemmed in betwixt hope and fear, they grow very resolute and adventurous, their collars breeding shame, disdain, and desperate fury, till they redeem their freedom as you have heard.
Elembe,255the great Iagge, brought with him twelve thousand of these cruel monsters from Sierra Liona, and after much mischief and spoil settled himself in Benguele,256twelve degrees from the Zone southwards, and there breedeth and groweth into a nation. But Kelandula, sometime his page, proceeds in that beastly life before mentioned, and the people of Elembe, by great troops, run to him and follow his camp in hope of spoil.
They have nofetissos, or idols. The great Iagge, or Prince, is master of all their ceremonies, and a great witch. I have seen this Kelandula (sayth our author) continue a sacrifice from sun to sun, the rites whereof are these: himself sat on a stool, in great pomp, with a cap adorned with peacocks’ feathers (which fowls, in one country calledShelambanza,257are found wild; and in one place, empaled about the grave of the king, are fifty kept and fed by an old woman, and are calledIngilla Mokisso, that is, Birds of Mokisso).258Now, about him thus set, attended forty or fifty women, each of them waving continually a zebra’s tail in their hands. There were also certain Gangas, priests or witches. Behind them were many with drums and pipes, andpungas259(certain instruments made of elephants’ teeth, made hollow a yard and a half, and with a hole like a flute, which yield a loud and harsh sound, that may be heard a mile off). These strike and sound, and sing, and the women wave (as is said) till the sun be almost down. Then they bring forth a pot, which is set on the fire with leaves and roots, and the water therein, and with a kind of white powder the witches or Gangas spot themselves, one on the one cheek, the other on the other; and likewise their foreheads, temples, breasts, shoulders, and bellies, using many enchanting terms, which are holden to be prayers for victory. At sunset a Ganga brings hisKissengula,260or war-hatchet, to the Prince (this weapon they use to wear at their girdles) and putting the same in his hands bid him to be strong, [that] their God goes with him, and he shall have victory. After this they bring him four or five negroes, of which, with a terrible countenance, thegreat Iagge with his hatchet kills two, and the other two are killed without the fort. Likewise, five kine are slain within, and other five without the fort; and as many goats and as many dogs, after the same manner.
This is their sacrifice, at the end whereof all the flesh is, in a feast, consumed. Andrew Battell was commanded to depart when the slaughter begun, for their devil, orMokisso(as they said) would then appear and speak to them.261
This sacrifice is calledKissembula262which they solemnise when they undertake any great enterprise. There were few left of the natural Iagges, but of this unnatural brood the present succession was raised.
MASTER ANTHONY KNIVET joined the second expedition of Thomas Cavendish, which left England in August, 1591. He seems to have served on board theRoebuck, of which vessel one Cocke was captain. Nothing in his narrative enables us to identify this Cocke with the Abraham Cocke of Limehouse, who was “never heard of more” after he parted from Battell on the coast of Brazil in 1590, nor with the Abram Cocke who, according to Knivet, put in at the Ilha Grande in 1598, in the hope of making prizes of some of the richly-laden Spanish vessels returning from the Rio de la Plata. Battell, surely, may be supposed to have been acquainted with the fate of his old shipmate, whilst Knivet gives no hint that the Abram Cocke of the Ilha Grandewas the captain of theRoebuck, to whom he was indebted for his life when Cavendish was about to throw him overboard in Magellan’s Strait. It is, however, just possible that there was but one Abraham Cock, who had not been heard of for some time when Battell returned to England about 1610.263
When Cavendish returned from Magellan’s Strait, he put Knivet and nineteen other sick men ashore near St. Sebastian, to shift for themselves. Knivet was ultimately taken by the Portuguese; but they spared his life, and he became the “bond-slave” of Salvador Corrêa de Sá, the Governor of Rio de Janeiro; and apart from the time he spent among the cannibal Indians, and on a voyage to Angola, he remained with his master to the end, and returned with him to Portugal in 1599.
My friend, Colonel G. Earl Church, to whom I applied for an opinion on the trustworthiness of Knivet’s statements with regard to Brazil, writes as follows:—
“Yesterday morning I spent at the R. Geo. Soc., refreshing my memory of Knivet’s extraordinary adventures. One must read them always bearing in mind the romantic spirit of the age in which they were written, and the novel surroundings in which every adventurer found himself in the New World. Giving due weight to all this, I find Knivet’s relation of his voyages singularly truthful, so far as my knowledge of Brazil goes. What he states, excepting in two or three minor particulars, clashes with no geographical, descriptive, or historical point with which I am familiar, and he often throws in a sentence which relates to facts which no man could invent, and which makes his narrative impressive with truthfulness. I utterly discard Cavendish’s opinion of his men and companions for Cavendish appears to have been one of the most cold-bloodedfreebooters who ever cut a throat or raided a settlement or scuttled a prize.”
I regret not being able to write in terms equally favourable of what Knivet claims to have experienced during his visit to Angola and Kongo. Knivet says that he ran away from bondage on June 27th, 1597, and that he reached the “port of Angola” after a perilous voyage of five months, that is in November. He then sailed up the Kwanza, and reached Masanganu, where he remained three months, when he was arrested in consequence of a requisition of his master and sent back to Brazil, which he must have reached before June, 1598. We should be quite prepared to accept this part of his story if his description of Masanganu did not show that he can never have been there. Knivet, however, is not content with such modest honours, but claims to have resided for some time at the court of the King of Kongo, and to have fallen in the hands of the Portuguese when on his road to Prester John’s country. By them he was carried to Masanganu, where he lived three months. These two accounts are absolutely irreconcilable. As to the author’s astounding geographical misstatements, I refer the reader to the notes appended to his narrative.
Continually I desired my master to give me leave to get my living, intending to come into my country, but the Governor would not let me go from him. When I saw no means to get leave of my master, I determined to run away to Angola, for to serve the King as a soldier in Massangano till such time that I might pass myself to the King of Anyeca,264which warreth against the Portugals,and so have come through Prester Johns country into Turkey.
On the seven and twentieth day of June, 1597, I embarked myself unknown to my master, in a small ship of one Emanuell Andrea, for to come for Angola. In this voyage we were driven so near the Cape of Good Hope that we thought all of us should have been cast away, the seas are there so great; and by reason of the current they brake in such sort that no ship is able to endure. There we brake both our main mast and our mizzen. It pleased God to send us the wind Eastward, which brought us to our desired harbour [of] Angola.265We had been five months in our voyage, and by that means other ships that departed two months after us were there before us.
When I heard that there were ships of the River of Ienero [Rio de Janeiro], I durst not go ashore for fear of being known of some of the Portugals. The next day after that we came into the harbour, there came a great boat aboard us, to ask if we would sell any Cassava meal. We told them we would, and asked them whither they went with their boat. They answered, that they tarried for the tide to go up to the River of Guansa [Kwanza] to Masangano. Then I thought it a fit time for my purpose, and so embarked myself in the bark. The Portugals marvelled to see me go willingly to Masangano; for there men die like chickens, and no man will go thither if he can chose.
Nine days we were going up the River of Guansa [Kwanza], in which time two Portugal soldiers died; the country is so hot that it pierceth their hearts. Three days after I had been in Masangano, Don Francisco de Mendosa Fortado,266the Governor of the city of Kongo, havingreceived a letter from Salvador Coria de Sasa [Salvador Corrêa de Sá], who was his great friend, sent a Pursuivant for me, who brought me by land through the King of Kongo’s country, and in six days we came to a town called Saint Francis267(where the Governor was), hard by the kingdom of Manicongo.
When I came before the Governor he used me very kindly in words, and asked me what I meant, to cast myself away wilfully in Masangano. Then I told him how long I had served Salvador Coria de Sasa; and in how many dangers I had been for him and his Son, without ever having any recompence of any of them, and therefore I thought it better to venture my life in the King’s service, than to live his Bond-slave. The Governor commanded me to be carried to Angola, and charged a pair of bolts to be put upon my legs, because I should not run away.
About a fortnight after I was sent back again in a Carvell [caravel] of Francis Lewes, and in two months we arrived in the River of Jenero [Rio de Janeiro], and I was carried with my bolts on my legs before the Governor; when he saw me he began to laugh and to jest with me, saying that I was welcome out of England. So, after many jests he spake, he bade pull off my bolts from my legs, and gave me clothes and used me very well.
Angola is a kingdom of itself in Ethiopia, where first the Portugals did begin to inhabit: The country of Angola cometh along the coast; as Portugal doth upon Spain, so doth Angola run upon the Kingdom of Longa [Luangu] and Manicongo.
In Angola the Portugals have a City called the Holy Ghost,268where they have great store of Merchandise, and the Moors do come thither with all kind of such things as the country yieldeth; some bring elephant’s teeth, some bring negro slaves to sell, that they take from other kingdoms which join hard by them; thus do they use once a week, as we keep markets, so do all the Blackamoors bring hens and hogs, which they call gula,269and hens they call Sange,270and a kind of beast that they take in the wilderness, like a dog, which they call ambroa:271then they have that beast which before I have told you of, called gumbe, which is bigger than a horse.272
The Blackamoors do keep good laws, and fear their King very much; the King is always attended with the nobles of his realm, and whensoever he goeth abroad, he has always at the least two hundred archers in his guard, and ten or twelve more going before him, singing and playing with pipes made of great canes, and four or five young Moorscoming after him as his pages. After them follow all his noblemen.
When there falleth out any controversy among them, they crave battle of the King, and then they fight it out before him. They come before the King and fall flat on their breasts; then they rise up and kneel upon their knees, stretching out their arms crying,Mahobeque benge, benge;273then the King striketh them on the shoulders with a horse-tail; then they go to the camp, and with their bows they fight it out till they kill one another. After the battle is done, if any liveth, he that liveth falleth down before the King in the same manner as he did when he went to the field; and after a long oration made, he taketh the horse-tail from the King’s shoulder, and waveth it about the King’s head, and then layeth it on his shoulder again, and goeth away with great honour, being accompanied with all the nobles of the Court. The Moors of Angola do know that there is a God, and do call GodCaripongoa,274but they worship the sun and the moon.
The country is champaign plain, and dry black earth, and yieldeth very little corn; the most of anything that it yieldeth is plantons [plantains], which the Portugals callbaynonas[bananas], and the Moors call themmahonge275and their wheat they calltumba,276and the breadanou; and if you will buy any bread of them, you must say,Tala cuna auen tumbola gimbo; that is,Give me some bread, here ismoney.277Their money is calledgullginbo,278a shell of a fish that they find by the shore-side; and from Brazil the Portugals do carry great store of them to Angola.
These Moors do esteem very much of red, blue and yellow cloths. They will give a slave for a span of cloth in breadth, I mean, and the length of it, of the breadth of the piece; those pieces of cloth they wear about their middles, and under it they hang the skin of a great weasel before them, and another behind them, and this is all the garments that they wear. A weasel in their language is calledpuccu.279You can do a Blackamoor no greater disgrace than to take away his skin from before him, for he will die with grief if he cannot be revenged.
The Portugals do mark them as we do sheep, with a hot iron, which the Moors callcrimbo.280The poor slaves stand all in a row one by another, and singMundele que sumbela he Carey ha belelelle,281and thus the poor rogues are beguiled, for the Portugals make them believe that they that have not the mark is not accounted a man of any account in Brazil or in Portugal, and thus they bring the poor Moors to be in a most damnable bondage under the cover of love.
The country of Angola yieldeth no stone, and very little wood: the Moors do make their houses all covered with earth.These houses are no bigger than a reasonable chamber, and within are many partitions, like the cabins of a ship, in such sort that a man cannot stand upright in them. Their beds are made of great bulrushes sewed together with the rinds of a tree. They do make cloth like spark of velvet (but it is thinner) of the bark of a tree, and that cloth they do callmollelleo.282
The elephants do feed in the evening and in the morning in low marshes, as there be many. The Moors do watch which way they come, and as soon as the elephants are at meat, they dig great holes in the ground, and cover them with sticks, and then they cover the pits with earth; and when they have made all ready they go to the elephants and shoot at them with their arrows; and as soon as the elephants feel themselves hurt, they run at whatsoever they see before them, following after the Blackamores that chase them. Then they fall into the deep pits where, after they are once in, they cannot get out.
The Moors of Angola are as black as jet; they are men of good stature; they never take but one wife, whom they callmocasha.283These Moors do cut long streaks in their faces, that reach from the top of their ears to their chins. The women do wear shells of fishes284on their arms, and on the small of their legs. The law amongst them is, that if any Moor do lie with another’s wife, he shall lose his ears for his offence. These Moors do circumcise their children, and give them their names, as we do when we baptize.
Angola may very easily be taken, for the Portugals have no forts to defend it of any strength.
The King285of Congo is the greatest King in all Ethiopia;and doth keep in the field continually sixty thousand soldiers, that do war against the King of Vangala,286and the King of Angola; this King is a Christian, and his brother-in-law of arms with the King of Spain. His servants of his house are most of them all Portugals, and he doth favour them very much.
The King is of a very liberal condition, and very favourable to all travellers, and doth delight very much to hear of foreign countries. He was in a manner amazed to hear how it was possible Her Majesty [Queen Elizabeth] had lived a maiden Queen so long, and always reigned in peace with her subjects. When I was brought before the King, and told him of my country, what plenty of things we had, if the Portugals had not liked of it, they would interrupt my speech, and the King would show himself very angry, and tell them that every man was best able to speak of his country, and that I had no reason but to tell him that which was true.
The King of Congo, when he goeth to the camp to see his army, rideth upon an elephant in great pomp and majesty; on either side of the elephant he hath six slaves. Two of them were kings, that he himself had taken in the field; all the rest were of noble birth; some of them were brothers to the King of Ancica, and some of them were of the chiefest blood of the great King of Bengala. These noble slaves, at every command of the King of Congo, do fall flat on the ground on their breasts. When the King doth ride, as you have heard, they carry a canopy, as it were a cloth of state, over his head. His two secretaries, the one a nobleman of Spain, the other a Moor, do ride next after him. Before him goeth at the least five hundred archers which are his guard; then there followeth a Moor, whichdoth nothing but talk aloud in praise of the King, telling what a great warrior he hath been, and praising his wisdom for all things that he hath accomplished very honourably to his great fame of such as knew him.
When this King of Congo cometh to his host, all the soldiers, as he passeth, fall flat on their faces to the ground. He never cometh into his host after any battle, but he dubbeth at the least twenty Knights Portugals, and as many Moors, giving them very great living according to their callings, and the service that they have done. The brother of this King was in Spain at my coming from thence for ambassador from his brother.287
Here the Portugal Captain would have taken me perforce, to have been a common soldier, but the King commanded that they should let me go whither I would, and my determination at that time was to have gone for the country of Prester John [Abyssinia], for I had a great desire to see the River of Nilo and Jerusalem (for I accounted myself as a lost man, not caring into what country or kingdom I came) But it was not the will of God that I should at that time obtain my desire, for travelling through the kingdom of Congo, to have gone to the kingdom of Angila,288it was my fortune to meet a company of Portugal soldiers that went to a conquest that the King of Spain had newly taken, called Masangana; which place is on the borders of Anguca. Here they made me serve like a drudge, for both day and night I carried some stone and lime to make a fort.
It lyeth right under the Line, and standeth in a bottomin the middle of four hills, and about are many fogges [bogs] but not one river.289It is the unfirmest country under the sun. Here the Portugals die like chickens. You shall see men in the morning very lusty, and within two hours dead. Others, that if they but wet their legs, presently they swell bigger than their middles;290others break in the sides with a draught of water. O, if you did know the intolerable heat of the country, you would think yourself better a thousand times dead, than to live there a week. There you shall see poor soldiers lie in troops, gaping like camelians [camels?] for a puff of wind.
Here lived I three months, not as the Portugals did, taking of physick, and every week letting of blood and keeping close in their houses when they had any rain, observing hours, and times to go abroad morning and evening, and never to eat but at such and such times. I was glad when I had got anything at morning, noon, or night; I thank God I did work all day from morning till night; had it been rain or never so great heat, I had always my health as well as I have in England.
This country is very rich. The king had great store of gold291sent him from this place: the time that I was there, the King of Angica had a great city at Masangana; which city Paulas Dias, Governor of Angola, took and situated there; and finding hard by it great store of gold, fortified it with four forts, and walled a great circuit of ground round about it, and within that wall; now the Portugals do build a city, and from this city every day they do war againstthe King of Angica, and have burnt a great part of his kingdom.
The Angicas292are men of goodly stature; they file their teeth before on their upper jaw, and on their under jaw, making a distance between them like the teeth of a dog; they do eat man’s flesh; they are the stubbornest nation that lives under the sun, and the resolutest in the field that ever man saw; for they will rather kill themselves than yield to the Portugals. They inhabit right under the line, and of all kinds of Moors these are the blackest. They do live in the law of the Turks, and honour Mahomet. They keep many concubines, as the Turks do; they wash themselves every morning upwards, falling flat on their faces towards the east. They wear their hair all made in plaits on their heads, as well men as women; they have good store of wheat, and a kind of grain like vetches, of which they make bread: they have great store of hens like partridges, and turkeys, and all their feathers curl on their backs. Their houses are like the other houses of the kingdoms aforenamed.
And thus I end, showing you as brief as I can, all the nations and kingdoms, that, with great danger of my life, I travelled through in twelve years of my best age, getting no more than my travel for my pain. From this kingdom, Angica, was I brought in irons again to my master, Salvador Corea de Sasa, to the City of San Sebastian in Brazil, as you have heard.