Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/63

 When the Portuguese in the beginning of the sixteenth century, examined the coast, they found the whole of it in the undisturbed possession of the Arabs; but the fame of the gold mines, and the convenience of the ports, as resting places for the Indian trade, shortly induced them to drive out, or reduce to subjection, these original settlers. Their superiority in arms enabled them speedily to accomplish this object. In 1505-6, they gained by treachery, permission to establish the Fort of Sofala. About the same time they conquered Quiloa, and there erected a fort; and in 1508 (Vide Marmol, p. 129, ch. xxxvi.) established the one I have described, on the Island of Mosambique. They also proceeded to encroach gradually on the Mahomedan possessions in the river Zambezi, which led to the gold marts in the interior; and in 1569, or thereabouts, they completely cleared that river of the Arabs, by putting to death, or, in plainer terms, murdering all those that remained, on an unproved charge of having attempted to poison some Portuguese horses; though the real cause appears to have been, that, as they were proceeding on an incursion into the interior, they did not dare to leave them behind. To follow any European settlers through the scenes of bloodshed and injustice, by which they have established their foreign possessions, is an ungrateful, and disgusting task. It will here be sufficient to observe, that, in the atrocity of the means which the Portuguese used to attain their purposes in the East, they were not behind-hand with the Spaniards in the West. Their success, however, was by no means parallel. The natives of Africa were not tame enough, like the feeble inhabitants of South America, to crouch at the feet of an invader, or to yield their country without a struggle. On the contrary, they from the first undertook, and maintained a kind of warfare, which, if not always successful, at least deserves to be so. They fought, and they retired. They left their towns and their plantations a prey to the devastations of