Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/66

 which they were fortunate enough to effect by patching up a treaty with the Quitéve, in which they agreed for the future to pay a tribute of two hundred pieces of cloth annually, for a passage through his dominions. Such was the end of what J. Dos Santos calls "the glorious expedition of the great Baretto, whose actions so much excite the envy of nations."

The second expedition was of a similar description, but still more disastrous in its termination. It was undertaken from the settlement at Senà, on the river Zambezi, against the Mongas, whom I conceive to be tribes of the same people I have described under the name of Monjou. I am led to this conclusion, not only from the similarity of the names, but from the resemblance of the native language given by J. Dos Santos, to that of the Monjou in my vocabulary, a circumstance that also makes me incline to believe it not improbable, that the same language may be spoken throughout all the dominions of the Quitéve. The Mongas, after a severe conflict, were in the first instance defeated, owing to their reliance on the incantations of an old woman, pretending to the character of a sorceress, who led them on to the combat, and who unluckily was killed by a cannon ball in the first onset, a circumstance so agreeable to the views of the Portuguese general, that he rewarded the gunner with a golden chain from his own neck. The result of this hard-gained battle, was a truce, by which the Portuguese were to be allowed free admittance into the country. This enabled them in some degree to examine the interior, and for the first time they passed the forest of Lupata, which they foolishly named "the spine of the world," on account of "the high and terrible rocks by which it is environed, that appear, as well as the trees, to stretch their heads into the clouds." From this probably exaggerated description, sprung that formidable chain of mountains, which has ever since ornamented the maps of Eastern Africa, furnishing a remarkable instance of the ill effects, that may arise from a name originally being misapplied.