Sofala

“ The ancient kingdom of Sofala extended north to the Luavo mouth of the Zambesi; and to the south, as far as the river Sofala, formerly to the river Sabia; and west as far as the kingdom of Manica.
The kingdom of Sofala, like all those comprehending Monomotapa Proper, is rich in mines of gold, silver, copper, and iron; precious stones of every variety have been found in this region, and may be obtained in considerable quantities.
The sugar cane, coffee, and indigo are growing [218] everywhere, while wheat is grown on the uplands. ”

“ The fire-ship that once in every moon goes in and comes out of Pangu bay." More he did not know of her. And just as he had detected the faint rhythm of the propeller beating the calm water a mile and a half away, the time would come for the Sofala to alter her course, the lights would swing off him their triple beam--and disappear.
A few miserable, half-naked families, a sort of outcast tribe of long-haired, lean, and wild-eyed people, strove for their living in this lonely wilderness of islets, lying like an abandoned outwork of the land at the gates of the bay. ”

“ Suddenly the vigorous strokes of the hoe ceased, its sharp broad edge had struck something, and the missionary stooping lifted that something, tossed it on the bank, and jumped out of the grave. A piece of massive masonry overshadowed the spot casting a long dark shadow over the Kaffir’s resting-place among the ruins of Sofala, as snatching up what looked like a mere stone, Wyzinski stepped into the moonlight and began rubbing away the sand and dust from what proved to be a bar of pure gold, evidently smelted and worked into its present shape. ”

“ Noti slept beneath the shadow of the ruins of Sofala, the restless surf moaning over his grave. The lions had killed him, but Luji’s ashes, reduced to fine dust, were blowing over the plains before the night breeze, when the moon shone forth over the sorcerer’s hut and the smoke-begrimed rock.
The Amatonga nature had proved more relentless than the lions, the man more savage than the beast. ”

“ Sofala Harbour, once capable of holding a hundred large vessels, is silting up and is obstructed by a bar. Ruins exist of the strong fort built by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Previous to its conquest by the Portuguese in 1505 Sofala was the chief town of a wealthy Mahommedan state, Arabs having established themselves there in the 12th century or earlier. At one time it formed part of the sultanate of Kilwa (q.v.) . Sofala was visited by the Portuguese Jew, Pero de Covilhão, in 1489, who was attracted thither by the reports of gold-mines of which Sofala was the port. ”

“ There is another small fort at Inhambane, and both these establishments are annexed to Sofala, and kept up for the purpose of collecting ivory, which the neighbouring forests abundantly supply. Sofala itself is a miserable village; but the country around is extremely fertile, and furnishes considerable quantities of rice, oranges, and many exquisite fruits to the inhabitants of Mosambique. ”

“ After remaining some time at Cape Verd waiting in vain for the missing ships, Cabral proceeded on his voyage, and arrived safe at Lisbon on the last day of July, in the year 1501. Soon after his arrival, the ship which had separated in a storm off the Cape of Good Hope, came in; and shortly after that, Sancho de Toar arrived from Sofala. He described Sofala as a small island close on the continent of Africa, inhabited by a black people called Caffres; and reported that much gold is brought to this place from certain mines on the adjacent continent ”

“ The king of Sofala who dared to survive the loss of his front tooth was thus a bold reformer like Ergamenes, king of Ethiopia. We may conjecture that the ground for putting the Ethiopian kings to death was, as in the case of the Zulu and Sofala kings, the appearance on their person of any bodily defect or sign of decay; and that the oracle which the priests alleged as the authority for the royal execution was to the effect that great calamities would result from the reign of a king who had any blemish on his body ”

“ The kingdom of Sofala, now called Sena by the Portuguese who monopolize its whole trade, is of great extent, being 750 leagues in circumference; but the inland parts are all subject to the Monomotapa, who is emperor of this southern part of Africa, his dominions being likewise known by the same name of Monomotapa, called by the ancients Ethiopia Inferior. This country is watered by two famous rivers, called Rio del Espiritu Santo and Cuama, the latter of which is navigable 250 leagues above its mouth. ”

“ Sofala was anciently a monopoly of Makdishu, which traded with it for gold on condition of sending every year a few young men to improve the ‘Kafir’ race, the latter highly valuing the comparatively white blood. ”

“ The harbour is very good, the town is plentifully supplied with such provisions as the country produces, the houses being constructed of straw, and the inhabitants Moors, who trade to Sofala in large vessels that have neither decks nor nails, their planks being sewed together with cayro or twine, made from the fibres of the cocoa nut rind, and their sails of mats made of the leaves of a species of palm. ”

“ After a display of great ingenuity and considerable research, in the endeavour to prove Ophir situated in Arabia, India, and even Peru, I think it will be at length allowed that Sofala, on the east coast of Africa, is indubitably the Ophir of Solomon. ”

“ These ruins by the big water the Batonga call ‘Sofala,’ but to the northward and westward lies a large kraal. It is some days’ journey from Sofala and Gorongoza. Near Manica lie great forests of strange trees, and among those trees lie broken stone huts. In the mountains are caves, where the leopards and the lions hide. The white chief may leave his life there, but he will not see them. ”

“ The natives between Delagoa Bay and Sofala have always been a subject of great anxiety to the Portuguese ever since their settlement in Eastern Africa.
There are numerous rivers running down to the coast to the southward of Inhambane, and indeed it is said to be one of the best watered portions of this side of the great continent. Some of these rivers are navigable for small craft; but all are more or less difficult of access in consequence of the bars at their entrance, formed by their own deposit at their mouths, being acted upon by the stream already named and the local monsoons. ”

“ On entering within this country of Sofala, there is the kingdom of Benamatapa, which is very large and peopled by Gentiles, whom the Moors call Cafers. These are brown men, who go bare, but covered from the waist downwards with coloured stuffs, or skins of wild animals; and the persons most in honour among them wear some of the tails of the skin behind them, which go trailing on the ground for state and show, and they make bounds and movements of their bodies, by which they make these tails wag on either side of them. ”

“ And in the said Benamatapa, which is a very large town, the king is used to make his longest residence; and it is thence that the merchants bring to Sofala the gold which they sell to the Moors without weighing it, for coloured stuffs and beads of Cambay, which are much used and valued amongst them ”

“ The attackers were driven off and the Arabs forced to acknowledge Portuguese rule. In 1509 a captain of Sofala and a factor, or chief trader, were sent out, and from this time the trade of the port fell to the Portuguese. Sofala, however, was not a suitable harbour for the refitting and provisioning of ships on the way to India, and to obtain such a port Mozambique was seized and fortified in 1507. By 1510 the Portuguese were masters of all the former Arab sultanates on the East African coast. ”

“ Various points on the eastern coast of Africa have been fixed upon, but generally the conclusion is in favour of Sofala, which I am inclined [340] to think is the correct position. João dos Sanctos tells us, as we find it in Purchas:—
“Near to Massapa is a great hill called Fura, whence may be discerned a great part of the kingdom of Monomotapa, for which cause he (the king) will not suffer the Portuguese to go thither, that they should not covet his great country and hidden mines. ”

“ When I was in Sofala it happened that King Sedanda was seized with a severe and contagious leprosy, and seeing that his complaint was incurable, having named the prince who was to succeed him, he took poison and died, according to the custom of those kings when they are afflicted with any physical deformity.”73
Kings required to be unblemished. ”

“ The fleet, or ship, for Sofala, parting in June from Ezion-gaber, would run down before the northern monsoon to Mocha. Here, not the monsoon, but the direction of the Gulf changes, and the violence of the south-westers, which then reign in the Indian Ocean, make themselves at times felt even in Mocha Roads. The vessel therefore comes to an anchor in the harbour of Mocha, and here she waits for moderate weather and a fair wind, 437 which carries her out of the Straits of Babelmandeb, through the few leagues where the wind is variable. ”

“ Among the Arabs of Moab a childless woman often borrows the robe of a woman who has had many children, hoping with the robe to acquire the fruitfulness of its owner. The Caffres of Sofala, in East Africa, had a great dread of being struck with anything hollow, such as a reed or a straw, and greatly preferred being thrashed with a good thick cudgel or an iron bar, even though it hurt very much. For they thought that if a man were beaten with anything hollow, his inside would waste away till he died. ”

“ Farther on the elevated ridges, whose axis continues the line of waterparting between the Limpopo and Zambese affluents, are disposed beyond the sources of the Sabi in an oblique direction with the coastline of the Sofala district. Here the highest chain, dominated by Mount Doe, which, according to Kuss, attains an altitude of 8,000 feet, presents the aspect less of a group of mountains than of an irregular plateau. Here is situated the Manica district, which has become famous for its gold-fields. ”

“ This he truly represented as quite practicable: “to this they (of Portugal) could navigate by their coast and the seas of Guinea.” The first objective in the eastern ocean, he added, was Sofala or the Island of the Moon, our Madagascar—“from each of these lands one can fetch the coast of Calicut.” ”

“ The Portuguese possessions, he says, beginning at Sofala, being the first beyond the Cape of Good Hope, are Mozambique, Ornuus, Diu, Gor, Coulan, Onore, Mangalore, Cochin, Columbo, Negapatam, Portogrande or Chittigong in Bengal, Malacca, and Macao in China, with the islands of Molucca and Amboyna. That the Portuguese likewise trade to Monomotapa, Melinda, Aden, Arabia, Cambaya or Guzerat, the coast of Coromandel, Balagate, and Orissa. ”

“ They are very feeble people, with very few and despicable weapons. In these islands they live in great luxury, and abundance; they dress in very good cloths of silk and cotton, which they buy in Mombaza of the merchants from Cambay, who reside there. Their wives adorn themselves with many jewels of gold from Sofala, and silver, in chains, ear-rings, bracelets, and ankle rings, and are dressed in silk stuffs: and they have many mosques, and hold the Alcoran of Mahomed. ”

“ Green the first Lieutenant, and myself set out at day light, to look for the harbour and town of Sofala. After leaving the vessel we sailed straight for the point, which we conceived to be Inancata, having regular soundings decreasing as we advanced. On approaching the point we found breakers extending a considerable way from it, which we rounded in one and a half fathom, when the water became deeper, and a second point opened beyond, to which we directed our course. On reaching it the sea was perfectly smooth, to the beach, and we determined, in consequence, to land. ”

“ Having, by his perseverance and address, overcome the opposition of the elements and the mutineers in his fleet, he rounded the great promontory of Africa, and by his subsequent success, earned for himself the proud distinction, throughout all ages, of having been the first who reached India by that route.
Anxious to visit Sofala, discovered by his countryman Covilham, he followed the coast of Africa from its southern extreme. He anchored in Saint Blasse Bay, after leaving which, he arrived at the island of Santa Cruz, which was the limit of the discoveries of his predecessor Diaz. ”

“ He accepted a passage to Sofala offered him by Pedro Barreto, who had become viceroy of Mozambique in that year. Unable to refund the amount of the passage, he was once more held for debt and spent two years of misery and distress in Mozambique, completing and polishing during this time his great epic song and preparing the collection of his lyrics, his 'Parnasso.' In 1559 he was released by the historian Diogo do Couto and other friends of his, visiting Sofala with the expedition of Noronha, and embarked on the Santa Clara for Lisbon. ”

“ They were superior to the native blacks, though mixed in blood, but of course far inferior to the Portuguese, who overthrew their power. In 1505 the Portuguese built a fort at Sofala, and from there and several other points along the coast prosecuted their trade with the inland regions, using the conquered Arabs as their agents. For a century they remained the sole masters not only of the South-east African seaboard, but of the Indian Ocean, no vessel of any other European country appearing to dispute their pre-eminence. ”

“ The ruins of Maniça, north-west of Sofala, and west of and inland from the East African ghauts, are described as being situated in a valley enclosed by an amphitheatre of hills, having a circuit of about two miles. According to Mr. M'Leod, the district is called Matouca (the Matuka of Dr. Livingstone's map) , and the gold-washing tribes Botongos. [17] The spots containing the metal are known by the bare and barren surface. The natives dig in any small crevice made by the rains of the preceding winter, and there find gold dust. ”