If That In The Text, The Latitude 1s Erroneous A Degree And A Half.

- E.]

Among others of the natives who came to this place to trade with the Portuguese, was a king named _Bruto Chembanga_ with above 500 fighting men. His sons were almost white, with long hair, wearing gowns and breeches of cotton of several colours with silver buttons and bracelets and several ornaments of gold, set with pearls and coral. The territory of this king was named _Matacassi_, bordering on _Enseroe_ to the west. He said that the Portuguese were all dead, who not far from that place had built a town of stone houses, where they worshipped the cross, on the foot or pedestal of which were unknown characters. He drew representations of all these things on the sand, and demanded a high reward for his intelligence. Some of his people wore crosses, and informed the Portuguese that there were two ships belonging to the Hollanders in port _St Lucia_ or _Mangascafe_. In a small island at this place there was found a _square stone fort_[14], and at the foot of it the arms of Portugal were carved on a piece of marble, with this inscription

REX PORTUGALENSIS O S.

[Footnote 14: This is unintelligible as it stands in the text. It may possibly have been a square stone pedestal for one of the crosses of discovery, that used to be set up by the Portuguese navigators as marks of possession. - E.]

Many conjectures were formed to account for the signification of the circle between the two last letters of this inscription, but nothing satisfactory could be discovered.

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