[436] However, there are two sides to this dispute, and it may well be doubted whether the natives would not have been better off under a Jesuit theocracy than they were under an utterly corrupt body of civil officials. See P. Guerreiro, Relação anual de 1605, p. 625, and Lopes de Lima, p. xviii.
[437] Erroneously called Adenda by most authors. Battell is the first to give the correct name.
[438] Garcia Mendes, p. 24.
[439] They were “converts” from the Casa Pia founded by D. Maria, the queen of D. Manuel—not reformed criminals, but converted Jewesses.
[440] Battell gives some account of this campaign. See also Garcia Mendes, p. 11. Ngombe a Mukiama, one of the Ndembu to the north of the Mbengu, may be a descendant of this Ngombe (see Luis Simplico Fonseca’s account of “Dembos” in An. do conselho ultram., ii, p. 86).
[441] Upon this Spaniard was conferred the habit of the Order of Christ, he was granted a pension of 20,000 reis, and appointed “marcador dos esclavos,” an office supposed to yield I,000 cruzados a year (Rebello de Aragão, p. 23).
[442] Luciano Cordeiro (Terras e Minas, p. 7), says that, according to local tradition, the first presidio of that name was at Kasenga, a village which we are unable to discover on any map.