This gentleman was so bountiful at his coming that his fame was spread through all Congo, and many mulatoes and negroes came voluntarily to serve him. And being some six months in the city he marched to the Outaba of Tombo,[115] and there shipped his soldiers in pinnaces, and went up the river Consa or Coanza, and landed at the Outaba of Songo,[116] sixty miles from the sea. This lord Songo is next to Demba, where the salt-mines be. In this place there is such store of salt that most part of the country are perfect clear salt, without any earth or filth in it, and it is some three feet under the earth as it were ice; and they cut it out in stones of a yard long, and it is carried up into the country, and is the best commodity that a man can carry to buy anything whatsoever.
Here the Governor staid ten days, and sent a pinnace to Masangano for all the best soldiers that were there. So the captain of the castle sent me down among a hundred soldiers, and I was very well used by the Governor; and he made me a sergeant of a Portugal company, and then he marched to Machimba,[117] from thence to Cauo, and then to Malombe, a great lord. Here we were four days, and many lords came and obeyed us. From thence we marched to a mighty lord called Angoykayongo,[118] who stood in the defence of his country with more than sixty thousand men. So we met with him, and had the victory, and made a great slaughter among them. We took captives all his women and children, and settled ourselves in his town, because it was a very pleasant place, and full of cattle and victuals. And being eight days in this town the Governor sickened and died, and left a captain in his room to perform the service.
[Manuel Cerveira Pereira carries on the war.]
After we had been two months in the country of Angoykayongo we marched towards Cambambe, which was but three days’ journey, and came right against the Serras da Prata, and passed the river Coanza, and presently overran the country, and built a fort hard by the riverside. Here I served two years.
They opened the silver-mines, but the Portugals did not like of them as yet, because they yielded small share of silver.[119]
This new upstart governor was very cruel to his soldiers, so that all his voluntary men left him; and by this means he could go no further.
At this time there came news by the Jesuits that the Queen of England was dead, and that King James had made peace with Spain.[120] Then I made a petition to the Governor, who granted me licence to go into my country; and so I departed with the Governor and his train to the city of St. Paul. But he left five hundred soldiers in the fort of Cambambe, which they hold still.[121]
[A Trading Trip to Congo.]
Then I went with a Portugal merchant to the province of Bamba, and from thence to the Outeiro [“hill”], or city standing upon a mountain of Congo,[122] from thence to Gongon[123] and Batta,[124] and there we sold our commodities and returned in six months to the city [Loanda] again.