12. Battell was present at the building of the presidio of Kambambe by Manuel Cerveira Pereira in 1604; and stayed there till 1606, when news was received of the death of Queen Elizabeth, and he was promised his liberty. The Queen died March 24th, 1603.
13. A journey to Mbamba, Kongo, etc., may have taken up six months.
14. The Governor having “denied his word,” and a new Governor being daily expected, Battell secretly left the city, spent six months on the Dande, and was ultimately landed at Luangu. (The new Governor expected was only appointed in August, 1607; and his arrival was actually delayed.)
15. In Luangu, Battell spent two years and a half—say up to 1610.
Great pains have been taken by me with the maps illustrating this volume; and, if the outcome of my endeavour does not differ in its broad features from the maps furnished by M. d’Anville, in 1732, to Labat’s Relation Historique de l’Éthiopie Occidentale, this should redound to the credit of the great French geographer, but should not be accounted a proof of lack of industry on my own part. Still, my maps exhibit an advance in matters of detail, for our knowledge of the country has increased considerably since the days of d’Anville. They would have proved still more satisfactory had the Portuguese thought it worth while to produce a trustworthy map of a colony of which they had claimed possession during four centuries. It seems almost incredible that even now many of the routes followed by the Conquistadores and missionaries of old cannot be laid down upon a modern map for lack of information. Sonyo, for instance, through which led the high road followed by soldiers, traders, and missionaries going up to San Salvador (the present route leaves the Kongo River at Matadi), is almost a terra incognita. I am almost ashamed to confess that I have even failed to locate the once-famous factory of Mpinda; all I can say is, that it cannot have occupied the site assigned to it on some Portuguese maps.
I need hardly say that modern research lends no support to the extravagant claims of certain geographers as to the knowledge of Inner Africa possessed by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Pigafetta’s fantastic map, with its elaborate system of lakes and rivers, merely proves the utter incapacity of its author to deal with questions of critical geography. This has long since been recognised. The map which accompanies Isaac Vossius’s De Nili et aliorum Fluminum Origine (Hagae Com., 1659) only shows one lake in Inner Africa, which borders on “Nimeamaie vel Monemugi,” and may without hesitation be identified with our Nyasa: for the Monemugi (Muene Muji) is the chief of the Maravi or Zimbas. The “Iages, gens barbara et inculta,” are placed right in the centre of Africa. The “Fungeni,” which are shown as neighbours of the “Macoco,” ought to have been placed to the west of Abyssinia, as they are the Funj, or Fung, of the Egyptian Sudan. If Ludolfus had carried out his intention of compiling a map of the whole of Africa (in 1681), these extravagancies of early map-makers would have been exposed more fully long since.[7]
In collecting materials for the maps and for the notes illustrating Battell’s narrative, I felt bound to consult all accessible literary sources dealing with the history and geography of Kongo and Angola. Whilst ploughing my way through this mass of material, it struck me that a concise history of these African countries, from the time of their discovery to the end of the seventeenth century, might form an acceptable appendix to Battell’s Adventures, and at the same time increase the bulk of the volume dedicated to him to more respectable proportions. Much material of use for such a purpose has seen the light since the publication of J. J. Lopes de Lima’s historical sketches. Yet I am bound to confess that the result of all this tedious labour is disappointing. I may have been able to rectify a few dates and facts; but much remains to be done before we can claim to be in possession of a trustworthy history of that part of Africa. Possibly my little sketch may rouse a Portuguese into taking up the work of the late Luciano Cordeiro. Many documents not yet published should be discoverable in the archives of Portugal, Spain, and Luandu.[8]
The spelling of the proper names mentioned by Battell is retained, as a matter of course; but it is obvious that in the historical appendices the various ways in which native names are spelt had to be reduced to a common system. Much might be said in favour of accepting the Portuguese manner of spelling, but after due consideration I decided to adopt the system now generally followed (even by a few Portuguese writers), viz., that all vowels should be sounded as in Italian, and the consonants as in English, with the only exception that the letter g should always be hard. I therefore write Sonyo, instead of Sonho, Sogno, or Sonjo, as the name of that district is spelt according to the nationality of the writer. In transcribing the native names I have had the unstinted assistance, among others, of the Rev. Thomas Lewis, of the Baptist Missionary Society; yet I am fully aware that the spelling adopted for many names is at least doubtful, if not absolutely incorrect. This arises quite as much from a defective hearing on the part of my authorities, as from the illegibility of many early manuscripts or the carelessness of copyists. All such doubtful cases are dealt with in the Glossary and Index.