Huma cidade nella situada
Que da fronte do mar apparecia;
De nobres edificios fabricada
Como por fóra ao longe descobria;
Regida por hum Rei de antigua idade,
Mombaça he o nome da ilha e da cidade.
Lusiad, i. 103.
[4]. In 1823 the Arabs informed Capt. Boteler ‘that in some rivers in the vicinity gold in small quantities was at times procured’ (Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, &c., vol. ii., chap. i.).
[5]. The racial name of these wandering Lestrigons, so formidable to the Portuguese in the 16th century, and taken from a title of honour, ‘Captains of warlike nomades,’ is thus confused by Prichard (Natural History of Man): ‘In 1569 the same people are said to have been completely routed on the Eastern coast, near Mombasa, after having laid waste the whole region of Monomotapa.’ He may have heard of the Highland of Chaga, whose people, however, call themselves not Wachaga, but Wakirima—mountaineers. Or he may have known that the Portuguese inscription over the Fort Gate at Mombasah declares that in A.D. 1635 the Capitão Mor, Francisco de Xeixas e Cabrera, had subjugated, amongst others, the King of Jaca or Jaga. Jaca is also mentioned by J. de Barros (ii. 1, 2). M. Guillain (vol. ii. chap. xxii.) makes ‘Chaka’ a town between Melinde and the mouth of the Ozi river. We find ‘the Jages, Anthropophagos,’ in Walker’s Map, No. 4, Universal Atlas, 1811.
[6]. Messrs J. Schön and Samuel Crowther’s Journals with the Niger Expedition of 1841. London, 1842.