The capital city of this kingdom was named Mbanza, which in their tongue only means “the city” or “the royal court,” and when the Portugals settled here they named it São Salvador de Mbanza, which is how it is called now. Though it was somewhat fallen from its greatest days, owing to the Jaqqa invasion of thirty years ago and other calamities, yet was it still a grand sight as we came upon it, traveling as we had through thick forest, past marsh and swamp, over ravines and rivers, to the highland on which it is seated, about one hundred fifty miles from the sea.
It is upon a great and high mountain that the Portugals call Outeiro, being almost all of rock, but yet having a vein of iron in it, whereof they have very great use in their housing. This mountain has in the top of it a great plain, very fertile and furnished with houses and villages, containing in circuit about ten miles, where there do dwell and live the number of one hundred thousand persons. The soil is fruitful, and the air fresh, wholesome, and pure: there are great store of springs of good water, and of all sorts of cattle great abundance.
This town of São Salvador has neither enclosure nor wall, except a little on the south side, which the first king built and afterwards gave to the Portugals to inhabit. Also enclosed are the royal palace and the houses of the nobility. In the midst between the Portuguese district and the royal compound is a great space, where the principal church is set, with a fair marketplace beyond it. The walls of the Portuguese town and the king’s are very thick, but the gates are not shut in the night time, neither is there any watch or ward kept therein. The buildings of the great men are of chalk and stone, but all the rest are of straw, very neatly wrought: the lodgings, dining-rooms, galleries, and other apartments, are hung after the European manner, with mats of an exquisite curiosity. Within the innermost courts are gardens, pleasantly stored with variety of herbs, and planted with several sorts of trees. There are ten or eleven churches, in honor of various saints, and a Jesuit college, and schools where youths are brought up and taught the Latin and Portuguese tongues.
We called first at the court of the king. This monarch’s name was Don Alvaro II, though his private name was Nempanzu a Mini, but it was an offense to call him that, it not being Christian. He had already been king more than thirty years and was said to be a zealous Christian, but not fond of the Portugals. Cabral told me that he had given favor lately to Dutch merchants, of whom many now abounded in the Kongo; and I knew already that this king had leagued himself several times with the King of Angola and other enemies of the Portugals during the wars.
Yet did he receive us graciously enough, and in high pomp. When we came upon him, amid a great noise of trumpets, fifes, drums, and cornets, we found him clad with a scarlet cloak and gold buttons, and white buskins upon carnation silk stockings. Cabral remarked that he has new clothes every day, which I could hardly believe in a country where fine stuffs and good tailors are scarce. Before him went twenty-four young blacks, all sons of dukes or marquises of this kingdom, who wore about their middles a handkerchief of palm-cloth dyed black, and a cloak of blue European cloth hanging down to the ground, but all of them bareheaded and barefooted.
Near to his majesty was an official who carried his sun-shade of silk, of a fire-color laced with gold, and another who carried a chair of carnation velvet, with gold nails, and the wood all gilt. Two others clad in red coats carried his red hammock, but I know not whether it was silk, or dyed cotton. We bowed and saluted His Majesty, who spoke with us in passing good Portuguese, and asked me if I was a Dutchman.
I said I was English, and he found that worth noting, saying, “There has never been an Englishman to this court. Come closer, and let me see you near.”
Which I did, whereupon he spied the Jaqqa markings on my face, and said, “What are these, and how did you come by them?”
“They were placed on me by the man-eaters, when I was captive among them.”
At that he made the sign of the cross, and told me how when he was a child the Jaqqas had come into this city, and slaughtered thousands and driven his father to take refuge on the Hippopotamus Island in the Zaire River. All this I already knew, but I listened most attentively. Then he asked me if I had seen with mine own eyes, in my sojourn with those folk, the great Jaqqa Imbe Calandola.
“That I did,” said I, “and a most frightsome being he is.”
“Then he is real, and not just a tale told to frighten boys?”
“He is as real as is Your Majesty, by my faith!”
“And he is a monster?”
“He is most frightsome,” I did say again, and nothing more, not wishing to speak of the feasts and other secret things that I had shared with the Lord Imbe-Jaqqa.
King Alvaro closed his eyes, and seemed to brood inward; and then after a time he said, “It is fated that the Jaqqas will eat the world, and bring us all unto judgment, but that Christ will rise upon the last and overthrow them. I hope that warfare is long yet in the coming.”
“As do I, most fervently, Your Majesty,” I responded, thinking that this was a most strange kind of Christianity that had the gentle Savior doing battle with the terrible Imbe-Jaqqa at the end of the world. But I did not say it. I think these people are very fine Christians indeed, that obey their priests and go to Mass and all the rest, but I do quietly suspect that mixed into their catechism is a very great store of encrusted pagan belief, that would give high surprise to the men of the Vatican if they did but know. Yet that is no business of mine, if these good black Romans have stirred a few mokissos into their creed, and have made an Antichrist out of Calandola. For all faiths are true faiths, and if the Imbe-Jaqqa be not an Archfiend he is something very close upon it.
When we had paid our respects, and met other members of the court and certain sons of the king, both true ones and bastards (for so were they introduced to us) we were free to go about our trading. Cabral had brought to this land all manner of useful commodities, such things as chamber pots and shaving bowls and iron kettles and blankets of Flanders and Portugal and French linen and dyed caps and much else, which we took into the marketplace. Here we found fine brass ware and pottery, and splendid woven mats, and elephanto teeth, and the skins of leopards and other handsome beasts, and carved staffs of a most beautiful design, and other such produce of the land, which we were able to buy at a most advantageous exchange, so eager were the Kongo folk for our foreign goods. Let it only be made in Europe and they will rush to own it, however humble an object it may be.
Also did I acquire two young Negro boys to be my servants, they being offered at a good price and I feeling the need of their aid with my baggage.
Now had we turned enough of a profit to see me safe aboard a ship to Spain, but I was not ready to halt in my trading, nor was Nicolau Cabral. We went on deeper into Kongo to Ngongo and to Bata, where they had great heathen images set up. Then, having sold most of our commodities, we brought ourselves back to the coast at the mouth of the Zaire. Here a pinnace was waiting for Cabral, to bring our goods south, but here also was another ship of the Dutch bound northward, and I proposed to sail with them a little way, leaving our merchandise with Cabral. This shows you how much faith I had in that man, that he would not cheat me of my share; and that faith for once was not misplaced. We parted most warmly and I journeyed up the coast a few days with the Dutchmen.