The
Portuguese crossed this Chambeze a long time ago, and are
therefore the first European discoverers. We were not black
men with Portuguese names like those for whom the feat of
crossing the continent was eagerly claimed by Lisbon
statesmen. Dr. Lacerda was a man of scientific attainments,
and Governor of Tette, but finding Cazembe at the rivulet
called Chungu, he unfortunately succumbed to fever ten days
after his arrival. He seemed anxious to make his way across
to Angola. Misled by the similarity of Chambeze to Zambesi,
they all thought it to be a branch of the river that flows
past Tette, Senna, and Shupanga, by Luabo and Kongone to
the sea.
"I rather stupidly took up the same idea from a map saying
'Zambesi' (eastern branch), believing that the map printer
had some authority for his assertion. My first crossing was
thus as fruitless as theirs, and I was less excusable, for I
ought to have remembered that while Chambeze is the true
native name of the northern river, Zambesi is not the name of
the southern river at all.
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