Note 228 — NEGROLAND divided into Nations.

The portion of Da Couto’s History here quoted (Decade X. lib. 6, c. 15) has never been printed, but the Library of the British Museum possesses two MS. copies of it. The lake here referred to is called by De Barros Zambere, a name copied servilely by all succeeding writers, though it was doubtless a misprint for Zambeze. Cuama is the name given to the lower portion of the Zambeze, which river is so named according to Dos Santos (Ethiop. Orient. p. 44), because, on quitting the Great Lake, from which proceed the chief rivers of Southern Africa, it flows through a territory inhabited by a people of that name.” The people alluded to are the Ambios of Da Couto, the Movíza of the Portuguese of the present day, but who call themselves M’Bíza. The true name of the river, therefore (and that intended also to be given to the lake), is Zambíza. N’yassi, or the sea, as this lake is called by the natives (whence D’Anville’s Massi, by mistake for Niassi), is commonly but erroneously designated in our maps Lake Marávi. The Marávi country, that is to say, the country in which the chieftains bear the title of Marávi, extends from the Zambíza to the Livúma behind Cape Delgado, and touches but does not encompass the lake. Da Couto, following De Barros, borrows the name Rhapta from Ptolemy. It serves to indicate eruditely rather than clearly what the Arabs call the River of Maḳdishó, that is, the Juba.