Note 86 — THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF ANDREW BATTELL OF LEIGH IN ESSEX, SENT BY THE PORTUGALS PRISONER TO ANGOLA, WHO LIVED THERE, AND IN THE ADJOINING REGIONS, NEAR EIGHTEEN YEARS.

Cambambe (Ka, diminutive; mbambi, gazelle), a village on the north bank of the Coanza, below the falls formed by the river in forcing its way through the Serra de Prata. Silver, however, has never been found there (at least not in appreciable quantities), nor anywhere else in Angola or Congo. Still we are told (Paiva Manso, p. 50) that the King of Congo, in 1530, sent the wife of King Manuel two silver bracelets which he had received from one of his chiefs in Matamba, and that among the presents forwarded by Ngola Nbande, the King of Ndongo, to Paulo Dias in 1576, there were several silver bracelets, which the Regent of Portugal, Cardinal Henrique, had converted into a chalice, which he presented to the church at Belem (Catalogo dos Governadores de Angola). According to Capello and Ivens (Benguella, vol. ii, pp. 58, 233), silver ore is plentiful in Matamba, although they never saw any in loco.