If Barbot’s map have any claim to correctness, the southern shore has changed greatly since A.D. 1700.  A straight line from Cape Padrao to Chapel Point, now Shark Point, was more than double the breadth of the embouchure.  It is vain to seek for the “Island of Calabes” mentioned by Andrew Battel, who was “sent to a place called Zaire on the River Congo, to trade for elephants’ teeth, wheat, and palm oil.”  It may be a mistake for Cavallos, noticed in the next chapter; but the “town on it” must have been small, and has left, they say, no traces.  After a scramble through the surf, we were received at Shark Point, where, at this season, the current is nearer five than three knots, by Mr. Tom Peter, Mafuka, or chief trader, amongst these “Musurungus.”  He bore his highly respectable name upon the frontal band of his “berretta” alias “coroa,” an open-worked affair, very like the old-fashioned jelly-bag night cap.  This head-gear of office made of pine-apple fibre—­ Tuckey says grass—­costs ten shillings; it is worn by the kinglets, who now distribute it to all the lieges whose fortunes exceed some fifty dollars.

Most of the Squaline villagers appeared to be women, the men being engaged in making money elsewhere.  Besides illicit trade, which has now become very dangerous, a little is done in the licit line:  grotesquely carved sticks, calabashes rudely ornamented with ships and human figures, the neat bead-work grass-strings used by the women to depress the bosom, and cashimbos or pipes mostly made about Boma.  All were re-baptized in 1853, but they show no sign of Christianity save crosses, and they are the only prostitutes on the river.

Following Tom Peter, and followed by a noisy tail, we walked to the west end of Shark Point, to see if aught remained of the Padrao, the first memorial column, planted in 1485 by the explorer Diogo Cam, knight of the king’s household, Dom Joao ii.  “O principe perfeito,” who, says De Barros ("Asia,” Decad.  I. lib. iii. chap. 3), “to immortalize the memory of his captains,” directed them to plant these pillars in all remarkable places.  The Padroes, which before the reign of D. Joao were only wooden crosses, assumed the shape of “columns, twice the height of a man (estado), with the scutcheon bearing the royal arms.  At the sides they were to be inscribed in Latin and Portuguese (to which James Barbot adds Arabic), with the name of the monarch who sent the expedition, the date of discovery, and the captain who made it; on the summit was to be raised a stone cross cramped in with lead.”  According to others, the inscription mentioned only the date, the king, and the captain.  The Padrao of the Congo was especially called from the “Lord of Guinea’s favourite saint, de Sao Jorge”—­sit faustum!  As Carli shows, the patron of Congo and Angola was Santiago, who was seen bodily assisting at a battle in which Dom Affonso, son of Giovi (Emmanuel), first Christian king of Congo, prevailed against a