Scheeps-togt van Pedro da Nhaya na Oost-Indien, met een vloot van 8 scheepen, in het jaar 1505 en vervolg...

1505

How the Moors must try to obtain it from them.

”use great cunning, for after having given them clothes and other trifles that please their wives, they oblige them to go and look for it in payment of the same, which they otherwise—were it not for this way of trusting them—would not be able to obtain from them; it is true, however, that they will not break their word.

Gold mines of Toroa.

”Besides these, one finds other mines in the landscape of Toroa, or Butua, standing under a Lord named Burron, who is a vassal of Benomotapa, and is situated close to the aforementioned grassy land. These mines are the very first ones that have been found in this land, and in a flat field, in the
Square fort of living stone.

”middle of which a square fort of living stone has been built, and surrounded on the outside with stones of wondrous size, without the same being mortared with loam or lime. The wall around the same is more than 20 palms wide, although the height is by no means suited to the width. Above the gate of this fortress one sees some letters, which some Moorish merchants, being men of learning and who lived there, did not know how to explain nor say what kind of writing it was.
”Around this building were still a multitude of smaller ones, made in the same manner, as well as a tower of fully 12 cubits or elbows high. All these buildings the inhabitants call Simbaoni, which is as much to say as Courts, just as the house of Benomotapa is also named after this piece of work, which seems to be something royal. This fortress is guarded by a man called Symbacayo or Castellan, in which there are always some of the King's wives. When or
Unknown who built the same.

”by whom this building was established there is unknown to the inhabitants, since they have neither books nor