22 with coloured cotton cloths below the waist, some of them cover themselves in animal skins, and those of higher status wear cloaks made of the same skins, with trains dragging along the ground, forfinery and elegance, and they leap around and jerk their bodies in such a way as to make these skins spring from one end to the other. These men carry swords in wooden scabbards girded with much gold and other metals, on their leftflank, like us, with cloth belts using four orfive knots, with the tassels left hanging in elegant fashion. They also carry spears in their hands and others carry medium-sized bows and arrows, which are not as long as those of the English, nor as short as those of the Turks, the tips of the arrows are very big and finely made, they are warriors, and others are important merchants. Their women go naked, they only cover their pudenda with cotton cloths whilst they are unmarried, and when they are married they drape other cloths over their breasts. Zimboache Heading further inland for somefifteen or twenty days, one comes to a large settlement they call Zimboache, where there are many wooden houses. It belongs to gentiles and the king of Benamatapa is often there. To get there, one goes inland from Sofala towards the Cape of Good Hope. The king is often in this village belonging of Benamatapa. He stays in a very large place, from which the merchants bring gold to Sofala. They then give it to the Mouros without weighing it in exchange for flecked cloths and beads, which they value highly, the said beads coming from Cambay. These Mouros say that the gold comes from much further away than Benamatapa, from the direction of the Cape of Good Hope, from another kingdom which is a tributary of the said Benamatapa, who is a great overlord of many kings who come under his domain; he is the lord of a very large area of land that stretches both inland towards the Cape of Good Hope and towards Mozambique.
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