The exasperated Zingha, having now seen herself stripped of eleven of her richest provinces; deprived almost entirely of her authority over the remaining six; and shut up in her Metamban dominions, conceived the most implacable hatred against the Portuguese and their religion. To ingratiate herself with the Giagas, on whose assistance alone she could now have any de pendence for the recovery of her lost dominions, she renounced Christianity, and eagerly embraced all the idolatrous superstitions and inhuman customs of that barbarous nation. Aided by these barbarians, whose dispositions, naturally ferocious, were by her excited to every species of cruelty against her enemies, she car ried on a most bloody and destructive war, during the long period of twenty-eight years. Harassed by their continual incursions and bloody ravages, the Portuguese enjoyed no security in any of their provinces ; and now found, that they had an enemy to contend with, whom they could neither subdue by force, nor soften by favour Their propositions of peace, often made to her, she as• often rejected with disdain, and declared, that she would never conclude any treaty with them, but upon the ex press condition that all her Angolic provinces should be restored. Their refusal was always followed by a dreadful irruption, and the most sanguinary ravages of these bloodthirsty barbarians ; so that her very name carried such terror with it, that old and young fled from their habitations at her approach.
Desirous, if possible, to obtain a peace, the Portu guese again sent ambassadors to her with pacific pro positions. To them she gave a polite reception, but rejected their proposals with her wonted imperious tone, telling them, that it was not consistent with her dignity to lay down her arms, until she had brought the war to an honourable conclusion ; that she indeed knew the strength and valour of the Portuguese, and would esteem it an honour to be admitted into friendship and alliance with their prince ; but that, in the first place, her dominions, which she had inherited from her an cestors, and of which she had been unjustly deprived, must either be ceded to her as an act of justice, or re covered by the force of arms. That declaration was immediately followed, on her part, by a renewal of hos tilities, with redoubled vigour ; and the war was prose cuted with various success. In one assault upon the. fortress of Massingano, she was repulsed with great slaughter, her two sisters were made prisoners, and she herself escaped with great difficulty. Undismayed at these reverses of fortune, she took ample revenge, by leading her troops into some of the best cultivated pro vinces of the Portuguese, where she cat ried all before her by fire and sword.
Reflecting, however, upon the various events of this long war, she was grieved to find that the loss was greatly upon her side, which gave rise to a more im portant enquiry in her mind, whether there was not reason to fear that these losses were the effects of the divine displeasure, on account of the blood which she had wantonly shed, and the horrid cruelties of which she had been guilty, in order to secure the aid of the barbarous Giagas ? The first symptoms of her remorse appeared in the abatement of her cruelties to the Chris tians, whom the fate of war threw into her hands, and particularly in the humanity and respect with which she now treated the priests and monks; but, without the least abatement of her former hatred to the Portuguese, against whom she declared her determined resolution to persevere in the war, until she should recover her lost dominions. Hearing of this favourable change in
her dispositions towarus the Christians, the viceroy sent some Capuchins, in hopes that they might be able to prevail upon her to conclude a peace. But although she appeared sensible of the impropriety of her conduct in apostatizing from Christianity, she charged the guilt of her apostacy, and of all her subsequent cruelties, upon the Portuguese, who, she said, had forced her to those measures, by unjustly stripping her of her do minions, which, if they would restore, she promised, not only to return to the profession of Christianity, but also to give it all the support and encouragement in her power. The pious fathers, finding her inexorable, returned without effecting their purpose, after refusing some presents which she offered in testimony of her respect for their order.
In the meantime, the viceroy, having secured the friendship of the king of Congo by a strict treaty, sent another embassy, with magnificent presents, to Zingha, together with two letters to her, one from his master, the king of Portugal, the other from himself; granting, at the same time, full powers to the ambassador to con clude a permanent alliance with her, provided she would renounce the sect of the Giagas, and return to the bo som of the church. But her answer was in substance the same as formerly, namely, that she had no objection to comply with his proposals, if his Portuguese majesty would first restore her hereditary dominions. This the Portuguese governor had from the first determined ne ver to comply with, and it was evident, that he had all along made religion only a pretext for obtaining a peace upon his own terms. In the meantime, he continued the negociation for two years, urging by letters, and by the mediation of the holy fathers of the church, every reli gious motive to persuade her to abandon the idolatry of the Giagas, and return to the profession of Christianity. In that event, he expected that her barbarian troops would forsake her, and that she herself must either be induced, or compelled, to court the friendship of the Portuguese, which he was determined not to grant, but upon the express condition of her ceding the whole of her Angolic dominions.