Referring again to the land of Ophir, there are no black races in any other part of Africa that allow a woman to rule over them; but in the immediate neighbourhood of Sofala there are three queens, viz. Queen Mafussi over Inhoaxe, adjoining Umzela's territory, and immediately on the south of her are the two Queens Majaji and Mescharoon. May not this be one identification, that it was right that woman should be a ruler as well as man, handed down from the Queen of Sheba's time? Also a large portion of Madagascar is ruled over by an Arab race that must have settled there a very long time ago. Their language is Arabic, and queens of that island have and do now rule the greater portion of it. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. THE PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS ON THE EAST COAST, WITHIN SOUTH CENTRAL AFRICA. The earliest records we have of this coast-line is from the Portuguese, who first sailed round the Cape to the north, as far as the Mozambique coast, in 1497, under Vasco de Gama. In 1508 they visited the coast again and conquered Sofala, and soon after Quilimane, Inhambane, and Delagoa Bay, where they built a fort at Lorenzo Marques in the inner harbour, and took possession of the coast northwards, including the mouth of the Zambese and both banks of that river beyond Tette, where they formed a town, claiming the country far in, up the river and along the coast, but at the present time they have no jurisdiction over it, beyond a few miles of the coast, the natives not allowing any interference with their rights beyond the reach of their guns at the forts. Up to 1875 the Portuguese only held the northern portion of Delagoa Bay, down as far south as the 26 degrees South latitude, and half of the island of Inyack; the English Government disputing their claim to any territory south of the 26 degrees, and the southern portion of Inyack was held by the British Government. Much correspondence passed between the two Governments, when it was referred to arbitration, and Marshal MacMahon, then President of the French Republic, decided in July, 1875, that the Portuguese had a right to the country down to 26 degrees 30 minutes South latitude, which included the whole of the bay and island of Inyack--to the exclusion of British interests. The boundary then laid down as the southern limit of Portugal should follow that latitude up to the Lobombo mountain, which borders on Swaziland, an independent chief.