Taken from: Instructions nautiques sur Madagascar et les iles de l'océan Indien, Paris, 1885, p. 155-6

(The ruins on the island). They consist of a large main building on the bottom of the picture , connected by a walled alley to another main building consisting of three bedrooms; then an isolated building (D) and finally, on the highest point of the island, the main mosque, consisting of range of small rooms, a small courtyard, and the prayer hall with Mihrab facing N.

All these constructions are lined with loopholes. The walls, very thick, are made of coral stones and connected by cement of marvelous solidity. The roofs collapsed, but it is easy to recognize that they were formed of stones and mortar to a thickness of 40 cm and that they were supported by a bed of wooden beams; two of these roofs rose in an octagonal pyramid with a height of about 2 meters.

Vérin (1986, pp. 153-155, 173-183) recorded a number of tombs, an ensemble of three masonry tripartite residences, and a small mosque only 11.2 × 7.5 m decorated with Chinese blue-and-white porcelain bowls.

Taken from : Le capitaine Guillain dans ses Documents sur l'histoire, la géographie et le commerce de la partié occidentale de Madagascar, Paris, Impr. Royale, 1845, p. 202

The bay of Vienx-Masselage (=Mahajamba) ... was once inhabited by Arabs whose stone houses and some of their mosques can still be seen; it is beautiful and large and the ships are safe there... Three leagues in, there is a small island on the east side of the river, we found a very beautiful village built of stones ...

This passage is taken by Guillain from the Archives of the depot of maps and plans: state of the ports and bays of the Dauphine Island. This document might have been dated 1668 the time of Du Bois's voyage.

Taken from: Turkish Admiral Piri Re’is (1521)

The chief dwells in one of these towns,

One is called Saada, O wise man,

 Lankasika (Langany), which is the capital, is famous

They all follow the Shafi‘i school,

End of the Middle-Ages View of Lulugan by the Portuguese

Note the following words:

Zambuk: Sambuk; is a type of dhow, a traditional wooden sailing vessel.

Naos: ships, vessels

Assegais (= iron-tipped spear)

Taken from: Joao de Barros 2e Décade, Liv. I, chap. II. 1553

Tristan d'Acunha 1506:

….. we took, among the many inhabitants of this place which we did not want to reduce in slavery, the sheikh who was head of the country. This led the Portuguese, the following night, to a half-populated island which was in a very cultivated bay in which flows a great river which the natives call Lulangane. This island was inhabited by Moors much more cultivated than those who were on the same coast. Their mosque and most of the houses were built of stone and lime and surmounted by terraces like those of Qiloa and Mombassa. When, the previous day, they saw the Portuguese ships, they took refuge at the bottom of the bay, abandoning the coast; and they went in the night to the main land. But as they were very numerous and had only a few canoes, the comings and goings between the island and the land took place very slowly. Before daybreak, the island was surrounded by the two flagships, one commanded by Tristan d'Acunha, and the other by his son, Nunho d'Acunha. After having entered this place, we seized more than five hundred people, composed in major part of women and children as well as twenty men among whom was the sheikh. He was an old man and he was trying to be a leader, almost all the men having fled to the mainland. During the crossing between the island and the land, more than two hundred people drowned. Fear had caused them to board the canoes in such large numbers that they sank with their passengers. Others also perished trying to resist us when we entered this place. We got there without much difficulty. Tristan d'Acunha and the captains were lodged in the best houses in the village. The following night was as gay for the Portuguese as sad for the captives. The next day, a large number of canoes arrived containing nearly six hundred men offering their lives to save their wives and children who remained on the island.

The Lulangane river would be, according to M. Codine (Geographical memory on the Indian sea, Paris, 1868, in-8°, p. 128), the Sofia river which flows into the bay of Mahajamba, on the north-western coast of Madagascar. This bay contains a small island called Nosy Longany, in which Mr. Marin-Darbel, commander of the sloop Le Boursaint, found in 1885 fairly well-preserved ruins of an ancient Arab settlement (Nautical Instructions on Madagascar and the Islands of the Indian Ocean, Paris, 1885, in-8°, p. 155). The discovery of these ruins, correspond quite exactly to the Moslem village recognized by the Portuguese.

Taken from: Documentos Sobre Os Portugueses Em Mocambique E Na Africa Central 1497-1840 Vol II

LETTER FROM AFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE TO THE KING 1507 February 6

………………. casting anchor by night until we sighted land. We put out the longboats and went ashore with the captain-major to learn what land this was; we captured a small little sambuk with two Moors we spoke to the people of the land. They were Kafirs who could not understand those from the land of Sam Louremço (Madagascar) whom Ruy Pireira had brought nor did we have news of any spice, save ginger, which they showed us, the captain-major did not ask how much of it there might be in the land. These Moors we captured showed us two ports. In the first we found a Moorish village where we landed, whilst all the village people fled from us, and there we found quantities of supplies which we took and we set fire to the village and our people were let loose in the bush where they killed some Moors who lay hidden and they brought to the captain-major some whom we left there, From there we set out along the coast with the greatest care we could use, and these two Moors we had captured showed us a large village which we captured and is called Lulamguane and lies within a bay on an island near the mainland about the distance of a cross-bow shot; it has its farms on the mainland with quantities of cattle and farmlands and slaves before the ?………? could appear we sent two longboats ahead to enter ?.....? island and the mainland to let none pas ?........... ? when they saw the naos cast anchor ?...........? such a fear into them that they ?..........? in sambuks and from them ?..........? captain-major ashore ?..........? their assegais and daggers ?……..? many of them began to swim ?..........? the people who waited on the island was brought ?............? Sire, the currents and the breakers between the island and the mainland were so great that the sambuks were all lost with all the people and the almadias (dug-out) awash and the sea strewn with drowned men women and children. And it seems, Sire, that between the dead on the island and the drowned, there were well over a thousand souls, and many captives were brought by the naos, for the captain-major had given leave for every man to plunder as much as he liked, And each man chose what first came to his hands in the village; some cloths from Cambay were taken, a little silver some gold, but only a few of the naos of Malindi and Mombasa traded there in slaves and supplies; there was so much rice that twenty naos could not load it. We were three days in the village till each man had taken as much as he could stow, and what remained the captain-major traded for cows and goats, and he left there many women and children that could not be carried in the naos; we took on water and set out along the coast, the captain-major forthwith sent out to the naos for the cloth of Cambay and the gold and silver, and he gave the third to those who had found it, and in this way we went for the space of three days until we sighted the headland where we lost much time, without being able to double it, due to the easterlies and the seas that were running against us. And until then we could not find out if this land joined with the land of Sam Louremço (Madagascar) or whether it was an island; the captain-major himself captured a man on this headland and showed him some clove and he said that in the bush there was lots of it, but the captain-major would not place much credit in him and put back along the course I had advised and along which Ruy Pireira had come with the men of the land.

And thus we put back to ?........? the Moors we captured in ?.......? which each one is called which ?.......? many naos traded there ?.............? and in iron that ?...........? villages and people ?......? places that seemed as far as ?..........? assegais and daggers and shooting bows ?........? to fight us and the people came to lend their aid from one side and the other because it was the mainland. ………………...

Taken from: A general history and collection of voyages and travels, arranged in systematic order [micro-form]: forming a complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery and commerce, by sea and land, from the earliest ages to the present time by Kerr, Robert, 1755-1813 Vol 6.

Taken from: Portuguese Asia, by Manuel de Faria y Sousa (1646).

(in 1507)

……………. During this part of the voyage likewise, Ruy Pereyra put into the port of Matatama in the island of Madagascar; and being informed that this island abounded in spice, especially ginger, Tristan de Cunna was induced to go there, and anchored in a bay which his son Nunno named Angra de Donna Maria, after a lady whom he courted. By others it is named the bay of Santa Maria della Conception. As some Negroes appeared on the coast, De Cunna sent a Moor to converse with them; but when he mentioned that the ships belonged to Christians, they endeavoured to kill him, and had to be driven away by the Portuguese cannon. About three leagues farther on, they came to a village, the xeque or sheikh of which carried them to another town on an island in a well sheltered bay into which the great river Lulangan discharges its waters. This town was inhabited by Moors somewhat civilized, who, being afraid of the fleet made their escape to the main-land, but so overloaded their boats that many of them perished by the way. The Portuguese surrounded the island and took 500 prisoners, only twenty of whom were men, among whom was the xeque or chief, an aged man of a respectable appearance. Next morning the sea was covered with boats, bringing over 600 men to demand the release of their wives and children. After some negotiation, the Portuguese commander restored the prisoners to their liberty. He here learnt that the island of Madagascar was chiefly inhabited by negro kafirs, and produced but little ginger. He afterwards wished to have entered a town on this island called Zada, but the inhabitants set it on fire. …………………