(Silvestra's cross is taken from his corpse by Sir Henry, and his 'crude pen' by the narrator.) Eca's text, on the other hand, sets the 'velho fidalgo' in the context of the Portuguese empire of the sixteenth century, with the implication that Haggard's Kukuanaland, like the disputed Mashonaland and
Nyassaland of contemporary political reality, is part of 'a nossa propriedade historica'.