Nairobi — Since modern Africa produces more villains than heroes, we are left with little choice but to dig into the past for the good guys.

We are happy to report that we found some. In the minds of most people, the millions of Africans who were sold into slavery were bewildered natives who didn't put up any resistance.

Shackled in ship holds for weeks, they were rarely allowed bathroom breaks. It's said that because of the filthy conditions, you could smell a slave ship from 30 kilometres away!

Millions died, and those who survived did so by, among other things, keeping their spirit up with song.

Turns out the story of slavery had several brave moments. One such has been revealed in The Independent.

The paper reports that an archaeologist is to begin searching the South African coast for a slave ship that was the site of a dramatic battle between Madagascan slaves and their Dutch captor in 1766.

Jaco Boshoff hopes to find the wreck of the Mermin and shed new light on the slave trade.

So what happened? According to The Independent, in December 1765, the Dutch East India Company which controlled the Mermin sent it from Cape Town to buy slaves on the west coast of Madagascar, 2,700 kilometres away.

The crew picked up 147 slaves there, and set sail to return.

At sea, the Dutch crew, in a remarkable show of contempt, ordered some of the slaves to clean the guns and some spears they had picked up as souvenirs. The brothers, seized by a revolutionary spirit, killed half the 60-member crew and ordered the ship back to Madagascar.

The sailors did as they were ordered by day, but at night they steered the ship back towards Cape Town at a faster pace.

When the boat finally anchored in Cape Town, some of the Madagascans went ashore, where they were overpowered. The rest remained on board until the ship hit a sandbank and they were captured. The authorities abandoned the damaged ship.

Seeing South Africa trying to get along as a multiracial nation, you would think its unhappy history began with apartheid. No, it didn't.

The Independent says South Africa was for a time the centre of a global slave trade. In the days when the Dutch controlled the Cape, slaves were brought there from Sumatra, Madagascar, and other islands. At one point the number of slaves in the Cape outnumbered free citizens.

On matters not entirely unrelated, Stanley Johnson, a columnist for The Guardian, writes about an uncle who was a colonial governor in East Africa - he doesn't say which country.

When his uncle was invited out, Johnson writes, the fellow would take a band along. If he felt it was time to go home, he would tip the bandleader the wink and they would strike up the national anthem, at which point he would rise to his feet and ceremonially take his leave.

Our modern-day black governors (presidents and prime ministers) might want to learn a thing or two from Johnson's uncle.

The ways of chiefs, however, haven't changed everywhere in the world. Johnson also writes that he was invited by a trustee of the Rainforest Concern to accompany him on a visit to the Yawanawa tribe, who live in the state of Rio Branco in Brazil.

One of the high points of the trip was a meeting with the Yawanawa tribal chief, Raimundo. The old man was in his 80s, possibly even 90s. He had seven wives and more than 50 sons. He didn't know how many daughters he had sired, because daughters were not a big deal in Raimundo's rain-forest fiefdom.

He asked how many wives Johnson had. The old man was disappointed to learn that Johnson had only two and a total of six children. He sized Johnson up, and unleashed the next inevitable question.

"Do both your wives live in the same hut?" he asked.

No such problems for Swaziland's King Mswati III. The wires say that the Swazi monarch had chosen three potential brides at the annual reed dance on Monday.

The festivities featured 20,000 bare-breasted girls in beads and traditional skirts. If he takes all the three, the 37-year-old monarch will have 15 wives. And each will get a palace and a brand new BMW.

A week ago Mswati surprised his country when he abruptly ended a five-year ban on sexual relations for girls younger than 18 a year early. The ban had been introduced in 2001 to stem the spread of Aids in the country with the world's highest infection rate.

No official reason has been given, but observers say the ban had been ended early because it was extremely unpopular with youth.

An article in The Times of London, however, reported that cynics were speculating that the king wanted the girls to be "free of any irritating commitments before the dance at which he is expected to choose a new wife - his 13th".

They were right, Mswati had a vested interest in ending the ban. However, they were also wrong - he chose three, not one.

Now that he has made his pick, the paper says, Mswati is expected to close the door for other men and reimpose the ban. It's not beyond him.

In 2004 he postponed the start of the school by a week to allow boys to finish weeding his fields.

These are not the ways of Swaziland only for, as The Independent on Sunday tells us in its review of the colourful stories in the world, a cow is in custody in Colombia after colliding with a motorcyclist.

The rider was not seriously hurt, but police arrested the animal for jaywalking. A police spokesman said: "If it were a person who had caused the accident, he or she would be behind bars, so why not a cow?" Indeed.

Or try this for a mean streak. Rogenas da Silva lives in a shack in Rio de Janeiro and works as a maid. Recently, she went shopping, entered a supermarket's raffle - and won a Mercedes Benz (sounds familiar?).

The wealthy couple for whom she works weren't pleased for her. Adelino and Sandra Bulhosa, who own four cars, sued her for a share of the Mercedes. They argued that since she was shopping for them, they were entitled to half of the prize.

The judge barely heard them before he threw them out of his court. Rogenas will sell the car and buy her family their first proper home.