Although Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrade Corvo doubted Portugal's ability to achieve coast-to-coast empire, he sanctioned expeditions. Portuguese soldier and explorer Alexandre de Serpa Pinto led three such expeditions through which Portugal could attempt to assert its African territorial claims. The first was from Mozambique to the eastern Zambezi in 1869, the second to the Congo River and upper Zambezi from Angola in 1876, and the last in 1877–79 crossing Africa from Angola with the intention of claiming the area between Angola and Mozambique. In 1877 Portuguese explorers Hermenegildo Capelo and Roberto Ivens led an expedition from Luanda towards the Congo basin. Capelo made a second journey from Angola to Mozambique, largely following existing trade routes, in 1884–85.