MAP OF ANGOLA
Compiled by J. J. MONTEIRO

ANGOLA
AND
THE RIVER CONGO.

BY JOACHIM JOHN MONTEIRO,

ASSOCIATE OF THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF MINES, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

Vol. I.

WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1875.

All Rights Reserved.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

TO

ROSE MY WIFE

I Dedicate this Work

IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF THE HAPPY DAYS WE PASSED TOGETHER IN THE PEACEFUL STILLNESS AND TROPICAL LUXURIANCE OF THE VAST SOLITUDES OF ANGOLA.

PREFACE.

The following description of the country between the River Zaire or Congo, and Mossamedes or Little Fish Bay, comprising ten degrees of latitude, is the result of many years of travel in and exploration of that part of the coast.

My aim has been to present an accurate and truthful account of its more striking features and productions, and of the manners and customs of the various tribes which inhabit it.

I have avoided mentioning more names of places and persons than are necessary, as they would be of little or no interest to the general reader. I have also omitted detailed lists and descriptions of plants and animals that I have collected, as such would only interest naturalists, who are referred to the different scientific publications in which they have been described.

This being the first detailed account of a most interesting and rich part of Tropical Africa, I leave it with confidence to the indulgence of my readers, assuring them that at all events a want of truth is not included in its shortcomings.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Drawn on Wood by Mr. Edward Fielding; the Views from Sketches by Mrs. Monteiro, and from Photographs; the Implements, &c., from the Originals.

ANGOLA AND THE RIVER CONGO.

CHAPTER I.
HISTORY.

The following sketch of the discovery and earlier history of Angola is translated and condensed from an interesting work in Portuguese by Feo Cardozo, on the ‘History of the Governors of Angola’ (Paris, 8vo, 1825):—

“The Portuguese, engrossed by the great hopes raised by the conquest of Brazil and the Indies, did not determine to establish themselves in Angola till eighty-four years after they had discovered it. The King of Angola, jealous of the advantages that he supposed his neighbour the King of Congo derived from his trade and intercourse with the Portuguese, determined to send several of his subjects to Portugal to beg the like friendship for himself. Queen Catherine, acceding to his request, sent to him Paulo Diaz de Novaes, grandson of the famous Bartolomeo Diaz, who had discovered the greater part of the West Coast and the Cape of Good Hope. Paulo Diaz left Lisbon in September, 1559, with three ships, a few soldiers, and a present for the King, bearing instructions to open commercial relations with the latter, and to convert him to Christianity. After many dangers he arrived in May, 1560, at the mouth of the River Quanza; the King of Angola was dead, but his son, who then reigned, renewed on his arrival his father’s request for friendly relations with the Portuguese. Paulo Diaz, relying on his statements, landed with only twenty men, and leaving the rest on board the ships ordered them to return to Portugal if within a certain time he should not come back to them. He immediately marched to the Court of Angola, where he and his present were received by the King with acclamation.

“After the lapse of a few days, Paulo Diaz, wishing to retire to his ships, was prevented by the King under the pretence of his aid being required in some wars he was then engaged in. He was thus detained a prisoner until the King, hard pressed by the revolt of one of his powerful vassals, determined to allow him to return to Portugal, so that he might bring him assistance. From the missals, altar-stones, and old-fashioned church furniture that he saw in the hands of the negroes during his expedition into the interior, Paulo Diaz concluded that missionaries had already been in the country many years before. Returning to Portugal he gave an account of what he had seen to the King, Dom Sebastian, who sent him back with the title of Conqueror, Coloniser, and Governor of Angola, and conceded to him ample powers for the establishment of the new colony.

“Paulo Diaz left Lisbon in October, 1574, with a fleet of seven ships, and seven hundred men, and sighted land after a passage of three months and a half. Landing on the island facing the present city of Loanda, he took formal possession of it in the name of the King of Portugal. An immense number of negroes witnessed the ceremony, as well as forty Portuguese who had retired from the kingdom of Congo, owing to the wars amongst the negroes of that country.

“The King of Angola received the Portuguese with great joy, and in return for the presents that Dom Sebastian had sent him, gave Paulo Diaz several armlets of silver and of copper, and sticks of Quicongo wood; the silver of the armlets was afterwards made into a chalice and presented to the church of Belem at Lisbon.

“Finding that the island was not suitable for establishing the new colony, the Portuguese removed to the mainland, and choosing the spot now occupied by the fortress of San Miguel, built a church and founded their first colony in Angola. They then aided the King, and enabled him speedily to reduce his rebel vassal to obedience. After several months passed in the greatest friendship, the King of Congo attempted to intrigue against the Portuguese, but without success. Perfect peace existed between the Portuguese and the blacks of Angola for six years, when it was destroyed by the base perfidy of a Portuguese, who begged the King to make him his slave, as he wished to disclose a most important secret. Astonished at this proposition, the King called together his ‘Macotas’ or council, and in their presence ordered the infamous traitor to divulge it; on which he said that Paulo Diaz planned despoiling him of his kingdom and mines, for which purpose he had collected great stores of powder and ball. Next day the King caused all the Portuguese to appear before him, and in their presence the traitor repeated his story. The Portuguese, in astonishment, attempted to refute the calumny, but without attending to their explanations the King ordered them from his presence, and taking counsel of his ‘Macotas’ was persuaded by them to destroy at once all the Portuguese, and thus avert the threatened danger. Approving their advice, he feigned forgetfulness of the occurrence, then under pretence of a war in the interior, sent forward the Portuguese, who, ignorant of the stratagem, were all suddenly set upon and murdered, together with the Christian slaves, numbering over a thousand. A similar fate befell all the Portuguese engaged in trading in different parts of the country, and their goods and property were taken possession of. The traitor received the just punishment of his infamy, for the King ordered him to be executed, saying, it was not right that one should live who had caused the death of his countrymen. This cruel butchery concluded, the King sent Paulo Diaz, who was on his journey from Loanda, an order not to proceed beyond the spot at which he should receive it.

“The Governor, though totally ignorant of the horrible catastrophe, distrusted the message, and, retiring to Anzelle, erected a wooden intrenchment, and fortifying it with two small cannon, awaited the solution of the affair. But few days had elapsed before he received tidings of the dreadful tragedy, and of the advance of a great army of blacks to annihilate him and the remaining Portuguese. This news, far from terrifying him, inspired him with the hope of speedily avenging the murder of his countrymen. Animating his garrison, of only 150 men, with the same sentiment, he, with the aid of their two guns, repelled the attack of the blacks, causing such havoc among them that they were completely routed and dispersed; he also sent his lieutenant into the interior to ravage it with fire and sword. This was accomplished so successfully, that the King, repenting of his barbarity, turned against the Macotas who had counselled him, and ordered them all to be put to death.

“Paulo Diaz being reinforced from Portugal, defeated several of the ‘Sobas,’ or chiefs of Quissama, who attempted to impede his navigation of the River Quanza, defeated a second time the King of Angola, and conquered the greater part of the Provinces of Quissama and Illamba, the whole of which he could not occupy from want of men. He then, resolving to acquire the silver mines said to exist in the mountains of Cambambe, fortified himself with his Lieutenant, Luis Serrão, and 120 men, at Tacandongo, which is a short distance from the supposed mines.

“Here they were approached by the third army of the King of Angola, so numerous that it extended for two leagues. The Governor attacked it on the 2nd February, 1583, before it had had time to form on the plain below, and with the assistance of several native chiefs fell on the black multitude with such success as to disperse it completely in a few hours, leaving the field covered with dead. Paulo Diaz ordered the noses of all the slain to be cut off, and sent several loads of them to Loanda as evidence of his victory, and to inspire the blacks with the fear of his arms. The King of Angola, rendered desperate by these repeated defeats, attempted with a fourth army to obtain a victory over the Portuguese, but was again routed with great slaughter. In celebration of the above victory Paulo Diaz founded the first settlement in the interior at Massangano, under the title of Nossa Senhora da Victoria.

“In 1597, 200 Flemish colonists arrived at Loanda, but nearly the whole of them quickly died from the effects of the climate.

“About the same time the colony of Benguella was founded by a party of seventy soldiers, but fifty of these having walked out unarmed on the beach, to amuse themselves by fishing, were surprised by a large number of blacks, who cut their heads off, and then attacked the twenty men in the fort. They defended themselves bravely until all but two, who managed to escape, were killed.

“Constantly engaged in wars with the powerful ‘Sobas’ and savage populous nations of the interior, the Portuguese gradually extended and established their power in Angola.

“In 1595, Jeronymo d’Almeida, with 400 men and twenty-one horses, again started from Loanda to take possession of the silver mines of Cambambe, and on his way established the fort at Muxima on the River Quanza. Continuing his march, he fell ill, and was obliged to return to Loanda, leaving his officers in command. These were unfortunately drawn into an ambuscade in a rocky ravine at Cambambe, where, an immense number of blacks falling on them, 206 of the Portuguese were slain, notwithstanding their bravest resistance, and only seven men escaped the wholesale slaughter.

“In the same year João Furtado de Mendonça arrived at Loanda, bringing with him twelve white women, the first that had ever arrived in Angola, and who are said to have all married immediately.

“The new Governor’s first acts were to retrieve the losses suffered by his predecessor, but starting in the worst season of the year, he remained some time on the banks of the River Bengo, where 200 men died of fever, the rest suffering greatly from hunger. At last, continuing his march with the remains of his force, he very successfully reduced the rebellious ‘Sobas’ to obedience, and relieving the little garrison at Massangano, inflicted great loss on the blacks in a battle at that place. Returning down the River Quanza, he re-established at Muxima the fort that had been abandoned.

“In 1602, João Rodrigues Coutinho arrived as Governor with reinforcements of men and ammunition, and full powers to promote the conquest of the silver mines of Cambambe. A powerful and well-appointed expedition again started for this purpose, but on arriving at a place called Cacullo Quiaquimone he fell ill and died. Manoel Cerveira Pereira, his successor, resolving to carry out his predecessor’s intentions, marched into Cambambe, and on the 10th August, 1603, offered battle to the Soba Cafuxe, whom he defeated in a great engagement; continuing his march he built a fort in Cambambe and forced the Soba Cambambe to submit.

“About 1606, the first attempt was made to communicate across the continent of Africa with the River Senna, on the eastern coast, and for this expedition Balthazar Rebello de Aragão was chosen, but after proceeding for a considerable distance he was obliged to return to relieve the garrison at Cambambe, closely besieged by the blacks.

“Though constant wars were necessary to reduce the warlike Sobas of the interior to obedience, the successes of the Portuguese continued, and their efforts were also directed to the conquest of Benguella and settlement there.

“In the year 1621, the famous Queen Ginga Bandi came to Loanda as head of an embassy from her brother, the Gola Bandi; she arranged a treaty of peace with the Portuguese, was converted to Christianity and baptized under the name of Ginga Donna Anna de Souza. She was proclaimed Queen of Angola on the death of her brother, whom she ordered to be poisoned, never forgiving him for having killed her son. She then not only forsook Christianity, but forgetting the manner in which she had been treated by the Portuguese, bore them a deadly hatred for upwards of thirty years, during which time she was unsuccessful in all her wars against them.

“The Dutch, who for several years had greatly annoyed the Portuguese on the West Coast, attempted to possess themselves of some of their ports for the purpose of obtaining a supply of slaves for their colonies in America. During the governorship of Fernan de Souza the Dutch despatched a fleet of eight ships commanded by Petri Petrid, who attempted to force the bar of Loanda, but meeting with a determined resistance retired from the coast after a stay of three months, having only captured four small vessels.

“The Count of Nassau, considering that without an abundant supply of slaves from the west coast the Dutch possessions in America would be of little value, determined to take stronger measures for obtaining them, and sent a powerful fleet of twenty vessels, under the command of General Tolo. On the 24th August, 1641, this formidable fleet appeared at Loanda, and such was the consternation it caused that the Governor and inhabitants abandoned the city and retired to Bembem. The Dutch landing next day became, without opposition, masters of the place and of a large booty.

“Pedro Cezar retired to the River Bengo, but, pursued by the Dutch, retired to Massangano, where the Portuguese suffered terribly from the effects of the climate. Many of the native chiefs, taking advantage of the occasion, rose in arms against them. Queen Ginga and several other powerful chiefs immediately formed an alliance with the Dutch. The Portuguese attempted, but unsuccessfully, to punish several of them. The Dutch subsequently formed a truce with the Portuguese, in consequence of news arriving from Europe of a treaty of peace having been concluded between the two powers; but shortly after, treacherously attacking the Portuguese, they killed the principal officers and forty men, and took the Governor and 120 men prisoners.

“Those that escaped fled to Massangano until another truce was concluded, and means were found to enable Pedro Cezar to escape from the fortress of San Miguel, where he was imprisoned.

“Francisco de Soutomayor now arrived from Portugal as Governor of Angola, and with the remnant of the troops at Benguella, where he had landed, proceeded to Massangano, without knowledge of the enemy. Queen Ginga, influenced secretly by the Dutch, was collecting her forces for the purpose of attacking the Portuguese, but was completely defeated, leaving 2000 blacks dead on the field of battle. A few days after, the Dutch again broke their truce, and the Portuguese, incensed at their repeated treachery, declared war against them. Thus they remained till the arrival of Salvador Correa de Sá e Benavides, Governor of Rio Janeiro, from which place he started in May, 1648, with a fleet of fifteen vessels and 900 men. Towards the expenses of this expedition the inhabitants of Rio Janeiro largely contributed, as they saw how hurtful to their interests the loss of Angola would be from the failure in the supply of slave labour.

“Arrived at Loanda, he sent a message to the Dutch Governor that although his orders were to preserve peace with him, still, as he had so treacherously and repeatedly broken it with the Portuguese, he considered himself free to declare war against him; but, to prevent bloodshed, he gave the Dutch the option of surrendering, assuring them of an honourable capitulation. The Dutch asked for eight days to consider; Salvador Correa accorded them two, at the end of which he sent his secretary on shore, with orders to signal whether the Dutch accepted his terms or meant to defend themselves; they chose the latter, and the Portuguese immediately landed, and invested the fortress of San Miguel. The Dutch had abandoned six guns, these with four others from the ships were the same night planted on two batteries, and the fortress bombarded. This not having the desired effect, Salvador Correa ordered a general attack. The Portuguese were, however, repulsed with a loss of 163 men killed and wounded. The Dutch, unaware of this great loss, and expecting a second attack, hoisted a white flag, and sent to arrange the terms of capitulation, which being done, the gates, on the 15th of August, 1648, were thrown open, and there issued forth 1100 Dutch, German, and French infantry, and as many blacks, who were all surprised, on passing the Portuguese troops, at the smallness of their numbers, and repented their hasty submission. Salvador Correa sent them all on board three vessels to await their countrymen away in the interior. On their arrival these were also placed on board, and they set sail the same day. Shortly after he caused the Dutch establishments at Pinda and Loango to be demolished, and their expulsion being completed, he next fell on and defeated the native chiefs.

“It was in the time of this Governor that the Italian Capuchin Friars passed from the kingdom of Congo to Loanda, to establish in the interior their excellent missions. For several years the Portuguese waged a constant war with the Libollos, the Quissamas, the Soba N’golla Caboco, the Chiefs of Benguella, and the Dembos Ambuillas at Encoge.

“In the year 1694 the first copper coinage was introduced from Portugal into Angola, the currency up to that time being in the shape of little straw mats called ‘Libongos,’ of the value of fifty reis each (about 2d.). (These little mats are at present only employed as money in Cabinda.)

“In 1758, the Portuguese established themselves at Encoge. In 1783, an expedition was despatched to the Port of Cabinda, to establish a fort; 300 men, however, quickly died there from the effects of the climate, and the rest surrendered to a French squadron, sent to demolish any fortifications that might impede the free commerce of all nations on the coast of Loango.

“Shortly after 1784, the Portuguese had a great war with the natives of Mossulo, which lasted some five years before they were finally defeated.

“It was during the government, and by the efforts of Antonio de Saldanha da Gama (1807-1810), that direct intercourse was established with the nation of the Moluas, and through their intervention overland communication with the eastern coast was obtained.

“The first attempt to communicate directly across the continent, from Angola to Moçambique, was made as already noticed in the year 1606. Two expeditions were proposed to start simultaneously from Moçambique and Angola, and meet in the interior. The former, under the command of the naturalist, Dr. Lacerda, started from the River Senna, and reached Cazembe, where Lacerda fell a victim to the insalubrity of the climate.

“Antonio de Saldanha, anxious to realize a project so interesting to geographical knowledge, and which he judged might besides be of great importance to Portugal, had renewed the inquiries and investigations that might suggest the means of attaining its accomplishment. At Pungo Andongo, there lived one Francisco Honorato da Costa, Lieutenant-Colonel of Militia, a clever man, and Chief of Cassange, the farthest inland of the Portuguese vassal provinces. Through him Antonio de Saldanha learnt that the territory of the Jaga, or Soba of Cassange, was bounded to the east by another and more powerful kingdom, that of the Moluas, with whom the Jaga was in constant intercourse, but whom he prevented from treating directly with the Portuguese, so as to derive the great advantage of monopolizing all the trade with the latter. For this end the Jaga employed several absurd statements to intimidate the Muata Yamba, or King of the Moluas, whose power he feared, telling him that the Portuguese (or white men) issued out of the sea, that they devoured negroes, that the goods he traded in were manufactured in his dominions, and that if the Moluas invaded these, the Portuguese would avenge him.

“As soon as the Governor was informed of these particulars, he ordered Honorato to make himself acquainted with the position of the nation of the Moluas. Honorato succeeded in sending his ‘Pombeiros’ (black traders) to their principal town, where the Muata Yamba resided, and where they were hospitably received. Convinced by them of the falsehoods of the Jaga Cassange, the Muata, though still in fear, decided to send his wife, who lived at some distance off, on an embassy to the same effect to Loanda. Accompanied by Honorato’s ‘Pombeiros,’ the embassy, unable to pass the territory of the Soba Cassange, through his opposition, proceeded to the country of the Soba Bomba, who not only allowed them free passage, but likewise sent an ambassador to the Portuguese. They arrived in January, 1808, at Loanda, where they were received in state by the Governor.

“On arriving at the door of the audience-room, they advanced towards the General with great antics, and delivered to him the presents they had brought, which consisted of slaves, a zebra skin, several skins of ‘ferocious monkeys,’ a mat, some straw baskets, two bars of copper, and a sample of salt from Cazembe. After receiving the greatest hospitality, they were sent back with presents for their respective sovereigns. The ambassadors wore long beards, their heads adorned with a great bunch of parrots’ feathers, grey and red, their arms and legs covered with brass and iron rings; from a large monkey skin twisted and hanging from one shoulder depended a large knife,—in their left hand a spear, in the right a horse’s tail, as an emblem of authority, and round the waist a striped cloth, over which hung a monkey skin, giving them altogether a very wild and showy appearance. The ‘Pombeiros’ described the Moluas as a somewhat civilized nation; that the ‘Banza,’ or town of the Muata, was laid out in streets and shaded in summer, to mitigate the heat of the sun and prevent dust; that they had a flour and grain market for the housing and regular distribution of provisions, and many squares or open spaces of large extent.

“The wife of the Muata lived at a distance from him of thirty or forty leagues, in a country where she reigned as Queen absolute, and only saw her husband on certain days in the year. The executions in the ‘Banza’ of the Queen amounted to eight, ten, and fifteen blacks per day, and it is probable that in that of the Muata the number was not less. The barbarity of their laws, and the want of communications by means of which to get rid of their criminals, was the cause of this horrible number of executions.”

Feo Cardozo, who expresses himself most strongly against slavery, here observes: “Despite the theories and declamation of sensitive minds led away by false notions of the state of the question, as long as the barbarity and ignorance of the African nations shall exist, the barter of slaves will always be considered by enlightened philanthropists as the only palliative to the ferocity of the laws that govern those nations.

“It was further ascertained from the ‘Pombeiros,’ that the nation of Cazembe, where Dr. Lacerda had died, was feudatory to the Muata Yamba, and in token of its vassalage paid him a yearly tribute of sea salt, obtained from the eastern coast. The possibility of communication with the east coast through the interior being now evident, the Governor Saldanha instructed the ‘Pombeiros’ to retrace their steps towards the east, and continue in that direction.

“It was during the succeeding Governorship of José d’Oliveira Barboza, however, that the feasibility of such communication was finally proved, for he sought out a black trader to go to Moçambique across the interior, and return by the same route, bringing back answers from the Governor of that Colony to letters sent him from Loanda. This fact added nothing to geographical knowledge, from the ignorance of the man who accomplished it.

“In 1813, this Governor formed the plan of conveying the waters of the River Quanza into the city of Loanda, from a distance of about fourteen leagues, by means of a canal, which was commenced in that year, and the workings continued during 1814 and 1815, but abandoned after being cut for a length of 3000 fathoms, on account of the difficulties encountered for want of a previous survey.”

No attempt has since been made to supply the city with water from the Quanza, or from the still nearer River Bengo; besides the great boon such a work would confer on the hot and dry town, it could not fail to be a great success from a monetary point of view.

Plate I.
TRAVELLING IN ANGOLA—VIEW NEAR AMBRIZ.
To face page 23.

CHAPTER II.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY—CHARACTER OF VEGETATION—RIVERS.

The Portuguese possessions of Angola on the south-west coast of Africa extend from Ambriz in 7° 49´ S. Lat. to Cape Frio in 18° 20´ S. Lat. Their farthest establishment south is, however, at Mossamedes, or Little Fish Bay, in 15° 20´ S. Lat.

Throughout this book in speaking of Angola I include not only the country from Mossamedes to Ambriz, at present occupied by the Portuguese, but farther north, as far as the River Congo, that being its strong natural limit of climate, fauna, and ethnology, as I shall further explain.

This long extent of coast comprises, as may be readily imagined, considerable variety in geological formation, physical configuration, climate, vegetation, and natural productions, tribes of natives, and different languages, habits, and customs.

The coast-line is nowhere very bold; level sandy bays, fringed with a belt of the dark evergreen mangrove, alternate with long stretches of cliffs, seldom attaining any great height or grandeur, and covered with a coarse branching grass (Eragrostis sp.), small patches of shrubby scrub, a tall cactus-like tree Euphorbia, and the gigantic towering Baobab with its fantastic long gourd-like fruit. ([Plate I.])

The “Calema,” or surf-wave, with its ceaseless roar, breaks heavily in long white lines on the smooth beach, and pulverizes the hardest rock, and every particle of shell and animal structure. It dashes against the base of the cliffs, resounding loudly in its mad fury as it has done, wave after wave and hour after hour, for unknown ages; and the singular absence of gulls or any moving living objects, or noises, to divert the eye or ear from the dreadful monotony of constantly recurring sound, and line after line of dazzling white foam, gives a distinctive and excessively depressing character to the coast, in harmony, as it were, with the enervating influence of its climate.

The character of the Angolan landscape is entirely different from that of the West Coast proper; say from Cape Verde to the Gaboon and the River Congo. Along that great length of coast are hundreds of square miles of brackish and salt-water lagoons and swamps, level with the sea, and often only separated from it by a narrow mangrove-fringed beach. The bottom of these lagoons is generally a soft deep black fetid mud, and a stick plunged into it comes up thickly covered with a mass nearly approaching in appearance to paste blacking. In the dry season great expanses of the bottom of these swamps become partially dry, and fermenting in the hot tropical sun cause a horrible stench, from the decayed millions of small fish, crabs, &c., left exposed on the surface. The number of fish and some of the lower forms of life inhabiting the mud and water of the lagoons is almost incredible. If one keeps quite still for a few minutes, the slimy ground becomes perfectly alive and hissing from the legions of small brightly coloured land crabs that issue simultaneously from thousands of round holes, from the size of a quill to about an inch and a-half in diameter.

It is in these gigantic hotbeds of decomposition that the deadly types of African fever are, I believe, mostly generated; and these pest waters and mud, when swept into the rivers by the floods in the rainy season, are carried far and wide, with what effect to human life on that coast it is needless to mention.

On those parts of the West Coast where level swampy ground is not the rule, a most agreeable change is seen in the character of the landscape, although, perhaps, the climate is just as unhealthy. Drenched constantly by pelting thunderstorms, and drizzling mists that roll down from the high lands and mountain-tops, the country is covered by the most luxuriant forest vegetation, in one expanse of the deepest unvarying green, the combined result of excessive moisture and the tropical sun of an almost uninterrupted summer.

This alternation of swamp and dense forest ends completely on arriving at the River Congo, and a total change to the comparatively arid country of Angola takes place; in fact, at about 13° S. Lat. it becomes almost a perfectly arid, rocky, and sandy desert.

I may say that, without exception, from the River Congo to Mossamedes no dense forest is seen from the sea, and from thence not a single tree, it is said, for hundreds of miles to the Orange River. A little mangrove, lining the insignificant rivers and low places in their vicinity, is all that varies the open scrub, of which the giant Adansonias and Euphorbias have taken, as it were, exclusive possession. Nowhere on the coast is seen more than an indication of the wonderful vegetation, or varied beauty and fertility, which generally begins at a distance of from thirty to sixty miles inland.

At this distance, a ridge or hilly range runs along the whole length of Angola, forming the first elevation; a second elevation succeeds it at about an equal distance; and a third, at perhaps twice the distance again, lands us on the central high plateau of Africa.

From the few and insignificant streams traversing Angola to the coast, which at most only reach sufficiently far inland to have their source at this third elevation or central plateau, it would seem that a great central depression or fall drains the waters of that part of Africa in either an easterly or southerly direction.

I think it is very doubtful whether the Congo, with its vast body of water and rapid current, drains any large extent of country in an easterly direction to the interior, beyond the first rapids. The gradual elevation from the coast to the ridge beyond which the central plateau begins, and from which the streams that drain Angola seem to have their source, may have been formed by the upheaval of the country by volcanic action. Of this there is evidence in the trachytes and basalts of Cambambe and the country to the south of Benguella, which form an anticlinal axis running the whole length of Angola, and thus prevent the drainage of the interior to the sea on this part of the coast.

These successive elevations inland are accompanied by very remarkable changes in the character of the vegetation covering the surface of the country, and in my several excursions and explorations to the interior from Ambriz to Bembe, from Loanda to the Pungo Andongo range, from Novo Redondo to Mucelis, and to the interior of Benguella and Mossamedes, I have had frequent opportunities of remarking these very singular and sudden changes. These are due, I believe, as Dr. Welwitsch has pointed out, to the difference of elevation alone, irrespective of its geological formation.

A sketch of the vegetation of the country traversed by the road from Ambriz to Bembe, where is situated the wonderful deposit of malachite,—a distance of about 120 miles E.N.E.—will give an idea of the general character of the change observed in travelling towards the interior of Angola. For about twenty-five miles from Ambriz the vegetation is, as already described, principally composed of enormous Baobabs, Euphorbias, a tall Agave (or aloe), a tree called “Muxixe” by the natives, bearing curious seed-pods (Sterculia tomentosa), a few small slender creepers, great abundance of the Sansevieria Angolensis in the thickets of prickly bushes, and coarse short tufty grasses,—the branching grass being only found near the coast for a few miles. The country is pretty level, dry, and stony, of weathered large-grained gneiss. At Matuta the scene suddenly and magically changes, and in so striking a manner as to impress even the most unobservant traveller. The Baobabs become much fewer in number, the Agaves, the Sansevieria, the Euphorbias, suddenly and almost completely disappear, as also do most of the prickly shrubs, the fine trailing and creeping plants, the Muxixe, and several other trees, and a number of smaller plants. A new set of larger, shadier trees and shrubs take their place, the grass becomes tall and broad-leaved, and one seems to be travelling in an entirely new country.

This character is preserved for another stretch of road till Quiballa is reached, about sixty miles from the coast, where the rise in level is more marked; and again the vegetation changes, almost as remarkably as at Matuta, where, however, the difference in altitude is not so sudden, but a gradual rise is noticed all the way from Ambriz. Creepers of all kinds, attaining a gigantic size, here almost monopolize the vegetation, clasping round the biggest trees, and covering them with a mass of foliage and flower, and forming most exquisite festoons and curtains as they web, as it were, one tree to another in their embrace. No words can describe the luxuriance of these tree creepers, particularly in the vicinity of the shallow rivers and rivulets of the interior. Several trees together, covered from top to bottom with a rich mantle of the India-rubber creeper (Landolphia florida?), with bright, large dark-green leaves somewhat resembling those of the magnolia, thickly studded with large bunches of purest white jasmine-like flowers, loading the air for a considerable distance with its powerful bitter-almond perfume, and attracting a cloud of buzzing insects, form altogether a sight not easily forgotten. Once at Bembe I saw a perfect wall or curtain formed by a most delicate creeper, hung from top to bottom with bottle-brush-like flowers about three inches long;—but the grandest view presented to my eyes was in the Pungo Andongo range, where the bottom of a narrow valley, for quite half a mile in length, was filled, as they all are in the interior, by a dense forest of high trees; the creepers, in search of light, had pierced through and spread on the top, where their stems and leaves had become woven and matted into a thick carpet on which their flowers were produced in such profusion that hardly a leaf was visible, but only one long sea of beautiful purple, like a glacier of colour—filling the valley and set in the frame of green of the luxuriant grass-covered hill sides. The very blacks that accompanied me, so little impressed as they are usually by the beauties of nature, beat their open mouths with the palm of the hand as they uttered short “Ah! ah! ahs!” their universal mode of expressing astonishment or delight, so wonderful, even to them, appeared the magnificent mass of colour below us as it suddenly came in view when we arrived at the head of the valley, down one side of which we descended to the plain below.

I have seen the surface of a large pool of water thickly covered with a layer of purple pea-shaped flowers, fallen from the large Wistaria-like bunches of blossom of a creeper overgrowing a mass of trees standing at the edge: it seemed as if Nature, loth that so much beauty should fade quickly, had kept for some time longer the fallen flowers fresh and lovely on the cool still water of the shady lake. This abundance of creeping plants is more or less preserved till at about sixty miles farther inland we arrive at Bembe and the comparatively level country stretching away to the interior; the oil-palm (Elæis Guineensis) then becomes again abundant, these trees being only found on the coast in any number in the vicinity of the rivers; the beautiful feathery papyrus also again covers the lagoons and wet places.

The comparatively short and spare thin-leaved and delicate tufted grasses of the first or littoral region are succeeded in the second, as I have already said, by much stronger kinds, attaining an extraordinary development in the highest or third region. Gigantic grasses from five to as much as sixteen feet high, growing luxuriantly, cover densely the vast plains and tracts of country in these two regions where tree vegetation is scarce. The edges of the blades of most of these tall grasses are so stiff and finely and strongly serrated as to be quite sharp, and if passed quickly over the skin will cause a deep cut, as clean as if done with a knife; one species is called by the natives “Capim de faca” in Portuguese, or “knife grass,” from the manner in which it cuts if handled, or in going through it.

I have often had my hands bleeding from cuts inflicted by this grass when in going down steep, dry, slippery places I have clutched at the high grass on each side of me to prevent falling. To any one accustomed to grass only a few inches high, the dimensions that these species attain are simply incredible. Like snow and ice in northern latitudes, grasses in interior tropical Africa for some six months in the year take undisputed possession of the country and actually interrupt all communication in many places.

It is a very strange feeling when travelling in a hammock, to be forced through grass so dense and so high that nothing but the sky above can be seen,—a wall of dry rustling leaves on each side shutting out all view sometimes for mile after mile, and so intensely hot and breathless as to be almost unbearable, causing the perspiration to run in drops off the wet, shining, varnished skins of the almost naked blacks. In going through places where the grass has nearly choked up all signs of a path, it is necessary to send in advance all the blacks of the party, so as to open aside and widen it sufficiently to allow the traveller in his hammock to be carried and pushed through the dense high mass: even if there be a moderate breeze blowing it is, of course, completely shut out; the perspiration from the negroes is wiped on the grass as they push through it, now shoving it aside with their hands and arms, now forcing their way through it backwards, and it is most disagreeable to have the wetted leaves constantly slapping one’s face and hands, to say nothing of the horrible stink from their steaming bodies. It is a powerful odour, and the quiet hot air becomes so impregnated with it as to be nearly overpowering. It is difficult to compare it with any other disagreeable animal smell; it is different from that of the white race, and the nearest comparison I can give is a mixture of putrid onions and rancid butter well rubbed on an old billy-goat. In some it is a great deal worse than in others, but none, men or women, are free from it, even when their bodies are at rest or not sensibly perspiring; and it being a natural secretion of the skin, of course no amount of washing or cleanliness will remove it. The mulattoes, again, have it, but different, and not generally so strong as the pure black, and with a more acid odour, reminding one strongly of the caprylic and similar acids known to chemists. The natives themselves naturally do not notice it, and after some time of residence in the country, except in very powerful cases, strangers become comparatively accustomed to it, and, as showing how a person may in time become used to nastiness, I have even partaken of a dish in which were some forcemeat balls that I had previously watched the negro cook roll with the palm of his hand on his naked stomach, to make them of a proper round shape, without spoiling my appetite or preventing me from joining in the deserved praise of the stew that contained them.

The Portuguese and Brazilians call the smell that exhales from the bodies of the blacks “Catinga,” and I witnessed an amusing instance of its effect on a dog, when it smelt it for the first time. On my second voyage to Angola, I took with me a beautiful “perdigueiro,” or Portuguese pointer, from Lisbon; this animal had evidently never smelt a negro before our arrival at Ilha do Principe (Prince’s Island); for, on two of the blacks from the custom-house boat coming on the poop, it began sniffing the air at some distance from where they were standing, and carefully and slowly approached them with its neck and nose at full stretch, with a look on its intelligent face of the greatest curiosity and surprise. On approaching within three or four yards, the smell of the blacks, who kept quite still, being afraid it might bite them, seemed too much for its sensitive nose, and it sneezed and looked perfectly disgusted. It continued to approach them and sneeze and retreat repeatedly for some little time, evidently unable to get used to the powerful perfume. The poor dog’s unmistakeable expression of thorough dislike to the odour of the black race was most comical.

An old Brazilian mule that I had at Benguella could not bear the blacks to saddle her or put her bridle and head-gear on; she would throw back her ears, and suddenly make a snap with her teeth at the black who attempted it. She was a very tame animal, and would be perfectly quiet to a white man. She had been seventeen years in Benguella before she came into my possession, but never became used to negroes; whether she disliked them from their disagreeable odour, or from some other reason, I could not discover; but, judging from the dog’s decided antipathy, I presume their smell was her principal objection, and yet it is very singular that wild animals in Africa will scent a white sooner than a black hunter. I have heard this from many persons in Angola, both blacks and whites. It would be interesting to know if our hunters at the Cape have noticed the same thing. The fact that, notwithstanding the “Catinga,” black hunters can lie in ambush, and antelope and other game come so close to them that they can fire the whole charge of their flint muskets, wadding and all, into them, is well known in Angola.

Whilst exploring for minerals in Cambambe, I was prevented for a long time from visiting several localities, from the paths to them being choked up with grass. It is difficult to imagine how exhausting it is to push through thick, high grass; in a very short time one becomes completely out of breath, and the arms hang powerless with the exertion: the heat and suffocating stillness of the air may have as much to do with this as the amount of force exerted to push aside the yielding, rustling mass.

Shortly after the rains cease in May, the grass, having flowered and attained its full growth, rapidly dries up under the hot sun, and is then set on fire by the blacks, forming the wonderful “Queimadas,” literally “burnings,” of the Portuguese, and “smokes” of the English in the Bights. If only the leaves are sufficiently dry to catch fire, the stems are left green, with a black ring at every joint or base of the leaf, and the mass of whip-like stems then looks like a forest of long porcupine quills. This is very disagreeable to travel through, as the half-burnt stems spring back and cross in every direction behind the front bearer of the hammock, and poke into the traveller’s face, and thrash the hands when held up to save the eyes from injury, and after a day’s journey one gets quite black, with eyes and throat sore and parched from the charcoal dust and fine alkaline ash.

When the grass has become thoroughly dry, the effect of the “Queimada” is indescribably grand and striking. In the daytime the line of fire is marked by a long cloud of beautiful white steam-like smoke curling slowly up, dense and high in the breathless air, in the most fantastic forms against the clear blue sky. This cloud of smoke is closely accompanied by a perfect flock of rapacious birds of every size and description, from the magnificent eagle to the smallest hawk, circling and sailing high and grandly in the air, and now and then swooping down upon the unfortunate rats, mice, and small animals, snakes, and other reptiles, burnt and left exposed by the conflagration. Near the blazing grass the scene is very fine, a deafening noise is heard as of thousands of pistol shots, caused by the imprisoned air bursting every joint of the long stems, and the loud rush and crackling of the high sheet of flame, as it catches and consumes the dry upright straw. One is inspired with awe and a feeling of puny insignificance before the irresistible march of the flames that are rapidly destroying the enormous extent of the dense, nearly impenetrable mass of vegetation covering the surface of the country, leaving it perfectly bare with the exception of a few charred root stumps of grass, and a few stunted, scorched shrubs and trees. At night the effect is wonderfully fine: the vast wall of fire is seen over hill and valley, as far as the eye can reach; above the brilliant leaping flames, so bright in the clear atmosphere of the tropical night, vast bodies of red sparks are shot up high into the cloud of smoke, which is of the most magnificent lurid hue from the reflection of the grand blaze below.

No trees or shrubs are consumed by the burning of the grasses, everything of a larger growth being too green to take fire; a whitening or drying of the leaves is generally the only effect even where the light annual creepers growing on them have been consumed. Forest or jungle in Angola, unlike other countries, never burns, and is consequently the refuge of all the larger animals and birds from the “Queimadas,” which are undoubtedly the cause in many parts of Angola of the great scarcity of animal and insect life which strikes a traveller expecting to meet everywhere the great abundance known to exist in the interior.

Great is the alarm of the natives on the near approach of these fires to their towns, the whole population turning out, and with branches of trees beating out the fire. It is seldom, however, that their huts are consumed, as the villages are generally situated in places where trees and shrubs abound, and the different huts are mostly separated by hedges of different species of Euphorbiaceæ. Many villages are entirely surrounded by a thick belt of these milky-juiced plants, effectually guarding them from any chance of fire from the grass outside. Where the huts are not thus protected, the danger, of course, is very great, but the natives sometimes take the precaution of setting fire to patches of the grass to clear a space around the huts or village. There is no danger in travelling from these grass fires, for, when they are seen approaching, their rate of progress being slow, it is sufficient to set fire to the dry grass to leeward to clear a space in which to encamp in safety.

The change in vegetation is also accompanied by difference of climate, but it is difficult to say whether they react on each other, and if so, in what proportion. The rains are very much more abundant and constant towards the interior of the country, where the vegetation is densest: on the coast the rains are generally very deficient, and some seasons entirely fail; this is more especially the case south of about 12° Lat., several successive rainy seasons passing without a single drop of rain falling. A three years’ drought in the interior of Loanda is still vividly remembered, the inhabitants, from their improvident habits, perishing miserably by thousands from starvation. In my mining explorations at Benguella, I was at Cuio under a cloudless sky for twenty-six months, in the years 1863 and 1864, with hardly a drop of water falling.

I had under my charge at that time twenty-four white men, and between 400 and 600 blacks at work on a copper deposit, mining and carrying ore to the coast, distant about four miles; and no one accustomed to a constant supply of water, can imagine the anxiety and work I had to go through to obtain the necessary amount for that large number of thirsty people, very often barely sufficient for drinking purposes; no water fit for drinking or cooking was to be had nearer than six miles, and as no bullock carts could be employed, it had all to be carried in kegs on men’s shoulders, and by a troop of the most miserable, small, idiotically stubborn donkeys that can be imagined from the Cape de Verde Islands. It was impossible always to be looking after the blacks told off daily on water duty, and words cannot express the annoyance and vexation that the rascals constantly caused us, by getting drunk on the road, wilfully damaging the kegs, selling the water to natives on their way back, bringing the filthiest water out of muddy pools instead of clear from the proper place, sleeping on the road, and keeping all waiting, sometimes without a drop of water, very often till far into the night. This was no joke when we were thirsty, hungry, dusty, and tired, after a hot day’s work blasting rock, breaking up copper ore in the sun at the mine in the bottom of a circular valley, where the little air above seldom reached, and where the dazzling white sand and gneiss rock, bare of nearly all vegetation, reflected and intensified the glare and heat almost unbearably in the hot season.

In going from north to south the character of the vegetation changes very insensibly from the River Congo to Mossamedes. As far as Ambrizzette the Mateba palm (Hyphæne Guineensis) is very abundant. This palm-tree, unlike the oil-palm, which is only found near water, or in rich soil, grows on the dry cliffs and country of the littoral region very abundantly as far as about Ambriz. The leaves of this palm-tree are employed to make small bags, in which most of the ground-nuts are exported from the coast. The Cashew-tree (Anacardium occidentale) grows on this part of the coast from Congo to Ambrizzette still more abundantly, in many places there being hardly any other tree or shrub; it is also very plentiful again around Loanda, but to the south it nearly disappears. A thin stemmy Euphorbia, nearly leafless, is a principal feature of the landscape about Loanda, and gives it a very dull and arid appearance. The cactus-like, upright Euphorbia is a notable characteristic of the whole coast of Angola.

South of Benguella the country is extremely arid, the gneiss, gypsum, and basalt, of which it is principally composed, appearing only to afford nourishment to a very limited vegetation, both in number or species, principally spiny trees and shrubs with numbers of dreadful recurved prickles, nearly bare of leaves a great part of the year,—and over immense tracts of very uneven ground even these are scarce: only the gigantic Euphorbias, and the stunted roots of grass sparingly distributed, break the monotony of a silent, dry, rocky desert.

A very curious creeper, a species of Cassytha, is extremely abundant in Benguella, covering the shrubs and small trees closely with its network of leafless string-like stems. The Sansevieria Angolensis is very plentiful all over the littoral region of Angola; the flat-leaved species (S. longiflora) is only noticed north from Ambriz to Congo, and only growing very near the sea: the S. Angolensis is but rarely seen with it, and it is very curious how distinctly these two species are separated. In the immediate vicinity of all the rivers and streams of Angola the vegetation is, as might be expected, generally very luxuriant, particularly north of Benguella.

The total absence of horned cattle among the natives on the coast, from the River Congo to south of the River Quanza, is very remarkable; due, I believe, as much to some influence of climate, or poisonous or irritant nature of the vegetation, as to the neglect of the natives to breed them, though a few small herds of cattle to be seen at Ambrizzette and Quissembo belonging to the white traders, and brought by the natives far from the interior, appear to thrive very well, and several Portuguese have bred fine herds at the River Loge, about three miles from Ambriz; they would not thrive, however, at Bembe, where those that were purchased from the ivory caravans from the interior gradually became thin and died. The natives south of the Quanza beyond the Quissama country, as far as Mossamedes, breed large numbers of cattle—their principal wealth, in fact, consisting of their herds. The district of Loanda cannot supply itself with cattle sufficient for its moderate consumption, a large proportion having to be brought from Cambambe and Pungo Andongo and even much farther from the interior.

South of the Congo there is only one navigable river, the Quanza, in 9° 20´ S., and even the bar and mouth of this are shifty, and so shallow as only to admit vessels drawing not more than five or six feet of water, and this only at high tides. The Rivers Dande and Bengo are only navigable by barges for a few miles; others, such as the Ambrizzette, Loge, Novo Redondo, Quicombo, Egito, Anha, Catumbella, and Luache, barely admit the entrance of a canoe, and their bars are often closed for a considerable time in the dry season; the beds of others are completely dried up for miles inland at that time of the year, and it is very curious to see the level sandy bed without water between the luxuriant and creeper-covered banks, and the borders of sedge and grass.

Although dry on the surface, cool delicious water is met with at a few inches below. I shall never forget, on my first journey into Cambambe, the haste with which we pushed forward, on an intensely hot morning, in order to arrive at the River Mucozo, a small stream running into the Quanza. We had encamped the night before at a place where only a small supply of water was to be had from a filthy and muddy hole, and so thick and ochrey was it that, even after boiling and straining, it was nearly undrinkable; on reaching the high banks of the Mucozo, great was my disappointment to see the bed of the river one long expanse of dry sand shining in the hot sun, and my hope of water, as I thought, gone! Not so the blacks, who raised a loud shout as they caught sight of it, dashed in a race down the banks, and throwing themselves on the sand quickly scooped out a hole about six inches deep with their hands, and lying flat on their bellies stuck their faces in it, and seemed never to finish drinking to their hearts’ content the inexpressibly refreshing, cool, filtered water. After having only dirty and thick water to drink, not improved by coffee or bad rum, after a long, hot day’s journey, tired and exhausted, the ground for a bed, mosquitoes, and a smoky fire on each side to keep them off, fleas and other biting things from the sand, that nip and sting but are not seen or caught, snatches of sleep, feverish awakening in the morning, with parched mouth, the perspiration dried on the face and skin, gritty and crystallized and salt to the feel and taste, no water to drink or wash with, the sun out and shining strong again almost as soon as it is daylight, and hurry, hurry, through dry grass and sand without a breath of air, and with the thermometer at 90° in the shade, for four or five hours before we reached the Mucozo—it was no wonder I was disinclined to move from the place till the afternoon came, and the great heat of the day was passed; or that I thought the water, fresh and cold from its clean sandy bed, the most delicious drink that could be imagined!

The delight of a drink of pure cold water in hot climates has over and over again been described by all travellers, but it is impossible to realize it fully without experiencing the sensations that precede and cause the thirst that only cold water seems to satisfy.

The River Luache, at Dombe Grande, near the sea, in the province of Benguella, is dry for some miles inland every year, and its bed of pure, clean, deep sand is as much as half a mile broad at that place. The first great rains in the interior generally come down the dry beds of these rivers suddenly, like a great torrent or wave, and I was fortunate enough to be at Dombe Grande once when the water came down the Luache from the interior. It was a grand sight to see a wave the whole breadth of the river, and I should judge about eight feet high, driving before and carrying with it an immense mass of trees and branches, roots, sedges, and grasses all confused and rolling irresistibly to the sea, with a dull rushing roar, quite unlike the noise one would imagine a body of water to make, but more like a rush of rocks down a mountain in the distance; and very strange and agreeable was the change in the landscape—a broad desert of white sand suddenly transformed into a vast running river of fresh water, bringing gladness to all living things.

The sandy bars of some of the other small rivers of Angola become closed sometimes for several months, but the stream remains of about the same volume, or opens out into a pool or lake, or partly dries up into lovely sedgy pools inhabited by wild-fowl of various kinds, and fields of beautiful aquatic grasses and papyrus plants, in which I have often seen caught by hand the singular fresh-water fish “Bagre” (Clarias Capensis, Bagrus, &c.) vigorously alive, left behind by the diminishing waters, in grassy swampy places where the foot hardly sank ankle deep in water, and where it was certainly not deep enough to cover them. The dry sandy beds of rivers in the rainless season are often completely covered with a magnificent growth of the Palma Christi, or Castor Oil plant, with its beautiful large leaves. This I have noticed more particularly in the district of Novo Redondo and Benguella.

Sharks, so frightfully dangerous in the surf of the West Coast, are unknown south of the River Congo. I have never heard of a person being attacked by one, although at Loanda the white population bathe off the island in front of the town, and blacks dabble about in the sea everywhere, and swim to and from the boats and barges.

No strikingly high mountain, I believe, exists in Angola; no hills of any great importance till we arrive at the first rise, which, as we have seen, extends the whole length of Angola at a distance of from thirty to sixty miles from the sea. The second and third elevations contain some fine mountain or hill ranges, as at Bembe, Pungo Andongo, Cazengo, Mucellis, and Capangombe. To the south of Benguella as far as Mossamedes flat-topped or table hills, perfectly bare of vegetation, are a very prominent feature, seen from the sea; they are of basalt, and are about 200 or 300 feet in height, and are in many places the only remains left of a higher level. In others, this higher level still exists for a considerable extent, deeply cut by narrow gorges and ravines leading towards the sea, with nearly perpendicular sides.

CHAPTER III.
THE RIVER CONGO A BOUNDARY—SLAVE TRADE—SLAVERY—ORDEAL BY POISON—INSENSIBILITY OF THE NEGRO—INGRATITUDE.

The River Congo, or Zaire, is a very striking and well-marked line of division or boundary, in respect of climate, fauna, natives and customs, between Angola and the rest of the West Coast.

The difference in the scenery and vegetation from those of the north is very great indeed, and not less so is that of the birds and animals. I have noticed enough to convince me that it would well repay a naturalist to investigate the number of species this river cuts off, as it were, from Angola; the gorilla and chimpanzee, for instance, are only known north of the Congo; they are found at Loango and Landana, and from reports of the natives, even near to the river itself; many species of monkeys, very abundant at Cabinda and on the north bank, are quite unknown in Angola; and the ordinary grey parrot, which is to be seen in flocks on the Congo, is also unknown to the south—the only exception to this rule, as far as I have been able to ascertain, being at Cassange, about 300 miles to the interior of Loanda, where the rare “King parrot,” with red feathers irregularly distributed among the grey ones, is not uncommon. Of small birds I have noticed many at Cabinda that I never observed in Angola; the same with butterflies, and other insects.

The Congo is very deep, and the current is always very strong; even above Boma (or M’Boma), about ninety miles distant from the sea, the river is a vast body of water and the current still very swift. From the mouth to beyond this place the banks are deeply cut into innumerable creeks and rivers, and form many large islands. The enormous quantity of fresh water poured by this river into the sea gives rise to many curious speculations as to its extent and probable sources. I am inclined to believe that the River Congo, or its principal branch, after going in a north-east direction for a comparatively short distance, bends to the southward, and will be found to run for many degrees in that direction.

In the preceding chapter we have seen that south of the Congo no river deserving of that name, or draining more than the country up to the third elevation, exists in Angola. The vast country from the River Congo to perhaps the Orange River, or about 1200 miles, has therefore no outfall for its waters into the Atlantic Ocean.

The existence of volcanic rocks in Cambambe and Mossamedes appears to explain the elevation of this part of the coast; how much farther to the south this elevation has taken place is as yet unknown, and I can only reconcile the vast body of water of the River Congo with the absence of any large river farther south, by supposing it to bend down and drain the long line of country upheaved on the seaboard: it is not likely to drain much country to the north from the existence of several rivers such as the Chiloango, Quillo, Massabi, and Mayumba, in a distance of about 360 miles from its mouth to that of the River Gaboon under the Equator.

For many years, and up to about the year 1868, the Congo was the principal shipping place for slaves on the South-West Coast, the large number of creeks in it affording safe hiding-places for loading the ships engaged in the traffic, and the swift current enabling them to go out quickly a long way to sea, and clear the line of cruisers. Boma was the centre or point for the caravans of slaves coming from different parts of the interior, and there was little or no trade in produce.

It may not be out of place here to say a few words on the slave-trade of the South Coast, because a great deal of ignorance and misconception exists on the subject from judging of it as having been similar to the slave-trade in North and East Africa. Repugnant and wicked as is the idea of slavery and dealing in human flesh, philanthropy must be debited with an amount of unknowing cruelty and wholesale sacrifice of life perfectly awful to contemplate, as a set-off against its well-intentioned and successful efforts to put a stop to slavery and the known horrors of the middle passage, and subsequent ill-treatment at the hands of the planters.

In no part of Angola or among tribes to the interior have slave-hunts ever existed as in the north; there are no powerful or more civilized nations making war on weaker tribes for the purpose of obtaining slaves, and devastating the country by fire and sword. There is very little cruelty attending the state of slavery among the natives of Angola, I believe I may say even in the greater part of the rest of tropical Africa, but I will restrict myself to the part of which I have an intimate knowledge. It is a domestic institution, and has existed, as at present, since time immemorial; and there is no more disgrace or discredit in having been born of slave parents, and consequently in being a slave, than there is in Europe in being born of dependents or servants of an ancestral house, and continuing in its service in the same manner.

There is something patriarchal in the state of bondage among the negroes, if we look at it from an African point of view (I must again impress on my readers that all my remarks apply to Angola). The free man, or owner, and his wife, have to supply their slaves with proper food and clothing; to tend them in sickness as their own children, to get them husbands or wives, as the case may be, to supply them with the means of celebrating their festivals, such as their marriages, births, or burials, in nearly the same way as amongst themselves; the slaves, in fact, are considered as their family, and are always spoken of as “my son,” or “my daughter.” If the daughters of slaves are chosen as wives or concubines by their owners or other free men, it is considered an honour, and their children, though looked upon as slaves, are entitled to special consideration.

There is consequently no cruelty or hardship attending the state of slavery; a male slave cannot be made by his master to cultivate the ground, which is women’s work, and the mistress and her slaves till the ground together.

A stranger set down in Angola, and not aware of the existence of slavery, would hardly discover that such an institution prevailed so universally amongst them, so little apparent difference is there between the master and slave. A not very dissimilar condition of things existed in the feudal times in England and other countries. Yet many hundred thousand slaves were brought down to the coast to be sold to the white men and shipped off, and I will now explain how this was the case, paradoxical though it may appear after what I have just said. The number was partly made up of surplus slave population sold off by the owners, probably from inability to feed or clothe them; cases of famine from failure of the crops, from drought, &c., a common local occurrence, also supplied large numbers of slaves; but by far the greatest part were furnished by the effect of their own laws, almost every offence being punishable by slavery, to which not only the guilty party, but even in many cases every member of his family was liable.

Offences against property are especially visited by the severe penalties of slavery, fine, or death. Any one caught in the act of stealing, be the amount ever so small, becomes at once the property or slave of the person robbed. It is a common thing to see blacks working in chains at factories and houses where they have been caught stealing, the custom among the Europeans generally being to detain them until their relatives shall have paid a ransom for them. I must do the natives the justice to say that they are very observant of their own laws, even to a white man alone in their territory, who claims their protection against offenders. Certain offences that we should consider trifling, are by some tribes visited with heavy punishment, such as stealing Indian corn whilst growing, or an egg from under a sitting hen. In other tribes breaking a plate or other article of crockery is a great offence: this is especially the case to the interior of Novo Redondo, where the punishment is death or slavery.

I was told there of the amusing manner in which a Portuguese trader turned the tables on a Soba, or chief of a town, where he had established himself, and who annoyed him greatly by his constant demands for presents, by placing a cracked plate under a sheet on his bed, on which the Soba was in the habit of sitting during his too frequent visits. On the Soba sitting down as usual, on the trap prepared for him, he, of course, smashed the plate to atoms, to his great surprise; frightened at the possible result of the accident, he humbly begged the trader not to let a soul in the place know of it, promising restitution; the wished-for result of the scheme was attained, as he ceased all his importunities during the remainder of the trader’s stay in the country.

But all these sources of slaves for shipment were but a fraction of the number supplied by their belief in witchcraft. Witchcraft is their principal, or only belief; every thing that happens has been brought about by it; all cases of drought, sickness, death, blight, accident, and even the most trivial circumstances are ascribed to the evil influence of witchery or “fetish.”

A “fetish” man is consulted, and some poor unfortunate accused and either killed at once or sold into slavery, and, in most cases, all his family as well, and every scrap of their property confiscated and divided amongst the whole town; in other cases, however, a heavy fine is imposed, and inability to pay it also entails slavery; the option of trial by ordeal is sometimes afforded the accused, who often eagerly demand it, such is their firm belief in it.

This extremely curious and interesting ordeal is by poison, which is prepared from the thick, hard bark of a large tree, the Erythrophlæum Guineense (Oliver, ‘Flora of Tropical Africa,’ ii. 320). Dr. Brunton has examined the properties of this bark, and finds that it possesses a very remarkable action. The powder, when inhaled, causes violent sneezing; the aqueous extract, when injected under the skin of animals, causes vomiting, and has a remarkable effect upon the vagus nerve, which it first irritates and then paralyses. The irritation of this nerve makes the heart beat slowly. (Fuller details may be found in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society’ for this year.) It is called “casca” by the natives, and I obtained a specimen at Bembe, which was brought to me concealed in rags, by a half-witted water-carrier in my service, and he procured it for me only after my promising him that I would not tell anyone. He said it was from a tree growing about half a day’s journey off, but I could not get him to take me to it. The other blacks denied all knowledge of it, and said it was “fetish” for anyone to have it in his possession. On two occasions afterwards, I obtained some more specimens from natives of Cabinda, where the tree is said to be abundant, and the natives very fond of referring all their disputes and accusations to its decision.

“Casca” is prepared by the bark being ground on a stone to a fine powder, and mixed with about half a pint of cold water, a piece about two inches square being said to be a dose. It either acts as an emetic or as a purgative; should the former effect take place, the accused is declared innocent, if the latter, he is at once considered guilty, and either allowed to die of the poison, which is said to be quick in its action, or immediately attacked with sticks and clubs, his head cut off and his body burnt.

All the natives I inquired of agreed in their description of the effect produced on a person poisoned by this bark; his limbs are first affected and he loses all power over them, falls to the ground, and dies quickly; without much apparent suffering.

It is said to be in the power of the “fetish” man to prepare the “casca” mixture in such a manner as to determine which of the effects mentioned shall be produced; in case of a dispute, both parties drink it, and according as he allows the mixture to settle, and gives one the clear liquid and the other the dregs, so does it produce vomiting in the former, and acts as a purgative in the latter case. I have very little doubt that as the “fetish” man is bribed or not, so he can and does prepare it.

The Portuguese in Angola strictly prohibit the use of “casca,” and severely punish any natives concerned in a trial by this bark, but it is nevertheless practised in secret everywhere.

The occasion of the test is one of great excitement, and is accompanied by much cruelty. In some tribes the accused, after drinking the potion, has to stoop and pass under half-a-dozen low arches made by bending switches and sticking both ends into the ground; should he fall down in passing under any of the arches, that circumstance alone is sufficient to prove him guilty, without waiting for the purgative effect to be produced.

Before the trial the accused is confined in a hut, closely guarded, and the night before it is surrounded by all the women and children of the neighbouring towns, dancing and singing to the horrid din of their drums and rattles. On the occasion of the ordeal the men are all armed with knives, matchets, and sticks, and the moment the poor devil stumbles in going under one of the switches, he is instantly set upon by the howling multitude and beaten to death, and cut and hacked to pieces in a few minutes. I was at Mangue Grande on one occasion when a big dance was going on the night before a poor wretch was to take “casca.” I went to the town with some of the traders at that place, and we offered to ransom him, but to no purpose; nothing, they said, could save him from the trial. I learnt, however, that he passed it successfully, but I think I never heard such a hideous yelling as the 400 or 500 women and children were making round the hut, almost all with their faces and bodies painted red and white, dancing in a perfect cloud of dust, and the whole scene illuminated by blazing fires of dry grass under a starlit summer sky.

The most insignificant and extraordinary circumstances are made the subject of accusations of witchcraft, and entail the usual penalties.

I was at Ambrizzette when three Cabinda women had been to the river with their pots for water; all three were filling them from the stream together, when the middle one was snapped up by an alligator, and instantly carried away under the surface of the water, and of course devoured. The relatives of the poor woman at once accused the other two of bewitching her, and causing the alligator to take her out of their midst! When I remonstrated with them, and attempted to show them the utter absurdity of the charge, their answer was, “Why did not the alligator take one of the end ones then, and not the one in the middle?” and out of this idea it was impossible to move them, and the poor women were both to take “casca.” I never heard the result, but most likely one or both were either killed or passed into slavery.

At a place near the mountain range of Pungo Andongo, about 150 miles inland of Loanda, I was once the amused spectator at a curious trial of a man for bewitching the spirit of his dead wife. Her sister, it appeared, suffered from violent headaches, and sleepless nights, which were said to be caused by the wife’s spirit being unable to rest, on account of the widower being a wizard. A large circle of spectators was formed round the sick sister, who was squatting on the ground; a fetish man was beating a drum, and singing, or rather droning, some incantation; after a little while, the woman began to give short yelps, and to close her eyes, and on being interrogated by the fetish man, said the spirit of her sister had spoken to her, and that she could not rest until her husband had made restitution of her two goats and her baskets, &c., which he had appropriated, and which she had desired should be given to her sister. The man instantly rose, and brought the goats, baskets, clothes, &c., and laid them before his sister-in-law, and the trial was over. If he had denied the accusation, he would inevitably have had to take “casca.”

When we consider the great population of the vast country that supplied the slave trade of the coast, and that, as I have explained, the state of their laws and customs renders all transgressions liable to slavery, the absence of necessity for the slave wars and hunts of the north of Africa and other extensive and thinly populated districts is sufficiently proved. I have been unable to collect positive information as to the statistics of the slaves shipped in Angola (from Congo to Benguella inclusively), but the number could not have been far short of 100,000 per annum. I was told by some of the old inhabitants, that to see as many as ten to twelve vessels loading at a time at Loanda and Benguella was a common occurrence. At the time of the last shipments from Benguella, about ten years ago, I have seen as many as 1000 slaves arrive in one caravan from the interior, principally from Bihé.

Up to within a very few years there existed a marble arm-chair on the wharf at the custom-house at Loanda, where the bishop, in the slave-trading times, was wont to sit, to baptize and bless the batches of poor wretches as they were sent off in barge-loads to the vessels in the harbour. The great slaughter now going on in a great part of Africa, which I have mentioned as the result of the suppression of the slave shipments from the coast, can now be understood; whereas formerly they were sent to the coast to be sold to the white men and exported, they are now simply murdered. On the road down from Bembe in April last, we passed the ashes and bones of a black who had stolen a trade-knife, a bit of iron in a small wooden handle, and made in Germany at the rate of a few shillings per gross, and passed on the coast in trade; on the top of his staff was stuck his skull and the knife he had stolen, a ghastly and lasting warning to passersby of the strict laws of the country respecting property.

If a famine overtakes any part of the country, a common occurrence, the slaves are simply taken out and knocked on the head to save them from starvation. I was told by the natives that the slaves offered no resistance to that fate, but accepted it as inevitable, and preferable to the pangs of hunger, knowing that it was no use going to the coast to save their lives at the hands of the white men by being shipped as slaves. At Musserra, three Cabinda blacks from the boats’ crews joined three natives in robbing one of the factories: on complaint being made to the king and principal men of the town, they marched off the three Cabindas, promising to punish them, which they did by cutting off their heads, unknown to the white men; they then brought the three natives to deliver up to the traders as their slaves, but on these refusing to accept them, and demanding that a severe punishment should also be passed on them, they quietly tied a large stone to their necks, took them out in a canoe to the bay, and dropped them into the sea.

It is impossible to reclaim the hordes of savages inhabiting the interior even of Angola from their horrid customs and their disregard for life; the insalubrity of the country, though it is infinitely superior in this respect to the rest of the West Coast, would be an almost insuperable bar to their improvement; their own progress is still more hopeless. In my opinion, it would be necessary that tropical Africa should undergo a total physical revolution, that the long line of unhealthy coast should be upheaved, and the deadly leagues of pestiferous swamps be thus drained, before the country would be fitted for the existence of a higher type of mankind than the present negro race.

It can only have been by countless ages of battling with malaria, that they have been reduced physically and morally to their present wonderful state or condition of withstanding successfully the climatic influences, so fatal to the white and more highly organized race—the sun and fevers of their malignant and dismal mangrove swamps, or the mists and agues of their magnificent tropical forests, no more affecting them than they do the alligators and countless mosquitoes that swarm in the former, or the monkeys and snakes that inhabit the latter. It is really astonishing to see the naked negro, without a particle of covering on his head (often shaved), in the full blaze of the fierce sun, his daily food a few handfuls of ground-nuts, beans, or mandioca-root, and very often most unwholesome water for drink. At night he throws himself on the ground, anywhere, covers himself with a thin grass or cotton cloth, nearly transparent in texture, without a pillow, like a dog, and awakes in the morning generally wet through with the heavy dew, and does not suffer the least pain or inconvenience from the climate from infancy to old age unless his lungs become affected.

The way babies are treated would be enough to kill a white child. The women when at work on the plantations generally place them on a heap of grass or on the ground, and are not at all particular to put them in the shade, and I have often seen them naked and filthy, and covered with a thick mass of large buzzing flies over their faces and bodies, fast asleep, with the sun shining full on them. The women, in carrying them tied behind their backs, seldom include their little heads in the cloth that secures them, but leave them to swing and loll about helplessly in every direction with the movement of walking.

Children, of any age, seldom cry, and when they do it is a kind of howl; when hurt or punished, they very rarely shed tears, or sob, but keep up a monotonous noise, which would never be imagined to be the crying of a child, but rather a song.

I once saw, in one of the market-places in Loanda, a boy of about sixteen lying on the ground, nearly naked, with his face and body covered with flies, but none of the busy thronging crowd had thought that he was dead and stiff, as I discovered when I touched him with my foot, but thought he was simply asleep and basking in the sun: his being covered with flies was too trivial a circumstance to attract any attention.

The manner in which negroes receive most severe wounds, with apparently little pain and absence of nervous shock, is most extraordinary. I have often been told of this by the Portuguese surgeons, who remark the absence of shock to the system with which negroes undergo amputations and other severe operations (without chloroform), which are attended by so much danger to the white race. I was staying at Ambrizzette when a man came there with his right hand blown to a mass of shreds, from the explosion of a gun-barrel; he was accompanied by his relatives, who took him to the different factories to beg the white men to cut off the hanging shreds of flesh and dress the injured part. All refused to attend to the man, till a Frenchman gave them a sharp razor, arnica, and balsam, and some bandages, and made them go out of the house and enclosure to operate on the sufferer themselves, away from the factories; which they did. About an hour after I was passing a group of natives sitting round a fire, and amongst them was the wounded man laughing and joking quite at his ease, and with his left hand roasting ground-nuts with the rest, as if nothing had happened to him.

The reason the white men refused to help the wounded black was not from want of charity or pity, as all would have done everything in their power to alleviate his sufferings, but it was the singular custom of the natives that prevented their doing so. Had he died, the white man who ministered to him would have been made responsible for his death, and would have been almost as heavily fined as if he had murdered him! If he got well, as he did, his benefactor would have been inconvenienced by heavy demands for his maintenance and clothing, and expected to make presents to the king, &c., for he would be looked upon as having saved his life, and consequently bound to support him, to a certain extent, as he was, though alive, unable from the accident to get his own living as readily as if he were uninjured. The Frenchman got over this risk by giving the remedies, not to the wounded black himself, but to his friends, and also making them clear out of the precincts of the house; so that in no case, whether the man died or lived, could any claim be made against him.

The only way to put a stop to the awful bloodshed now going on in the interior would be to organize an emigration scheme, under the direct supervision of the several governments who have entered into treaties for the abolition of slavery, and transport the poor wretches, now being murdered in cold blood by thousands, to tropical climates where they might earn their living by the cultivation of those articles necessary for consumption in civilized countries; their constitution would enable them to resist the climate, and they would gradually become civilized.

One great bar to their civilization in Angola, is that no tribe on the coast can be induced to work for wages, except as servants in houses and stores, and even these are mostly slaves of other natives, or work to pay off some fine or penalty incurred in their towns. For some years that I have been collecting the inner bark of the Adansonia digitata, or Baobab tree (the application of which to paper-making I discovered in 1858, and commenced working as a commercial speculation in 1865), I have been unable to induce one single native to hire himself to work by day or piecework; they will cut, prepare, and dry it, and bring it for sale, but nothing will induce them to hire themselves, or their slaves, to a white man.

There are at present in Angola several sugar and cotton plantations worked by slaves, called at present “libertos,” who are meant by the Portuguese Government to work ten years, as a compensation to their owners for the capital expended in their purchase and for their clothing, education and medical treatment. At a near date, the total abolition of slavery in Angola has been decreed, and will come into force; with the inevitable result of the ruin of the plantations, or of its becoming a dead letter in the province.

By the native laws, a black once sold as a slave, and escaping back to his tribe, is considered a free man, so that a planter at present has no hold on his slaves; if they escape into the neighbouring towns, the natives will only deliver them up on the payment of a certain amount, very often more than he had cost in the first instance.

No amount of kindness or good done to a negro will have the slightest influence in preventing him from leaving his benefactor without as much as a “good-bye,” or a shadow of an excuse, and very often going from a pampered existence to the certainty of the hard fare and life of their free condition, and this, not from the slightest idea of love of freedom, or anything of the kind, but simply from an animal instinct to live a lazy and vegetative existence.

When I was at Cuio, working a copper deposit, a black called Firmino, the slave of a Portuguese there, attached himself very much to me, and was, seemingly, never so happy as when accompanying me in my trips and rambles, and not from any payment I gave him, beyond a small and occasional present. When his master was leaving the place, Firmino came crying to me, begging me to buy him, that he might remain in my service as my slave, promising that he would never leave me.

His master generally treating him with harshness, if not cruelty, I took pity on him, and gave 13l. 10s. for him, a high and fancy price there, but he was considered worth it from his great size and strength, his speaking Portuguese perfectly, and good qualities generally.

I explained to him that although I had bought him, he was a free man, and could go at once if he liked; but that as long as he remained in my service as my personal attendant, he should have clothes and pay. He went on his knees to thank me and to swear in negro fashion, by making a cross in the dust with his forefinger, that he would never leave me. A fortnight after, having to send him with a bundle of clothes from Benguella to Cuio, he delivered them to the person they were addressed to, but joined three slaves in stealing a boat and sailing to Loanda.

A month after I received a letter from the police there advising me that a nigger called Firmino had been caught with others in an extensive robbery, and claimed to be my slave. I answered that he was no slave of mine, detailing the circumstances of my freeing him, and asking that he should be dealt with as he deserved. He was punished and drafted as a soldier at Loanda, and on my meeting him there one day and asking him his reason for leaving me, and treating me so ungratefully, he said that “he did not know why he had done so;” and I do not believe he did, or ever tried to find out, or bothered his head any more about it.

It is no use disguising the fact that the negro race is, mentally, differently constituted from the white, however disagreeable and opposed this may be to the usual and prevailing ideas in this country. I do not believe, and I fearlessly assert, that there is hardly such a thing possible as the sincere conversion of a single negro to Christianity whilst in Africa, and under the powerful influence of their fellows. No progress will be made in the condition of the negro as long as the idea prevails that he can be reasoned out of his ignorance and prejudices, and his belief in fetish, or that he is the equal of the white man; in fact, he must remain the same as he is now, until we learn to know him properly, and what he really is.

Loanda was discovered in the year 1492, and since 1576 the white race has never abandoned it. The Jesuits and other missionaries did wonders in their time, and the results of their great work can be still noticed to this day: thousands of the natives, for 200 miles to the interior, can read and write very fairly, though there has hardly been a mission or school, except in a very small way, at Loanda itself, for many many years; but those accomplishments are all that civilization or example has done amongst them. They all believe firmly in their fetishes and charms, and though generally treated with the utmost kindness and equality by the Portuguese, the negro race, and even the mulattoes, have never advanced further than to hold secondary appointments, as writers or clerks, in the public offices and shops, and to appear (in public) in the most starched and dandyfied condition. I can only recollect one black man who had at all distinguished himself in trade; keeping low and filthy grog-shops being about the extent of their business capacity. Another honourable exception is a Captain Dias, who is the captain or governor of the district of the “Barra do Bengo,” near Loanda, a very intelligent man, and from whom I several times experienced great kindness and hospitality.

Plate II.
PORTO DA LENHA.
To face page 81.

CHAPTER IV.
THE RIVER CONGO—BANANA—PORTO DA LENHA—BOMA—MUSSURONGO TRIBE—PIRATES—MUSHICONGO TRIBE—FISH—PALM CHOP—PALM WINE.

At the mouth of the River Congo and on its north bank a long spit of sand separates the sea from a small creek or branch of the river. On this narrow strip, called Banana, are established several factories, belonging to Dutch, French, and English houses, and serving principally as depôts for their other factories higher up the river and on the coast. The Dutch house especially is a large establishment, and it was in one of their small steamers that my wife and myself ascended the river in February 1873.

The first place we touched at was Porto da Lenha, about forty or forty-five miles from Banana. The river banks up to this point are sheer walls of large mangrove trees rising out of the water; at high water, particularly, hardly a dry place can be seen where one could land from a boat or canoe. The natives have, of course, openings known to themselves, under and through the mangrove, where their little canoes dart in and out.

Porto da Lenha ([Plate II.]) consists of half-a-dozen trading factories, built on ground enclosed from the river by piles, forming quays in front, where large vessels can discharge and load close alongside. The wharves are continually sinking, and have to be replaced by constant addition of new piles and layers of thick fresh-water bivalve shells, very abundant in the river. We here found growing in the mud, and with the roots covered by the river at high water, the lovely orchid “Lissochilus giganteus” in full bloom; we collected some of its roots, which reached England safely, and are now growing in Kew Gardens. Several fine creepers were also in flower, and we observed numerous butterflies, which were not easy to capture from the difficulty of getting at them, as at the back of the houses the dense bush grows out of swamp, and only those specimens crossing the small dry space on which the houses are built could be collected. Little creeks divide one house from another; in some cases a plank bridge affords communication, but it is mostly effected by boats. A few days before our arrival a flood had covered the whole of the ground with several inches of water. Considering the conditions of the place, it does not seem to be so unhealthy to Europeans as might be expected. Next day we proceeded to Boma, also situated on the north bank of the river, about ninety-five miles from Banana.

The scenery completely changes after leaving Porto da Lenha, the mangrove totally disappears, and several kinds of bright green bushes, interspersed with different palms and trees, cover the banks for many miles. Near Boma, however, the banks are higher, and become bare of trees and shrubs, the whole country being comparatively free of any other vegetation but high grass; we have arrived, in fact, at the grass-covered high country before mentioned as beginning at the third elevation from the coast over the whole of Angola.

We were most hospitably received by a young Portuguese, Senhor Chaves, in charge of an English factory there, picturesquely situated, overlooking the banks of the river. A high hill opposite Boma and across the river is covered from the top right down to the water’s edge with an impenetrable forest, and it is not easy to explain this vegetation, as it stands in such singular relief to the comparative barrenness of the surrounding country, gigantic Baobabs being the great tree-feature of the place. We crossed the river several times to this thickly-wooded hill, and were only able to find just sufficient shore to land under the branches of the trees, one of which (Lonchocarpus sericeus) was in beautiful bloom. The current of the river is so strong, and the stream so broad, that it took us half-an-hour to get across in a good boat with ten strong Kroomen paddling.

The view from a high hill on the north bank is magnificent: a succession of bends of the river, and as far as the sight could reach, the flat country to the south and west cut into innumerable islands and creeks, of the brightest green of the water-grass and papyrus reed, divided by the sunlit and quicksilver-like streams of the vast rapidly-flowing river.

Boma, as before observed, was formerly the great slave-trade mart, thousands arriving from all quarters of the interior; they generally carried a load of provisions, chiefly small beans, a species of the haricot, for sale to the traders, and on which the slaves were chiefly fed, in the barracoons and on board the vessels in which they were shipped, and the Congo used in this way to supply the coast, even to Loanda, with abundance of beans, mandioca-meal, &c.; but since the cessation of the slave-trade there has been such great scarcity of native grown food produce, not only in the river but everywhere on the coast—the cultivation of other products, such as ground-nuts, being of greater advantage to the natives—that Europeans are sometimes reduced to great straits for food for the natives in their service, and even for the fowls. This is one of the curious changes produced in the country by the abolition of the slave-trade. A very large trade quickly sprang up at Boma in ground-nuts, palm-oil, palm-kernels, &c.; but a foolish competition amongst the white traders has induced them to go higher up the river to trade; the consequence has been that Boma, so capitally situated in every way for a trading station, is now nearly reduced to a depôt for produce brought from farther up the river.

We were a fortnight at Boma, but were greatly disappointed at the small number of species of insects we collected, and the poverty in plants as well. All the lovely coloured finches and other birds of the grassy regions were here most conspicuous in number and brilliancy, and it was really beautiful to see the tall grass alive with the brightest scarlet, yellow, orange, and velvet black of the many different species, at that season in their full plumage.

We were very much amused at a pretty habit of the males of the tiny little sky-blue birds (Estrelda cyanogastra) that, with other small birds such as the Spermestes, Estreldas, Pytelias, &c., used to come down in flocks to feed in the open space round the house. The little mites would take a grass flower in their beaks, and perform quite a hoppy dance on any little stick or bush, bobbing their feathery heads up and down, whilst their tiny throats swelled with the sweetest little song-notes and trills imaginable. This was their song to the females, who were feeding about on the ground below them. The long-tailed little whydah birds (Vidua principalis) have a somewhat similar habit of showing off whilst the hens are feeding on the ground; they keep hovering in the air about three or four feet above them, twit-twitting all the time, their long tails rising and falling most gracefully to the up-and-down motion of their little bodies.

One Sunday during our stay Senhor Chaves organized a pic-nic of the principal white traders to a native village in the interior, where he had arranged that the nine kings who govern Boma and receive “customs” from the traders, should meet us, in order that he might make them each a “dash,” which he wished my wife to present, in commemoration of a white woman’s visit. We started in hammocks, and after about two hours’ journey, arrived at the place of meeting, where a good breakfast awaited us. Our road was over hilly ground, rough and rocky (mica schist), and was remarkably bare of vegetation; we passed one or two large and well-cultivated ravines.

After breakfast the nine kings appeared on the scene, and a miserable lot they were, with one exception, a fine tall old grizzly negro; their retinues were of the same description, and wretchedly clad. There was a big palaver, the customary amount of rum was consumed by them, and they each received, from my wife, their “dress” of several yards of cloth, piece of cotton handkerchiefs, red baize sash, and red cotton nightcap. One old fellow had a very curious old crucifix, which he did not know the age of; he could only tell that he was the fifth Soba or king that had inherited it. It had evidently belonged to the old Catholic Portuguese missionaries of former times.

Crucifixes are often seen as “fetishes” of the kings in Angola. Nothing will induce them to part with them, as they belong to part of the “fetishes” that have been handed down from king to king from time immemorial, and must not be lost or disposed of.

An amusing incident occurred on our way at a large village, where a great crowd, chiefly of women and children, had collected to cheer the white woman, seen for the first time in their lives. My hammock was a little way behind, and on arriving at the village I was met with great shouts and much shaking of hands; as the other white men had not been similarly received, I inquired the reason why, and was then informed that it was to denote their satisfaction at seeing the “proprietor or owner of the white woman,” as they expressed it.

The natives here, in fact above Porto da Lenha, are Mushicongos, and are not a bad set of blacks; but, like all this large tribe, are weak and puny in appearance, dirty in their habits, and scanty of clothing. They have not as yet allowed white men to pass from Boma, or any other point of the river, to St. Salvador, and several Portuguese who have wished to go from St. Salvador to Boma have been dissuaded from attempting the journey by the king and natives, not from any objection on their part, but from the certainty that the blacks near the river would make them turn back.

There is a very great objection on the part of all the tribes of the interior of Angola, and particularly of those not in the actual territory held by the Portuguese, to the passage of a white man through the country. This is due in the first place to the natural distrust and suspicion of the negro character, and secondly to their fear of the example of the occupation of Ambriz and the Bembe mines by the Portuguese. It is impossible for blacks to understand that a white man will travel for curiosity’s sake; it is perfectly incomprehensible to them that he should spend money in carriers, making presents, &c., only for the pleasure of seeing the country; they are never satisfied without what they consider a good reason; consequently they always imagine it must be for the purpose of establishing a factory for trade, or else to observe the country for its occupation thereafter. This is the reason why natives will never give reliable information regarding even the simplest question of direction of roads, rivers, distances, &c. It is very difficult to obtain exact information, and it is only after being very well acquainted with them that their natural suspicions are lulled, and they will freely afford the knowledge desired.

Their explanations of our object in collecting insects, birds, and other objects of natural history were very curious. Our statements that we did so to show in the white man’s country what plants, insects, birds, &c., were to be found in Africa, as ours were so different, never satisfied them; they always thought that the specimens must be worth a great deal of money amongst the white men, or, as others did not devote themselves to collecting, it was to make “fetishes” of them when we got home: some, who considered themselves wiser than the others, said it was to copy designs for the Manchester prints, and that they would see the flowers, butterflies, and birds, copied on the trade cloth as soon as I got back to my country.

Their idea of my manufacturing the specimens into “fetishes” was a perfectly natural one in my case, as my nickname at Ambriz and on the coast is “Endoqui,” or fetish man, from my having introduced the new trade of collecting and pressing the bark of the Adansonia tree, and from my wonderful performances in working a small steam engine, and putting up the hydraulic presses and a corrugated iron store, the first they had seen, and which caused great surprise.

The natives of the Congo River, from its mouth to a little above Porto da Lenha, belong to the Mussurongo tribe, and are an ill-favoured set—they are all piratical robbers, never losing an opportunity of attacking a loaded barge or even ship, unless well armed or keeping in the centre of the river, where the great current prevents them from collecting around it in their canoes. These pirates have been continually attacked by the Portuguese and English men-of-war, generally after some more than usually daring robbery, and have had several severe thrashings, but without their taking the slightest example by them, the next ship or boat that runs aground on the numerous sandbanks being again immediately attacked. They have taken several white men prisoners on such occasions, and have exacted a ransom for their liberation. They have, however, always treated them well whilst detained in their towns. The principal houses now do their trade by steamers, which the Mussurongos dare not, of course, attack.

A few years ago, a notorious pirate chief called Manoel Vacca, who had caused great loss to the traders by his piracy, was captured by them at Porto da Lenha and delivered to the British Commodore, who, instead of hanging him at the yard-arm as he deserved, and as an example to the nest of thieves of which he was the chief, took him to St. Helena, and after some time brought this savage back carefully to Porto da Lenha to his disconsolate followers, who had been unable to find a fit leader for their piratical robberies. Manoel Vacca, of course, quickly forgot his promises of amendment made whilst on board the British man-of-war, and again became the pest he had formerly been, and when we were up the river had exacted, without the slightest pretence but that of revenge, a large payment from the traders at Porto da Lenha, threatening to stop all trade, rob all boats, and kill the “cabindas” or crews, on the river, if not immediately paid, and—on our way from Boma—we narrowly escaped being involved in a fight there, in consequence of this scandalous demand, which I afterwards heard had been complied with. The traders vowed that if ever they caught him again, they would not deliver him to have his education continued at St. Helena, but would finish it on the spot.

The Mussurongos are very fond of wearing ankle-rings, which, when of brass, are Birmingham made, and obtained from the traders, but in many cases are made by the natives of iron forged by their smiths, and cast-tin or pewter, which they obtain in trade in the form of little bars. Those made by the natives are invariably ornamented with one peculiar design ([Plate IV.]). These rings are seldom above a few ounces in weight, and are worn by men and women alike, very different from the natives of Cabinda, on the north of the River Congo, whose women wear them as large and heavy as they can be made. I have in my possession two copper ankle-rings which I purchased for six shawl-handkerchiefs of a little old Cabinda woman at Ambriz, weighing seven pounds each. It cost a smith some considerable time and trouble to take them off, as from their thickness it was very difficult to wedge them open without injury to the woman’s legs. It seems almost incredible that Fashion should, even among these uncivilized tribes, compel the dark sex to follow her arbitrary exactions, to the extent of carrying the enormous weight of fourteen pounds of solid metal on their naked feet. Till the ankles become hardened and used to the rings, the wearers are obliged to tie rags round them, to protect the skin from injury by the heavy weight.

The River Congo teems with animal life: above Porto da Lenha hippopotami are very abundant; alligators, of course, swarm, and are very dangerous.

Of the few small fish that I caught with a line at Boma, no less than four were new species, and have been named by Dr. A. Günther, of the British Museum, as the Bryconœthiops microstoma, Alestes holargyreus, Distichodus affinis, and Mormyrus Monteiri (see ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for August, 1873).

At Boma the Koodoo (Tragelaphus Spekei, Sclater) antelope must be very abundant, judging from the number of times that we there ate of its delicious flesh, brought in for sale by the natives. In my former visits to Banana I made several shooting excursions to neighbouring villages of friendly natives, in company with a Portuguese called Chico, employed at the Dutch factory, who was a keen sportsman: we generally started in the evening, and slept at a village a few miles off, rising at daybreak to shoot wild fowl in the lovely creeks and marshes, before the sun forced us to return to breakfast and the welcome shade of the palm-trees, under which were the pretty huts of the village.

Our breakfast invariably consisted of “palm chop,” a delicious dish when properly prepared, and from the fresh nut. This dish has been so abused by travellers, who have perhaps hardly tasted it more than once, and who might have been prejudiced by the colour of the oil, or the idea that they were eating waggon-grease or palm-soap, that I must give an accurate description of its preparation and defend its excellence against its detractors. The nuts of the oil-palm (Elæis Guineensis) are about the size of large chestnuts, the inner part being excessively hard and stony, and containing an almond (technically “palm-kernel”). It is enclosed or surrounded by a thin outer mass of fibre and pulp containing the oil, and covered with a rich red-brown skin or husk somewhat thinner than that on a chestnut. The pulpy oil and fibrous portion being separated from the nuts, is melted in a pot over the fire to further separate all the fibres, and the rich, thick oily mass is then ready to be added to a dismembered duck or fowl, or any other kind of meat, and the whole stewed gently together with the proper amount of water, with the addition of ground green Chili peppers and salt to taste, until it is quite done, and in appearance like a rich curry, with which it can best be compared; a squeeze of lime or lemon is a great improvement. The flavour of this dish is not at all like what might be expected from the strong smell of the often rancid palm oil received in this country. It is always eaten with some boiled preparation of maize flour, or better still of meal from the mandioca root. A good cook will make a very good “palm chop” with fresh oil, in the absence of the new nuts.

Another excellent dish is the ordinary haricot bean stewed with palm oil and Chili peppers till quite tender and thick.

It is from the oil-palm that the finest palm wine is obtained, and it is curious how few travellers have accurately described this or its properties. The blacks ascend the trees by the aid of a ring formed of a stout piece of the stem of a creeper which is excessively strong and supple: one end is tied into a loop, and the other thrown round the tree is passed through the loop and bent back ([Plate IV.]): the end being secured forms a ready and perfectly safe ring, which the operator passes over his waist. The stumps of the fallen leaves form projections which very much assist him in getting up the tree. This is done by taking hold of the ring with each hand, and by a succession of jerks, the climber is soon up at the top, with his empty gourds hung round his neck. With a pointed instrument he taps the tree at the crown, and attaches the mouth of a gourd to the aperture, or he takes advantage of the grooved stem of a leaf cut off short to use as a channel for the sap to flow into the gourd suspended below. This operation is performed in the evening, and in the early morning the gourds are brought down with the sap or juice that has collected in them during the night. The palm wine is now a slightly milky fluid, in appearance as nearly as possible like the milk in the ordinary cocoa-nut, having very much the same flavour, only sweeter and more luscious.

When cool in the morning, as brought down fresh from the tree, it is perfectly delicious, without the slightest trace of fermentation, and of course not in the least intoxicating; in a few hours, or very shortly if collected or kept in old gourds in which wine has previously fermented, it begins to ferment rapidly, becoming acid and intoxicating; not so much from the quantity of alcohol produced, I believe, as from its being contained in a strongly effervescent medium, and being drunk by the natives in the hot time of the day, and when they are heated by travelling, &c. Even in the morning the wine has sometimes a slightly acid flavour, if it has been collected in an old calabash. We used to have new gourds employed for ourselves. The natives, again, can never be trusted to bring it for sale perfectly fresh or pure, always mixing it with water or old wine, and of course spoiling it, and I have known the rascals take water in the calabashes up the tree to mix with the pure juice, when they thought they should not have an opportunity of adulterating it before selling it.

Plate III.
VIEW ON THE CONGO, ABOVE BOMA.
To face page 99.

The smell of the palm wine, as it dries on the tree tops where they have been punctured, is very attractive to butterflies, bees, wasps, and other insects, and these in their turn attract the many species of insectivorous birds. This is more particularly the case with the beautiful little sunbirds (Nectariniæ), always seen in numbers busily employed in capturing their insect prey, actively flitting, from top to top, and darting in and out of the leaf-stems with a little song very much like that of the cock-robin.

CHAPTER V.
COUNTRY FROM THE RIVER CONGO TO AMBRIZ—VEGETATION—TRADING—CIVILIZATION—COMMERCE—PRODUCTS—IVORY—MUSSERRA—SLEEP DISEASE—SALT—MINERAL PITCH.

The southern point, at the entrance of the River Congo, is called Point Padrão, from a marble “Padrão,” or monument raised by the Portuguese to commemorate the discovery of the River Congo by Diogo Cam, in 1485. At a short distance from it there formerly existed a monastery and missionary establishment dedicated to Santo Antonio. That part of the southern bank of the river opposite Banana is called Santo Antonio to this day, and a few years ago a Portuguese trader opened a house there for the purpose of trade; in this he was followed by the agent of a Liverpool firm, but the result, naturally to be foreseen, took place, and both factories were robbed and burnt down by the rascally Mussurongos. Some time before this took place, I was waiting at Banana for some means of conveyance by sea to Ambriz, but none appearing, I determined, in company with a Brazilian who was also desirous of proceeding to the same place, to cross over to Santo Antonio, and try if we could induce the natives to allow us to pass thence over land to Cabeça da Cobra. This we did, and remained at the trader’s house till we got carriers and permission, on making a small present to the king of Santo Antonio town, to pass through. No white man had been allowed to do so for many years.

We started one night as soon as the moon rose, about one o’clock, and after travelling a couple of hours, almost the whole time over marshy ground and through a dry wood, which we had to pass on foot,—as it was a fetish wood and it would have been highly unlucky to cross it in our hammocks,—we arrived at the town of Santo Antonio, which appeared large and well populated. Here we rested for a little while, whilst we got some fresh carriers, and the king and several of the natives came to see us and received two pieces of cotton handkerchiefs, and a couple of gallons of rum, which we had brought for them. The old bells of the monastery are still preserved in the town, hung from trees, and we were treated with a din on them in return for our present. We then continued our journey over good dry ground till we arrived at Cabeça da Cobra, or “Snake’s Head,” in time for a late breakfast at the house of a Portuguese trader. Here Senhor Fernando José da Silva presented me with a letter of introduction he had brought with him from Lisbon some years previously, and which he had not before had an opportunity of delivering.

I at once engaged him to help me in developing my discovery of the application of the fibre of the Baobab (Adansonia digitata) to paper-making, and in introducing among the natives the new industry of collecting and preparing it, and I must here render him a tribute of gratitude for his friendship and the unceasing activity and energy with which he has laboured to assist me in permanently establishing this new trade, in the face of the greatest difficulties, privations, and hard work for long years on the coast.

The coast line from Cabeça da Cobra to Ambriz is principally composed of red bluffs and cliffs, and the road or path is generally near the edge of the cliffs, affording fine views of the sea and surf-beaten beach below. The country is arid and thinly wooded, and is covered with hard, wiry, branched grass; and the curious Mateba palm grows in great abundance in the country from the River Congo to Moculla, where it is replaced by the Cashew tree as far as Ambrizzette. The flat-leaved Sansevieria (S. longiflora) is extremely abundant, and disappears south almost entirely about Musserra, where it is in its turn replaced by Sansevieria Angolensis. These changes are very curious and striking, being so well marked on a comparatively small extent of coast. The Baobab tree is everywhere seen, its vast trunk throwing, by comparison, all other trees into insignificance: it is less abundant perhaps from the River Congo to about Ambrizzette; from that place, southwards, the country is one open forest of it.

The natives as far as Mangue Grande are Mussurongos. From this to Ambriz they are a branch of the Mushicongo tribe. The Mussurongos are at present an indolent set, but there are signs that they are becoming more industrious, now that they have given up all hope of seeing the slave-trade again established, which enabled them, as one said to me, to be rich without working. Since the last slave was shipped from this part of the coast, about the year 1868, the development of produce in the country itself and from the interior has been very great indeed, and promises in a few years to be still more, and very important in amount. This will be more particularly the case when the present system ceases, by which the natives of the coast towns act as middle-men to the natives from the interior. At present nearly the entire bulk of the produce comes from the interior, no extensive good plantation grounds being found before arriving at the first elevation, which we have seen to commence at from thirty to sixty miles from the coast, the ivory coming from not less than 200 to 300 miles.

The blacks, on arriving from the interior, put up at the towns on the coast, where the natives, having been in constant intercourse with the whites for years, all speak Portuguese, and many of them English. It is a fact that the natives speak Portuguese more correctly than they do English, which I attribute to the good custom of the Portuguese very seldom stooping to murder their language when speaking to the blacks, which the English universally do, under the mistaken idea of rendering themselves more intelligible.

These blacks act as interpreters and brokers, and are thereby enabled to satisfy fully and successfully their innate propensity for roguery by cheating the natives from the interior to their hearts’ content. They bargain the produce with the white men at one price, telling the natives always that it is for a much lower sum, of course pocketing the difference, sometimes amounting to one-half and more. It is a common thing to be asked to have only so much,—naming the amount for which they have pretended to have sold the produce,—paid whilst the owners are present, and getting a “book” or ticket for the rest, which they receive from the white trader at another time.

It has been found impossible to do away with this custom, as the white men are almost dependent for their trade upon these rogues, called “linguisteres” (derived evidently from the Portuguese term “lingoa,” “tongue,” or interpreter). These have their defence for the custom, first, that it has always existed, a great argument with the conservative negro race; secondly, that it is their commission for looking after the interests of the natives from the interior, who would otherwise be cheated by the white men, who would take advantage of their want of knowledge of the selling prices on the coast; and thirdly that they have to make presents to the natives out of these gains, and give them drink at the towns to keep them as their customers and prevent their going to other towns or linguisteres. The natives from the interior, again, are very suspicious and afraid of the white man, and they would hardly dare approach him without being under the protection of the coast negroes. There is no doubt that the development of the trade from the interior would increase greatly if the natives and owners of the produce obtained the full price paid by the white men. There is almost a certainty, however, that the system will not last much longer, as the natives are beginning to find out how they are cheated by their coast brethren, and are already, in many cases, trading direct with the white men.

The system adopted in trading or bartering with the natives on the coast, comprehended between the River Congo and Ambriz, is somewhat complicated and curious. All produce (except ivory) on being brought to the trader, is put on the scales and the price is agreed, in “longs” in English, or “peças” in Portuguese. This “peça” or “long” is the unit of exchange to which all the multifarious articles of barter are referred: for instance, six yards of the ordinary kinds of cotton cloth, such as stripes, unbleached calico, blue prints, cotton checks, are equal to a “long;” a yard and a half of red or blue baize, five bottles of rum, five brass rods, one cotton umbrella, 3000 blue glass beads, three, six, eight, or twelve cotton handkerchiefs, according to size and quality, are also severally equal to a “long;” articles of greater value, such as kegs of powder, guns, swords, knives, &c., are two or more “longs” each.

As each bag of coffee (or other produce) is weighed and settled for, the buyer writes the number of “longs” that has been agreed upon on a small piece of paper called by the natives “Mucanda,” or, by those who speak English, a “book;” the buyer continues his weighing and purchasing, and the “books” are taken by the natives to the store, which is fitted up like a shop, with shelves on which are arranged at hand the many different kinds of cloth, &c., employed in barter. The natives cannot be trusted in the shop, which contains only the white man and his “Mafuca” or head man, so the noisy, wrangling mob is paid from it through a small window. We will suppose, for instance, that a “book” is presented at the window, on which is marked twenty “longs” as the payment of a bag of coffee; the trader takes—

This is now passed out, the trader making such alterations in the payment as the natives desire within certain limits, exchanging, for instance, the handkerchiefs for red baize, or the piece of calico for a sword, but there is an understanding that the payment is to be a certain selection, from which only small deviations can be made. If such were not the case the payment of 100 or more “books” in a short time would be impossible. It is by no means an easy task to trade quickly and successfully with the natives; long practice, and great patience and good temper are necessary. A good trader, who is used to the business, can pay the same “book” for a great deal less value than one unaccustomed to the work, and the natives will often refuse to trade with a new man or one not used to their ways and long known to them.

It is rather startling to a stranger to see and hear a couple of hundred blacks all shouting at the top of their voices to be paid first, and quarrelling and fighting over their payment, or pretending to be dissatisfied with it, or that they have been wrongly paid.

Ivory is purchased in a different manner; the tusk is weighed, and an offer made by the trader in guns, barrels of powder and “longs,” generally in about the proportion of one gun, one keg of powder, and two longs; thus a tusk, we will say, is purchased for twelve guns, twelve kegs of powder, and twenty-four “longs.” The natives do not receive this, but a more complicated payment takes place; of the twelve guns they only receive four, the rest being principally in cloth, on a scale well understood, the guns being calculated generally at four “longs” each; the same process is carried out with the kegs of powder, only a certain number being actually given in that commodity: the twenty-four “longs” are given in cloth and a variety of small objects, including razors, cheap looking-glasses, padlocks, ankle rings, playing-cards, empty bottles, hoop-iron off the bales, brass tacks, glass tumblers and decanters, different kinds of beads, &c. The amount first agreed upon is called the “rough bundle,” and the trader, by adding the value of the guns, powder, and “longs,” and dividing the sum by the weight of the tusk, can tell very nearly what the pound of ivory will cost when reduced by the substitution of the various numerous articles given in lieu of the guns and powder agreed upon on the purchase of the tusk.

The small extent of coast comprised between Ambriz and the River Congo is a striking example of the wonderful increase of trade, and consequently industry, among the negroes, since the extinction of the slave trade, and evidences also the great fertility of a country that with the rudest appliances can produce such quantities of valuable produce; about a dozen years ago, a very few tons, with the exception of ivory, of ground-nuts, coffee, and gum copal only, were exported. Last year the exports from Ambriz to, and not including, the River Congo, were as follows:—

Besides this amount of produce, the value of which may be estimated at over 300,000l., a considerable quantity of ground-nuts find their way to the River Congo from the interior of the country I am now describing. This is already a most gratifying and interesting result, and one from which valuable lessons are to be deduced, when we come to compare it with what has taken place in other parts of the coast, most notably in the immediate neighbouring country to the south in the possession of the Portuguese, and is a splendid example of the true principles by which the African race in Africa can be successfully civilized, and the only manner in which the riches of the West Coast can be developed and made available to the wants of the rest of the world.

There can be no doubt that our attempts to civilize the negro by purely missionary efforts have been a signal failure. I will say more: so long as missionary work consists of simply denominational instruction and controversy, as at present, it is mischievous and retarding to the material and mental development and prosperity of Africa. Looking at it from a purely religious point of view, I emphatically deny that a single native has been converted, otherwise than in name or outward appearance, to Christianity or Christian morality. Civilization on the coast has certainly succeeded in putting a considerable number of blacks into uncomfortable boots and tight and starched clothes, and their women outwardly into grotesque caricatures of Paris fashions, as any one may witness by spending even only a few hours at Sierra Leone, for instance, where he will see the inoffensive native transformed into a miserable strutting bully, insolent to the highest degree, taught to consider himself the equal of the white man, as full as his black skin can hold of overweening conceit, cant, and hypocrisy, without a vice or superstition removed, or a virtue engrafted in his nature, and calling the native whose industry supplies him with food, “You nigga! Sah!”

This is the broad and characteristic effect of present missions on the coast, I am sorry to say, and they will continue to be fruitless as long as they are not combined with industrial training. That was the secret of the success of the old Catholic missionaries in Angola; they were traders as well, and taught the natives the industrial arts, gardening, and agriculture. What if they derived riches and power, the envy of which led to their expulsion, from their efforts, so long as they made good carpenters, smiths, masons, and other artificers of the natives, and created in them a new life, and the desire for better clothing, houses, and food, which they could only satisfy by work and industry?

On landing at Bonny from the steamer, to collect plants and insects on the small piece of dry land opposite the hulks in the river, we saw the pretty little church and schoolroom belonging to the mission there, in which were a number of children repeating together, over and over again, like a number of parrots, “I know dat I hab a soul, because I feel someting widin me.” Only a few yards off was the village in which they lived, and a large fetish house exactly the same as any other; not a sign of work of any kind, not a square yard of ground cleared or planted, not a fowl or domestic animal, save a lean cur or two, to be seen; the children, and even big girls, or young women, in a complete state of nudity,—nothing in fact to show any difference whatever from any other town in the country. Can any one believe for a moment that the instruction afforded by that mission was of any avail, that the few irksome hours of repetition of texts, writing and reading, explanations of the Bible, &c., could in the least counteract the influence of the fetish house in the village, or the superstition and ignorance of the children’s parents and elders, or remove the fears and prejudices imbibed with their mothers’ milk? Is it not more natural to suppose, as is well known to be the case, that this imperfect training is just sufficient to enable them when older to be sharper, more dishonest and greater rogues than their fellows, and to ape the vices of the white man, without copying his virtues or his industry?

I remember at Ambrizzette a black who could read and write, forging a number of “books” for gunpowder, and thus robbing some of the houses to a considerable extent. The natives wanted to kill him, but on the white men interceding for his life, they chopped off the fingers of his right hand with a matchet, to prevent his forging any more. Educated blacks, or even mulattoes, cannot be trusted as clerks, with the charge of factories, or in other responsible situations. I do not remember a case in which loss did not sooner or later result from their employment.

Trade or commerce is the great civilizer of Africa, and the small part of the coast we are treating of at present is a proof of this. Commerce has had undisturbed sway for a few years, with the extraordinary result already stated. The natives have not been spoilt as yet by contact with the evils of an ignorant and oppressive occupation, as in Portuguese Angola, or, as on the British West Coast on the other hand, by having been preached by a dozen opposed and rival sects into a muddled state of assumed and insolent equality with the white race, whom they hate in their inmost hearts, from the consciousness of their infinite inferiority.

Commerce has spread before them a tempting array of Manchester goods, guns, gunpowder, blankets, rugs, coats, knives, looking-glasses, playing cards, rum and gin, matchets, tumblers and decanters, beads, silver and brass ankle-rings, and many other useful or ornamental articles, without any duties to pay, or any compulsory regulations of passports, papers, tolls, or hindrances of any kind; the only key necessary is a bag of produce on the scales; a fair, and in many cases, even high price is given in return, and every seller picks and chooses what he or she desires;—and let not rum or gin be abused for its great share in the development of produce, for it is a powerful incentive to work. A black dearly loves his drop of drink; he will very often do for a bottle of rum, what he would not even think of stirring for, for three times the value in any other article, and yet they are not great drunkards, as we shall see, when describing their customs; they so divide any portion of spirits they can obtain, that it does them no harm whatever. The rum and gin, though of the very cheapest description, is pure and unsophisticated, the only adulteration being an innocent one practised by the traders, who generally mix a liberal proportion of water with it.

When a black does give way to intemperate habits, his friends make him undergo “fetish” that he shall drink no more, and such is their dread of consequences if they do not keep their “fetish” promise, that I have known very few cases of their breaking the “pledge.” Sometimes a black is “fetished” for rum or other spirit-drinking, but not against wine, which they are beginning to consume in increasing quantity; the kind they are supplied with being the ordinary red Lisbon.

In describing the different kinds of produce of this country, the first on the list, the inner bark of the “Baobab,” or Adansonia digitata, claims precedence, it being the latest discovery of an African production as an article of commerce, and of great importance from its application to paper-making, and also from its opening a new and large field to native industry.

It was on my first arrival in Ambriz in February 1858, that this substance struck me as being fit for making good paper: a few simple experiments enabled me to make specimens of bleached fibre and pulp from it, proving to me conclusively its suitableness for that purpose.

Having been engaged in mining in Angola, it was not till the year 1865 that I finally determined to proceed to Ambriz, with the view of developing my discovery, and I have ever since been actively engaged in establishing houses on the part of the coast I am now describing, for bartering the Adansonia fibre,—pressing and shipping the same to England. In my long and arduous task I have met with more than the ordinary amount of losses and disappointments, from commercial failures and other causes that seem to fall to the lot of discoverers or inventors in general; but I have triumphed over all obstacles and prejudices, and have established its success as a paper-making material beyond any doubt.

The Baobab, or “monkey fruit tree,” is well known from descriptions as one of the giants of the vegetable kingdom. It rears its vast trunk thirty or forty feet high, with a diameter of three or four feet in the baby plants, to usually twenty to thirty feet in the older trees. Adansonias of more than thirty feet in diameter are rare, but they have been measured of as great a size as over 100 feet in circumference; the thickest trunk I have ever seen was sixty-four feet in circumference, and was clean and unbroken, without a crack on its smooth bark.

The leaves and flowers are produced during the rainy season, and are succeeded by the long pendant gourd-like fruit, like hanging notes of admiration, giving the gigantic, nearly leafless tree a most singular appearance. Millions of these trees cover the whole of Angola, as they do in fact the whole of tropical Africa, sufficient to supply an incalculable amount of paper material for years, but for the indolence of the negro race. I have no doubt, however, that they will in time follow the example of the Ambriz blacks, and a very large trade be developed as in the case of the palm-oil and the india-rubber trade.

The leaves of the Baobab when young are good to eat, boiled as a vegetable, and in appearance are somewhat like a new horse-chestnut leaf about half grown, and of a bright green; the flowers are very handsome, being a large ball of pure white, about four or five inches across, exactly like a powder puff, with a crown of large thick white petals turned back on top of it. After a few days the flowers become tipped with yellow, before dropping from the tree. The trunks, even of the largest trees, have properly speaking no wood, that is to say, a plank could not be sawn out of it, or any work made from it;—a section of a trunk shows first a thin outer skin or covering of a very peculiar pinkish ashen white, somewhat like that of a silver birch, some appearing quite silvery against the colour of other trees and foliage; then there follows about an inch of substance like hard mangold wurzel with fibres, then the thick coat of fibrous inner bark, which readily separates; next, the young wood, very much like the inner bark, and lastly, layers of more woody texture, divided or separated by irregular layers of pith, the most woody parts having no more firmness than perfectly rotten mildewed pine wood, and breaking quite readily with a ragged and very fibrous fracture.

The centre of these vast trunks easily rots, and becomes hollow from the top, where the stem generally branches off laterally into two or three huge arms. This is taken advantage of by the Quissama blacks, who inhabit the south bank of the River Quanza, to use them as tanks to store rain water in against the dry season, as it is a country very destitute of water.

The hollow Baobabs are very seldom open from the sides; I only remember one large tree of this kind in which an aperture like a door gave admittance into the empty centre; this was in Cambambe, and the hollow was large enough for two of us to sit inside, with a small box between us for a table, and have our breakfast, and room to spare for our cook to attend on us. Whilst we were comfortably enjoying our meal in its grateful shade, our cook suddenly gave a shout and rushed out, crying “Nhoca, Nhoca,” “Snake, Snake,” and sure enough there was a fine fellow about four feet long over-head, quietly surveying our operations; a charge of shot settled this very quickly, and down he fell, a victim to his curiosity.

The inner bark of the Adansonia is obtained by first chopping off the softer outer bark of the tree with a matchet, and then stripping the inner bark in large sheets. The smaller trees produce the finest and softest fibre, and it is taken off all round the tree, which does not appear to suffer much injury. A fresh layer of bark grows, and is thick enough to take off in about six to eight years. The bark is only taken off the large trunks in places where the outer bark is smooth and free from knobs, &c. In the course of time, the trunk growing, shows the scar, high above the ground, of the place where the bark has been taken off years before. The layers of inner bark when cut are saturated with sap; the pieces are beaten with a stick to soften them, and shaken to get rid of some of the pithy matter attached to them. The bark is then dried in the sun, when it is ready for pressing into bales, and shipping.

This inner bark is put to a variety of uses by the natives. It is twisted into string and rope for all sorts of purposes, or used in strips to secure loads, and to tie the sticks, &c., in making their huts. Finer pieces are pulled out so as to resemble a coarse network, and the edges being sewn together, make handy bags for cotton, or gum, grain, &c.; and very strong bags are woven from thin strips, in which coffee and ground-nuts are brought down from Cazengo to the coast.

Several amusing incidents occurred on my introducing the trade in Baobab fibre among the natives. I had great difficulty at first in inducing them to take to it, but they soon saw the advantage of doing on a large scale what they had been accustomed to do for their own small necessities; their principal reason for suspicion about it was that it had never before been an article purchased by the white men; they would not believe it was for making paper, but thought it must be for making cloth, and one old fellow very sagely affirmed that it was to be used for making mosquito curtains, from the open texture of the finer samples. It was debated at the towns whether it should be allowed to be cut and sold, and finally agreed to, and the trade was fully established at Ambriz for several months, when a report spread amongst the natives that the object of my buying it was to make it into ropes to tie them up some fine day when they least expected it, and ship them on board the steamers as slaves. Such was the belief in this absurd idea that all the natives employed at the factories disappeared, and not a man, woman, or child appeared in Ambriz for several days, and the place was nearly starved out.

I had an old black as my head man of the name of “Pae Tomás” (Father Thomas) who was very much respected in the country; he had been with me for some years, and it took all his influence to get the natives to return to Ambriz and to bring in fibre again for sale.

Another instance of how any little variation from the usual state of things will excite the suspicions of these natives, even accustomed as they have been to contact with white men for many years, was the appearance at Ambriz of a four-masted steamer,—one of the Lisbon monthly line: such a thing as a “ship with four sticks” had never been seen before, and without waiting to inquire, every black ran away from Ambriz, and the same thing happened on her return from Loanda; it was only after repeated voyages that the natives lost their fear of her; they could give no other reason than that it had never been seen before, and that therefore it must be a signal for the white men to do something or other they could not understand.

It was not till some time after putting up and working the hydraulic press at Ambriz that I was able to go north and establish them at other places. I had to invite the King and Council of Musserra to come to Ambriz and see it at work, and convince them that it was quite an inoffensive machine, and could only squeeze the fibre into bales; only by this means could I get their leave to land one there and erect it and begin the trade, and I believe that had I not been already long known to them I should have been unable to do it so soon. They somehow had the idea that the cylinder was a great cannon, and might be fired off with gunpowder, and I might take the country from them with it, but they were reassured when they saw it had no touch-hole at the breech, and that it was set upright in the ground and worked by water.

At Kimpoaça, a neighbouring town was averse to one being landed there, but as I had obtained the leave of the king and the townspeople they felt bound to allow me to set it up, and for about a fortnight that the surf prevented its being landed the whole of the inhabitants were on the beach every day with loaded guns, to fight the other town, if necessary, as they had threatened forcible opposition to its being put up—it all went off quietly, however, but a couple of years after, the rains having failed to come down at the proper time, the fetish men declared that the “matari ampuena,” or the “big iron,” had fetished the rain and prevented its appearance.

The matter was discussed in the country at a meeting of the people of the neighbouring towns, and it was determined to destroy the press and throw it into the sea if it was found to be a “feiticeiro,” or wizard. This was, of course, to be proved by the ordeal by poison, namely, by making it take “casca,” the bark that I have already described as determining the innocence or guilt of any one accused of witchcraft; but this difficulty presented itself to their minds, that as the “big iron” had no stomach or insides, the “casca” could have no action, so after much deliberation it was resolved to get over the difficulty by giving the dose to a slave of the king, who represented the hydraulic press. Very luckily the poison acted as an emetic, and the press was proved innocent of bewitching the rain. After some time, the rains persisting in not coming down, the poor slave was again forced to take “casca,” but with the same fortunate result,—the press was saved, and the natives have never again suspected it of complicity with evil spirits.

It was these hydraulic presses for baling the baobab fibre, at Ambriz and elsewhere, which more than anything else firmly established amongst the natives the name they had given me of “Endoqui ampuena,” or, the great wizard. There is something to them so marvellous in the simple working of a lever at a distance, by a little water in a tank, that no rational explanation is possible to their minds,—it is simply a case of pure witchcraft.

The fruit of the baobab is like a long gourd, about fourteen to eighteen inches in length, covered by a velvety greenish-brown coating, and hanging by a stalk two to three feet long. It is filled inside with a curious dry, pulverulent, yellowish-red substance, in which the seeds, about the size of pigeon-beans, are imbedded. The seeds are pounded and made into meal for food in times of scarcity, and the substance in which they are embedded is also edible, but strongly and agreeably acid. This gourd-like fruit is often used for carrying water or storing salt, &c., the walls, or shell, being very hard and about a quarter of an inch thick. From its shape it makes a very convenient vessel for baling water out of a canoe, one end being cut slantwise, and it is used by the natives everywhere on the coast for this purpose.

The finest orchilla weed is found growing on the baobab trees near the coast, and the natives ascend the great trunks by driving pegs into them one above the other, and using them as steps to get to the branches. These trees are the great resort of the several species of doves so abundant in Angola, and their favourite resting-place on account of the many nooks and spaces on the monstrous trunks and branches in which they can conveniently build their flat nests and rear their young.

There is something peculiarly grand in the near appearance of these trees, and it is impossible to describe the sensation caused by these huge vegetable towers, that have braved in solitary grandeur the hot sun and storms of centuries; and very pleasant it is to lie down under the shade of one of these giants and listen to the soft, plaintive “coo—coo—coo” of the doves above, the only sound that breaks the noonday silence of the hot and dry untrodden solitude around.

A lowly plant, but perhaps the most important in native tropical African agriculture, the ground-nut (Arachis hypogæa), next deserves description. Many thousand tons of this little nut are grown on the whole West Coast of Africa, large quantities being exported to Europe,—principally to France,—to be expressed into oil. We have already seen what a great increase has taken place in the cultivation of this nut in the part of the coast I am now specially describing, and I believe that it is destined to be one of the most important oil-seeds of the future.

The native name for it is “mpinda” or “ginguba,” and it is cultivated in the greatest abundance at a few miles inland from the coast, where the comparatively arid country is succeeded by better ground and climate. It requires a rich soil for its cultivation, and it is chiefly grown, therefore, in the bottoms of valleys, or in the vicinity of rivers and marshes. The plant grows from one to two feet high, with a leaf and habit very much like a finely-grown clover. The bright-yellow pea-like flowers are borne on long slender stalks; these, after flowering, curl down, and force the pod into the ground, where it ripens beneath the soil. Its cultivation is a very simple affair. The ground being cleared, the weeds and grass are allowed to dry, and are then burnt; the ground is then lightly dug a few inches deep by the women with their little hoes—their only implement of agriculture—and the seeds dropped into the ground and covered up. The sowing takes place in October and November, at the beginning of the rainy season, and the first crop of nuts for eating green is ready about April; but they are not ripe for nine months after sowing, or about July or August, when they are first brought down to the coast for trade.

A large plantation of ground-nuts is a very beautiful sight: a rich expanse of the most luxuriant foliage of the brightest green, every leaf studded with diamond-like drops glittering in the early sun. The ground-nut is an important part of the food of the natives, and more so in the country from Ambriz to the River Congo than south at Loanda and Benguella. It is seldom eaten raw, but roasted, and when young and green, and roasted in the husks, is really delicious eating. It is excessively oily when fully ripe, and the natives then generally eat it with bananas and either the raw mandioca root, or some preparation of it, experience showing them the necessity of the admixture of a farinaceous substance with an excessively oily food. The nuts are also ground on a stone to a paste, with which to thicken their stews and messes. This paste, mixed with ground Chili pepper, is also made into long rolls, enveloped in leaves of the Phrynium ramosissimum, and is eaten principally in the morning to stay the stomach in travelling till they reach the proper camping-places for their breakfast or first meal and rest, generally about noon. It is called “quitaba,” and I shall never forget the first time I tasted this composition: I thought my palate and tongue were blistered, so great was the proportion of Chili pepper in it.

A considerable quantity of oil used to be prepared by the natives from this nut by the most rudimentary process it is possible to imagine. The nuts are first pounded into a mass in a wooden mortar; a handful of this is then taken between the palms of the hands, and an attendant pours a small quantity of hot water on it, and on squeezing the hands tightly together the oil and water run out. Since the great demand for, and trade in, the ground-nut, but little oil is prepared by the natives, as they find it more advantageous to sell the nuts than to extract the oil from them by the wasteful process I have just described. Ground-nut oil is very thin and clear, and is greatly used in cookery in Angola, for which it is well adapted as it is almost free from taste and smell.

The greater part of the several thousand tons of nuts that at present constitute the season’s crop in this part of the country is grown in the Mbamba country, lying parallel with the coast, at a distance of from thirty to eighty miles inland, or at the first and second elevation. Some idea of the great population of this comparatively small district may be formed from the fact that the whole of the above ground-nuts are shelled by hand, and brought down to the coast on the heads of the natives. It is difficult for any one unacquainted with the subject to realise the vast amount of labour implied in the operation of shelling this large quantity by hand.

The trade in coffee is almost entirely restricted to Ambriz, and it comes principally from the district of Encoge, a considerable quantity also being brought from the Dembos country and from Cazengo, to the interior of Loanda, from which latter place the trade is shut out by the stupid and short-sighted policy of high custom-house duties on goods, and other restrictions on trade of the Portuguese authorities. Very little of the coffee produced in the provinces of Encoge and Dembos is cultivated; it is the product of coffee-trees growing spontaneously in the virgin forests of the second elevation. The natives, of course, have no machinery of any kind to separate the berry from the pod, these being dried in the sun and then broken in a wooden mortar, and the husks separated by winnowing in the open air.

The sesamum seed (Sesamum indicum) has only very recently become an article of trade in Angola. It was cultivated sparingly by the natives, who employ it, ground to a paste on a stone in the same manner as the ground-nut, to add to their other food in cooking. It is as yet cultivated for trade principally by the natives about Mangue Grande, and only since about the year 1868, but there is no doubt it will be an important product all over Angola, as it is found to grow near the coast, in soil too arid for the ground-nut.

The red gum copal, called “maquata” by the natives, is of the finest quality, and is almost entirely the product of the Mossulo country. It is known to exist north, in the vicinity of Mangue Grande, but it is “fetish” for the natives to dig it, and consequently they will not bring it for trade, and even refuse to tell the exact place where it is found, but there can be no doubt about it, as they formerly traded in it with the white men.

Until about the year 1858, it was a principal article of export from Ambriz; vessels being loaded with it, chiefly to America, but with the American war the trade ceased, and it has never since attained anything like its former magnitude. I believe it to be a fossil gum or mineral resin. I have examined quantities of it, to discover any trace of leaves, insects, or other remains, that might prove it to have been of vegetable origin, but in vain.

It is obtained from a part of Angola where white men are not permitted by the natives to penetrate, and I have consequently not been an actual observer of the locality in which it occurs; but by all the accounts received from intelligent natives, it is found below the surface of a highly ferruginous hard clay or soil, at a depth of a few inches to a couple of feet. It is very likely that if the ground were properly explored, it would be found deeper, but most probably this is as deep as the natives care to dig for it, if they can obtain it elsewhere nearer the surface. It is said to be found in irregular masses, chiefly flat in shape, and from small knobs to pieces weighing several pounds. These are all carefully chopped into small nearly uniform pieces, the object of this being to enable the natives to sell it by measure,—the measures being little “quindas” or open baskets; the natives of the country where it is obtained not only bring it to the coast for barter, but also sell it to the coast natives, who go with goods to purchase it from them.

The blacks of the gum country are so indolent that they will only dig for the gum during and after the last and heaviest rains, about March, April, and May, and these, and June and July, are the months when it almost all makes its appearance, and they will only allow a certain quantity to leave the country, for fear that its price on the coast may fall; hence only a few tons of this beautiful gum are now obtained, where some years ago hundreds were bought. It is said by the natives that no trees grow on or near the places where the gum copal is found, and that even grass grows very sparingly: the very small quantities of red earth and sand sometimes attached to the gum show it to be so highly ferruginous, that I should imagine such was really the case.

The white Angola gum is said to be the product of a tree growing near rivers and water, a little to the interior of the coast. I have never had an opportunity of seeing the tree myself, however.

We now come to one of the most curious products of this interesting country, namely, india-rubber, called by the natives “Tangandando.” It had been an article exported in considerable quantities north of the River Congo, and knowing that the plant from which it was obtained grew in abundance in the second region, about sixty miles inland from Ambriz, I distributed a number of pieces of the india-rubber to natives of the interior, and offered a high price for any that might be brought for sale. In a very short time it began to come in, and the quantity has steadily increased to the present day.

The plant that produces it is the giant tree-creeper (Landolphia, florida?), covering the highest trees, and growing principally on those near rivers or streams. Its stem is sometimes as thick as a man’s thigh, and in the dense woods at Quiballa I have seen a considerable extent of forest festooned down to the ground, from tree to tree, in all directions with its thick stems, like great hawsers; above, the trees were nearly hidden by its large, bright, dark-green leaves, and studded with beautiful bunches of pure white star-like flowers, most sweetly scented. Its fruit is the size of a large orange, of a yellow colour when ripe, and perfectly round, with a hard brittle shell; inside it is full of a soft reddish pulp in which the seeds are contained. This pulp is of a very agreeable acid flavour, and is much liked by the natives. The ripe fruit, when cleaned out, is employed by them to contain small quantities of oil, &c. It is not always easy to obtain ripe seeds, as this creeper is the favourite resort of a villainous, semi-transparent, long legged red ant—with a stinging bite like a red-hot needle—which is very fond of the pulp and seeds.

Every part of this creeper exudes a milky juice when cut or wounded, but unlike the india-rubber tree of America, this milky sap will not run into a vessel placed to receive it, as it dries so quickly as to form a ridge on the wound or cut, which stops its further flow.

The blacks collect it, therefore, by making long cuts in the bark with a knife, and as the milky juice gushes out, it is wiped off continually with their fingers, and smeared on their arms, shoulders, and breast until a thick covering is formed; this is peeled off their bodies and cut into small squares, which are then said to be boiled in water.

From Ambriz the trade in this india-rubber quickly spread south to the River Quanza, from whence considerable quantities are exported.

The ivory that reaches this part of the coast is brought down by natives of the Zombo country. These are similar in appearance to the Mushicongos, to which tribe they are said to be neighbours, and are physically a poor-looking race, dressed mostly in native grass-cloth, and wearing the wool on their heads in very small plaits, thickly plastered with oil and charcoal dust, which they also plentifully apply to their faces and bodies.

They are about thirty days on the journey from their country to the coast, which can therefore be very closely calculated to be about 300 miles distance. The road they follow passes near Bembe, and the caravans shortly afterwards divide into three portions, one taking the road to Moculla, another to Ambrizzette, and the third to Quissembo, the three centres, at present, of the ivory trade. The caravans of ivory generally travel in the “cacimbo” or dry season, on account of the great number of streams and gullies they have to cross on their long journey, and almost impassable in the rainy season. These caravans never bring down any other produce with them but ivory, except at times a few grass-cloths, some bags of white haricot-beans, and fine milk-white onions, neither of which are cultivated by the natives near the coast. The tusks are carried by the natives on their heads or shoulders, and, to prevent their slipping, are fastened in a sort of cage of four short pieces of wood ([Plate IV.]). Very heavy teeth are slung to a long pole and carried by two blacks. The largest tusks I have seen were two that came to Quissembo, evidently taken from the same animal; they weighed respectively 172 and 174 pounds!

Plate IV.
1. Ankle-ring—2. Ring to ascend Palm-trees.—3. Cage for carrying Ivory Tusks. 4. Engongui.—5. Fetish figure.—6. Mask.—7. Pillow.
To face page 140.

The knives on [Plate V.] were obtained from natives composing these caravans.

From all the more intelligent natives I always obtained the same information respecting the origin of the ivory brought down to the coast, namely, that it was all from animals killed, and not from elephants found dead. The natives from the interior always laughed at the idea of ivory becoming scarce from the numbers of elephants that must necessarily be killed to supply the large number of tusks annually brought down,—the number slaughtered must therefore be very small in comparison to the living herds they must be in the habit of seeing on the vast plains of the interior. They are said to be shot, and that the natives put such a charge of powder and iron bullets into their guns that when fired from the shoulder the hunter cannot use his gun again that day, so great is the kick he gets from its recoil. I can well understand that this is not an exaggerated account, from the manner in which blacks always load a gun, the charge of powder being one handful, as much as it can hold, then a wadding of baobab fibre, then lead shot, or lead or iron bullets (in default of which they use the heavy round pieces of pisolitic iron ore very common in the country), another wad of baobab fibre, and the gun must then show that it is loaded a “palm,” or about eight or nine inches of the barrel.

On festive occasions, or at their burials, the guns are loaded with a tamping of “fuba,” or fine mandioca-meal, instead of other wadding, and they then give a terrific report when fired off, and not unfrequently burst.

This coast abounds with fish, but very few of the natives engage in their capture, as they make so much by trading that they will not take the trouble. Several fish, such as the “Pungo,” weighing as much as three “arrobas,” or ninety-six pounds, visit the coast only in the “cacimbo” or cold season of the year, or from June to August.

The Bay of Musserra is a noted place for large captures of this fine fish, as many as forty or fifty being caught in a day by the natives, with hook and line, from their small curious shaped canoes. It is a very firm-fleshed fish, and cut up, salted, and dried in the sun, was a great article of trade at Musserra, being sold to the natives from the interior, particularly to the “Zombos” composing the caravans of ivory, who are very fond of salt fish. There was a great row in the season 1870, which was a very scarce one for ground-nuts, between the natives of the interior and the blacks at Musserra, on account of the latter taking to collect Adansonia fibre in preference to catching “Pungo,” and therefore disappointing the inlanders of their favourite salt delicacy.

The canoes on this part of the coast, and as far north as Cabinda, are very curious, and totally unlike any that I have seen anywhere else. They are composed of two rounded canoes lashed or sewn together below, and open at the top. This aperture is narrow, and each canoe forms, as it were, a long pocket. The natives stand or sit on them with their legs in the canoe, or astride, as most convenient according to the state of the surf, on which these canoes ride beautifully.

The town of Musserra was formerly a large and populous one, but small-pox and “sleep disease” have reduced it to a mere handful.

This “sleep disease” was unknown south of the River Congo, where it formerly attacked the slaves collected in the barracoons for shipment. It suddenly appeared at the town of Musserra alone, where, I was told by the natives, as many as 200 of the inhabitants died of it in a few months. This was in 1870, and, curious to say, it did not spread to the neighbouring towns. I induced the natives to remove from the old town, and the mortality decreased till the disease died out.

This singular disease appears to be well known at Gaboon, &c., and is said to be an affection of the cerebellum. The subjects attacked by it suffer no pain whatever, but fall into a continual heavy drowsiness or sleep, having to be awakened to be fed, and at last become unable to eat at all, or stand, and die fast asleep as it were. There is no cure known for it, and the patients are said to die generally in about twenty to forty days after being first attacked.

There was nothing in the old town to account for this sudden and singular epidemic; it was beautifully clean, and well built on high, dry ground, surrounded by mandioca plantations, and the last place to all appearance to expect such a curious outbreak.

About four or five miles inland of Musserra, on a ridge of low hills, stands the remarkable granite pillar marked on the charts, and forming a capital landmark to ships at sea ([Plate V.]).

Plate V.
Granite Pillar of Musserra.—1. Wooden Trumpet.—2. Hoe.—3. Pipe.—4. Knives.—5 and 6. Clapping Hands, and Answer.
To face page 145.

The country at that distance from the coast is singularly wild in appearance, from the whole being broken up into what can only be compared to a vast granite quarry:—huge blocks of this rock, of every imaginable size and shape, are scattered over the hilly ground, thickly interspersed with gigantic baobabs and creepers. Some of the masses of rock imitate grotesquely all manner of objects: a very curious one is exactly like a huge cottage-loaf stuck on the top of a tall slender pillar. Others are generally rounded masses, large and small, piled one on top of another, and poised and balanced in the most fantastic manner. This extraordinary appearance is due to softer horizontal layers or beds in the granite weathering unequally, and to strongly-marked cleavage planes running N.N.E. and S.S.W.

The granite pillar itself stands on the top of one of the last of the low hills forming the rocky ridge that comes down to within a few miles of the coast. It consists of a huge slice or flat piece of granite, facing the sea, standing upright on another block that serves it for a pedestal. The top piece is about forty-five feet high, and twenty-seven broad at the base, and eight to ten feet thick. Its faces correspond to the cleavage plane of the granite of the country, and from large masses that lie around on the same hill, it is clear that these have fallen away from each side, and left it alone standing on the top. The square pedestal on which it stands is about forty feet long, and twenty high, by twenty-seven wide. I climbed once to the top of this square block by the help of a small tree growing against it, and found that the top piece rested on three points that I could just crawl under. Under some lichen growing there I found numbers of a beetle (Pentalobus barbatus, Fabr.), which I presented to the British Museum.

A considerable quantity of salt is made by the natives of this part of the coast, from Quissembo to Ambrizzette, particularly at the latter place, in the small salt marshes near the sea, and with which they carry on a trade with the natives from the interior.

At the end of the dry season the women and children divide the surface of these marshes into little square portions or pans, by raising mud walls a few inches high, so as to enclose in each about two or three gallons of the water, saturated with salt from the already nearly evaporated marsh. As the salt crystallizes in the bottom of these little pans, it is taken out, and more water added, and so the process is continued until the marsh is quite dry. In many cases a small channel is cut from the marsh to the sea (generally very close to it) to admit fresh sea-water at high tide.

It is an amusing sight to see numbers of women and children, all stark naked, standing sometimes above their knees in the water, baling it into the “pans” with small open baskets or “quindas,” and all singing loudly a monotonous song;—others are engaged in filling large “quindas” with dirty salt from the muddy pans, whilst others again are busily washing the crystallized salt by pouring sea-water over it till all the mud is washed away, and the basketfuls of salt shine in the sun like driven snow.

Towards evening long lines of women and children will be seen carrying to their towns, on their heads, the harvest of salt, and great is the fun and chaff from them if they meet a white man travelling in a hammock,—all laughing and shouting, and wanting to shake hands, and running to keep pace with the hammock-bearers.

The proprietress of each set of little evaporating pans marks them as her property by placing a stick in each corner, to which is attached some “fetish” to keep others from pilfering. This “fetish” is generally a small bundle of strips of cloth or rags, or a small gourd or baobab fruit containing feathers, fowl-dung, “tacula” (red wood), or very often some little clay or wooden figure, grotesquely carved, and coloured red and white.

Quantities of little fish are also captured about the same time from these marshes, being driven into corners, &c., and prevented from returning to the marsh by a mud wall. The water from the enclosure thus formed is then baled out by the women with baskets, and the fish caught in the mud. I have often seen as many as twenty women all standing in a line, baling out the water from a large pool in which they had enclosed shoals of little fish. These are spread out on the ground to dry in the sun, and the stench from them during the process is something terrific. When dry they are principally sold to natives from the interior.

Many kinds of aquatic birds of all sizes flock in the dry season to these marshes, where a rich abundance of finny food awaits them, and it is curious to see what little regard they pay to the women collecting salt or baling water, and singing loudly in chorus, very often quite close to them. The reason of this tameness is that the natives seldom fire at or molest them, only a very few hunters shooting wild-ducks for sale to the white men, though they will always eat any kind of rank gull or other bird that a white man may shoot. Very beautiful are the long lines of spoonbills, flamingoes, and herons of different species, standing peacefully in these shallow marshes, their snow-white plumage and tall graceful forms brightly reflected on the dark unruffled surface of the water.

The marshes on this coast are fortunately not extensive enough to influence much the health of the white residents; they are all perfectly salt, and free from mangrove or other vegetation, and generally dry up completely (with rare exceptions) in the dry season, when sometimes the stench from them is very perceptible.

The worst season for Europeans is about May, June, and July, when the marshes are quite full from the last heavy rains, and exhale no smell whatever.

The point at Musserra is composed of sandstone, the lower beds of which are strongly impregnated with bitumen, so strongly, indeed, that it oozes out in the hot season.

At Kinsao, near Mangue Grande, and a few miles to the interior, a lake of this mineral pitch is said to exist, but of course the natives will not allow a white man to visit the locality to ascertain the fact, and it is also “fetish” for the natives to trade in it. The fear of annexation of the country by the white men has caused the natives to “fetish” and absolutely prohibit even the mention of another very important article—malachite—of which there is every reason to believe a large deposit exists, about six miles up the river at Ambrizzette. The scenery up this little river is very lovely, but the natives will not allow white men to ascend more than a few miles or up to a hill beyond which the deposit or mine of malachite is believed to exist. In the slave-trading time quantities of this mineral in fine lumps used to be purchased of the natives from this locality, but on the occupation of Ambriz by the Portuguese, in 1855, for the purpose of reaching the malachite deposit at Bembe, the natives of Ambrizzette closed the working of their mine, and it remains so to this day, and nothing will induce them to open it again.

I have had many private conversations with them, and tried hard to make them work it again, but, as might be expected, without success.

CHAPTER VI.
AMBRIZ—TRADE—MALACHITE—ROAD TO BEMBE—TRAVELLING—MOSQUITOES—QUIBALLA TO QUILUMBO—QUILUMBO TO BEMBE.

Ambriz, seen from the sea, consists of a high rocky cliff or promontory, with a fine bay sweeping with a level beach northward nearly to the next promontory, on which stand the trading factories forming the place called Quissembo, or Kinsembo of the English.

In the bay the little River Loge has its mouth, and marks the northern limit of the Portuguese possession of Angola. The country beyond, described in the last chapter, is in the hands of the natives, under their own laws, and owing no allegiance or obedience to any white power. Ambriz was, up to the year 1855, when it was occupied by the Portuguese, also in the hands of the natives, and was one of the principal ports for the shipment of, and trade in slaves, from the interior.

There were also established there American and Liverpool houses, trading in gum copal, malachite, and ivory, and selling, for hard cash, Manchester and other goods to the slave dealers from Cuba and the Brazils, with which goods the slaves from the interior were all bought by barter from the natives.

The Portuguese, following their usual blind and absurd policy, at once established a custom-house, and levied high duties on all goods imported. The consequence was, that the foreign houses, to escape their exactions, at once removed to Quissembo, on the other side of the River Loge, and the trade of Ambriz was completely annihilated and reduced to zero. For many years the revenue barely sufficed to pay the paltry salaries of the custom-house officials, but when I established myself at Ambriz, I succeeded in inducing the Governor-General of Angola to reduce the duties, so as to enable us at Ambriz to compete successfully with the factories at Quissembo, six miles off, where they paid no duties whatever, with the annual exception of a few pounds’ worth of cloth, &c., in “customs” or presents to the natives.

The Governor, Francisco Antonio Gonçalves Cardozo, a naval officer, had the common sense to perceive that moderate duties would yield a greater revenue, and would be the only means of bringing back trade to the place. An import duty of six per cent. ad valorem was decreed, notwithstanding the violent opposition of the petty merchants, and ignorant officials at Loanda. The experiment, it is needless to say, was highly successful, and the receipts of the Ambriz custom-house now amount to a considerable sum, of which a third is devoted to public works. The factories at Quissembo are at present doing but little trade, except in ivory, which has not yet been coaxed back to Ambriz.

The town of Ambriz consists principally of one long, broad street or road, on the ridge that ends at the cliff or promontory forming the southern point of the bay. At the end of the road a small fort has been built, in which are the barracks for the detachment of troops forming the garrison. This useless fort has been a source of considerable profit to the many ill-paid Portuguese governors or commandants of Ambriz, and though it has cost the country thousands of pounds, it is not yet finished. There is a tumble-down house for the commandant, and an attempt at an hospital, also unfinished, though it has been building for many years. There are no quarters for the officers, who live as best they can with the traders, or hire whatever mud or grass huts they can secure.

The custom-house is in ruins, notwithstanding many years of expenditure, for which, in fact, fort, hospital, barracks, custom-house, and all other government and public works might have been built long ago, of stone and building materials from Portugal. A church was commenced to be built by subscriptions, the walls only were raised, and thus it remains to this day. There is a government paid priest who celebrates mass on most Sunday mornings in a small room in the commandant’s house, but for whom no school-room, residence, or any convenience whatever is provided, and who lives in a hut in a back street, where he trades for produce with the natives on week days.

The garrison is badly armed and disciplined. Some time ago the soldiers revolted, and for some days amused themselves by firing their muskets about the place, and demanding drink and money from the traders. There was nobody killed or wounded, no house or store robbed or sacked, the mutineers in fact behaving remarkably well. The commandant kept indoors until the news reached Loanda, and after several days the Governor-General arrived in a Portuguese man-of-war with troops, which were disembarked, the valiant Governor-General remaining on board till order was restored, when he landed, had a couple of the ringleaders thrashed, made a speech to the rest of the mutineers, and returned to Loanda, leaving the tall commandant to twirl his moustaches. The Governor-General was at that time an officer called José da Ponte e Horta, and though not one of the most competent men that Portugal has sent to Angola as governor, the inhabitants of Loanda have to thank him for paving a great part of their sandy city.

Were not the natives of Ambriz such a remarkably inoffensive and unwarlike race, they would long ago have driven the Portuguese into the sea. It is a great pity that Portugal should neglect so disgracefully her colonies, so rich in themselves, and offering such wonderful advantages in every way for colonization and development.

In the year 1791 the Portuguese built a fort at Quincollo, about six miles up the River Loge, on a low hill commanding the road from Ambriz to Bembe and St. Salvador, where they then had a large establishment, and the masses of masonry still remain, a standing memorial of the former energy and bravery of the Portuguese who subjugated the then powerful kingdom of Congo and the savage tribes of the coast, so strikingly in contrast to the present spiritless and disgraceful military misrule of Angola.

Ambriz boasts of the only iron pier in Angola, and this was erected at my instigation. It is 200 feet long, and is a great advantage in loading and discharging cargo into or from the lighters.

Ambriz is an open roadstead, and vessels have to anchor at a considerable distance from the beach, and though the surf sometimes interferes with the above operations on the beach, vessels are always safe, such things as storms or heavy seas being unknown.