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

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

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.