The Mussurongo, Ambriz, and Mushicongo negroes have hardly any industrial or mechanical occupation; they weave no cloths of cotton or other fibre; their only manufactures being the few implements, baskets, pots, &c., required in their agriculture and household operations.

The reason for this want of industry, apart from the inherent laziness and utter dislike of the negroes for work of any kind, is to be found in their socialistic and conservative ideas and laws.

No man can be richer than his neighbour, nor must he acquire his riches by any other than the usual or established means of barter or trade of the natural products of the country, or of his plantations.

Should a native return to his town, after no matter how long an absence, with more than a moderate amount of cloth, beads, &c., as the result of his labour, he is immediately accused of witchcraft or “fetish,” and his property distributed among all, and is often fined as well.

I have already mentioned how the natives at Bembe, on receiving their pay, would squander it in riot before leaving for their towns, knowing that it would only be taken away from them, and so preferring to enjoy themselves with it first.

Some of the black traders on the coast, who acquire large values in the ivory trade, have to invest them in slaves, and even form towns consisting of their wives and slaves, and entirely maintained by them;—even these traders are constantly being accused of “fetish,” from which they have to clear themselves by heavy payments.

We have already seen how there are hardly any social distinctions among the negroes, and consequently no necessity for finer clothing, food, houses, &c.; it is even considered very mean for one black to eat or drink by himself. Any food or drink, however little, given to them, is always distributed amongst those present. The Portuguese convict whom I have described as owning the sugar-cane plantation at Quincollo, goes under the nickname among the blacks of “Fiadia,” or one who eats alone, from his having, when first starting a grog shop, lived in a hut apart, and as the blacks said “when he ate his dinner no other white man saw him, and what was over he kept for the next day.”

Nature favours the habits and customs of the blacks, removing all inducement to work by providing with a prodigal hand their few necessities, and exacting scarcely any exertion on their part in return. Their principal food or staff of life, the mandioca root, does not even require harvesting or storing. A knife or matchet, a hoe, a sleeping-mat, and a couple of pots and baskets, enable persons about to marry to begin life and rear a large family without the least misgiving for the future, or anxiety for the payment of rent, doctor’s and tailor’s bills, schooling, rates, or taxes.

The materials for their huts grow around them in the greatest abundance, a few forked upright poles form the walls, and bear others forming the roof; thin sticks tied horizontally or perpendicularly to the uprights, both inside and out, forming a double wall, complete the framework of the hut, which is then plastered with clay or earth, or covered with grass or “loandos,” or mats made of the dried stem of the papyrus. The roof is of grass neatly laid on in layers like thatch, on a frame of light cane or the mid-rib of the palm-leaf. The door is made of slabs of the “Mafumeira” or cotton-wood tree, or of palm-leaves woven together; the door is always about a foot from the ground, and the threshold generally the trunk of a small tree, forming the usual seat of the inmates during the day.

The Mushicongos, living on the mica schist and clay slate formations, which decompose readily, forming tenacious clayey soils, and are the favourite habitat of the white ant, are obliged to prepare with great care the poles employed in building their huts, in order to preserve them from the ravages of that most destructive insect.

For this purpose the poles are soaked for months in stagnant pools, until they become black with fetid mud or slime, and, the end which is intended to be stuck in the ground is then held over a fire till the surface is charred. The smoke from the fire, always kept burning in a hut, preserves it perfectly from the attacks of the white ant, the interior becoming in time perfectly black and shining as if varnished, there being of course no chimney and very seldom a window, though sometimes an open space is left at the top ends for the smoke to issue from.

The furniture is restricted to a bed, made of a framework of sticks or palm-leaves plaited together, and resting on two logs of wood or short forked sticks, so as to raise it about six inches or a foot from the ground. On the bed is laid a sleeping-mat made by the natives of the interior, and sometimes there is a mat-pillow stuffed with wild cotton, but this is seldom more than an inch or two thick;—blacks mostly sleep without pillows, with their heads resting on the extended arm.

The negroes from the interior are sometimes seen using curious small pillows made of wood (Plate IV.) and carved in fanciful patterns; they carry them slung from the shoulder. A very singular habit of all negroes is that of never slinging anything across the shoulders and chest as we do, but always from one shoulder, and hanging under the arm.

Building huts is man’s work, and as no nails of any kind are employed in their construction, the sticks only being notched and tied together with baobab fibre, a few days, with but little trouble, suffices to build one.

Women’s work is entirely restricted to cultivating the ground and preparing the food. Their simple agricultural operations are all performed with one implement, a single-handed hoe (Plate V.). This hoe is made of iron, nearly round, about the size and shape of a large oyster-shell, and has a short spike which is burnt into the end of the handle, a short knobbed stick about eighteen inches long. With this hoe the ground is cleared of grass and weeds, which are gathered into heaps when dry, and burnt. The ground is then dug to a depth of about six to eight inches, and the loose broken earth scraped together into little hillocks ready for planting the mandioca. This plant, the Cassada or Cassava of the West Indies, &c. (Manihot aipi), grows as a peculiar thick round bush from three to six feet high, bearing an abundance of bright green, handsome deeply-cut leaves; it flowers but sparingly, and bears few seeds; it is propagated by cuttings, any part of the stem or branches, which are soft, brittle, and knotty, very readily taking root. About the beginning of the rainy season is the usual time of planting,—two or three short pieces of stem, about a foot long, being stuck in each hillock. In some places two of the pieces are of equal length, and planted near each other, the third piece being shorter, and planted in a slanting position across the other two. This method of planting is supposed, but with what truth I know not, to produce a greater crop of roots than any other. The mandioca is of rapid and luxuriant growth, and in favourable soil the plant throws out many branches. The roots are very similar in outward appearance to those of the dahlia, though of course, very much larger; the usual size is about a foot long, but roots two feet long and several inches wide throughout are of common occurrence. When fresh they are white and of a peculiar compact, dense, brittle texture, more like that of the common chestnut than anything else I can compare it to, and not unlike it in taste, though not so sweet, and more juicy. They are covered by a thin, dark, rough, dry skin, which is very easily detached. Gentle hill-slopes are the places generally chosen for the mandioca plantations, to ensure good drainage, as the roots are said to rot readily in places where water stagnates. The mandioca-root is sufficiently large and good to eat about nine months after planting, but is only pulled up then in case of need, as it does not attain its full perfection for fifteen or eighteen months after the cuttings are planted, and as it can remain in the ground for two or even three years without damage or deterioration, there is no need of a regular time for digging it up. It is eaten fresh and raw as taken out of the ground, though the natives are fondest of its various preparations.

The roots peeled and dried in the sun constitute what is called “bala,” and are eaten thus or roasted. “Bombó” is prepared by placing the roots in water for four or five days, running streams being preferred to stagnant pools for this purpose; the outer black skin then peels off very readily and the roots have suffered a kind of acetous fermentation affecting the gluten and gum, and setting free the starch—of which the bulk of the root is composed;—they now have a strong disagreeable acid taste and flavour, but on drying in the sun become beautifully white and nearly tasteless, and so disintegrated as to be readily crushed between the fingers into the finest flour. This “bombó” is also eaten thus dry or roasted, but most usually it is pounded in a wooden mortar and sifted in the “uzanzos” or baskets, into the white flour called “fuba.” From this is prepared the “infundi,” the food most liked by the natives, which is made in this way:—into an earthen pot half full of water, kept boiling on three stones over a fire, the “fuba” is gradually added, and the whole kept constantly stirred round with a stick; when the mass attains the consistency of soft dough the pot is taken off the fire, and being secured by the woman’s toes if she be sitting down, or by her knees if kneeling, it is vigorously stirred with the stick worked by both hands, for some minutes longer, or till it no longer sticks to the side of the pot. Portions of the semi-transparent viscous mass are then transferred with the stick to a small basket or “quinda,” dusted with dry “fuba,” and rolled round into a flat cake about three or four inches in diameter and a couple of inches thick. It is eaten hot, bits of the sticky cake being pulled out with the fingers and dipped for a flavour into a mess of salt fish, pork, or beans, or into a gravy of stewed mandioca or bean-leaves, Chili pepper, and oil. This “infundi,” or “infungi” as it is also pronounced by some of the natives, is delicious eating with “palm-chop.”

“Quiquanga” is also a very important preparation of the mandioca-root, large quantities being prepared in the interior and brought down to the coast for sale and for barter for dried fish, salt, &c. The fresh roots are placed in water for a few days, in the same manner as described for “bombó,” and peeled, but instead of being dried in the sun, are transferred wet as they are taken out of the water to the wooden mortars, and pounded to a homogeneous paste; this is rolled between the hands into long, flattened cakes about eight inches in length, or into round thick masses. These are rolled neatly in the large, strong smooth leaf of the Phrynium ramosissimum—a beautiful trailing plant with a knotted stem, growing very abundantly in moist and shady places,—and steamed over a pot of boiling water carefully covered up to keep the steam in, and then left to dry in the sun or air. The cakes then become fit to keep for a long time, and are of a very close, cheesy, indigestible character, with a disagreeable acid flavour. Cut into thin slices and toasted, the “quiquanga” is not a bad substitute for bread or biscuit.

It is curious that in the district of Loanda and as far south as Mossamedes, the principal food of the people should be a preparation of the mandioca-root, which is hardly ever used by the natives of the country from Ambriz to the River Congo: this is the meal called by the Portuguese and Brazilians “Farinha de pão.” It is made by rasping the fresh roots, previously peeled, on a grater, generally a sheet of tin-plate punched with holes or slits, and nailed over a hole in a board. The grated pulp is then put into bags and squeezed in a rude lever-press to extract as much of the juice as possible, and then dried on large round iron or copper sheets fitting on a low circular stone wall, where a wood fire is kept burning. When thoroughly dry it is nearly white, and has the appearance of coarse floury saw-dust, and is excellent eating. Carefully prepared, it appears on all Angolan and Brazilian tables, and is taken dry on the plate to mix with the gravy of stews, &c. Scalded with boiling water, and mixed with a little butter and salt, it is very nice to eat with meat, &c.

Another very favourite way of cooking it is by boiling it to a thick paste with water, tomatoes, Chili pepper, and salt, with the addition of some oil or butter in which onions have been fried. This is called “pirão,” and a dish of it appears at table as regularly as potatoes do with us.

With cold meat, fish, &c., it is also eaten raw, moistened with water, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, or, better still, with orange or lemon juice, with pepper and salt. This is called “farofa,” and is an excellent accompaniment to a cold dinner. The natives generally eat it dry, or slightly moistened with water, and from its being carelessly prepared it is always very gritty with sand and earth, and is the cause of the molars of the natives being always ground very flat. A negro never makes any objection to grit in his food. Fish is always dried on the sandy beach; mandioca-roots or meal, if wet, are also spread on a clean bit of ground and swept up again when dry, and he crunches up his always sandy food with the most perfect indifference, his nervous system not being of a sufficiently delicate character to “set his teeth on edge” during the operation, as it would those of a white man.

Next to the mandioca-root, as an article of food among the blacks, is the small haricot bean; these are of various colours, the ordinary white bean being scarce. A species is much cultivated, not only for the beans, which are very small, but also for its long, thin, fleshy pods, which are excellent in their green state. Beans are boiled in water, with the addition of palm or ground-nut oil or other fat, salt, and Chili pepper. The leaves of the bean, mandioca, or pumpkin plants are sometimes added.

Chili pepper is the universal condiment of the natives of Angola, and it is only one species, with a small pointed fruit about half an inch long, that is used. It grows everywhere in the greatest luxuriance as a fine bush loaded with bunches of the pretty bright green and red berries. It seems to come up spontaneously around the huts and villages, and is not otherwise planted or cultivated. It is eaten either freshly-gathered or after being dried in the sun. It has a most violent hot taste, but the natives consume it in incredible quantities; their stews are generally of a bright-red colour from the quantity of this pepper added, previously ground on a hollow stone with another smaller round one. Their cookery is mostly a vehicle for conveying this Chili pepper, and the “infundi” is dipped into it for a flavour.

Eating such quantities of this hot pepper often affects the action of the heart, and I remember once having to hire a black to carry the load of one of my carriers, who was unable to bear it from strong palpitation of the heart, brought on from the quantity of Chili pepper he had eaten with his food.

In our garden at Bembe we grew some “Malagueta” peppers, a variety with a long pod, and perhaps even hotter than the Chilies. Our doctor’s cook, coming to me once for a supply of vegetables, was given a few of these, and commenced eating one. I asked him how he could bear to eat them alone? He laughed, and said he “liked them with rum early in the morning.” To try him, I gave him a couple and a glass of strong hollands gin, and he coolly chewed them up and drank the spirit without the slightest indication that he felt the pungency of the fiery mixture. A round and deliciously-scented variety, bearing pods the size of a small marble, is also grown, but is not commonly seen.

Bananas or plantains, grow magnificently, as might be expected, and without requiring the least trouble; yet, such is the stupid indolence of the natives that there is often a scarcity of them. They are principally grown in valleys and other places, where the rich, moist earth in which they delight is found, and where, protected by palm and other trees, they rear their magnificent leaves unbroken by a breath of air. A grove of banana-trees thus growing luxuriantly in a forest clearing is one of the most beautiful sights in nature;—the vast leaves, reflecting the rays of the hot sun from their bright-green surface, contrast vividly with the dark-hued foliage of the trees around, and show off the whorls of flowers with their fleshy, metallic, purple-red envelopes and the great bunches of green and ripe yellow fruit. Numbers of butterflies flit about the cool stems and moist earth, whilst the abundant flowers are surrounded by a busy crowd of bees and other flies, and by lovely sunbirds that, poised on the wing in the air, insert their long curved beaks into the petals in search of the small insects and perhaps honey that constitute their food.

The negroes of Angola always eat the banana raw, but it is roasted by the whites when green, when it becomes quite dry and a good substitute for bread, or boiled, to eat with meat instead of potatoes; and when ripe, roasted whole, or cut lengthways into thin slices and fried in batter and eaten with a little sugar and cinnamon or wine, forming a delicious dish for dessert. A very large plantain, growing as long as eighteen or twenty inches, is cultivated in the interior, and is brought down to the coast by the “Zombos” with their caravans of ivory. Indian corn is the only other plant that is grown and used as food by the negroes of Angola, except the ground-nut already described. It is sparingly cultivated, though bearing most productively, and is eaten in the green state, raw or roasted, and sometimes boiled. About Loanda the dry grain is occasionally pounded into meal and boiled into a stiff paste with water, and eaten in the same manner as the “infundi” from the mandioca-root.

Other edible plants, though not much cultivated by the natives, are the sweet potato; the common yam (which is very rarely seen, and I am quite unable to give a reason for its not being more commonly cultivated); the Cajanus indicus, a shrub bearing yellow pea-like flowers and a pod with a kind of flat pea, which is very good eating when young and green; the purple egg-plant, or “berenjela” of the Portuguese; the “ngilló” (Solanum sp.), bearing a round apple-like fruit, used as a vegetable; the ordinary pumpkin, and a species of small gourd; and, lastly, the “quiavo” or “quingombó” (Abelmoschus esculentus) of the Brazilians.

The Ambriz and Mushicongo natives make but little use of animal food, seldom killing a domestic animal, and of these the pig is the most esteemed by them. Very little trouble would enable them to rear any quantity of sheep, goats, and other live stock; but, such is their indolence, that, as I have already stated, these animals are quite scarce in the country, and are daily becoming more so.

Blacks, as a rule, seldom engage in the chase. Antelopes, hares, &c., are only occasionally captured or shot, though they are abundant in many places; but they are very fond of field-rats and mice, though house-rats are held in disgust as articles of food. Immediately after the annual grass-burnings the inhabitants of the towns turn out with hoes and little bows and arrows to dig out and hunt the rats and mice. Various devices are also employed to entrap them. A small framework of sticks, about a foot high, is raised across the footpaths, leaving small apertures or openings into which the open ends of long funnel-shaped traps of open flexible wickerwork are inserted. The bushes are then beaten with sticks, and the rats, frightened out of their haunts, rush along the paths into the traps, in which they cannot turn round, and as many as four or five are caught at a time in each (Plate XI.).

Another common trap is made by firmly fixing in the ground one end of a strong stick, and bending down the other end, to which is attached a noose inserted in a small basket-trap, and so arranged as to disengage the bow and catch the unlucky rat round the throat and strangle it as soon as it touches the bait. The rats, as soon as killed, are skewered from head to tail on a long bit of stick, and roasted over a fire in their “jackets” whole, without any cleaning or other preparation, generally five on each skewer.

Frogs are only eaten by the Mushicongos. They are also very fond of grasshoppers, which are beaten down with a flapper, like a battledore, made out of a palm-leaf, their legs and wings pulled off, and roasted in a pot or crock over a fire; they smell exactly like stale dry shrimps.

A large king-cricket (Brachytrypes achatinus) is greatly relished everywhere, and the blacks are wonderfully clever at finding the exact spot where one is chirping in the ground, and digging it out from perhaps the depth of a foot or more. It is incredible how puzzling it is to discover the exact place from whence the loud chirp of this insect proceeds.

A large white grub or larva, the interior of which is very streaky in appearance, and which is roasted and eaten spread on a cake of “infundi” as we should spread marrow on a slice of toast, is considered a great delicacy, as also is a very large yellow caterpillar. I have seen, when travelling, all the blacks of my party suddenly rush off with the greatest delight to a shrub covered with these caterpillars, which they eagerly collected to eat in the same way as the grubs I have just described.

The “salalé,” or white ant, is eaten by the natives of Angola when it is in its perfect or winged state; they are captured by hand as they issue from holes in the ground, stewed with oil, salt, and Chili pepper, and used as a sauce or gravy with which to eat the “infundi.” They have a very sharp taste, from the formic acid contained in them.

The natives of Angola manufacture but one kind of drink, called “uállua” in the district of Ambriz, and “garapa” in the rest of Angola. It is a sort of beer, prepared from Indian corn and “bala,” or dry mandioca-root. The Indian corn is first soaked in water for a few days, or until it germinates; it is then taken out and thinly spread on clean banana leaves, and placed on the ground in the shade, where it is left for two or three days; at the end of that time it has become a cake or mass of roots and sprouts; it is then broken up and exposed in the hot sun till it is quite dry, then pounded in wooden mortars and sifted into fine flour; the dry mandioca-roots are also pounded fine and mixed in equal parts with the Indian corn. This mixture is now introduced in certain proportions, into hot water, and boiled until a thick froth or scum rises to the surface. Large earthen pots, called “sangas,” are filled with this boiled liquor, which when cold is strained through a closely woven straw bag or cloth, and allowed to stand for one night, when it ferments and is ready for use. It is slightly milky in appearance, and when freshly made is sweetish and not disagreeable in taste, but with the progress of fermentation becomes acid and intoxicating. The rationale of the process of making “garapa” is the same as that of the manufacture of beer. The germination of the Indian corn, in which part of its starch is changed into sugar with the production of diastase, and the arrest of this process by drying, corresponds to the “malting,” and the boiling in water with mandioca flour to the “mashing;” the diastase acting on the starch of the mandioca-root, transforms it into sugar, which in its turn is fermented into alcohol, rendering the “garapa” intoxicating, and ultimately becoming acid, or sour, from its passing to the state of acetous fermentation.

The “quindas” or baskets, used by the natives of Angola, are of various sizes and all conical in shape. They are made of straw, but are not woven. A kind of thin rope is made by covering a quantity of straight straws or dry grass stems, about the thickness of an ordinary lead pencil, with a flat grass, or strips of palm leaf, and the basket is built up by twisting this rope round and round, and tightly sewing it together. A coarser kind is made at Loanda for carrying earth or rubbish. It is very curious that no other form of basket should be made in the country, and when a cover is required, another basket inverted is employed.

The “loangos,” or “loandos” are large mats about four to five feet long, and from two to four wide; they are made of the dry, straight, flattened stems of the papyrus plant (Papyrus antiquorum), and like the baskets are also not woven or plaited, but the stems are passed through or sewn across at several places with fine string made of baobab fibre. These mats are stiff, but at the same time thick and soft; they are used for a variety of useful purposes, such as for fencing, for lying or sitting upon, and for placing on the ground on which to spread roots, corn, &c., to dry in the sun, but principally to line or cover huts and houses. The papyrus grows most luxuriantly in all the pools, marshes, and wet places of Angola, and in many parts lines the banks of the rivers. I have seen it growing everywhere, from a few hundred yards distance from the sea, to as far in the interior as I have been. It is always of the brightest bluish-grey green, and the long, graceful, smooth stalk surmounted by the large feathery head, waving in every breath of wind, makes it a beautiful object. It often covers a large extent of ground in low places, particularly near rivers, to the exclusion of any other plant, and forms then a most lovely cool patch of colour in the landscape, and hides numbers of happy water birds which, unmolested, boom and churrr and tweet in its welcome shade.

Very curious are the sounds that issue in the stillness of the night from these papyrus-covered fields, principally from different species of waterfowl; and I have often remained awake for hours listening to the weird trumpetings, guttural noises and whistlings of all kinds, joined to the croak of frogs and the continual, perfectly metallic, ting, ting, ting—like the ring of thousands of tiny iron hammers on steel anvils—said to be made by a small species of frog.

Nothing gives such an idea of the wonderful multiplicity of bird or insect life in tropical Africa, as the number and variety of sounds to be heard at night. Every square foot of ground or marsh, every tree, bush, or plant, seems to give out a buzz, chirp, or louder noise of some sort. With the first streak of daylight these noises are suddenly hushed, to be quickly succeeded by the various glad notes of the awakened birds, and later on, when the sun’s rays are clear and hot, the air is filled with the powerful whirr of the cicads on every tree.

The “uzanzos” are a kind of sieve in the form of an openwork basket, rather prettily and neatly made of the thin and split midrib of the palm leaflets, in which the women sift mandioca, Indian corn, or whatever else they may pound into meal in their wooden mortars. These latter are “uzus,” and the long wooden pestles employed with them are termed “muinzus” (Plate XII.).

These mortars are made of soft wood, mostly of the cotton-wood tree, which is easily cut with a knife; for scooping out the interior of the mortars the natives use a tool made by bending round about an inch of the point of an ordinary knife, which they then call a “locombo.”

The last article to be described, in daily use amongst the natives of Angola, is a small wooden dish, which is more rarely made now owing to the large quantity of earthenware plates and bowls that have been introduced by the traders on the coast. These dishes are invariably made square in shape (Plate XIV.).

END OF VOL. I.