The farthest inland district in Angola under the rule of the Portuguese was that of Cassange, but a successful revolt of the natives against the oppression of the Portuguese “chefes” led to its being abandoned a few years ago.

Malange is now the farthest point, the two next being Pungo Andongo and Duque de Bragança; the latter is at present of no value or importance whatever.

The Portuguese traders are, however, established in considerable force at Cassange, as well as at Malange and Pungo Andongo, and a large trade in ivory and wax has always been carried on from that part of the country.

I am unable to describe these localities from personal observation, but they are stated to be very fine and healthy, and mostly well watered. The natives have no antipathy or objection whatever to the Portuguese, their opposition being entirely to the military rulers who had abused their position; and recently the natives of the country of the Dembos, between Golungo Alto and Duque de Bragança, have also risen in arms for the same reason, and they have had the advantage so far in the struggle.

In the year 1867 I visited Cazengo and Golungo Alto, on my way to a part of the country called Lombige, where gold in dust had been discovered, and where two white men with a party of blacks were “prospecting” for Senhor Flores. It is impossible to describe in words the beauty of the districts of Cazengo and Golungo Alto, and the country about the River Lombige, a small tributary of the River Zenza, as the River Bengo is called inland.

Mountains and deep valleys filled with magnificent virgin forests cover the country. Streams and springs of the clearest water abound, and the valleys are full of monkeys and beautifully coloured birds and butterflies. Most wonderful and varied effects of rolling mists, sunrise, and sunset are to be seen in this earthly paradise, and the clearness and lightness of the atmosphere are most exhilarating and agreeable after the dull oppressiveness of the air on the coast.

At Cazengo I saw the largest trees I have ever seen, and conspicuous amongst these the cotton-wood tree (Eriodendron anfractuosum), towering to an immense height straight as an arrow, without the slightest break, to the small branches at the very top covered with feathery-looking foliage, and studded with puffy balls like white silk, from the burst seed-pods. The stems and branches are thickly studded with hard, short, conical, sharp-pointed spikes, and at the base of the stem vast flattened buttresses project, which give a wonderful idea of strength and stability. In these grand forests the splendid giant touraco (Turacus cristatus), the largest of the tropical African plantain-eaters, finds a fitting habitat, and from its great size compared with the other much smaller species, is evidence of the magnificence of the forests and scenery of Cazengo and Golungo Alto.

I cannot help having a feeling of reverent affection and admiration for this family of birds, whose exquisite plumage has most likely been evolved through ages of the greatest tropical beauty, of dazzling sunshine, bright flowers, and luxuriant vegetation in lovely valley and mountain chain.

Coffee is found growing wild in these virgin forests, but it is confidently believed to have been originally introduced by the old missionaries, and since been spread by the agency of monkeys and birds.

Several important coffee plantations have been established, principally in Cazengo, and with slave labour; but they exist under great disadvantages, owing to the want of roads and means of conveyance, this last being entirely effected by carriers, who are difficult to obtain even at considerable expense. The coffee from the Portuguese planters is all sent to Dondo, and thence down the river to Loanda and the sea. That cropped by the natives is carried by them for sale to the River Quanza and to Loanda, but a considerable part is taken across the country all the way to Ambriz, where, from the low custom-house duties, they receive from the traders a much larger amount of goods and powder in exchange than at Loanda. I noticed on the natives certain kinds of cloth customarily passed in trade in Ambriz, and I had a further proof of the Cazengo and Golungo Alto coffee thus going northward, in the considerable number of natives recognised in Cazengo by my servant, as having been seen by him trading coffee at Ambriz, his native place.

The town of Cazengo consists of half a dozen houses, occupied principally by Portuguese traders, the “residencia” or house of the “chefe,” and the huts of a small native population. It is about two days’ journey from Dondo (on the River Quanza), and the River Lucala is passed about six miles before arriving there.

The district of Golungo Alto gives the same name to its town, which is most picturesquely situated and surrounded by luxuriant vegetation, and is reached in another two days’ journey from Cazengo, through exquisite scenery. Starting from the town of Golungo Alto in a northerly direction, I arrived in the afternoon at the River Zenza, and slept a few miles beyond it at a place called Gonguembo, at the house of a respectable black, who was a kind of government official for that district, and who was married to a very comely black woman from Loanda. I was most hospitably treated by these good people, and a clean bed in a nice airy room was prepared for me; they would not accept any remuneration for their kindness, so I had to content myself with making them a present of some handkerchiefs I had with me. Next day I continued to travel in the same direction, sleeping at night in a wood, and the day after arrived at a place called Mayengo, near the River Lombige, there only a noisy mountain torrent of most beautifully clear water. It was here that the two white men with the party of blacks were exploring for gold, and they had already obtained a few ounces of dust from the sand of the river by washing it in pans and a couple of rockers.

The following morning I proceeded about ten miles farther in the direction of the course of the Lombige, to another place where a little gold-dust had also been obtained.

The formation of the country from Golungo Alto to the auriferous ground of the Lombige is a hard clay slate, in which I observed only a few small quartz veins, and in my opinion it is a poor gold country. Not more than a couple of pounds weight of gold were obtained after many months working, and the exploration was finally abandoned on the death of Senhor Flores, which happened at the Lombige.

My friend Mr. Richard Smith, of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the Royal School of Mines, has kindly assayed a sample of gold from Lombige, with the following results:—

equal to 22¹⁄₂ carats fine.

From Golungo Alto to the south the geological formation is a hard, compact, quartzose granite rock. At Cazengo is found gneiss, granite, and a hard quartzose slaty rock, with in places a curious rock seemingly composed of disintegrated granite and clay slate. The strike of the clay slate is about E. and W., and it dips to the S.S.W.

The few natives I saw about the Lombige seemed rather a fine race. They belong to a tribe called the Dembos, which is the name of that part of the country, and they have lately driven back the Portuguese, who had attempted to encroach on their territory with the customary exactions of the “chefes.”

To show that they bore no ill-will to the Portuguese, but only desired to resist the grasping oppression of the “chefes,” they escorted to the River Zenza, near Golungo Alto, a small number of unfortunate troops they had surrounded, and who, without pay, provisions, ammunition, shoes, or clothing, had been obliged to surrender, and they greatly insulted the Portuguese by offering to give these poor soldiers a month’s pay in cash! I was at Loanda when several batches of soldiers, composing the so-called expedition to the Dembos, arrived, viâ the River Quanza, in a disgraceful state of starvation and rags, and the poor devils were loud in their complaints of the way they had been treated and robbed by their own government and officers.

A more shameful manner of exposing men to disease and the enemy cannot be imagined. A local newspaper at Loanda exposed the scandalous way in which the war was conducted; and the merchants represented the true state of the case to the government at Lisbon, but no attention was given to them, as the governor at Loanda reported that there was nothing going on in Angola to call for special notice.

The great forests on the slopes of the chains of mountains and valleys of the country about Golungo Alto and the Dembos are also full of coffee trees growing wild, and they are gradually being cleared of bush or underwood by the natives so as to enable them to collect the berry. I did not hear anywhere that they had taken to planting coffee, nor are they likely to do so as long as they can find it growing wild. As far as has been ascertained, wild coffee is only found growing in the forests of the country of the second elevation from the coast, nor does it grow well in the littoral region, where the air is much too dry: it is a plant requiring a moist heat and the shade of large trees; and a certain amount of elevation above the level of the sea may possibly have something to do with its proper growth.

The future production of coffee on the whole West Coast of Africa might be simply unlimited, as far as extent of ground eminently suitable for its cultivation is concerned: it becomes only a question of time and labour. The coffee plant is not the only one formerly introduced by the missionaries or Portuguese which has spread itself over a large extent of country in Angola, as I saw beautiful watercress growing wild most luxuriantly in several of the rivulets and wet places in Cazengo, and Dr. Welwitsch found parsley and fennel growing wild abundantly at Pungo Andongo.

BELLOWS—MARIMBA—NATIVE SMITHS—RAT-TRAP.

Plate XI.
BELLOWS—MARIMBA—NATIVE SMITHS—RAT-TRAP.
To face page 213.

Cazengo has been celebrated from time immemorial for its iron, smelted by the natives, and the bellows (Plate XI.) employed in the process appears to date from the earliest times, being in fact identical with that used by the ancient Egyptians.

The object of the double arrangement is to obtain a constant current of air from the nozzle; there are no valves in it, and the tops of the cylinders are tightly closed with a peak-shaped cover of sheepskin in which there is no hole or aperture. They are worked alternately and very rapidly, and blow into a baked-clay tuyère about twelve inches long, of which the under end is much wider than the nozzle of the bellows that just rests inside it. The object of this is apparent, as, from the bellows having no valve for the admission of air, which therefore enters it through the nozzle, were this to fit tightly in the tuyère it would alternately blow into and draw air from the fire. For ordinary blacksmith’s work the forge is simply a small round cavity scooped out in the ground, the fuel being charcoal; and in this, with one bellows, a welding heat is obtained, and they are enabled to make hoes, &c., out of ordinary iron hooping or other waste scrap-iron.

Iron smelting from the ore is but little practised now in Angola, as the iron hooping from bales obtained from the traders nearly suffices for the few purposes for which this useful metal is required; but I once had the opportunity whilst travelling of seeing the operation of smelting going on at Cazengo, and of obtaining the following information on the process. There was no furnace proper, simply a somewhat larger excavation in the ground, with three pair of bellows hard at work at equal distances round it. There was neither cover nor chimney to the fire, which was fed with charcoal. The ironstone was a gossany-looking brown ore, and was broken into bits about the size of small walnuts.

I was informed that the first operation took some hours, and did not reduce the iron to the fused state, but only to an apparently metallic spongy condition, without much diminution in the size of the pieces. These reduced pieces are separated from those only imperfectly acted on, the latter being again submitted to the first process with fresh ore; the former are then raised to a high heat and welded together with a hammer, on a block of iron for an anvil, into a small bar.

In the management of the fire, and in welding, the natives employ water and sand in the same way that our smiths do. The bellows and the tuyère are slightly inclined downwards, and are secured to the ground by strong stakes driven into it on each side, to which are attached cross pieces passing over the bellows and tuyère (Plate XI.). I have seen these bellows in every part of Angola, and in Loango and Cabinda, north of the River Congo, among tribes speaking entirely different languages, but it is of exactly the same pattern everywhere.

The natives of the interior, like those of Loanda, that is to say, of the country comprised between the Rivers Dande and Quanza, speak the Bunda language. The division on the latter river is very marked, the Quissamas and the Libollos on the southern bank speaking a distinct language. The natives beyond the River Dande speak the Congo language, and its dialects of Ambriz and Mossulo.

This large Bunda-speaking population offers points of great interest, and most strongly and favourably impresses the observer, auguring well for its future civilization as far as it can go. It speaks volumes for the superiority of this part of the negro species to know that very fair reading and writing in Portuguese has been handed down from father to son from the time of the former missionaries to the present day.

It is impossible not to admire and honour the wonderful work of those good men. Palpable signs of their industry, and of their example and teaching may still be seen everywhere in Angola. Plantations of cocoa-nut and oil-palm trees, groves of orange, lemon, and other fruit trees, the introduction of the coffee and other useful plants, the ruins of extensive monasteries with which were associated their schools of industrial arts, all bear witness to their good work, and last but not least the love and veneration in which their name is held amongst all classes of blacks, who consider a padre almost as a god;—their name for a priest is Ngana Nganga (God’s sir), Ngana being “Senhor,” sir, and Nganga their word for God.

Although as completely imbued as their more uncivilized brethren with the belief and practice of “fetishes” of all kinds, they still retain many of the usages taught them by the missionaries;—they will have their children baptized by a padre to give them one or more Saints’ names; and though they will call a girl or boy such a name as “Thursday,” if he or she happens to have been born on that week-day, or the name of a tree or plant, or place, or any circumstance they may fancy connected with its birth, yet it must also bear the name of Antonio Domingos, or Maria Roza, or some other favourite combination of Portuguese Christian names. The christening is celebrated with the usual accompaniment of sponsors, and, as is customary in Catholic countries, these will not intermarry or live together as man and wife, or with the parents of the child.

A sheet of foolscap paper is a very usual article to receive from the traders with other goods in barter for produce; this they roll up carefully, and hang by a bit of string to their stick or pack.

For pen they use the quill of any bird; their ink is charcoal or burnt ground-nuts ground fine with the juice of the wild tomato; for wax or gum they use the very sticky mass enveloping the seeds of a beautiful red-flowering parasite (Loranthus sp.).

These natives are extremely fond of writing to one another, and also to the “chefes” or authorities, and their letters and petitions are sometimes most amusing and laughable, as they have the usual love of their race for pompous or high-sounding words and phrases.

They are fond, on occasions, of wearing coats and trousers, often made of very extraordinary quality and patterns of cloth, and boots and shoes. Their houses or huts and customs otherwise are not distinguishable from those of the natives of other parts of Angola.

A curious hard-wood shrub (Decamera Jovis-tonantis, Welw.), called by the natives Nduí, is considered a sure preservative against lightning, and branches of it are placed on the huts to save them from being struck by the electric fluid. This belief is peculiar to the Bunda-speaking race. It is also only among these people that tapioca is prepared, though rarely, from the starch of the mandioca-root, by drying it over iron or copper plates.

A very singular custom is common to them and to the natives of Novo Redondo farther south. When a relative or other person visits them, a dish of “infundi” or “pirão” is prepared, and should there not be a bit of meat or fish in the larder (no uncommon circumstance by the bye) they send out to a neighbour for the “lent rat” as it is called. This is a field-rat roasted on a skewer, and it is presented to the guest who, holding the skewer in his left hand, dabs bits of the “infundi” on the rat before he swallows them, as if to give them a flavour, but he is very careful not to eat the rat, or even the smallest particle of it, as this would be considered a great crime and offence, and would be severely punished by their laws. It is supposed that the host has duly preserved the dignity of his house and position, and has performed the rites of hospitality in presenting his guest with meat and “infundi,” though he has not tasted a morsel of the former, which is returned intact to the owner from whom it was borrowed. This example of a sham, knowingly played by both host and guest as an act of politeness, seems very curious in the extremely unsophisticated state of the negro:—in our superior state of society, shams as patent to all are too common to attract attention.

The Bunda-speaking natives of Angola are extremely indolent: by the better class, such as those who can read and write, it is considered derogatory to perform any manual work whatever. A little trading in wax or other produce is the most they indulge in, and this is principally made the means of obtaining goods or money on credit from the traders, or in some other way imposing on them. They are specially clever at any little roguery of this kind.

In the mornings, the rising generation may be seen assembled in groups squatted on the ground, wrapped up in a cotton cloth manufactured in the country, and with a printed alphabet in their hands lazily learning their letters. No inducement that I could offer of pay or anything else, whilst I was exploring in Cambambe, would make them work, and as their style of living is exactly the same as that of other blacks, the plantations, tended by their women and female slaves, suffice them for their daily wants. I lived on beans for a week on that occasion, as I would not pay half a sovereign in money or cloth for a single fowl, and sheep and goats in proportion. When the tax-gatherer came round with the soldiers, and they had not the wherewithal to pay him, I had my revenge, and bought a large number of fowls at a penny each, goats and sheep at about a shilling a head, and fat oxen at five to ten shillings each, from the very blacks who a day or two before had refused to sell oxen at any price, and fowls, &c., only at such exorbitant prices.

I had to provide food for the forty or fifty blacks who were with me, and an ox was generally killed every day for them, but not being used to so much animal food it did not agree with them. One morning they came to me headed by an old native of Ambaca, who presented me with a petition written in high-flown language, praying that I would not give them any more meat, but that I would order beans and “infundi” to be cooked for their rations instead. Of course, I assented to the desired change, which, moreover, was more economical.

The natives of Pungo Andongo are the most deceitful, and the worst generally. Those of the district of Ambaca, contiguous to Cazengo and Golungo Alto, are a very extraordinary set of blacks. They are distinguished by a peculiar expression of countenance, manner, and speech, which enables them to be at once recognised as surely as a raw Irishman or Scotchman is with us. They are the cleverest natives of Angola, speak and read and write Portuguese best of any, are the greatest cheats of all, and are well described by the Portuguese as the Jews and gipsies of Angola. They are the greatest traders in the country, and collect and deal in all manner of hides, skins, and other articles, for which they travel great distances and amongst other tribes. They will least of all work at any manual labour; trade and roguery are their forte, and they have often suffered at the hands of other tribes for their cupidity.

During a famine, a few years back, in the Quissama country, which the Ambaquistas (as the natives of Ambaca are called) used to visit with farinha, &c., for the purpose of purchasing rock-salt to trade with in other places, they bought a large number of the Quissamas as slaves, at the rate of a small measure of meal each; but the succeeding season, on a number of Ambaquistas going to Quissama, they were robbed, flogged, branded with hot irons, and otherwise tortured and punished, and finally put into canoes and started down the river, arriving at Muxima in a lamentable condition, and only a few recovered from their ill-treatment. This revenge was taken by the Quissamas because the Ambaquistas took advantage of their dire necessity for food to buy their sons and daughters as slaves for small portions of meal. To the present day, to vex an Ambaquista, it is sufficient to ask him if he has any Quissama rock-salt for sale!

Of course they have never been to Quissama since; and should the Portuguese desire to conquer that country, as yet not reduced to submission, they could count upon a large contingent of volunteers from Ambaca. Ambaca is said to be comparatively flat, but very fertile, and it has lately been sending a large quantity of ground-nuts to the River Quanza.

In Cazengo and Pungo Andongo the largest gourds I have ever seen are grown, which when dried are employed by the natives as vessels to carry oil, water, “garapa,” or other liquids; or, the top being cut off, are used as baskets for meal, beans, &c. I have seen them so large that they were enclosed in a rope-net, and when full of “garapa” or water were a good load for two men to carry, slung to a pole on their shoulders. The plants are generally trained up the sides and on the grass roofs of the huts, on which they produce a plentiful crop of flowers and fruit. I have also seen the gourds supported on a kind of nest of dry straw or grass, placed in the fork of a three-branched stick stuck in the ground.

Cotton is grown sparingly everywhere. It is picked from the seeds and beaten on the ground with a switch to open it out, and then spun by hand. This was the constant employment of the natives, particularly of the women and girls, but quite lately this industry has greatly fallen off, owing to the greater importation of Manchester goods. The cotton-thread was woven by the natives into strong thick cloths, but these are now not easy to obtain for the same reason.

Food is most abundant:—mandioca, maize, beans, massango (a kind of millet), ground-nuts, &c., growing with the greatest luxuriance in the fertile ground and lovely climate. Beautiful and tame cattle are easily reared, as well as sheep, goats, and poultry; but, as usual, the great indolence of the natives prevents them from availing themselves of the wonderful capabilities of the soil and climate to any but an infinitesimal degree.

It is rare to see any stores of food, so that if, as sometimes happens, especially in the littoral region, the rains should fail, a famine is the result, and hundreds die.

When a little indian-corn or other seed is kept, it is enclosed in large, smooth, spindle-shaped masses of long straw, and these are hung to the branches of the trees. The straw keeps the wet from entering to the corn, and it also keeps out rats, as, should they run down the short rope, they slip off the straw and tumble to the ground.

Large and small pots for cooking and holding water are made in many places. They are made of clay, and are burnt by being built up in a heap in the open air with dry grass and covered with the same, which is then set on fire and allowed to burn out; when cold, the pots are found completely baked, without the use of anything like a kiln. Clay pipes for smoking are also made, and burnt in the same manner (Plate V.).

Many of the towns in the interior, in the more out-of-the-way places, are completely isolated for several months by the growth of the high grass towards the end of the rainy and the beginning of the dry season. In travelling it is the custom of the guides to lay a handful of grass on the paths that they wish the rest of the party to avoid; and this is the universal practice of the natives all over Angola, to indicate the path to be taken by others following them, and which from the height of the grass and the number of intersecting paths, would be difficult to keep without some such mark. Blacks, of course, never travel but in single file, and I was once asked by a negro the reason why white men always walked side by side, and not one behind the other as they did, but my reply failed to convince him of the advantage of our plan.

For some years the “chefes” have had the paths leading from each capital town of their divisions kept clear of grass and weeds for a breadth of from six to twelve feet by the natives of the town nearest it, but even then the blacks not only walk in single file, but, what is very curious, tread out and follow a winding path in it from side to side. Their own paths are never straight but invariably serpentine, and this habit or instinct is followed even when a broad, straight road is offered them.

Whilst I was at Cambambe, a somewhat eccentric Portuguese (not a military man) was “chefe” of Pungo Andongo, and he took it into his head that he would break the natives of this habit of walking in single file, and he actually fined and otherwise punished a number of them, but, of course, he never succeeded in making them alter the custom except when passing before his house. The blacks will never move a stone or other impediment in the road. If a tree or branch fall on it, and it is too large to walk over comfortably, no one pushes it aside, however easy such an operation may be, but they deviate from the path and walk round it, and this deviation continues to be used ever after, although the obstacle may rot away or be otherwise removed.

I twice saw in Cambambe the remarkable “spit-frog” described by Dr. Livingstone. This insect is of the same shape as the ordinary British “spit-frog,” but is quite three-quarters of an inch in length. Its scientific name is Ptyelus olivaceus. The larvæ, like the British species, have the property of secreting a copious watery froth, in which they envelop themselves, a number being found together on a thin twig or branch, and the amount of water secreted is so great as to drop constantly from the branch on which they are living, so that the ground beneath becomes quite wet. Though the amount of water abstracted from the atmosphere is something enormous for so small a creature, the very hygroscopic state of the air there is quite sufficient to account for its source.

Lizards are very abundant on the rocks, and there are some very pretty and brightly-coloured species. Chameleons are also abundant, and the natives are everywhere afraid to touch them. The Mushicongos believe that if they once fasten on the wool of a black’s head, nothing can take them off, and that they are poisonous; but their dislike of these harmless creatures does not prevent them from trying a curious though cruel experiment—the quick and mortal action of nicotine—on them. They insert a bit of straw or grass into the wooden stems of their pipes, so as to remove a small portion of the nicotine and other products of the combustion of the tobacco, and when the poor chameleon opens its jaws in fear, they pass the moistened straw across its tongue and mouth, and in a very few seconds it turns on its side, stiffens, and is quite dead. This very small quantity of the poison is wonderfully rapid in its fatal action.

The ground is cultivated with a hoe like that described in use about Ambriz, but with a double instead of a single handle (Plate XIV.).

The natives, like those of the country to the north, eat considerable quantities of the ground-nut, and from the following analysis by B. Corenwinder (‘Journal de Pharm. et de Chimie,’ 4th series, xviii. 14) its great value as an article of food is apparent:—

The proportion of phosphoric acid found in the perfectly white ash was                31·53%

I am convinced that, from the amount of nitrogenous matter, and the form in which the large quantity of oil is masked in the ground-nut, its use by invalids and persons of delicate constitution would be attended with valuable results. The nuts are delicious simply roasted, or, better still, afterwards covered with a little sugar dried on them in the pan.

A small plant bearing pods containing one or two roundish seeds, and like the ground-nut ripening beneath the soil, is also sparingly cultivated in Cambambe and the surrounding districts. It is the Voandzeia subterranea of botanists.

The round fruit, about the size of a small apple, of a handsome leaved plant is employed by the natives of the same places for washing their cloths, &c., instead of soap, and Dr. Welwitsch named the plant the Solanum saponaceum from this circumstance.