The River Quanza is the gem of the Portuguese possession of Angola. South of the great River Zaire, or Congo, it is the only river navigable for any distance, and is the natural highway to the most fertile and healthy countries of the interior, yet, such has been the apathy of the Portuguese, and so utterly and culpably neglectful have they been in developing the vast resources of their rich possessions, that, till the year 1866, only an insignificant amount of produce or trade came to Loanda by that river.
Mr. Augustus Archer Silva, an American, long established in business at Loanda, obtained from the Portuguese Government a concession for the steam navigation of the river, after great trouble and opposition, and on the 21st of September, 1866, I accompanied him in the steamer “Andrade” on her first trip to the Quanza.
We started from Loanda at midnight, and arrived at about eight o’clock in the morning opposite the bar, where a dozen of the so-called bar pilots came on board, and a more surprising manner of coming through the heavy surf that breaks over it can hardly be imagined.
On their knees, and squatted on their heels, each on a perfectly flat, plain piece of thick board, about eight or nine feet long and two or three feet wide, evidently the bottom of an old canoe, the blacks pushed off from the shore, and with a single-bladed paddle propelled their primitive boats to the steamer, a distance of over a mile. At high tide there was sufficient depth of water, and the “Andrade” steamed safely into the river. Our trip that time was only as far as a place called Bruto, about thirty miles up the river, and we returned to Loanda in a few days, the steamer decorated with flags and branches of palm-trees, making her look like a floating island.
This trip was the commencement of the most important era in the modern development of Angola. The great and yearly increasing trade on that river is entirely due to its steam navigation, and fostered principally by the efforts of its spirited promoter.
The trade of Loanda has since increased to a wonderful extent, and has enabled the province to pay its own expenses, which were formerly supplemented by a grant from Portugal.
Several large and small steamers hardly suffice to bring to Loanda the large quantity of palm-oil, palm-kernel, coffee, ground-nuts, and other produce from that river. Mr. Silva has unfortunately lately died on his way home, unrewarded by Portugal for his signal services to Angola; and it is to be feared that his widow even will not receive any recognition of the great benefits that his long years of disinterested efforts so justly merit.
My first visit to the River Quanza was in 1859, when almost the only trader there was a Portuguese of the name of Manoel Lobato, established at Massangano.
Travelling was then performed in a large canoe, with two or three or four blacks, who punted it with long poles along the sides of the banks. The trip from Calumbo to Dondo used to be performed in this way in about six days, and very pleasant indeed it was. Only a few barges used to leave the river for Loanda with produce, and these would sometimes remain at the bar for weeks, under the excuse of waiting for a good bar, but generally from the attractions of a small town near, where the crews (natives of Cabinda) would stop and amuse themselves. Even of canoes there were but few, and the banks were consequently covered with different kinds of waterfowl and other birds; and on several occasions when I subsequently had to travel in a canoe on this river, I used to supply myself and the half-a-dozen blacks with me with abundance of food in the shape of ducks, &c., simply by shooting them off the banks or in the water as we went along. In the mornings I would walk for miles along the river side, under the shade of the thick palm forest.
With the steamers and increased traffic it is more rare to see birds on the banks in the same numbers; they have mostly taken to the lagoons and marshy places extensively bordering this beautiful river.
The mouth of the River Quanza is about fifty miles south of Loanda; the course of the river is then so far northerly, that a well-kept path or road south from Loanda reaches it at a distance of twenty-one miles at a place called Calumbo. This road to Calumbo used formerly to be much infested with lions, but with the greatly increased traffic they are seldom now seen or heard of. Lions used to come close to Loanda even, and I was shown a walled enclosure which one had cleared, dragging a calf with him over it. The blacks always use the word “Ngana,” or “Sir,” when speaking of the lion, as they believe that he is “fetish,” and would not fail to punish them for their want of respect if they omitted to do so.
The scenery on this road is very pretty, but is of the same character as that of the littoral region at Ambriz and Mossulo; gigantic baobabs, euphorbias, aloes, prickly shrubs and trees, delicate creepers, and hard, wiry grass.
From the mouth of the river to Calumbo there are large mangrove marshes, and there is a native town called Tumbo, the inhabitants of which are mostly engaged as pilots, mangrove wood-cutters, and fishermen.
The mangrove tree grows here to a large size, and is cut and sent to Loanda for beams, piles, &c.; the longer thin trees are also in great request for roof timbers, scaffoldings, and other uses. The mangrove is a very hard and heavy wood; a pole of it sinks in water almost like a bar of iron, and it is magnificent for fuel. It is sent to Loanda in rafts floated out of the river to the sea, and navigated with a sail.
As the mangrove-wood is so heavy, the natives first make a bed of palm-stems, which are also valuable for hammock-poles, roofs, &c., and on these the mangrove timber is piled, and all securely tied together with tough creeper-stems. These rafts, called “balças,” are worth at Loanda from 200l. to 300l. and upwards each.
Calumbo boasts of a “chefe,” and of the most voracious mosquitoes in Angola.
There is a considerable assemblage of huts and mud-plastered houses at Calumbo, belonging to the native population, but the river floods the whole place almost every year. There is also a beautiful avenue of cocoa-nut palm trees planted by the old missionaries, who appear to have had an extensive establishment here, but all that remains of it at the present day is a pretty church in very good repair, and picturesquely situated on a slight eminence on the banks of the river about a mile from Calumbo. The low ground about Calumbo is exceedingly fertile, and is beautifully cultivated immediately after the floods.
The best land is on the southern bank of the river; on the northern bank there is but little ground under cultivation, and the marshes are left to breed clouds of mosquitoes.
The river from its mouth to Calumbo passes through level country, and the banks are covered with mangrove, “bordao” palm, and other trees and plants. The mangrove disappears before arriving at Calumbo, where the water is perfectly sweet, and the banks are mostly bare or lined with sedges and papyrus. The appearance of the low, hilly ground behind is very much like that of the cliffs on the sea shore, being mostly covered with a perfect forest of baobabs. At Calumbo there grew a baobab with a monstrous trunk; this was with great difficulty cut down by order of the vandalic idiot of a “chefe,” who objected to the leviathan tree because it stood in the middle of the road along the bank of the river!
A few miles higher up the river we arrive at Bruto, belonging to my friend Senhor Felicianno da Silva Oliveira, who has there a magnificent sugar-cane plantation, distillery, and farm, and also does a considerable trade with the natives in ground-nuts and other produce. This gentleman is well known as one of the most intelligent and energetic industrial explorers of Angola. I knew him first in Benguella Velha, where he had extensive cotton plantations, &c.; but, convinced of the great resources of the River Quanza, he started, some years back, the cultivation of sugar-cane at Bruto with complete success, but entailing incessant work that only those who have any experience of the vast difficulties of such an undertaking, without capital and in a wild country, can appreciate.
A large extent of cultivated ground, well built and commodious houses and stores, steam sugar-cane mill, and stills for the production of rum from the juice of the sugar-cane, beautiful herds of cattle, garden, lime-kiln, &c., are proud monuments of his well-directed efforts, and a bright example to his, in general, apathetic countrymen. It is to such men that the authorities should give every assistance, but I am sorry to say that it only takes the form, at most, of empty praise. The Government at Lisbon, to favour men who devote their energies to the development of her provinces, did give exceptional privileges to the “Banco Ultramarino” or Colonial Bank for this purpose, but its operations at Loanda, instead of being principally directed to aiding planters, &c., with capital, have been hitherto restricted to a system of miserable usury.
In a draft on England for a small amount that this bank once discounted, it was stipulated that it should be paid in gold, and not in Bank of England notes, as from information that had reached Loanda of a commercial panic in London, it was considered a proper precaution to adopt, in case such notes should suffer depreciation in value!
In digging the foundations of the cane-house, Senhor Oliveira discovered a beautifully carved ivory crucifix in the most perfect state of preservation. This work of art is about two feet high, and evidently belonged to some monastery existing there.
At Bruto there is a fine lagoon in which abundance of fish is netted, and there are some lovely woods and valleys near, which abound with birds and monkeys.
I obtained some exquisite little kingfishers (Corythornis cyanostigma) from a kind of little bay in the banks of the river near Bruto. This bay was covered with the leaves and flowers of the water-lily (Nymphæa dentata and stellata), and trailing on these were long stems of a plant many yards in length, covered with bright green leaves and lovely purple bell-shaped flowers. I sat down behind a bush and watched this beautiful nook for some time, looking at a number of water-hens and other birds running over the water-lilies, and, with the kingfishers, chasing their insect and finny prey.
Beyond Bruto the river scenery is much finer, cliffs and hills on either side covered with the everlasting baobab, and the valleys filled with a luxuriant green forest of trees and creepers, with here and there brilliant patches of colour from the abundant flowers of the latter—the banks of the river a foreground of papyrus and sedges of unfading green.
At intervals the lines of hills recede inland, and show vast spaces occupied by lakes and lagoons fringed with almost impenetrable virgin forests containing trees of fine timber.
At about fifty or sixty miles from the coast, and about half-way to Dondo, on the southern bank of the Quanza, is the town of Muxima, built on a bare, white limestone rock, on which the hot sun seems to have baked the mud huts with their straw roofs to a dark brown. A fine large red-tiled church, and the ruins of a small fort on the top of a steep rocky hill, give a picturesque appearance to the otherwise glaring and scorched desolation of the place. Hardly any movement of the natives is ever seen at Muxima when passing it on the river; there is no trade or industry whatever in the place, and the town has always the appearance of a deserted ruin as represented in a dissolving view. The Portuguese have a “chefe” here, with a few black soldiers, but it is such a forsaken, dead-alive place that there is always a difficulty in finding an officer for the post.
The church at Muxima is held in the greatest veneration by the natives far and wide. It is considered as a great “fetish;” and even the natives from Loanda seek there the intercession of the Virgin Mary as represented by an image in that church; and I was shown a chest full of plate, chains, rings, and other offerings of the pious pilgrims to its shrine.
Alligators abound, and places are staked round on the banks of the river to enable the natives to fill their vessels with water without danger of being drawn in by these hideous monsters. On a hot day they may be seen dozing on the mudbanks, stretched out flat like great logs of wood. The blacks affirm that the alligator is fonder of eating women and girls than men;—this belief may very likely be due to the fact that it is the women who generally fetch water from the river, and that consequently a greater number of them fall victims to this brute. They have also the belief, common to the natives of all Angola, that the alligator’s liver is poisonous, and that it is used as a poison by the “feiticeiros” or sorcerers.
Numbers of hippopotami also inhabit this river, but since the steamers are constantly navigating it they are seldom seen, and appear to have migrated more to the lagoons. Formerly it was most amusing to watch these huge and inoffensive beasts; I have seen them lift their great heads out of the water and stare quite familiarly for two or three minutes with every appearance of curiosity in their little round eyes at the canoe passing, and then slowly sink with a snort and great bubbling of the water from their nostrils. One wide bend of the river, where the water is very still, used to be the favourite resort of the hippopotamus, and was called by the natives “hippopotamus corner” from this circumstance. I once stopped my canoe off there for some time, to witness the gambols of some twenty of these animals, large and small, evidently playing and chasing one another, lifting their heads and shoulders right out of the water, and snorting and booming away at a great rate.
There were formerly natives who used to hunt these animals for the sake of their flesh, fat, and teeth, and I went ashore to two or three huts where some of these blacks lived to buy for my boatmen a quantity of the dry and salted flesh and bacon of a hippopotamus they had recently killed. It was cut into long thin strips which were hanging to dry over some lines stretched from poles in the ground. I tasted some of the flesh and fat cooked with beans by my men, and it was very nice; and had I not known what it was, I should never have distinguished the taste from that of insipid pork or bacon.
The manatee is also not uncommon, and also a large fresh-water tortoise (Trionyx nilotica) which is speared by the natives and much esteemed for food.
Fish is extremely abundant, particularly a short thick fish called “cacusso,” which is the principal food of the natives on that river. A fisherman once gave me the names of over forty species of fish to be obtained in the Quanza; and at Dondo a large fish is caught, and is much valued by the Portuguese for its delicious flavour.
Fish is principally caught by throw-nets, or by hook and line, also in fish-baskets or traps.
Beyond Muxima the appearance of the banks becomes really charming. A delicious panorama of mile after mile of the most beautiful dark forest of high feathery-topped oil-palms stretches on both sides, but principally on the north bank.
Under the shade of these palms is seen a succession of picturesque huts, in every variety of unsymmetrical quaintness, of weathered grass roofs, mud walls and whitewash, and crooked doors and windows. Many of these huts are embosomed in a fence of growing hog-plum stakes, and surrounded by a thicket of lime and orange trees, plantains, papaws, &c., the luxuriant and ever bright green foliage contrasting beautifully with the sombre, almost black hue and shade of the palms. Where there are no palm trees the vegetation is equally lovely, a profusion of creepers festooning and covering the highest trees. Amongst these, the cotton-wood trees and giant baobabs are the most conspicuous, their sparsely-covered branches generally crowded with hundreds of long-legged herons and other birds. One of these vast trees with but few leaves, and the branches thickly covered with lines of long-legged and long-necked grey or white birds standing bolt upright, has a most extraordinary and unexpected appearance.
The palm forests resound with the cooing of innumerable doves, and are a favourite haunt of a white-headed eagle or vulture, complained of by the natives for the havoc that it commits on the palm-nuts, on which it is said chiefly to subsist.
The palm-tree is also the favourite resort of several species of the beautiful little nectarinæ or sun-birds, who appear to find on the crown and leaves the small spiders and other insects that constitute their principal food. They are always especially busy about the gourds placed at the tops of the trees for the purpose of collecting the palm wine;—whether it is that they are fond of the juice, or whether this attracts the insect prey they are in search of, I know not. Palm-trees standing alone generally have as many as a hundred or more of the pretty nests, made by a species of weaver-bird, suspended from the leaflets. These birds are very noisy, and take not the least notice of the people passing beneath—in fact, they seem to prefer building their nests in solitary palms in the middle of a native town. The natives never think of molesting small birds, and the children have not the cruel propensity for stone-throwing and bird-nesting that our more civilized boys have.
Many of the sandy islets and shallows of the river are frequented by clouds of different species of gulls, attracted no doubt by the great abundance of fish.
The scenery continues of the same character as far as Dondo.
A little above Muxima there is a fine perpendicular cliff, at the foot of which runs the river. This is called the “Pedra dos Feiticeiros,” or “Fetish Rock,” and from it the Quissamas throw into the river the unfortunate wretches accused of witchcraft. They are said to be first stunned by a blow on the head from a knobbed stick and then thrown over the cliff, to ensure their not escaping the alligators by swimming ashore. Before arriving at Dondo we reach the important district of Massangano, where the River Lucala, the largest tributary of the Quanza, runs into it.
The town of Massangano stands on high ground, but only the old fort and “residencia” of the “chefe” are seen from the river, these being built on the high cliff overlooking it. The fort contains a couple of ancient iron guns, evidently loaded by the breech in some way which is not at present very clear. From the fort an extensive view is obtained of the splendid country below. I once spent a few days at Senhor Lobato’s house at Massangano, and made several excursions in the neighbourhood. The country around is beautiful and very fertile. There are a number of traders established there, and a large assemblage of native huts and houses. There is also a fine old church, the only remaining evidence of the existence of the old missionaries. Both this and the church at Muxima contain great numbers of small bats. The roof inside is completely covered with them. I have noticed a very curious circumstance in Angola with regard to these bats, and that is the way they issue at dusk from any window or crevice communicating with the interior of the roofs or other dark places that they occupy during the day.
At regular intervals of about thirty seconds to one minute, a small puff or cloud of these bats is seen to issue together, and so they continue till all are out. This strange habit of leaving their hiding-places intermittently, and not continuously as might be expected, cannot easily be explained, nor why they assemble together to go forth in distinct batches only. Whether they return in the same manner I cannot say. Once out, they seem to spread apart immediately, and fly away in all directions, and do not appear in the least to keep in flocks like birds, though they may roost together in communities.
The town of Dondo is about twenty miles from Massangano. It stands in a small, triangular, level plain surrounded by hills on all sides, the base of the triangle being the River Quanza and the low line of hills on its southern bank. From the configuration of the ground, shut in on all sides from winds, it is perhaps, as might be imagined, the hottest corner of Angola. The heat in a calm summer’s day is almost stifling, and the nights, generally cool everywhere else, are not less oppressive. Formerly the town was on the high land above, at Cambambe, as the town itself was called, but the exigencies of trade have peopled the present town of Dondo.
It is a growing and flourishing place, where a number of traders and agents of Loanda houses are established, and is the receiving port for embarkation of the produce and trade of the neighbouring districts and of those of the interior. Thousands of tons of ground-nuts, coffee, wax, palm-oil, ivory, &c., are shipped yearly at Dondo for Loanda by the steamers. There is a fine large square in the middle of the town, where a fair or market is held every day, and to this the natives resort from all parts around with produce and provisions. Many different tribes from the interior are to be seen at Dondo, both from the northern and southern banks of the river, who have brought produce for sale to the white men. The “residencia” of the “chefe” is on a hill to the south of the town, and the view from it is truly magnificent. As far as the eye can reach it is one gorgeous scene of mountains, dark palms, and forests, range after range, till lost to view in the horizon. There are two views in Angola that would alone almost repay the trouble of travelling there. One is that just described, and the other from the hill at Tuco on the road from Ambriz to Bembe.
About six or eight miles from Dondo up the river are the first cataracts of Cambambe. Immediately on leaving Dondo the river is enclosed by high hills or cliffs on both sides, and winds a good deal, so that a succession of fresh and seemingly more beautiful pictures is constantly presented to the traveller’s admiration as he ascends the river in a boat. The river is wide and deep, and the slopes and perpendicular sides of the hilly walls on either side are of endless variety of colour, both of rock, moss and lichen, plant and tree. Deep red iron-stained sandstone, conglomerate, blue clay slate, huge white-stemmed baobabs, dark masses of palm-trees, plots of large-leaved plantains, masses of trees overgrown with creepers, meet the eye in ever varying combination, and gradually the wide valley worn by the water becomes narrower and narrower, until at last it is a deep gorge with almost upright walls of clay slate, and the passage for the great body of water is barred right across by vast rocky ledges and peaks, over which, in the rainy season, it rushes and dashes with a deafening wild roar and mad flinging up into the air of showers of water and foam. The last time I saw these rapids I was accompanied by my wife, and we landed on a bank of gravel a little below the cataract and walked and scrambled on the rocks, till we were on a great ledge quite close to, and but little over the level of the waters; but, it being the end of the dry season, they were so far reduced as to run between the rocks in a swift dark oily-looking mass, and at such a considerable inclination and speed as to give the idea of vast and irresistible force. On the rocks covered over and splashed by the water, were growing masses of a curious semi-transparent plant with thick stems, and bearing minute white flowers.
The singular appearance of this plant, so exactly like a sea-weed, attracted our attention, and as I had never before observed it anywhere in my travels in Angola, we secured specimens, which we dried and preserved, and on forwarding them to Kew it was found to be a new genus of Podostemaceæ, and has been described by Dr. Weddell in the ‘Journal of the Linnean Society,’ xiv. 210, † 13, as the Angolæa fluitans.
It is said that coal has lately been discovered near the river on its southern bank, and not far from Dondo.
Of the old town of Cambambe, situated on the high ground over the cataract, but little else remains than the church and a few houses. The River Quanza is not navigable beyond the rapids, except perhaps for short distances and for small canoes. At Nhangui-a-pepi it is only a broad shallow stream, but with a very rocky bed; its source, however, is far beyond Pungo Andongo.
About the higher parts of the river a gigantic species of the “Bagre” (Bagrus) is found. This is a siluroid fish, and my attention was first called to its extraordinary dimensions by seeing a black using the flat top of the skull of one as a plate or dish. I was then in the province of Cambambe, and several times had an opportunity of asking natives from Pungo Andongo the size of these fish: one man told me that they were captured so large that two men were required to carry one fish slung on a pole on their shoulders by passing the pole through the gills, and that the tail then drags on the ground. Another black, who was a river fisherman, explained to me that the “bagres” were caught with an iron hook made on purpose by the native smiths and baited with a piece of meat; he gave me an idea of the thickness and size of the hook with a piece of twig, and it was as large as an ordinary shark-hook; he further drew on the ground the size of this large fish, and it was six feet long. Other natives who were with him joined in the description and corroborated him, and I am perfectly convinced that they spoke the truth, and were not exaggerating much. I wrote to some Portuguese traders at Pungo Andongo, asking them to send me the head of one in spirits, but of course I never got it.
Only the northern bank of the Quanza is subject to the Portuguese (with the exception of the town of Muxima), and the natives inhabiting it are greatly civilized and well behaved, and very civil. They are, of course, not industrious, the women cultivating the usual mandioca and other produce for food, and manufacturing palm-oil. A little tobacco is also cultivated by them, and the leaves when fully grown are gathered, and a string passed through the stem. This string of leaves is stretched round their huts to dry, and the large leaves thus hanging give them a curious appearance.
The first trips of the steamers caused the natives on either bank the most intense astonishment; they would race them along the banks, shouting and yelling; and when the steamers stopped at any place, crowds would flock round and come on board to stare at the machinery, which was universally pronounced to be a white man’s great “fetish.”
All natives are very fond of the “batuco” or dance, of which there are two kinds. The Ambriz blacks and those of the Congo country dance it in the following manner:—A ring is formed of the performers and spectators; “marimbas” are twanged and drums beaten vigorously, and all assembled clap their hands in time with the thumping of the drums, and shout a kind of chorus. The dancers, both men and women, jump with a yell into the ring, two or three at a time, and commence dancing. This consists almost exclusively of swaying the body about with only a slight movement of the feet, head, and arms, but at the same time the muscles of the shoulders, back, and hams, are violently twitched and convulsed. The greatest applause is given to those who can most strongly shake their flesh all over in this way. It is difficult to do, and appears to require considerable practice, and seems very fatiguing, for in a few minutes the dancers are streaming with perspiration and retire for others to take their places, and so they will often continue for a whole night long, or in dark nights, as long as the great heap of dry grass that they have provided lasts—the illumination being obtained by burning wisps of this grass, two or three blacks generally having the care of that part of the performance. The natives at these dances are dressed as usual in the ordinary waistcloth, the men arranging theirs so as to allow the ends to trail on the ground. There is nothing whatever indecent in them.
The “batuco” of the Bunda-speaking natives of Loanda and the interior is different. The ring of spectators and dancers, the illuminations, the “marimbas” and drums are the same, but only two performers jump into the ring at a time, a man and a girl or woman; they shuffle their feet with great rapidity, passing one another backwards and forwards, then retreat facing one another, and suddenly advancing, bring their stomachs together with a whack. They then retire, and another couple instantly take their places. This performance might be called somewhat indecent, but I do not believe that the natives attach the most remote idea of harm to the “batuco.”
The “marimba” is the musical instrument par excellence of the natives of Angola. In Plate XI. is represented the better made ones. It consists of a flat piece of wood, generally hollowed out, and with a number of thin iron tongues secured on it by cross bits, but so as to allow them to be pulled out more or less for the purpose of tuning. In front is affixed a wire, on which some glass beads are loosely strung that jangle when the instrument is played, which is done by holding it between both hands and twanging the tongues with the thumbs. The light wood of which the “marimbas” are made is that of the cotton-wood tree. They are also made with slips of the hard cuticle of the stem of the palm-leaf instead of the iron tongues, but these are the commoner instruments. Others are made smaller and with fewer tongues.
The more complete ones have an empty gourd attached to the under part, which is said to give them greater sonorousness. The blacks are excessively fond of these instruments everywhere in Angola, playing them as they walk along or rest, and by day or night a “marimba” is at all hours heard twanging somewhere. The music played on it is of a very primitive description, consisting only of a few notes constantly repeated.
Another common instrument of noise, much used to accompany the “marimbas” and drums at the “batucos,” is made by splitting a short piece of palm stem about four or five feet long down one side, and scooping out the soft centre. The hard cuticle is then cut into little grooves across the slit, and these, energetically rubbed with a stick, produce a loud, twanging, rattling kind of noise.
A musical instrument sometimes seen is made by stretching a thin string to a bent bow, about three feet long, passed through half a gourd, the open end of which rests against the performer’s bare stomach. The string is struck with a thin slip of cane or palm-leaf stem held in the right hand, and a finger of the left, which holds the instrument, is laid occasionally on the string, and in this way, with occasional gentle blows of the open gourd against the stomach, very pleasing sounds and modulations are obtained.
Another very noisy instrument with which the drums and “marimbas” are sometimes accompanied at the “batucos,” is made by covering one end of a small powder-barrel or hollow wooden cylinder (open at both ends), with a piece of sheepskin tied tightly round it. A short piece of round wood, about six or seven inches long, is pushed through a hole in the middle of the sheepskin cover, a knob at the end preventing it from slipping quite in. The hand of the performer is then wetted and inserted into the cylinder and the piece of wood is lightly grasped and pulled, allowing it to slip a little, the result being a most hideous, booming sound.
I would strongly recommend my youthful readers, if they would like to create a sensation in a quiet household, to manufacture one of these simple and efficacious musical instruments, and I would suggest the application of a little powdered resin instead of water to the hand, to produce a full tone.
I once saw at a town near Bembe a musical instrument which I thought rather ingenious. A small rectangular pit had been dug in the ground, and over its mouth two strings, about six inches apart, were stretched with pegs driven in the ground. Across these strings ten or twelve staves from a small powder-barrel were fastened. These were struck with a couple of sticks, on the end of which was a little knob or lump of india-rubber, and an agreeable sound was produced. I have seen two Kroomen from the West Coast, at the River Zaire, playing on a similar kind of instrument, but the flat pieces were laid across two small plantain-stems, and were of different sizes and thickness, so as to produce a kind of scale when struck by the performers with a couple of sticks each. The rapidity with which this instrument was played was really marvellous, and the music sounded like variations of their usual plaintive song, always in a minor key, and one seemed to be playing bass to the other’s rapidly-executed treble. This air is played or sung ad infinitum, and the second bar is often repeated. The Kroomen on board the steamers on the coast always sing it and harmonize it prettily, when it has a very pleasing effect indeed.
Bar of music
The southern bank of the Quanza, from its mouth to opposite Dondo, is called the Quissama country, and is inhabited by the peculiar race or tribe of negroes of the same name. They have not been subjected to the Portuguese in modern times, and I apprehend that in former years, when the Portuguese were in great strength on the River Quanza, they were never considered worth the trouble of subjugating, as they certainly are not now. The former missionaries also do not appear to have been able to do anything with them, as not a trace exists there of the habits of civilization they so successfully introduced, and which are so apparent in the natives of the greater part of Angola, where they were formerly established. Their greatest stations were on the Quanza, where their efforts were most successful; and there can be no reason to suppose that any other obstacle existed to the Quissama natives participating in their teaching or example than the resistance due to the very low type, both physical and mental, of this tribe, so apparent at the present day. The missionaries must have had a station of some importance at Muxima, in their own country, as shown by the very fine church still existing there, besides those at Calumbo, Massangano, Cambambe, and perhaps at Bruto.
The Quissama negroes are very black in colour, undersized, exceedingly dirty, and have a remarkably ugly cast of countenance. With the exception of the tribe of Muquandos, south of Benguella, the Quissama blacks are the most miserable-looking race in Angola. They have a wild, savage look, not seen in the faces of any other tribe, and have not the free mien or attitude of perfect ease of other blacks, but appear frightened and very suspicious. Everywhere on the river they cross over daily with their produce for sale to the different houses of the white traders, as well as to the petty native grog-shops and traders on the river from Calumbo to Dondo, but they never drop their distrustful behaviour, and cross over to their own side without delaying more than necessary. They will not allow traders to establish on their side of the river;—one or two that are said to have done so were robbed, and their houses burnt. They are on terms of perfect friendship with the natives and white men of the northern bank, and at Calumbo and a few other places their land is cultivated by the natives of those places.
The greater part of the Quissama country is very barren, and perfectly destitute of water except on the banks of the river itself, the Quissamas employing baobab trees, hollowed out for the purpose, as reservoirs for the rain-water falling in the wet season. It is very scantily populated except near Massangano and Dondo, where their chief towns are, and where they manufacture a considerable quantity of palm-oil.
When the oil season is approaching, the white traders go over from Dondo to their principal towns to settle with the “sobas,” or kings, the price per measure at which the oil is to be sold. Though so wild in appearance, they are most inoffensive and peaceable, and are in the greatest fear lest the Portuguese should take it into their heads to annex their territory, which they could most easily do if they thought it advisable.
The Libollos, or natives of the Libollo country, are a very much finer and cleaner race than their neighbours the Quissamas, and their country (according to the accounts I received from several Portuguese and natives) most beautiful and fertile, and covered in great part with palm-trees.
The manner in which they have lately cultivated large quantities of ground-nuts, and increased the production of palm-oil, proves that they are an industrious race.
They are antagonistic to the Quissamas, and very favourable to the Portuguese, and have often offered to reduce them to the power of the latter, if these will give them leave and supply them with guns and ammunition. On one occasion, when I was at Dondo, an embassy arrived, through the Libollo country, from some powerful tribes of the Bailundo district—the most warlike of the tribes of the interior—also offering to conquer the country for the Portuguese on condition of being allowed to plunder and carry off prisoners as slaves.
These warlike tribes to the south of the Libollo and Quissama countries are known in Angola by the name of Quinbundos, and are the handsomest natives of any, being all very tall and well formed. They come in caravans to Dondo, principally laden with beeswax, singing on the march, and at night when assembled together, a song with chorus with great effect. They put up at the Libollo and Quissama towns, and come over to the northern bank to trade with the white men. They plait their hair in thin strings all round their heads, and in each plait they put several beads, mostly made of red paste in imitation of coral. The Quissamas are not cannibals, as described by an English tourist, whose sensational story about them, written after a few days’ trip in the steamers on the Quanza, is full of gross inaccuracies.
The dress of the men is a waistcloth of fine matting or cotton cloths, obtained from the traders; that of the women is very singular, being the soft, beaten inner bark of the baobab-tree made into a thick sort of skirt, which is fastened round the waist, and has extra layers at the back to puff it out still more, something in the manner of the “dress-improvers” worn by the fair sex in our own country. (Plate XII.). Nature has provided the Quissama ladies with an abundant development of what the Spaniards call “enthusiasm,” and on this account the use of the extra thicknesses on the back of their skirts is really quite unnecessary; but they are not satisfied, and consider this fashion an improvement. Their appearance, therefore, is very comical, particularly when they run, as the thick short skirt moves up and down, and swings round with every motion of the body.
Maxilla, and Barber’s Shop
Plate XII.
Maxilla, and Barber’s Shop.—Carrying Corpse to Burial.—Quissama
Women, and manner of pounding and sifting Meal in Angola.
To face page 147.
They are very dirty in their habits, never appearing to make use of water for washing, and their baobab skirts are always black with grease, smoke, and perspiration. I had to order the two dresses in my possession, one for a married woman and the other for a girl or young woman, to be made on purpose, as I could not touch any of those offered to me for sale.
The women, when they come over to the northern bank, sometimes wear a handkerchief or other cloth over the breast, and even over the baobab skirt, but this latter they must wear, according to the custom of their country. They carry the produce of their plantations in large conical baskets on their backs, secured by a band round the forehead (Plate XII.). It is, as far as I know, the only tribe in Angola that carries a load in this manner.
The Quissama blacks are extremely poor, their arid country producing hardly anything besides the food necessary for their bare subsistence, and a little beeswax. The principal food of those near the river is fish.
There is a deposit of rock-salt in the Quissama country somewhere between Muxima and Calumbo (said to be south of the former), and at some distance from the river. It has never to my knowledge been visited by any white man, nor would the Quissamas readily allow one to go to the place; but the most curious thing connected with this salt is that they cut it into little bars with five or six sides or facets, about eight or nine inches long and about an inch thick, tapering slightly to the ends, and closely encased in cane-work. These pass as money, not only on the river, but in the interior, where they are at last perhaps consumed.
During the Abyssinian war, some of the correspondents described exactly the same shaped pieces of rock-salt encased in similar wicker-work, as being obtained and employed in that country for the same purpose. This is extremely interesting, and opens several questions as to a possible common origin for the custom in the far and dim past; and the case of the bellows already described is another similar instance.
Many of the native words mentioned by the same correspondents are identical with those used in different places in Angola. I am very sorry now that I did not devote more attention to the investigation of the languages of the natives of Angola, and in particular that of the Quissama tribe, which is different to the Bunda language, and is also said to be different to that of Benguella Velha and Novo Redondo farther south. The number of distinct languages and dialects in Angola is very curious, and a similar multiplicity of tongues has been noted by travellers in other parts of Tropical Africa. None of the languages in Angola are guttural, or spoken with a “click.”
There is a great deal of most interesting detail to be worked out in Angola in every branch of natural history and ethnology.
My chapters are little more than an indication of the wealth that lies there buried for future explorers, and of the success that will attend their investigations.