The country south of the River Quanza is very different from that to the north of it, just described, not only in its physical aspect, but also in the tribes of natives inhabiting it. The evidences of a former degree of civilization, and of the good work of the old missionaries, are not here visible, and I should almost imagine that this part of Angola was not under their care to anything like the same extent.
From June 1861 to the end of 1863, I was engaged in working two copper deposits at Cuio and Benguella, and in exploring the coast from Cassanza, about eighty miles from the River Quanza, as far as and including Mossamedes or Little Fish Bay.
In these explorations I did not go inland a greater distance than about thirty or forty miles at Mossamedes, and forty or fifty at Novo Redondo. I cannot, therefore, speak from personal knowledge of those most interesting places in the interior, Bihé and Bailundo, or the Portuguese districts of Caconda, Quillengues, Huilla, Capangombe, &c.
The geological character of the coast-line from the Quanza to Mossamedes is gneiss, mostly very quartzose, then with a good deal of hornblende and mica near Cuio, passing to a fine-grained porphyry and fine granite with large, distinct feldspar about Mossamedes. Close to the sea these primary rocks are joined by a line of tertiary deposits, principally massive gypsum, and sandstones of different thicknesses curiously separated by layers of the finest dust. Farther south, between the River San Nicolao in 14° S. lat. and Mossamedes, there is a strip of columnar basalt and trap-rock of only a few miles in width.
The character of these rocks is sufficient to account for the very sterile nature of the country; in fact, most of it is completely a rocky desert, without a drop of water, and covered with but little grass, and frightfully thorny bushes. Although this is the general character, there are numerous places of the greatest beauty, particularly at a distance of twenty to thirty miles from the coast, where the first elevation is reached, and where the vegetation, as in the rest of Angola, changes to a luxuriant character.
The country about Cassanza is level and well covered with grass, and the natives appeared inoffensive and quiet. They have a considerable quantity of fine cattle, and what is rare amongst the natives of Angola, they milk the cows regularly twice a day, the milk being a principal article of food with them. The few days that I was there in 1863, I enjoyed the abundance of beautiful milk immensely.
The Portuguese with whom I was staying was then engaged in cotton planting, but the ground did not appear very suitable for its cultivation. He also had a beautiful cotton and sugar-cane plantation at Benguella Velha, and at a pretty place called Cuvo, where there is a small river and good ground near its mouth.
On that occasion I had come up in a sailing barge from Benguella to Novo Redondo, to explore that district for copper, specimens of the ore having been found in several places. The river at Novo Redondo had overflowed its banks, and the road we had to follow was under water for some miles, and whilst waiting for the river to subside, I started to Cuvo and Cassanza to see the country and my friend. On returning to Novo Redondo I obtained for guide the services of a jovial and useful black named David, who had been educated at Benguella. He could read and write Portuguese, which language he spoke perfectly, and was a man of great importance in the Novo Redondo country, as he was the hereditary king of the place, and was to be proclaimed as such as soon as he could make up his mind to eat a man’s head and heart, roasted or stewed, as he should fancy. David was not at all inclined either to forego his kingship, or to eat any part of one of his fellow-creatures, which by the custom of his country it was imperative he should do to be proclaimed king.
He had been putting off the disagreeable ceremony for some two years, if I remember right, but his people were getting impatient at not having a king, and were threatening to elect another. How he got over the difficulty, or if he at last submitted to overcome his repugnance to roast or stewed negro, I never heard.
The “Mucelis,” or natives of Novo Redondo and of the country inland called “Celis,” are cannibals, and, as far as I could ascertain, there are no others in Angola.
The Portuguese have no stations inland on that part of the coast, that of Caconda, to the interior and south of Benguella, being the first; and they do not allow the practice of cannibalism at the town of Novo Redondo itself, as they strictly prohibit and punish there, as in the rest of Angola, any fetish rite or custom, but I found that at Cuacra, the second large town I passed on my way inland, human flesh was eaten, and in several other towns I passed I saw evidences of this custom in a heap of skulls of the blacks that had been eaten in the centre of the towns, and on the trees were also the clay pots in which the flesh was cooked, and which, according to their laws, can only be used for that purpose.
One night I walked out of my hut at a town where I was sleeping, and seeing that no one was about, I chose a nice skull from the heap, and brought it home and presented it to my friend Professor Huxley, who exhibited it at a meeting of the Anthropological Society. I had previously asked whether I might take one of these skulls, but had been told that it would be considered a great “fetish” if I did, and David begged me not to do so, as there would be a great disturbance, so I was obliged to steal one in the way I have described, and hide it carefully in my portmanteau.
It is only natives who are killed for “fetish” or witchcraft that are eaten, and the “soba” or king of the town where they are executed has the head and heart as his share.
I was informed that at these feasts every particle of the body was eaten, even to the entrails. At the principal towns of Ambuin and Sanga (said to be the capital) I was told that as many as six and seven blacks were eaten every month, and that the “sobas” of those two towns, and their wives, only used human fat to anoint their bodies with.
I was shown at one of the towns the little axe with which the poor wretches were decapitated, and which was distinguished from others used by the natives by having a lozenge-shaped hole in the blade.
I was very much surprised to find that, notwithstanding their cannibal propensities, the natives of Novo Redondo were such an extremely fine race; in fact, they are the finest race of blacks, in every way, that I have met with in Africa.
Cannibalism may possibly be one reason of their superiority, from this custom supplying them with a certain amount of animal food more than other tribes make use of, or it may be due to their usual food, which is principally a mixture in equal parts of haricot beans and indian-corn, being very much more nutritious than the diet of mandioca meal, of almost pure starch, that supplies the staple food of other tribes. Whatever the reason may be, there can be no question of the superior physique and qualities of this cannibal tribe.
When about to start on my journey, I saw that only four carriers had been provided for my hammock, and I refused to start with less than six or eight, as I made sure, judging from every other place in Africa I had travelled in, that I should have to walk a great deal, as four men, even in Ambriz, where I had found the best carriers, would not be able to carry me, day after day, on a long journey. I was assured that it was never customary to have more than four, that two would carry me from daybreak till noon, and the other two from noon till sunset, and that I might have six or more, but that four alone would carry me every day. This I found was the case, not only in that journey, but also when returning overland from Novo Redondo to Benguella, a distance of about ninety miles.
Another extremely curious feature, distinguishing them favourably from all other negro races, is their degree of honesty and honour.
Any white or other trader going into the interior agrees to pay the “soba” of a town the customary dues, and he provides the trader with a clean hut, and is responsible for the goods in it. The trader may go away farther inland, and he is perfectly certain that on coming back he will find his property untouched, exactly as he left it. Whilst I was at Novo Redondo, an embassy arrived from a town in the interior, where a Portuguese had established himself to trade in palm-oil and beeswax, and where he had died, bringing every scrap of produce and goods belonging to him to deliver the same to the “chefe.”
They were paid and rewarded for their honesty, and I was told that it was the usual thing for these natives to do, on the death of a trader in their country. I do not know of any other part of Africa where such an example would be imitated, certainly not by the Christian negroes at Sierra Leone.
There is a magnificent palm forest on the banks of the river at Novo Redondo. This river is small, but brings down a considerable body of water in the rainy season.
I crossed it on the second day of my journey inland by means of a curiously constructed suspension-bridge attached to the high trees on either side. This bridge was made entirely of the stems of a very tough tree-creeper, growing in great lengths, and about the thickness of an ordinary walking-stick. From two parallel ropes made of this creeper, right across the stream and about two feet apart, hung a frame of open, large-meshed basket-work about three feet deep, forming a kind of flexible net or trough open at the top. The bottom or floor of this trough was made of the same creeper, woven roughly and openly in the same manner as the sides, and when walking in it, I found it necessary to be careful to tread on the network, or my feet would have slipped through, and to help myself along by holding on to the guys or ropes at the top, which reached up to about my waist.
The length of the bridge must have been some thirty paces. Near it I noticed, on a flat-topped tree of no great height, a large bird of the eagle species sitting on its eggs in an open nest, and the male bird on a branch near his mate; this tree was quite close to the road or path, and though numerous natives passed under it to and fro, neither they nor the birds seemed to heed one another in the least.
The Celis country is infested with lions, but I was not so fortunate as to see one, though one morning we came upon the fresh footprints of what the natives affirmed to be a family consisting of a full-grown male and female and three half-grown young ones. To my inexperienced eyes there appeared to have been more, so numerous seemed the plainly-marked footprints in the moist sand of the bottom of a small ravine.
We escaped an encounter with one the day we started on our trip. About half-past four in the afternoon we arrived at a pretty clump of trees round a pool of deliciously cool water, and near a low line of rather bare-looking hills. David would not allow our carriers to tarry at this pool, as he knew it to be the evening drinking-place for the lions living in the low hills near. We went on, and shortly after we met an old Cabinda man on his way to Novo Redondo, carrying a letter tied in a cleftstick (the usual way to send a native with a letter in Angola). He was an acquaintance of David’s, who had a talk with him, and we went on our several ways. Next morning we heard that the poor fellow had been caught by a lion not more than an hour after, and at the very pool of water where David had warned us not to stop long. The lion had evidently eaten part of the body at the pool itself, and had carried off the rest to its lair in the hills.
I went to several places where indications of copper had been found, but was disappointed in finding any worth exploring. They were all in the recent beds at the junction or near the primary rock of the country, and consisted of indications of blue and green carbonate of copper in the fine sedimentary mud and sandstone beds. These indications are most abundant everywhere in that district, and curiously enough the plantain-eaters are also most abundant, more so than in any other part of Angola I have been in. I went as far as a range of very quartzose schist rock or gneiss mountains, called Ngello, which I suppose to be between forty and fifty miles from the sea; and at a pass called Tocota on the road to some important town in the interior, named Dongo, I visited a hot-water spring about half way up the mountain side. I had no thermometer with me, but the water, as it issued from a crevice in the rock, was so hot that I could only keep my hand in it for a few seconds.
The direction of the mountain range was about N.N.E by S.S.W.; the rock composing it was nearly vertical, inclining slightly to the west, and with a strike about north and south. There is a most picturesque little town of huts stuck on a rocky ledge, and the natives use the water from the hot springs to drink, but first allow it to stand a day to cool. It has a very pleasant taste when cold, with just the slightest ferruginous flavour. From this range of mountains magnificent views are obtained, the scenery and vegetation reminding me strongly of Cazengo; and there can be no question that it is likewise capable of growing the coffee-plant to perfection. Some sugar-cane I saw growing there was as fine as I have ever seen it, and the native plantations were most luxuriant. I do not know whether trade at Novo Redondo has increased in the same ratio as on the Quanza and Ambriz, but that it is destined to be a very rich country I have no doubt. There is a great deal of white gum in the country, collected from a tree of which whole forests are said to be found.
The principal article of trade at Novo Redondo when I was there was palm-oil, which was mostly bought in exchange for rum, measure for measure, and I often saw the very gourds and pots in which the natives brought the palm-oil filled up with the rum in exchange without any more cleansing than allowing the vessels to well drain off the oil.
I noticed a great variety of birds, and I am sure the country would well repay a collector’s trouble. In the middle of a small cultivated valley I saw a low, flat-topped baobab, which had been taken possession of by a flock of eight or ten birds about the size of a thrush, of a black colour, with smoky-white feathers on the wings. They had built a common nest on the flat top of the tree, and were all sitting hatching their eggs together, quite unprotected from the sun. This bird is the Amydrus fulvipennis, Sw., of ornithologists.
I also saw numbers of a beautiful green pigeon (Treron calva), which is very fat and good to eat. The food of this bird is principally fruit and berries, especially the small figs of the “Mucozo,” a large-leaved, handsome tree. They are generally seen in small flocks, and they sit very close on the trees whilst feeding, during which operation they utter a curious low noise, as of people talking at a distance. If alarmed, they suddenly hush and stop eating until the alarm has passed away, when they re-commence feeding. The natives state that if a man is completely concealed, he can shoot a number, one after the other, off the same tree where a flock may be feeding, as the discharge of the gun is not sufficient to frighten them away if they do not see the sportsman.
The natives here are great bee-keepers, as are also the natives on both banks of the Quanza. The hives are to be seen on almost every baobab, this being the tree chosen in preference to any other, and as many as four or five hives may be seen on one tree. They are made by splitting a piece of wood, generally a branch of a tree with the bark on, about five feet long and ten or twelve inches in diameter; the centre is scooped out, leaving the ends entire; the two halves are securely tied together, and three holes large enough to admit the little finger are bored at each end. An aperture is cut in the middle of the hollow cylinder, where the two halves are joined together, large enough to admit the hand. This aperture is closed with a piece of wood, and clayed over to thoroughly prevent any rain from getting in. The hive is securely placed in the branches of the tree, and a quantity of dry grass put over it as a roof or thatch.
Once a year the owner climbs the tree and draws up a basket for the wax and honey with a cord, and also some dry grass and fire. He opens the aperture, and, lighting wisps of grass, smokes the bees as they issue out. Most of them drop half suffocated to the ground, and the comb is extracted, a small quantity being left behind to induce the bees to work again in the same hive. If no comb be left, the natives affirm that they will not return to the hive. In some places the natives are careful not to kill any of the bees, and are said to extract the comb as often as three times a year. Bee-hives are the principal wealth of these blacks, and some families possess as many as three and four hundred.
I was told that very little wild honey or wax was found, and that a bird was known to the natives that showed them where the wild bees’ nests were. They called it “solé,” and described it as having a white bar across its tail, and making its nest of the hair of different animals which it collected for the purpose.
The Mucelis have a curious custom which I have not heard of as existing in any other tribe, namely, that on the death of the great “sobas” of Ambuin and Sanga, all fires in the kingdom must be put out, and relighted by the succeeding “soba” from fire struck by rubbing two sticks together.
Their laws, principally those relating to the protection of property, are very strict, slavery being the punishment for even trifling robberies, such as a cob of growing indian-corn, or an egg. Oddly enough, they have the same custom of the “lent rat” as in Cambambe, and the punishment if it is not returned entire is a heavy fine, or in default slavery.
To show the extent of some beliefs in Angola amongst tribes far apart, speaking different languages, and having not the slightest communication with each other, I may mention that amongst the Mushicongos a certain field-mouse is believed to drop down dead if it crosses at the point where one path is intersected by another, and I found this absurd idea entertained exactly in the same manner in the Celis country. I presented a skin of this mouse to the British Museum. It is nearest to the Mus Gambianus in the same collection.
Some of the natives from the interior of Novo Redondo had the most extraordinary way of wearing their hair of any I have seen in Africa; amongst other curious fancies the most usual and striking was that of fashioning it into the exact resemblance of a large Roman helmet with a projecting round horn in front. The custom of wearing a great thickness of strings of flat beads made of shell, and called “dongos,” is universal. They are also worn by the Mundombes, or natives of Benguella, and are mostly made in the Celis country. They are made from the shell of the Achatina monetaria, Morelet, which is broken and chipped into little round pieces about the size of a fourpenny bit, and these are strung on a string. The labour and time taken in their manufacture may be imagined, as it takes several yards of these flat beads coiled round the neck to make a proper necklace, about the thickness of a man’s arm. This once put on is never taken off again during life, and becomes a filthy mass of dirt, grease, and perspiration. The women also wear these strings or “Quirandas” (weighing sometimes as much as 20 to 30 lbs.) round the waist, and they pass as money in the country.
From Novo Redondo I returned overland to Benguella, fording the River Quicombo, at the mouth of which the Portuguese have a small detachment, and where a few traders are established. This river is broad, but shallow where I crossed it, about six miles from the sea.
The road was generally good and not far from the sea. It passed along and across several ravines, in which I noticed a great quantity of the castor-oil plant growing most luxuriantly.
Late in the evening I arrived at the edge of the valley of the River Egito, at the mouth of which is situated the Portuguese station of Egito. It was getting dark, and there was a steep and long hillside to descend, and some distance to go afterwards before reaching the house of the “chefe,” whose guest I was to be. I therefore determined to make snug for the night under a great baobab growing close to a wall of rock, and my carriers were clearing a space from leaves and branches for my bed and mosquito curtain, when one of them was stung in the foot by a scorpion.
These poisonous creatures are extremely abundant in the whole of the district of Benguella, and cases are constantly occurring of persons being stung by them. In some places hardly a stone or piece of wood can be lifted from the ground without finding one or more scorpions under it. They are of all sizes, up to six and seven inches long. Their sting is rarely fatal, except to old people or persons in a bad state of health. The effects of the sting are, however, very extraordinary; in severe cases it appears to paralyse all the muscles of the body, sometimes with much pain, in others with little or none.
The black stung on the occasion I am describing complained of a good deal of pain during the night, but only after some hours, or I might have thought of burning the part with a hot iron at first; his comrades applied hot oil to his foot, but in the morning he had lost the use of his legs completely. I had to put him into my hammock and have him carried to Egito. Here I remained with my friend the “chefe” for four days, and the wounded black was laid in the sun every day to keep him warm, the usual custom in such cases, a sensation of cold always accompanying the subsequent stages of a scorpion bite. On the fourth day he had acquired so much use of his limbs that he could drag himself in a sitting position on the ground to a sunny corner, still complaining of cold, but his appetite seemed good.
I left him to the care of the “chefe,” asking him to send him on to me at Benguella as soon as he should be able to walk. A week after he came to me there quite recovered. Another case of scorpion-bite was described to me by a Portuguese officer (a mulatto) who was “chefe” of the district of Dombe Grande, to the south of Benguella. The man, a tall, stout, powerful and healthy fellow, whilst sitting one evening outside his house, smoking and talking with his family, chanced to drop one of his slippers while crossing one leg over the other; on rising after some time and putting his foot into the slipper, a scorpion that had taken refuge in it stung him in the big toe. He did not think much of the occurrence, but he gradually became worse, and next day could not rise from his bed; his legs and arms were completely paralysed, but without any pain, and his tongue being but little affected he could speak and swallow without difficulty. His mind was perfectly clear, and he only felt a certain degree of numbness and cold. Not expecting to survive he dictated his will, and remained thus paralysed for five or six days, when he gradually recovered, and was well in about a fortnight’s time and without the least inconvenient after-effect.
The view from the top of the valley of Egito was one of the grandest sights I have ever seen. The river was visible for a considerable distance inland, fringed by a dark band of palm forest. The level spaces between it and the high rocky sides of the valley in which it ran were filled with luxuriant cultivated fields, and as the vast rolling mists were dissipated by the morning rays of the sun, presented a panorama of peaceful pastoral beauty that I have never seen surpassed.
The Portuguese have here a pretty little fort on an eminence, a small garrison being necessary as the natives from the interior sometimes give considerable trouble, by coming down and attacking the plantations farthest removed from the town, but without doing any great damage beyond keeping the inhabitants in a state of alarm.
From Egito I continued my journey, sleeping the next night at the valley of the River Anha, where I had been warned against an attack of the natives, several Portuguese traders having been robbed there. I did not take any goods with me, and provided myself with a few bottles of rum as a present for the “soba,” feeling convinced that no harm would be done me by them.
On arriving at the river, a small stream flowing through a valley of lovely forest scenery, I crossed and encamped under a tree on the southern bank. I then sent one of my blacks, who knew the “soba,” with a bottle of rum and a request that he would come and have a drink with me. When he arrived, with about a dozen of the old men of the town, I was just sitting down to my dinner. Being well up in the customs of the blacks of Angola, I made him sit down on my portmanteau, and asked him through one of my men who acted as interpreter, how he and his wives and sons were, and if his country “was well,” to which he duly answered, and asked me in my turn where I had come from, and where I was going? Proper answers being given, I filled a tumbler with wine, and after drinking a portion (to show that there was no “fetish” in it) I handed the rest to him, and a couple of bottles of rum for his old men. I then gave him some of my dinner, which happened to be boiled fowl, rice, and sweet potatoes, a portion of all which, with biscuit or bread, must be given, put on the plate, and a spoon to eat it with. There is a significance in all these minutiæ to which great importance is attached by the blacks, and by which they know if the white man is a gentleman or a common man. My seating him on my portmanteau was considered equivalent to a chair, because it was part of my furniture, and a “soba” must not sit on the ground if there is a chair or stool to be had.
If I had nothing else then I should have had to provide a mat for him to squat upon. Giving him my own wine to drink, and rum to the rest, was equal to showing him a special regard as distinguished from that shown to them; the plateful of every part of my dinner, that I considered him as an equal; and the spoon, that I also believed him to be a big chief who did not eat his food with his fingers.
After finishing his plateful he retired with his old men, and shortly after sent me a couple of fowls and a basket with fresh mandioca-roots for my blacks; I returned the compliment with a few yards of cotton cloth, and went to sleep knowing that I should not be disturbed in any way. He could not attack or rob me after drinking my wine and eating my dinner, as it would have been great “fetish,” according to the customs of the blacks in Angola.
They would, besides, have been afraid of the consequences, not only of having committed “fetish,” but also of the heavy fine that I could have made the “soba” and his people pay, through any other neighbouring tribe to whom I might have complained of such a crime having been perpetrated in their country. Had I been molested, any accident or ill luck, want of rains, sickness or death that might have happened to his tribe, would be at once attributed to the “fetish” committed by the “soba” and his council of old men.
I started again early next morning, and at noon arrived at the bay of Lobito, a beautiful and singular natural dock with a narrow deep mouth, and large enough to hold a great fleet. This would be an invaluable site for a city, the only disadvantage being the absence of a stream of fresh water in the immediate vicinity. In the evening I arrived at Catumbella, after passing through a thick jungle of a shrub (Sesbania punctata, Pers.) bearing bright yellow pea-like flowers thickly spotted with purple, and always found growing in swamps and marshy places in Angola, both near the sea and inland.
Catumbella is an important place, and is about nine miles to the north of the town of Benguella. The Portuguese have there a fine little fort on a hill, a commodious “residencia” of the “chefe,” and a small detachment of soldiers from Benguella.
There is here a pretty little river, very broad and shallow, so that it can always be forded except during the heavy rains. It is very full of alligators, which are constantly carrying off blacks whilst crossing.
The scenery at Catumbella, about three or four miles from the sea, and for some little distance inland, is exquisite, from the hilly and rocky character of the country and the luxuriance of the vegetation, both wild and cultivated.
From the top of a mountain near Catumbella which, with one opposite, forms the deep gorge or valley through which the river, dotted with green islands, passes, the view is one of the greatest loveliness.
There are many traders established here, and a large trade is done with the natives of the interior in wax, ivory, gum-copal, white gum, &c.
It is on the high road to those very important and extensive countries of the interior, Bailundo, Bihé, and others, reputed to enjoy excellent climate and most fertile soil, and never yet visited except by a very few Portuguese traders, who have gone very far beyond, even nearly reaching the east coast, after ivory.
I had a very unpleasant experience once, at Catumbella, of the sufferings of hunger and thirst. I went with an old Portuguese to visit the place inland where a very fine sample of copper ore had been found by the natives. We started at daybreak, and our pretended guide told us that we could reach the place and be back at noon for breakfast. Relying on his statement, we only took half a dozen biscuits and a tin of jam with us.
It was noon when we left the River Catumbella, after travelling over several miles of very rocky ground, and struck due south. Shortly after, we luckily met with an intelligent young Mundombe, who told us we were going quite wrong and volunteered to show us the place, as it was some considerable distance off in quite another direction. To cut a long story short, we only got to a spring of beautiful water in the evening, where we finished our three biscuits each and tin of sweets.
Next day we journeyed on, and only reached the locality we sought at noon. Having had nothing to eat or drink, we started back as fast as we could to Catumbella, only reaching the river at sunset, and the way we rushed to the water’s edge to drink was amusing. We had then a long high hill to ascend, and at midnight arrived at a black trader’s hut, who most fortunately had prepared a good dinner for us, as he had expected us the evening before.
My companion was more dead than alive. However, some wine our black friend had had the forethought to send to Catumbella for, and the excellent fowl-soup he had prepared, soon set him to rights, and we left again to reach Catumbella at daybreak, completely worn out with fatigue and want of sleep.
Our friends had prepared an expedition to seek for us, almost giving us up for lost, as they knew we had taken no provisions with us. The country was very arid and stony, and the vegetation mostly prickly trees and bushes. I subsequently sent a miner with a party of blacks from Benguella to bring away the little copper ore at the place I visited. The total weight raised was about half a ton of very good quality, but no more was to be seen. The manner in which small quantities of copper ore are thus found in many places in Benguella is most extraordinary.