As A Chain Of Forts Along Its Course Would Lead
Southward Instead Of Eastward, We May Infer That The Geographical Data
Within Reach Of That Eminent Man Were No Better Than Those According To Which
I Had Directed My Course To The Coanza Where It Does Not Exist.
26TH. We spent Sunday on the banks of the Quilo or Kweelo,
here a stream of about ten yards wide.
It runs in a deep glen,
the sides of which are almost five hundred yards of slope,
and rocky, the rocks being hardened calcareous tufa lying on
clay shale and sandstone below, with a capping of ferruginous conglomerate.
The scenery would have been very pleasing, but fever took away
much of the joy of life, and severe daily intermittents rendered me
very weak and always glad to recline.
As we were now in the slave-market, it struck me that the sense of insecurity
felt by the natives might account for the circumstance that those
who have been sold as slaves and freed again, when questioned,
profess to like the new state better than their primitive one.
They lived on rich, fertile plains, which seldom inspire that love of country
which the mountains do. If they had been mountaineers, they would have
pined for home. To one who has observed the hard toil of the poor
in old civilized countries, the state in which the inhabitants here live
is one of glorious ease. The country is full of little villages.
Food abounds, and very little labor is required for its cultivation;
the soil is so rich that no manure is required; when a garden
becomes too poor for good crops of maize, millet, etc.,
the owner removes a little farther into the forest, applies fire
round the roots of the larger trees to kill them, cuts down the smaller,
and a new, rich garden is ready for the seed. The gardens usually present
the appearance of a large number of tall, dead trees standing without bark,
and maize growing between them. The old gardens continue
to yield manioc for years after the owners have removed to other spots
for the sake of millet and maize. But, while vegetable aliment is abundant,
there is a want of salt and animal food, so that numberless traps are seen,
set for mice, in all the forests of Londa. The vegetable diet
leaves great craving for flesh, and I have no doubt but that,
when an ordinary quantity of mixed food is supplied to freed slaves,
they actually do feel more comfortable than they did at home.
Their assertions, however, mean but little, for they always try
to give an answer to please, and if one showed them a nugget of gold,
they would generally say that these abounded in their country.
One could detect, in passing, the variety of character found among the owners
of gardens and villages. Some villages were the pictures of neatness.
We entered others enveloped in a wilderness of weeds, so high that,
when sitting on ox-back in the middle of the village, we could only see
the tops of the huts. If we entered at midday, the owners would come
lazily forth, pipe in hand, and leisurely puff away in dreamy indifference.
In some villages weeds are not allowed to grow; cotton, tobacco,
and different plants used as relishes are planted round the huts;
fowls are kept in cages, and the gardens present the pleasant spectacle
of different kinds of grain and pulse at various periods of their growth.
I sometimes admired the one class, and at times wished
I could have taken the world easy for a time like the other.
Every village swarms with children, who turn out to see the white man pass,
and run along with strange cries and antics; some run up trees
to get a good view: all are agile climbers throughout Londa.
At friendly villages they have scampered alongside our party
for miles at a time. We usually made a little hedge around our sheds;
crowds of women came to the entrance of it, with children on their backs,
and long pipes in their mouths, gazing at us for hours.
The men, rather than disturb them, crawled through a hole in the hedge,
and it was common to hear a man in running off say to them,
"I am going to tell my mamma to come and see the white man's oxen."
In continuing our W.N.W. course, we met many parties of native traders,
each carrying some pieces of cloth and salt, with a few beads
to barter for bees'-wax. They are all armed with Portuguese guns,
and have cartridges with iron balls. When we meet we usually stand
a few minutes. They present a little salt, and we give a bit of ox-hide,
or some other trifle, and then part with mutual good wishes.
The hide of the oxen we slaughtered had been a valuable addition
to our resources, for we found it in so great repute for girdles
all through Loanda that we cut up every skin into strips
about two inches broad, and sold them for meal and manioc as we went along.
As we came nearer Angola we found them of less value, as the people there
possess cattle themselves.
The village on the Kweelo, at which we spent Sunday, was that of a civil,
lively old man, called Sakandala, who offered no objections to our progress.
We found we should soon enter on the territory of the Bashinje
(Chinge of the Portuguese), who are mixed with another tribe, named Bangala,
which have been at war with the Babindele or Portuguese. Rains and fever,
as usual, helped to impede our progress until we were put on the path which
leads from Cassange and Bihe to Matiamvo, by a head man named Kamboela.
This was a well-beaten footpath, and soon after entering upon it
we met a party of half-caste traders from Bihe, who confirmed the information
we had already got of this path leading straight to Cassange,
through which they had come on their way from Bihe to Cabango.
They kindly presented my men with some tobacco, and marveled greatly
when they found that I had never been able to teach myself to smoke.
On parting with them we came to a trader's grave.
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