This Indicates A Much Greater Impartiality
Than Has Obtained In Our Own Dealings With The Caffres,
For We Have Engaged
In most expensive wars with them without once inquiring
whether any of the fault lay with our frontier colonists.
The
Cassange traders seem inclined to spread along the Quango,
in spite of the desire of their government to keep them on one spot,
for mutual protection in case of war. If I might judge
from the week of feasting I passed among them, they are generally prosperous.
As I always preferred to appear in my own proper character,
I was an object of curiosity to these hospitable Portuguese.
They evidently looked upon me as an agent of the English government,
engaged in some new movement for the suppression of slavery. They could
not divine what a "missionario" had to do with the latitudes and longitudes,
which I was intent on observing. When we became a little familiar,
the questions put were rather amusing: "Is it common for missionaries
to be doctors?" "Are you a doctor of medicine and a `doutor mathematico' too?
You must be more than a missionary to know how to calculate the longitude!
Come, tell us at once what rank you hold in the English army."
They may have given credit to my reason for wearing the mustache,
as that explains why men have beards and women have none;
but that which puzzled many besides my Cassange friends
was the anomaly of my being a "sacerdote", with a wife and four children!
I usually got rid of the last question by putting another:
"Is it not better to have children with a wife, than to have children
without a wife?" But all were most kind and hospitable;
and as one of their festivals was near, they invited me
to partake of the feast.
The anniversary of the Resurrection of our Savior was observed
on the 16th of April as a day of rejoicing, though the Portuguese
have no priests at Cassange. The colored population dressed up a figure
intended to represent Judas Iscariot, and paraded him on a riding-ox
about the village; sneers and maledictions were freely bestowed
on the poor wretch thus represented. The slaves and free colored population,
dressed in their gayest clothing, made visits to all the principal merchants,
and wishing them "a good feast", expected a present in return.
This, though frequently granted in the shape of pieces of calico
to make new dresses, was occasionally refused, but the rebuff
did not much affect the petitioner.
At ten A.M. we went to the residence of the commandant, and on a signal
being given, two of the four brass guns belonging to the government
commenced firing, and continued some time, to the great admiration of my men,
whose ideas of the power of a cannon are very exalted.
The Portuguese flag was hoisted and trumpets sounded,
as an expression of joy at the resurrection of our Lord.
Captain Neves invited all the principal inhabitants of the place,
and did what he could to feast them in a princely style.
All manner of foreign preserved fruits and wine from Portugal,
biscuits from America, butter from Cork, and beer from England,
were displayed, and no expense spared in rendering the entertainment joyous.
After the feast was over they sat down to the common amusement
of card-playing, which continued till eleven o'clock at night.
As far as a mere traveler could judge, they seemed to be polite and willing
to aid each other. They live in a febrile district, and many of them had
enlarged spleens. They have neither doctor, apothecary, school, nor priest,
and, when taken ill, trust to each other and to Providence.
As men left in such circumstances must think for themselves, they have all
a good idea of what ought to be done in the common diseases of the country,
and what they have of either medicine or skill they freely impart
to each other.
None of these gentlemen had Portuguese wives. They usually come to Africa
in order to make a little money, and return to Lisbon. Hence they seldom
bring their wives with them, and never can be successful colonists
in consequence. It is common for them to have families by native women.
It was particularly gratifying to me, who had been familiar
with the stupid prejudice against color, entertained only by those who are
themselves becoming tawny, to view the liberality with which people of color
were treated by the Portuguese. Instances, so common in the South,
in which half-caste children are abandoned, are here extremely rare.
They are acknowledged at table, and provided for by their fathers
as if European. The colored clerks of the merchants sit
at the same table with their employers without any embarrassment.
The civil manners of superiors to inferiors is probably the result
of the position they occupy - a few whites among thousands of blacks;
but nowhere else in Africa is there so much good-will
between Europeans and natives as here. If some border colonists
had the absolute certainty of our government declining to bear them out
in their arrogance, we should probably hear less of Caffre insolence.
It is insolence which begets insolence.
From the village of Cassange we have a good view of the surrounding country:
it is a gently undulating plain, covered with grass and patches of forest.
The western edge of the Quango valley appears, about twenty miles off,
as if it were a range of lofty mountains, and passes by
the name of Tala Mungongo, "Behold the Range". In the old Portuguese map,
to which I had been trusting in planning my route, it is indicated
as Talla Mugongo, or "Castle of Rocks!" and the Coanza is put down
as rising therefrom; but here I was assured that the Coanza had its source
near Bihe, far to the southwest of this, and we should not see that river
till we came near Pungo Andonga.
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