Massangano district is well adapted for sugar and rice, while Cambambe
is a very superior field for cotton; but the bar at the mouth of the Coanza
would prevent the approach of a steamer into this desirable region,
though a small one could ply on it with ease when once in. It is probable
that the objects of those who attempted to make a canal from Calumbo to Loanda
were not merely to supply that city with fresh water,
but to afford facilities for transportation. The remains of the canal
show it to have been made on a scale suited for the Coanza canoes.
The Portuguese began another on a smaller scale in 1811,
and, after three years' labor, had finished only 6000 yards.
Nothing great or useful will ever be effected here so long as men come
merely to get rich, and then return to Portugal.
The latitude of the town and fort of Massangano is 9d 37' 46" S., being nearly
the same as that of Cassange. The country between Loanda and this point
being comparatively flat, a railroad might be constructed at small expense.
The level country is prolonged along the north bank of the Coanza
to the edge of the Cassange basin, and a railway carried thither
would be convenient for the transport of the products of the rich districts
of Cassange, Pungo Andongo, Ambaca, Cambambe, Golungo Alto, Cazengo,
Muchima, and Calumbo; in a word, the whole of Angola and independent tribes
adjacent to this kingdom.
The Portuguese merchants generally look to foreign enterprise
and to their own government for the means by which this amelioration
might be effected; but, as I always stated to them when conversing
on the subject, foreign capitalists would never run the risk,
unless they saw the Angolese doing something for themselves,
and the laws so altered that the subjects of other nations
should enjoy the same privileges in the country with themselves.
The government of Portugal has indeed shown a wise and liberal policy
by its permission for the alienation of the crown lands in Angola;
but the law giving it effect is so fenced round with limitations,
and so deluged with verbiage, that to plain people it seems
any thing but a straightforward license to foreigners to become
`bona fide' landholders and cultivators of the soil. At present
the tolls paid on the different lines of roads for ferries and bridges
are equal to the interest of large sums of money, though but a small amount
has been expended in making available roads.
There are two churches and a hospital in ruins at Massangano;
and the remains of two convents are pointed out, one of which
is said to have been an establishment of black Benedictines,
which, if successful, considering the materials the brethren had to work on,
must have been a laborious undertaking. There is neither
priest nor schoolmaster in the town, but I was pleased to observe
a number of children taught by one of the inhabitants.
The cultivated lands attached to all these conventual establishments in Angola
are now rented by the government of Loanda, and thither the bishop
lately removed all the gold and silver vessels belonging to them.
The fort of Massangano is small, but in good repair; it contains
some very ancient guns, which were loaded from the breech, and must have been
formidable weapons in their time. The natives of this country
entertain a remarkable dread of great guns, and this tends much
to the permanence of the Portuguese authority. They dread a cannon greatly,
though the carriage be so rotten that it would fall to pieces
at the first shot; the fort of Pungo Andongo is kept securely
by cannon perched on cross sticks alone!
Massangano was a very important town at the time the Dutch held
forcible possession of Loanda and part of Angola; but when, in the year 1648,
the Dutch were expelled from this country by a small body of Portuguese,
under the Governor Salvador Correa de Sa Benevides, Massangano was left
to sink into its present decay. Since it was partially abandoned
by the Portuguese, several baobab-trees have sprung up and attained
a diameter of eighteen or twenty inches, and are about twenty feet high.
No certain conclusion can be drawn from these instances, as it is not known
at what time after 1648 they began to grow; but their present size shows
that their growth is not unusually slow.
Several fires occurred during our stay, by the thatch having,
through long exposure to a torrid sun, become like tinder.
The roofs became ignited without any visible cause except
the intense solar rays, and excited terror in the minds of the inhabitants,
as the slightest spark carried by the wind would have set the whole town
in a blaze. There is not a single inscription on stone visible in Massangano.
If destroyed to-morrow, no one could tell where it and most Portuguese
interior villages stood, any more than we can do those of the Balonda.
During the occupation of this town the Coanza was used
for the purpose of navigation, but their vessels were so frequently plundered
by their Dutch neighbors that, when they regained the good port of Loanda,
they no longer made use of the river. We remained here four days,
in hopes of obtaining an observation for the longitude,
but at this season of the year the sky is almost constantly overcast
by a thick canopy of clouds of a milk-and-water hue; this continues
until the rainy season (which was now close at hand) commences.
The lands on the north side of the Coanza belong to the Quisamas (Kisamas),
an independent tribe, which the Portuguese have not been able to subdue.
The few who came under my observation possessed much of the Bushman
or Hottentot feature, and were dressed in strips of soft bark
hanging from the waist to the knee.
