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.
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