We Crossed Several Little Streams,
Which Were Flowing In The Westerly Direction In Which We Were Marching,
And Unite To Form The Quize, A Feeder Of The Coanza.
The Basongo
were very civil, as indeed all the tribes were who had been conquered
by the Portuguese.
The Basongo and Bangala are yet only partially subdued.
The farther west we go from this, the less independent we find
the black population, until we reach the vicinity of Loanda,
where the free natives are nearly identical in their feelings
toward the government with the slaves. But the governors of Angola
wisely accept the limited allegiance and tribute rendered
by the more distant tribes as better than none.
All the inhabitants of this region, as well as those of Londa,
may be called true negroes, if the limitations formerly made be borne in mind.
The dark color, thick lips, heads elongated backward and upward and covered
with wool, flat noses, with other negro peculiarities, are general; but,
while these characteristics place them in the true negro family, the reader
would imbibe a wrong idea if he supposed that all these features combined
are often met with in one individual. All have a certain
thickness and prominence of lip, but many are met with in every village
in whom thickness and projection are not more marked than in Europeans.
All are dark, but the color is shaded off in different individuals
from deep black to light yellow. As we go westward, we observe
the light color predominating over the dark, and then again,
when we come within the influence of damp from the sea air,
we find the shade deepen into the general blackness of the coast population.
The shape of the head, with its woolly crop, though general, is not universal.
The tribes on the eastern side of the continent, as the Caffres,
have heads finely developed and strongly European. Instances of this kind
are frequently seen, and after I became so familiar with the dark color
as to forget it in viewing the countenance, I was struck by
the strong resemblance some natives bore to certain of our own notabilities.
The Bushmen and Hottentots are exceptions to these remarks,
for both the shape of their heads and growth of wool are peculiar; the latter,
for instance, springs from the scalp in tufts with bare spaces between,
and when the crop is short, resembles a number of black pepper-corns
stuck on the skin, and very unlike the thick frizzly masses
which cover the heads of the Balonda and Maravi. With every disposition
to pay due deference to the opinions of those who have made ethnology
their special study, I have felt myself unable to believe
that the exaggerated features usually put forth as those of the typical negro
characterize the majority of any nation of south Central Africa.
The monuments of the ancient Egyptians seem to me to embody the ideal
of the inhabitants of Londa better than the figures of any work of ethnology
I have met with.
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