About the native huts, and, so far as I could learn,
it was the American cotton, so influenced by climate as to be perennial.
We met in the road natives passing with bundles of cops,
or spindles full of cotton thread, and these they were carrying to other parts
to be woven into cloth. The women are the spinners, and the men
perform the weaving. Each web is about 5 feet long, and 15 or 18 inches wide.
The loom is of the simplest construction, being nothing but two beams
placed one over the other, the web standing perpendicularly.
The threads of the web are separated by means of a thin wooden lath,
and the woof passed through by means of the spindle on which
it has been wound in spinning.
The mode of spinning and weaving in Angola, and, indeed,
throughout South Central Africa, is so very like the same occupations
in the hands of the ancient Egyptians, that I introduce a woodcut
from the interesting work of Sir Gardner Wilkinson. The lower figures
are engaged in spinning in the real African method, and the weavers
in the left-hand corner have their web in the Angolese fashion.*
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* Unfortunately, this woodcut can not be represented in this ASCII text.
The caption reads, `Ancient Spinning and Weaving, perpetuated in Africa
at the present day. From Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians", p. 85, 86.'
The web, or cloth on the loom, mentioned, has the vertical threads,
or the warp, hanging, perhaps five feet, from a horizontal beam.
The woof is passed through from side to side. - A. L., 1997.
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Numbers of other articles are brought for sale to these sleeping-places.
The native smiths there carry on their trade. I bought ten
very good table-knives, made of country iron, for twopence each.
Labor is extremely cheap, for I was assured that even carpenters, masons,
smiths, etc., might be hired for fourpence a day, and agriculturists
would gladly work for half that sum.*
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* In order that the reader may understand the social position of the people
of this country, I here give the census of the district of Golungo Alto
for the year 1854, though the numbers are evidently not all furnished:
238 householders or yeomen.
4224 patrons, or head men of several hamlets.
23 native chiefs or sovas.
292 macotas or councilors.
5838 carriers.
126 carpenters.
72 masons.
300 shoemakers.
181 potters.
25 tailors.
12 barbers.
206 iron-founders.
486 bellows-blowers.
586 coke-makers.
173 iron-miners.
184 soldiers of militia.
3603 privileged gentlemen, i.e., who may wear boots.
18 vagabonds.
717 old men.
54 blind men and women.
81 lame men and women.
770 slave men.
807 slave women.
9578 free women.
393 possessors of land.
300 female gardeners.
139 hunters of wild animals.
980 smiths.
314 mat-makers.
4065 males under 7 years of age.
6012 females under 7 years of age.
