These People Possess 300 Idol-Houses, 600 Sheep, 5000 Goats, 500 Oxen,
398 Gardens, 25,120 Hearths.
The authorities find great difficulty
in getting the people to furnish a correct account of their numbers.
This census is quoted merely for the purpose of giving
a general idea of the employments of the inhabitants.
The following is taken from the census of Icollo i Bengo,
and is added for a similar reason:
3232 living without the marriage tie. (All those who have
not been married by a priest are so distinguished.)
4 orphans - 2 black and 2 white.
9 native chiefs.
2 carpenters.
21 potters.
11 tailors.
2 shoemakers.
3 barbers.
5 mat-makers.
12 sack-makers.
21 basket-makers.
The cattle in the district are: 10 asses, 401 oxen, 492 cows, 3933 sheep,
1699 goats, 909 swine; and as an annual tax is levied of sixpence per head
on all stock, it is probable that the returns are less than the reality.
-
Being anxious to obtain some more knowledge of this interesting country
and its ancient missionary establishments than the line of route
by which we had come afforded, I resolved to visit the town of Massangano,
which is situated to the south of Golungo Alto, and at the confluence
of the rivers Lucalla and Coanza. This led me to pass
through the district of Cazengo, which is rather famous
for the abundance and excellence of its coffee. Extensive coffee plantations
were found to exist on the sides of the several lofty mountains
that compose this district. They were not planted by the Portuguese.
The Jesuit and other missionaries are known to have brought
some of the fine old Mocha seed, and these have propagated themselves
far and wide; hence the excellence of the Angola coffee.
Some have asserted that, as new plantations were constantly discovered
even during the period of our visit, the coffee-tree was indigenous;
but the fact that pine-apples, bananas, yams, orange-trees,
custard apple-trees, pitangas, guavas, and other South American trees,
were found by me in the same localities with the recently-discovered coffee,
would seem to indicate that all foreign trees must have been introduced
by the same agency. It is known that the Jesuits also introduced
many other trees for the sake of their timber alone. Numbers of these
have spread over the country, some have probably died out,
and others failed to spread, like a lonely specimen which stands
in what was the Botanic Garden of Loanda, and, though most useful in yielding
a substitute for frankincense, is the only one of the kind in Africa.
A circumstance which would facilitate the extensive propagation of the coffee
on the proper clay soil is this: The seed, when buried beneath the soil,
generally dies, while that which is sown broadcast, with no covering
except the shade of the trees, vegetates readily. The agent in sowing
in this case is a bird, which eats the outer rind, and throws the kernel
on the ground.
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