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. They deal largely in salt,
which their country produces in great abundance. It is brought
in crystals of about 12 inches long and 1-1/2 in diameter.
This is hawked about every where in Angola, and, next to calico,
is the most common medium of barter. The Kisama are brave;
and when the Portuguese army followed them into their forests,
they reduced the invaders to extremity by tapping all the reservoirs of water,
which were no other than the enormous baobabs of the country hollowed
into cisterns. As the Kisama country is ill supplied with water otherwise,
the Portuguese were soon obliged to retreat. Their country, lying near
to Massangano, is low and marshy, but becomes more elevated in the distance,
and beyond them lie the lofty dark mountain ranges of the Libollo,
another powerful and independent people. Near Massangano I observed
what seemed to be an effort of nature to furnish a variety of domestic fowls,
more capable than the common kind of bearing the heat of the sun.
This was a hen and chickens with all their feathers curled upward,
thus giving shade to the body without increasing the heat.
They are here named "Kisafu" by the native population,
who pay a high price for them when they wish to offer them as a sacrifice,
and by the Portuguese they are termed "Arripiada", or shivering.
There seems to be a tendency in nature to afford varieties
adapted to the convenience of man.
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