Having, through the kindness of Colonel Pires,
reproduced some of my lost papers, I left Pungo Andongo
the first day of this year, and at Candumba, slept in
one of the dairy establishments of my friend, who had sent forward orders
for an ample supply of butter, cheese, and milk.
Our path lay along
the right bank of the Coanza. This is composed of the same sandstone rock,
with pebbles, which forms the flooring of the country. The land is level,
has much open forest, and is well adapted for pasturage.
On reaching the confluence of the Lombe, we left the river,
and proceeded in a northeasterly direction, through a fine open green country,
to the village of Malange, where we struck into our former path.
A few miles to the west of this a path branches off to a new district named
the Duke Braganza. This path crosses the Lucalla and several of its feeders.
The whole of the country drained by these is described as extremely fertile.
The territory west of Braganza is reported to be mountainous,
well wooded and watered; wild coffee is abundant, and the people
even make their huts of coffee-trees. The rivers Dande, Senza, and Lucalla
are said to rise in one mountain range. Numerous tribes inhabit the country
to the north, who are all independent. The Portuguese power
extends chiefly over the tribes through whose lands we have passed.
It may be said to be firmly seated only between the rivers Dande and Coanza.
It extends inland about three hundred miles to the River Quango;
and the population, according to the imperfect data afforded by the census,
given annually by the commandants of the fifteen or sixteen districts
into which it is divided, can not be under 600,000 souls.
Leaving Malange, we passed quickly, without deviation, along the path
by which we had come. At Sanza (lat. 9d 37' 46" S., long. 16d 59' E.)
we expected to get a little seed-wheat, but this was not now to be found
in Angola. The underlying rock of the whole of this section
is that same sandstone which we have before noticed, but it gradually
becomes finer in the grain, with the addition of a little mica,
the farther we go eastward; we enter upon clay shale at Tala Mungongo
(lat. 9d 42' 37" S., long. 17d 27' E.), and find it dipping
a little to the west. The general geological structure
is a broad fringe of mica and sandstone schist (about 15 Deg. E.),
dipping in toward the centre of the country, beneath these
horizontal and sedimentary rocks of more recent date, which form
an inland basin. The fringe is not, however, the highest in altitude,
though the oldest in age.
While at this latter place we met a native of Bihe who has visited
the country of Shinte three times for the purposes of trade. He gave us
some of the news of that distant part, but not a word of the Makololo,
who have always been represented in the countries to the north
as a desperately savage race, whom no trader could visit with safety.
The half-caste traders whom we met at Shinte's had returned to Angola
with sixty-six slaves and upward of fifty tusks of ivory.
As we came along the path, we daily met long lines of carriers
bearing large square masses of beeswax, each about a hundred pounds weight,
and numbers of elephants' tusks, the property of Angolese merchants.
Many natives were proceeding to the coast also on their own account,
carrying beeswax, ivory, and sweet oil.
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