The Answer Returned
Would Be In The Same Style, And, If Satisfactory, Another Note Followed
To Conclude The Bargain.
There is so much of this note correspondence
carried on in Angola, that a very large quantity of paper
is annually consumed.
Some other peculiarities of our guide
were not so pleasing. A land of slaves is a bad school for even the free;
and I was sorry to find less truthfulness and honesty in him
than in my own people. We were often cheated through his connivance with
the sellers of food, and could perceive that he got a share of the plunder
from them. The food is very cheap, but it was generally made dear enough,
until I refused to allow him to come near the place where we were bargaining.
But he took us safely down to Ambaca, and I was glad to see,
on my return to Cassange, that he was promoted to be sergeant-major
of a company of militia.
Having left Cassange on the 21st, we passed across the remaining portion
of this excessively fertile valley to the foot of Tala Mungongo.
We crossed a fine little stream called the Lui on the 22d, and another
named the Luare on the 24th, then slept at the bottom of the height,
which is from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet. The clouds came floating
along the valley, and broke against the sides of the ascent,
and the dripping rain on the tall grass made the slaps in the face it gave,
when the hand or a stick was not held up before it, any thing but agreeable.
This edge of the valley is exactly like the other; jutting spurs and defiles
give the red ascent the same serrated appearance as that which we descended
from the highlands of Londa.
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