Mr. Tell Remarked That His Garden Was Rather Barren, Being Still,
As He Said, Wild; But When More Worked It Would Become Better,
Though No Manure Be Applied.
My men were busy collecting
a better breed of fowls and pigeons than those in their own country.
Mr.
Tell presented them with some large specimens from Rio Janeiro.
Of these they were wonderfully proud, and bore the cock in triumph
through the country of the Balonda, as evidence of having been to the sea.
But when at the village of Shinte, a hyaena came into our midst
when we were all sound asleep, and picked out the giant in his basket
from eighty-four others, and he was lost, to the great grief of my men.
The anxiety these people have always shown to improve the breed
of their domestic animals is, I think, a favorable point in their character.
On looking at the common breeds in the possession of the Portuguese,
which are merely native cattle, and seeing them slaughter
both heifer-calves and cows, which they themselves never do,
and likewise making no use of the milk, they concluded that the Portuguese
must be an inferior race of white men. They never ceased remarking
on the fine ground for gardens over which we were passing; and when
I happened to mention that most of the flour which the Portuguese consumed
came from another country, they exclaimed, "Are they ignorant of tillage?"
"They know nothing but buying and selling: they are not men."
I hope it may reach the ears of my Angolese friends, and that they
may be stirred up to develop the resources of their fine country.
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