His Village Is Placed On The East Bank Of The Quilo,
Which Is Here Twenty Yards Wide, And Breast Deep.
The country was generally covered with forest, and we slept every night
at some village.
I was so weak, and had become so deaf
from the effects of the fever, that I was glad to avail myself
of the company of Senhor Pascoal and the other native traders.
Our rate of traveling was only two geographical miles per hour,
and the average number of hours three and a half per day, or seven miles.
Two thirds of the month was spent in stoppages, there being
only ten traveling days in each month. The stoppages were caused by sickness,
and the necessity of remaining in different parts to purchase food;
and also because, when one carrier was sick, the rest refused
to carry his load.
One of the Pombeiros had eight good-looking women in a chain
whom he was taking to the country of Matiamvo to sell for ivory.
They always looked ashamed when I happened to come near them,
and must have felt keenly their forlorn and degraded position.
I believe they were captives taken from the rebel Cassanges.
The way in which slaves are spoken of in Angola and eastern Africa
must sound strangely even to the owners when they first come from Europe.
In Angola the common appellation is "o diabo", or "brutu";
and it is quite usual to hear gentlemen call out, "O diabo! bring fire."
In eastern Africa, on the contrary, they apply the term "bicho" (an animal),
and you hear the phrase, "Call the ANIMAL to do this or that."
In fact, slave-owners come to regard their slaves as not human,
and will curse them as the "race of a dog". Most of the carriers
of my traveling companions were hired Basongo, and required
constant vigilance to prevent them stealing the goods they carried.
Salt, which is one of the chief articles conveyed into the country,
became considerably lighter as we went along, but the carriers
shielded themselves by saying that it had been melted by the rain.
Their burdens were taken from them every evening, and placed in security
under the guardianship of Senhor Pascoal's own slaves.
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