Chapter 20 (2)

One of the arrangements of the custom-house may have had some influence in preventing English trade. Ships coming here must be consigned to some one on the spot; the consignee receives one hundred dollars per mast, and he generally makes a great deal more for himself by putting a percentage on boats and men hired for loading and unloading, and on every item that passes through his hands. The port charges are also rendered heavy by twenty dollars being charged as a perquisite of the secretary of government, with a fee for the chief physician, something for the hospital, custom-house officers, guards, etc., etc. But, with all these drawbacks, the Americans carry on a brisk and profitable trade in calico, biscuit, flour, butter, etc., etc.

The Portuguese home government has not generally received the credit for sincerity in suppressing the slave-trade which I conceive to be its due. In 1839, my friend Mr. Gabriel saw 37 slave-ships lying in this harbor, waiting for their cargoes, under the protection of the guns of the forts. At that time slavers had to wait many months at a time for a human freight, and a certain sum per head was paid to the government for all that were exported. The duties derived from the exportation of slaves far exceeded those from other commerce, and, by agreeing to the suppression of this profitable traffic, the government actually sacrificed the chief part of the export revenue. Since that period, however, the revenue from lawful commerce has very much exceeded that on slaves. The intentions of the home Portuguese government, however good, can not be fully carried out under the present system. The pay of the officers is so very small that they are nearly all obliged to engage in trade; and, owing to the lucrative nature of the slave-trade, the temptation to engage in it is so powerful, that the philanthropic statesmen of Lisbon need hardly expect to have their humane and enlightened views carried out. The law, for instance, lately promulgated for the abolition of the carrier system (carregadores) is but one of several equally humane enactments against this mode of compulsory labor, but there is very little probability of the benevolent intentions of the Legislature being carried into effect.

Loanda is regarded somewhat as a penal settlement, and those who leave their native land for this country do so with the hope of getting rich in a few years, and then returning home. They have thus no motive for seeking the permanent welfare of the country. The Portuguese law preventing the subjects of any other nation from holding landed property unless they become naturalized, the country has neither the advantage of native nor foreign enterprise, and remains very much in the same state as our allies found it in 1575. Nearly all the European soldiers sent out are convicts, and, contrary to what might be expected from men in their position, behave remarkably well. A few riots have occurred, but nothing at all so serious as have taken place in our own penal settlements. It is a remarkable fact that the whole of the arms of Loanda are every night in the hands of those who have been convicts. Various reasons for this mild behavior are assigned by the officers, but none of these, when viewed in connection with our own experience in Australia, appear to be valid. Religion seems to have no connection with the change. Perhaps the climate may have some influence in subduing their turbulent disposition, for the inhabitants generally are a timid race; they are not half so brave as our Caffres. The people of Ambriz ran away like a flock of sheep, and allowed the Portuguese to take possession of their copper mines and country without striking a blow. If we must have convict settlements, attention to the climate might be of advantage in the selection. Here even bulls are much tamer than with us. I never met with a ferocious one in this country, and the Portuguese use them generally for riding; an ox is seldom seen.

The objects which I had in view in opening up the country, as stated in a few notes of my journey, published in the newspapers of Angola, so commended themselves to the general government and merchants of Loanda, that, at the instance of his excellency the bishop, a handsome present for Sekeletu was granted by the Board of Public Works (Junta da Fazenda Publica). It consisted of a colonel's complete uniform and a horse for the chief, and suits of clothing for all the men who accompanied me. The merchants also made a present, by public subscription, of handsome specimens of all their articles of trade, and two donkeys, for the purpose of introducing the breed into his country, as tsetse can not kill this beast of burden. These presents were accompanied by letters from the bishop and merchants; and I was kindly favored with letters of recommendation to the Portuguese authorities in Eastern Africa.

I took with me a good stock of cotton cloth, fresh supplies of ammunition and beads, and gave each of my men a musket. As my companions had amassed considerable quantities of goods, they were unable to carry mine, but the bishop furnished me with twenty carriers, and sent forward orders to all the commandants of the districts through which we were to pass to render me every assistance in their power. Being now supplied with a good new tent made by my friends on board the Philomel, we left Loanda on the 20th of September, 1854, and passed round by sea to the mouth of the River Bengo. Ascending this river, we went through the district in which stand the ruins of the convent of St. Antonio; thence into Icollo i Bengo, which contains a population of 6530 blacks, 172 mulattoes, and 11 whites, and is so named from having been the residence of a former native king. The proportion of slaves is only 3.38 per cent. of the inhabitants. The commandant of this place, Laurence Jose Marquis, is a frank old soldier and a most hospitable man; he is one of the few who secure the universal approbation of their fellow-men for stern, unflinching honesty, and has risen from the ranks to be a major in the army. We were accompanied thus far by our generous host, Edmund Gabriel, Esq., who, by his unwearied attentions to myself, and liberality in supporting my men, had become endeared to all our hearts. My men were strongly impressed with a sense of his goodness, and often spoke of him in terms of admiration all the way to Linyanti.

While here we visited a large sugar manufactory belonging to a lady, Donna Anna da Sousa. The flat alluvial lands on the banks of the Senza or Bengo are well adapted for raising sugar-cane, and this lady had a surprising number of slaves, but somehow the establishment was far from being in a flourishing condition. It presented such a contrast to the free-labor establishments of the Mauritius, which I have since seen, where, with not one tenth of the number of hands, or such good soil, a man of color had, in one year, cleared 5000 Pounds by a single crop, that I quote the fact, in hopes it may meet the eye of Donna Anna.

The water of the river is muddy, and it is observed that such rivers have many more mosquitoes than those which have clear water. It was remarked to us here that these insects are much more numerous at the period of new moon than at other times; at any rate, we were all thankful to get away from the Senza and its insect plagues.

The whole of this part of the country is composed of marly tufa, containing the same kind of shells as those at present alive in the seas. As we advanced eastward and ascended the higher lands, we found eruptive trap, which had tilted up immense masses of mica and sandstone schists. The mica schist almost always dipped toward the interior of the country, forming those mountain ranges of which we have already spoken as giving a highland character to the district of Golungo Alto. The trap has frequently run through the gorges made in the upheaved rocks, and at the points of junction between the igneous and older rocks there are large quantities of strongly magnetic iron ore. The clayey soil formed by the disintegration of the mica schist and trap is the favorite soil for the coffee; and it is on these mountain sides, and others possessing a similar red clay soil, that this plant has propagated itself so widely. The meadow-lands adjacent to the Senza and Coanza being underlaid by that marly tufa which abounds toward the coast, and containing the same shells, show that, previous to the elevation of that side of the country, this region possessed some deeply-indented bays.

28TH SEPTEMBER, KALUNGWEMBO.—We were still on the same path by which we had come, and, there being no mosquitoes, we could now better enjoy the scenery. Ranges of hills occupy both sides of our path, and the fine level road is adorned with a beautiful red flower named Bolcamaria. The markets or sleeping-places are well supplied with provisions by great numbers of women, every one of whom is seen spinning cotton with a spindle and distaff, exactly like those which were in use among the ancient Egyptians. A woman is scarcely ever seen going to the fields, though with a pot on her head, a child on her back, and the hoe over her shoulder, but she is employed in this way. The cotton was brought to the market for sale, and I bought a pound for a penny. This was the price demanded, and probably double what they ask from each other. We saw the cotton growing luxuriantly all around the market-places from seeds dropped accidentally. It is seen also about the native huts, and, so far as I could learn, it was the American cotton, so influenced by climate as to be perennial. We met in the road natives passing with bundles of cops, or spindles full of cotton thread, and these they were carrying to other parts to be woven into cloth. The women are the spinners, and the men perform the weaving. Each web is about 5 feet long, and 15 or 18 inches wide. The loom is of the simplest construction, being nothing but two beams placed one over the other, the web standing perpendicularly. The threads of the web are separated by means of a thin wooden lath, and the woof passed through by means of the spindle on which it has been wound in spinning.

The mode of spinning and weaving in Angola, and, indeed, throughout South Central Africa, is so very like the same occupations in the hands of the ancient Egyptians, that I introduce a woodcut from the interesting work of Sir Gardner Wilkinson. The lower figures are engaged in spinning in the real African method, and the weavers in the left-hand corner have their web in the Angolese fashion.*

Numbers of other articles are brought for sale to these sleeping-places. The native smiths there carry on their trade. I bought ten very good table-knives, made of country iron, for twopence each.

Labor is extremely cheap, for I was assured that even carpenters, masons, smiths, etc., might be hired for fourpence a day, and agriculturists would gladly work for half that sum.*

These people possess 300 idol-houses, 600 sheep, 5000 goats, 500 oxen, 398 gardens, 25,120 hearths. The authorities find great difficulty in getting the people to furnish a correct account of their numbers. This census is quoted merely for the purpose of giving a general idea of the employments of the inhabitants.

The following is taken from the census of Icollo i Bengo, and is added for a similar reason:

Being anxious to obtain some more knowledge of this interesting country and its ancient missionary establishments than the line of route by which we had come afforded, I resolved to visit the town of Massangano, which is situated to the south of Golungo Alto, and at the confluence of the rivers Lucalla and Coanza. This led me to pass through the district of Cazengo, which is rather famous for the abundance and excellence of its coffee. Extensive coffee plantations were found to exist on the sides of the several lofty mountains that compose this district. They were not planted by the Portuguese. The Jesuit and other missionaries are known to have brought some of the fine old Mocha seed, and these have propagated themselves far and wide; hence the excellence of the Angola coffee. Some have asserted that, as new plantations were constantly discovered even during the period of our visit, the coffee-tree was indigenous; but the fact that pine-apples, bananas, yams, orange-trees, custard apple-trees, pitangas, guavas, and other South American trees, were found by me in the same localities with the recently-discovered coffee, would seem to indicate that all foreign trees must have been introduced by the same agency. It is known that the Jesuits also introduced many other trees for the sake of their timber alone. Numbers of these have spread over the country, some have probably died out, and others failed to spread, like a lonely specimen which stands in what was the Botanic Garden of Loanda, and, though most useful in yielding a substitute for frankincense, is the only one of the kind in Africa.