DIVISION OF ANGOLA--WRETCHED PAY OF OFFICIALS--ABUSES BY
AUTHORITIES--EVILS OF HIGH IMPORT DUTIES--SILVER MINES
OF CAMBAMBE--JOURNEY TO CAMBAMBE--EXPLORATION--VOLCANIC
ROCKS--HORNBILL--THE PLANTAIN-EATER--HYENAS.
The province of Angola is divided by the Portuguese into four
governments, viz., Ambriz (or Dom Pedro V.), Loanda, Benguella, and
Mossamedes. These are again subdivided into districts, each ruled
by a military “chefe” or chief subordinate to the governors of each
division, and these in their turn to the Governor-General of the
province at Loanda. In this great extent of country under Portuguese
rule, from the difficulty and delay in the communications with the
central head of military and civil government at Loanda, and from the
fact that the “chefes” combine both military and civil functions, the
tyrannical injustice and spoliation the natives have so long suffered
at their hands can be easily imagined.
Other causes also concurred to produce this disgraceful state of
things in Angola. The wretched pay of the Portuguese officers almost
obliged them to prey upon the utterly defenceless population. The great
bribery and corruption by means of which places that bled well or
yielded “emoluments,” as they were called, were filled; the ignorant
and ordinary class of officers, as a rule, who could be forced to serve
in Angola; and the knowledge that scarcely any other future was open
to them than the certainty of loss of health after years of banishment
in Africa--must be mentioned as causes of the despotic oppression that
crushed the whole country under its heel, depopulating it, and stifling
any attempt at industrial development on the part of the natives. That
this is a truth, admitting of no denial or defence, is at once shown by
the fact that the sources of the great exports of native produce are
all places removed from the direct misrule of the Portuguese.
The pay of the Governor-General of Angola is 1333_l._ per annum. That
of the Colonial Secretary is 444_l._ A major’s pay is now 10_l._ per
month; that of a captain, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._; a lieutenant’s, 5_l._
12_s._ 1_d._; a sub-lieutenant’s, 4_l._ 8_s._ 11_d._ Some few years ago
the pay was actually, incredible as it may appear, thirty-seven and a
half per cent. below the above amounts: the present pay is only the
same as in Portugal. When in command, a major and captain have thirty
per cent., and a lieutenant and sub-lieutenant twenty-five per cent. in
addition.
For the above mean and miserable pay Portugal sent, and still continues
to send, men to govern her extensive semi-civilized colonies. Can any
one in his senses be astonished at the result? Not a penny more did a
poor officer get when perhaps sent miles away into the interior, where
the carriage of a single load of provisions, &c., from Loanda would
cost half a sovereign or more, and where even necessaries were often at
enormous prices.
In the fifteen years that I have principally lived in, and travelled
over a great part of Angola, and passed in intimate intercourse with
the natives and Portuguese, I have had abundant opportunities of
witnessing the miserable state to which that fine country has been
reduced by the wretched and corrupt system of government. This state
is not unknown to Portugal, and she has several times sent good and
honest men as governors to Loanda to try to put a stop to the excesses
committed by their subordinates, but they have been obliged to return
in despair, as without good and well-paid officials it was no use
either to change, or to make an example of one or two where all were
equally bad or guilty. There is, of course, but little chance of
any change until Portugal sees that it is to her own advantage that
this immensely rich possession should be governed by enlightened and
well-paid officials. Let her send to Angola independent and intelligent
men, and let them report faithfully on the causes that have depopulated
vast districts, that have destroyed all industry, and that continually
provoke the wars and wide dissatisfaction among tribes naturally so
peaceable and submissive, and amenable to a great extent to instruction
and advancement.
A few instances will give an idea of the persecution that the natives
were subject to in Angola from the rapacity of their rulers, and from
which no redress was possible.
To assist the traders established at Pungo Andongo, Cassange, and other
parts of the interior to transport their ivory, wax, and other produce
to the coast, the government directed that a certain number of carriers
should be supplied by the “Soba” or native king of each district, and
that a stipulated payment should be made to these carriers for their
services by the traders. This was immediately turned by the Portuguese
“chefes” to their own advantage. The carriers were forced to work
without any pay, which was retained by the “chefe;” and as fines and
imprisonments helped to depopulate whole districts, and carriers became
more difficult to obtain, the “chefes” in their rapacity exacted a
larger and larger sum from the traders for each, over and above the
stipulated pay. This frightful abuse existed in full force till 1872,
when the forced liability of the natives to serve as carriers was
abolished by law.
So easy and successful a robbery was this, that large sums were
spent, and much interest employed, for the sake of getting the post
of “chefe” to the more important districts, such as Golungo Alto,
Pungo Andongo, &c., even for a short time. The “chefe” being military
commandant and civil judge, the population were perfectly incapable of
resistance or complaint, and if such reached Loanda, it was of course
quashed by the friends of the despot in power, who had themselves
received a heavy sum to obtain him the post.
While I was exploring the district of Cambambe, an order arrived from
Loanda for the “chefe” to draw up and forward a list of the number of
men capable of bearing arms and being called out as a native militia.
Such an apparently simple order supplied the “chefe” with a means of
committing a dastardly robbery on the defenceless natives; and he in
his turn was cheated of more than half of it by his subordinates, two
mulatto militia officers, who were sent by him with half-a-dozen black
soldiers to scour the country and obtain the desired information.
I was staying at the house of a Portuguese trader, at a place called
Nhangui-a-pepi, on the road to Pungo Andongo, and about half way
between that place and Dondo, when these two scoundrels arrived, and
arranged the following plan with the trader, whose name was Diaz.
They had agreed with the “chefe” of Cambambe at Dondo, to receive a
small share of the plunder they were to collect for him, but as they
considered this share was not sufficiently liberal, they proposed to
Diaz to send him part of the horned cattle they should obtain, for
which he was to pay them in cash,--a certain amount below the value of
course. This was agreed to, and they departed in high spirits.
A month after, on calling again on Diaz, I found that the two villains
had already sent him seventy oxen, and that their journey was not yet
completed! How many they had sent to the “chefe” at Cambambe of course
I could not ascertain.
The manner of proceeding was simple and ingenious. They pretended that
the Governor-General at Loanda had sent an order that all men in the
district should be enlisted as soldiers and sent to the coast to serve
in some war, that the names of all were down from the registers at
Cambambe, and they had come to revise the list, and that all would be
liable to serve and be taken from their homes unless they were bribed
to have the names erased.
In this way they robbed the poor inhabitants wholesale of oxen, sheep,
goats, fowls, money, &c., with what success will be seen from the
number of cattle only that they sent Diaz in one month, and from a part
only of an extensive district.
On my arrival at Loanda some months later, I informed the governor
personally of what I had witnessed, but he declared himself unable to
prevent it or punish the culprits, from the impossibility of obtaining
legal proofs, and from the influential position held by the principal
robber.
Shortly after the commencement of steam navigation on the River Quanza,
the Governor-General was asked to order the “chefes” of Cambambe and
Muxima to cause stumps and snags that were dangerous to the steamers
to be removed from the river. By a similar ingenious interpretation
this inoffensive order of the government was converted into a means
of levying black-mail on the natives of the river. The subordinates
intrusted with the execution of the measure declared that they had
orders to cut down all palm-trees on or near the banks of the river,
and would do so unless bribed to spare them. In this way a considerable
sum of money was netted by the rogues in power.
The natives of the interior of Loanda are very fond of litigation,
and this again is a source of considerable profit to the “chefes,”
as they will not receive any petition, issue a summons, &c., without
being bribed, and the crooked course of justice may in consequence be
imagined.
A friend told me, that being once with the “chefe” of a district in the
interior, they saw two bullocks approaching the “chefe’s” house, and on
his asking a black standing near whose cattle they were, he answered
very coolly that “they were two oxen that were bringing a petition!”
I need not say that I have known some honest “chefes” who discharged
the duties of their ill-paid and thankless office honourably and with
intelligence, but these exceptions are too rare to influence in the
least the sad state into which the country has been sunk by long years
of rapacity on the part of its irresponsible rulers. Only a total
change in the system of government can again people the vast deserted
tracts with industrious inhabitants to cultivate its rich land; but, I
am sorry to say, a termination to the long reign of corruption that has
existed in Angola is not to be expected for years to come.
Whilst in Portugal itself patriotism and public morality are debased
by an unchecked system of bribery and greed of money and power, it
is too much to expect that her rich colonies will be purged of their
long-existing abuses.
As might be expected, the great peninsular obstruction and impediment
of high custom-house duties, so fatal to all commercial and industrial
development, is in full and vexatious force in Angola, with the
exception of Ambriz, where the total annihilation of trade from this
cause, after its occupation by the Portuguese, was so striking, that
I at last prevailed upon the Governor, Francisco Antonio Gonçalves
Cardozo, to reduce the duties to a moderate figure, with what wonderful
results I have already explained in a former chapter.
With the great want of roads and carriers, or other means of
conveyance, either for goods into or produce from the interior,
transport is very expensive, and it is evident that the levying of high
import duties besides on all goods for trade so enhances their value,
that it becomes impossible to offer an adequate return or advantage
to the native for the result of his labour or industry, or to leave
much margin for profit to the merchant; consequently, the development
of the country becomes completely paralysed and the revenue of the
state remains small in proportion. Such a simple fact, apparent to the
meanest understanding, is perfectly incomprehensible to the Portuguese!
To mention one instance only: the last time I was at Golungo Alto the
price of gunpowder was nearly six shillings a pound, and that of other
goods in proportion! That the natives of Angola will cultivate large
quantities of produce, if they can get moderately well paid for their
trouble, is evidenced by the considerable exports from the country from
Ambriz to the River Congo, where there are no custom-houses, and also
on the River Quanza, where steam navigation enables goods to be sent
up the country cheaply, and so to bear the almost prohibitive duties
levied on them at Loanda.
It is not only the excessively high duties paid to the custom-house
that are complained of by the merchants at Loanda, but the absurd,
petty, and vexatious manner in which the whole system is worked; the
mean prohibitions and regulations attending the loading, discharging,
and clearing of goods, vessels, and boats; the great delay and trouble
about the simplest operations; the intense obtuseness of the officials,
and the utter want of reason or object for such irritating proceedings.
They do not prevent smuggling, as that can be most easily effected by
any one desiring to do so, the lower officers and police being all
common blacks or mulattoes in the receipt of miserable pay; and I
remember one of the first merchants of Loanda once opening a drawer
in his office, and showing me significantly, when speaking on this
subject, a number of vouchers for small sums of money he had advanced
on loan to the petty officers employed by the custom-house, and paid
liberally at the rate of a few pence a day to prevent smuggling!
It would be amusing to see so much imposing bombast in the custom-house
of a little place like Loanda, depending on a lot of poor, ragged, and
starving blacks for its preventive service, were it not so annoying to
see the effect of the high duties in hindering the development of the
riches of the country, whose commercial prosperity is at present the
only remedy for the evils of its misgovernment.
From olden times the report has been handed down of the occurrence of
silver in the district of Cambambe, and the object of the Portuguese
in some of their first wars in the interior was to obtain possession
of the mines. There is, however, no record to show that they were
successful in their endeavours; and beyond the statement that the
natives of Cambambe paid tribute to the Portuguese in silver, part of
which was made into a service for a church in Lisbon, nothing more was
definitely known about it.
When I left the Bembe mines I was engaged by Senhor Flores of Loanda
to explore the supposed locality of the silver mines, as well as
various sites in Cambambe, believed in former days to have been copper
workings. I made a preliminary trip into the interior in September
1859, and then left Africa, returning a few months later with miners
and the necessary tools and apparatus for a more complete exploration,
which the indications I had noticed warranted me in undertaking.
I luckily had with me six capital Ambriz carriers, who had brought me
from Ambriz to Loanda, in my journey through the country of Mossulo,
which I have described in a preceding chapter, and I readily induced
them to take me to Cambambe. I say luckily, as we found the greatest
difficulty in obtaining carriers on the road, and we should have had to
walk much greater distances than we did, if I had not had the Ambriz
blacks. I was accompanied by a Senhor Lobato, of Massangano, the first
man who had started trade on the River Quanza by means of barges to
and from Loanda. Our route lay from Loanda to the River Bengo, and
from thence inland, in an easterly direction, on the high road to
Cassange--the farthest point occupied by the Portuguese in Angola.
The road, for a couple of days’ journey or more, is on and near the
south bank of the River Bengo, and passes through some of the most
fertile land imaginable, but, with the exception of small mandioca and
other food-plantations, producing but little beyond the requirements of
the few inhabitants of the country owing to the absence of cultivation.
We passed many places where towns had formerly existed, but the
inhabitants had been obliged to remove farther into the interior, or to
the country about the River Dande, to escape the wholesale robbery and
exactions of the Portuguese “chefes.”
The second night after leaving Loanda we dined and slept at the house
of the “chefe” of the district of Icollo e Bengo, a very intelligent
young man, newly appointed to that place, and he gave us a painful
description of the wretched condition in which he had found his
district.
We were unable to obtain carriers here at any price, those that had
brought us from Loanda having been hired for that distance only, as
they would not trust themselves farther inland, fearing they might be
forced to carry back heavy loads, for which they would be paid only a
miserable pittance, or perhaps nothing at all.
We had, consequently, to rely only on the six Ambriz men we had
with us, but subsequently we were fortunate enough to pick up a few
more on the road. In six days we arrived at Porto Domingos, on the
River Lucala, a tributary of the Quanza. In these six days we passed
through very varied scenery, due not only to the gradual elevation
of the country from the coast, as noticed on the road from Ambriz to
Bembe, but also to the variety of geological formations. On leaving
Loanda horizontal beds of limestone, and then fine sandstones, occur.
Near the junction, at a place called Tantanbondo, there are curious
lines of nodules embedded in the limestone, and numbers loose on the
surface from the weathering of the latter. These nodules are generally
fractured, and re-cemented with crystalline calcspar; those not
fractured are mostly of a singular, rounded shape, like an ordinary
cottage-loaf. At Icollo e Bengo, finely micaceous iron ore is found;
and at Calunguembe trap-rock occurs, which gives a most picturesque
peaky appearance to the country.
Porto Domingos is one of the most lovely places I have seen in Africa;
the vegetation of palm-trees, baobabs, cottonwood-trees, and creepers
of many kinds on the banks of the river is wonderfully luxuriant. We
found traces everywhere of a former very much larger population, and
the same true tale of the inhabitants having been driven farther inland
by the rapine of their Portuguese rulers.
After leaving Porto Domingos we arrived next day at the dry bed of
the River Mucozo, a small stream running only in the rainy season and
joining the River Quanza at Dondo. We passed through a thick wood, the
road being the dry bed of a small stream running through it, and the
ground a sandy dust of a bright red colour from oxide of iron. We and
our carriers presented a comical appearance after walking an hour and a
half through the wood.
The rock of the country is a kind of conglomerate, with a matrix
containing much oxide of iron. At the River Mucozo this formation is
succeeded by a very hard white quartzose rock, containing but little
mica or feldspar, and the scenery is very beautiful, the country being
very hilly and broken.
Three days’ journey over a wild and rocky country brought us to
the “Soba” Dumbo, formerly a very powerful king, and from whom the
Portuguese have always derived great assistance in their wars, but only
a handful of natives remain at the present day in the country, to mark
the place of the once populous kingdom of the “Soba” Dumbo.
In the next two or three succeeding days I visited the places where,
from the heaps of stones lying close to holes and excavations, it was
likely that the natives had formerly worked for minerals; and that
copper was what they had extracted or searched for was evident from the
indications of blue and green carbonate of copper in these heaps. I saw
enough to convince me that an exploration of the country was desirable,
and likely to result in meeting with important deposits of copper. Of
silver or other metals I saw no indications whatever.
We crossed in a southerly direction to Nhangui-a-pepi, and from thence
to Dondo, and down the River Quanza in a canoe to Calumbo. A night’s
journey in a hammock brought us back to Loanda, having been absent
exactly a fortnight on this very interesting journey, and though we
suffered several times from hunger and thirst, and walked a great part
of the distance from want of carriers, it was performed without any
accident whatever or ill effects to health.
On my return to Africa in November 1860, I was accompanied from Lisbon
by two Portuguese miners, to assist me in the exploration of these
localities and in my search for the ancient silver mines. One of these
men died on arrival at Loanda of an epidemic of malignant fever then
raging there, and the other died shortly after reaching Cambambe,
whither I had immediately proceeded.
From November to June I was actively occupied in exploring this
district, and I cleared out several of the old workings, but failed
to discover metallic deposits or indications of any value, though
malachite and blue carbonate of copper were to be noticed abundantly
distributed everywhere.
I made many excursions, sometimes of several days’ duration, in that
time--one in the direction of the district of Duque de Bragança, to
a place called Ngombi Ndua, on the fine range of granite mountains
ending south at Pungo Andongo; but beyond the universal indications of
carbonates of copper, my explorations yielded no result.
A very interesting excursion was one I made about thirty miles in a
northerly direction, where I passed through most beautiful mountain
scenery, the formation of the country being trachyte or volcanic rock.
This evidence of ancient volcanic action is extremely interesting, as
it may have caused the ridge or elevation running the whole length of
Angola, which elevation has prevented the drainage of the plateau of
the interior of that part of Africa from flowing to the Atlantic. This
too strengthens my idea of the great River Congo being found to bend to
the south, and be the outlet for the waters of the hundreds of miles
of country lying behind Angola, and perhaps far beyond to the south,
where, as I have already stated, there is no river of any consequence
to be found.
The only other example of volcanic rock I have met with in Angola is
the narrow belt or strip of basalt found at Mossamedes, and on the sea
shore to the north of it for about thirty or forty miles.
This trachyte of part of Cambambe is no doubt connected with the
trap-rocks noticed in my journey overland from Loanda to that district.
The greater part of Cambambe is rocky, and destitute of forest or large
trees; large tracts are covered with grass and shrubs, and of these the
“Nborotuto” (_Cochlospermum Angolense_, Welw.), a small shrubby tree
with large, bright yellow flowers about four inches across, and like
gigantic butter-cups in shape and colour, is extremely common, and very
conspicuous. In the cacimbo, or dry season, some very beautiful bulbs
and orchids spring up after the ground has been cleared of grass by
burning.
Birds of many species and of beautiful colouring are abundant, and in a
small collection I made (see ‘The Ibis’ for October 1862), Dr. Hartlaub
found several new species, and I have no doubt this district would well
repay a collector. The most extraordinary bird in appearance and habits
is certainly a large black hornbill (_Bucorax Abyssinicus_), called
by the natives Engungoashito. It is about the size of a large turkey,
but longer in the body and tail. The following is from my notes on this
bird in the above publication:--
“They are found sparingly nearly everywhere in Angola, becoming
abundant, however, only towards the interior. In the mountain-range in
which Pungo Andongo is situated, and running nearly N. and S., they are
common, and it was near the base of these mountains that I shot these
two specimens. They are seen in flocks of six or eight (the natives
say, always in equal number of males and females). Farther in the
interior, I was credibly informed that they are found in flocks of from
one to two hundred individuals.
“The males raise up and open and close their tails exactly in the
manner of a turkey, and filling out the bright cockscomb-red,
bladder-like wattle on their necks, and with wings dropping on the
ground, make quite a grand appearance.
“They do not present a less extraordinary appearance as they walk
slowly with an awkward gait, and peer from side to side with their
great eyes in quest of food in the short grass, poking their large
bills at any frog, snake, &c., that may come in their way.
“Their flight is feeble, and not long-sustained. When alarmed, they
generally fly up to the nearest large tree, preferring such as have
thick branches with but little foliage, as the Adansonia “Mucuzo” (a
wild fig). Here they squat close on the branches, and, if further
alarmed, raise themselves quite upright on their legs in an attitude of
listening, with wide-open bills. The first to notice a person at once
utters its customary cry, and all fly off to the next tree.
“They are very wary. The grass near the mountains being comparatively
short, and with but little scrub or bush, it is very difficult to
approach them without being observed from the high trees. I followed
a flock of six for upwards of two hours, crawling flat on my stomach,
negro fashion, before I obtained a chance of a shot, when I was so
fortunate as to break the wing of a male without otherwise injuring it.
It was quickly captured by the blacks.
“They are omnivorous in their food: reptiles, birds, eggs, beetles,
and all other insects, mandioca-roots, ginguba or ground-nuts,
constitute their food in the wild state. In confinement I have fed this
bird upon the same food, also upon fresh fish, which it showed itself
very fond of, as well as on the entrails of fowls, &c. On letting
it loose in Loanda, in a yard where there were several fowls with
chickens, it immediately gulped down its throat six of the latter, and
finished its breakfast with several eggs!
“The note or cry of the male is like the hoarse blast of a horn,
repeated short three times, and answered by the female in a lower
note. It is very loud, and can be heard at a considerable distance,
particularly at night.
“They are said to build their nests on the very highest adansonias, in
the hollow or cavity formed at the base or junction of the branches
with the trunk.”
Another bird (the _Scopus umbretta_) is singular from the curious story
of its habits, as described by the natives, but unfortunately I had not
an opportunity of investigating their statements to ascertain the exact
foundation for them.
All the more intelligent blacks in Cambambe gave me exactly the
same description, and I leave it for future collectors to verify
the statement. It is a small heron-like bird of a very uniform
chestnut-brown colour, and is found near pools and marshes. It is
affirmed by the natives that it never builds its own nest, but that
other birds, of different species, make one for it; and also, that if a
person bathes in the pool in which this bird is in the habit of washing
and pluming itself, he becomes quickly affected with a cutaneous
eruption similar to the itch.
The lovely “plantain-eaters,” principally the _Corythaix Paulina_, are
very abundant all over Angola where thick forests are found. They are
common in the country about Pungo Andongo, and also near the River
Quanza. They have a very loud, hoarse cry, quite unlike that which
a bird might be imagined to produce, which has a very singular and
startling effect when heard in a forest.
It is its unearthly cry that makes this bird an object of superstition
to the natives of the whole of Angola. It is said by them to be a
“feiticeiro,” or sorcerer, and that it warns travellers of danger by
frightening with its cry animals or robbers lying in wait for them.
If one of these birds should perch on a hut or on a tree within the
enclosure of a town and sing, it is thought such a bad omen that the
inhabitants vacate it and remove to another place. When the natives
bring them in cages from the interior for sale on the coast, they never
take them into the towns on the road for fear they should sing whilst
in them, and at night the carrier, for the same reason, sleeps with his
birds at some little distance from any town.
One most singular circumstance connected with this bird is the fact
that the gorgeous blood-red colour of its wing-feathers is soluble,
especially in weak solution of ammonia, and that this soluble colouring
matter contains a considerable quantity of copper, to which its colour
may very probably be due. My attention was first called to this
extremely curious and unexpected fact by Professor Church’s paper in
the ‘Phil. Trans.’ for 1869; and, on my last voyage home from the
Coast, I purchased a large bunch of the red wing-feathers in the market
at Sierra Leone, with which my brother-in-law, Mr. Henry Bassett,
F.C.S., has verified Professor Church’s results conclusively, and
has found even a larger proportion of copper in the colouring matter
extracted from these feathers.
The ammoniacal solution is of a magnificent ruby-red colour by
transmitted light. Mr. Bassett obtained the following as the result of
his investigation:--
“From 300 feathers obtained 1·045 grm. turacin. Two copper
determinations, made by fusing with nitre and carbonate of soda,
washing out with water, then dissolving the oxide of copper in nitric
acid, filtering, and precipitating with potash, gave quantities of
oxide of copper corresponding to 7·6 and 8·0 per cent. of metallic
copper. Church found 6·0 per cent.; on the other hand, the feathers
yielded him a larger quantity of the colouring matter. General
characters, appearance, &c., exactly in accordance with Church’s
description; insoluble in benzol, sulphide carbon, tetrachloride
carbon. The copper to be unmistakably seen by burning the smallest
portion of a feather in a Bunsen burner.”
It is difficult to say whether this copper is derived from the metal
contained in the food of these birds, or whether they pick up, with
sand and gravel, the attractive looking particles of malachite so
universally distributed over Angola. Their habits would seem to favour
somewhat this view, as they are extremely inquisitive in their wild
state, running along the large branches of the trees in an excited and
fussy manner, with outstretched neck and expanded wings, and peering
down on any intruder with every expression of interest and curiosity.
At the same time, two birds that I have had in confinement in England,
both for five or six years, moulted regularly every year, and
reproduced the splendidly coloured feathers, of the same brightness,
without the possibility of getting any copper except what might have
entered into the composition of their food, which was most varied,
consisting of every ripe fruit in season, cooked vegetables and roots,
rice, bread, biscuits, dried fruits, &c.
In Angola many of the “plantain-eaters” to be obtained from the natives
will only eat bananas, and refuse all other food, so that they cannot
be brought to Europe; others, however, readily adapt themselves to
almost every kind of soft food.
My first bird was a _Corythaix Livingstonii_, and was beautifully
tame and gentle; it was most amusing in its habits, and in the notice
it took of everything around it;--a change of dress, or even new or
differently coloured ribbons to what it had been in the habit of
seeing, excited its attention greatly, and it would utter a loud cry
and open out its lovely wings in astonishment, and coming close to the
cage bars examine it with the greatest curiosity. It was very fond of
having a picture-book shown it, noticing especially those pictures that
were most vividly coloured. It was very fond of a bath, which it used
to come out and take in a large pie-dish full of water placed on the
table. At night it roosted in a little, flat basket, in which it would
not readily nestle till one of my sisters sang to it for a few minutes,
when it would utter a satisfied kind of low, rumbling noise, and at
once squat down quietly to sleep.
My last live specimen, a _Corythaix Paulina_ was also very tame, and
has only recently died from the breaking of an egg inside its body. A
former egg that it laid is now in the collection of the British Museum.
It had only just moulted before it died, and the skin is in beautiful
plumage.
It is pleasing to record an instance of a bird being considered of
good omen; this is one called “Quioco” by the natives, which has a
beautifully clear and loud song, and this is believed to be a sign
of good luck when heard near their huts. Its scientific name is
_Telephonus erythropterus_.
Cattle thrive excellently in this district, and might be reared in
any number, as also goats, sheep, and poultry. Game is comparatively
scarce. Wild animals are principally the spotted and striped hyena
and the black-backed jackal. Leopards I only heard of as infesting
the country about half-way between Nhangui-a-pepi and Dondo, where,
during the time I was in Cambambe, they had carried away cattle and
attacked several blacks. The hyenas used to visit us almost every
night in Cambambe, and at one place, where my cook slept by himself
in a small hut, which was also the kitchen, they frightened him so by
snorting under the door and trying to force their way in, attracted
no doubt by the smell of the pots and pans, that he refused to pass
another night in it, and I had to let him sleep in my hut. One night
we heard a noise of smashing of crockery and falling of pots, &c.,
from the kitchen, and in the morning we found that a hyena had forced
his way into the hut (built of sticks and grass), and had taken away a
sheepskin from a wooden frame that served as a table, on which my cook
had carefully placed my stock of plates and cooking utensils to dry,
bringing the whole to the ground, and considerably reducing my limited
stock of china and glass.
Nothing comes amiss to these voracious creatures, their powerful jaws
and teeth enabling them to crunch up any bones, skin, &c. The hides of
the oxen that were killed for food used to be thrown on the roofs of
the huts to dry, and the hyenas would sometimes get at them, and if not
taken away bodily we would find them almost entirely eaten up, their
sharp teeth having cut through the tough raw hide as perfectly, and
seemingly as easily, as a pair of shears; the ox skull and other bones
of course always disappeared completely during the night.
When driven by hunger they become very bold, but rarely attack man. At
Benguella, where they are very abundant, such a thing as an attack
on a native was unknown, although at night many blacks sleep out of
doors, and often in a drunken and helpless state; but at Golungo Alto,
after an epidemic of small-pox, when the hyenas preyed upon the bodies
of natives who had died of the disease, I was told that they had got
into a habit of attacking the live blacks at night, but no fatal case
occurred.
Hyenas always hunt in couples, a male and female according to the
natives, and very often several couples together.
That they seek their prey in pairs I believe to be the case, from an
instance that occurred to myself in Cambambe. I had built a long hut of
sticks and grass for two white men (Portuguese soldiers and military
convicts) from Loanda, who had been sent me on the death of the miner
I had brought with me from Portugal. The two men occupied one end of
the hut, the other being taken up with the mining tools, stores, &c.,
and one night two sheep had been placed there also, for safety. One was
tied to a bundle of shovels, and the other to a wheelbarrow, to prevent
them from straying about in the hut. Opposite to where they were
secured was a door made of green sticks and withes.
Whilst the men were asleep a hyena forced his way under the door, and
carried off one of the sheep; its cries and the noise awoke the men,
who jumped out of bed and rushed out to try and save the poor sheep,
but in the darkness of the night nothing could be seen, and all that
was heard was the rush of the animals and shovels down the rocky and
stony ground--the hut being built on a small steep rise or hill. Whilst
the men were thinking what they should do, and standing only a few
yards from the hut, another hyena got into it through the now open
door and carried off the second sheep and the wheelbarrow, which went
banging down the hill over the loose stones. In the morning the shovels
and wheelbarrow were found at some little distance at the foot of the
hill, but not a trace of the poor sheep.
The hyenas are remarkably wary and cautious, only coming near
habitations in the darkest nights, and generally near daybreak. I was
never able to shoot one in the ordinary way, though I often watched
with gun ready through an opening in the walls of my hut. I once,
however, killed a fine spotted hyena by tying my gun to a couple of
stakes in the ground, and putting an ox’s gullet on the muzzle as a
bait, so arranged with a string to the trigger as to fire off the gun
on the animal attempting to pull it away.
The next time I arranged this infernal-machine it nearly killed a
fine pig that had set its heart on the bait, but as he luckily did
not approach it in the right direction, I lost the charge of powder
and ball, and the pig found his anticipated titbit suddenly vanish in
smoke.