PROVINCE OF CAZENGO--GOLUNGO ALTO--GOLD--WILD COFFEE--IRON
SMELTING--FORMER MISSIONARIES--CUSTOMS--NATIVES--PRODUCTIONS.
The farthest inland district in Angola under the rule of the Portuguese
was that of Cassange, but a successful revolt of the natives against
the oppression of the Portuguese “chefes” led to its being abandoned a
few years ago.
Malange is now the farthest point, the two next being Pungo Andongo and
Duque de Bragança; the latter is at present of no value or importance
whatever.
The Portuguese traders are, however, established in considerable force
at Cassange, as well as at Malange and Pungo Andongo, and a large trade
in ivory and wax has always been carried on from that part of the
country.
I am unable to describe these localities from personal observation,
but they are stated to be very fine and healthy, and mostly well
watered. The natives have no antipathy or objection whatever to the
Portuguese, their opposition being entirely to the military rulers who
had abused their position; and recently the natives of the country of
the Dembos, between Golungo Alto and Duque de Bragança, have also risen
in arms for the same reason, and they have had the advantage so far in
the struggle.
In the year 1867 I visited Cazengo and Golungo Alto, on my way to
a part of the country called Lombige, where gold in dust had been
discovered, and where two white men with a party of blacks were
“prospecting” for Senhor Flores. It is impossible to describe in words
the beauty of the districts of Cazengo and Golungo Alto, and the
country about the River Lombige, a small tributary of the River Zenza,
as the River Bengo is called inland.
Mountains and deep valleys filled with magnificent virgin forests
cover the country. Streams and springs of the clearest water abound,
and the valleys are full of monkeys and beautifully coloured birds
and butterflies. Most wonderful and varied effects of rolling mists,
sunrise, and sunset are to be seen in this earthly paradise, and the
clearness and lightness of the atmosphere are most exhilarating and
agreeable after the dull oppressiveness of the air on the coast.
At Cazengo I saw the largest trees I have ever seen, and conspicuous
amongst these the cotton-wood tree (_Eriodendron anfractuosum_),
towering to an immense height straight as an arrow, without the
slightest break, to the small branches at the very top covered with
feathery-looking foliage, and studded with puffy balls like white silk,
from the burst seed-pods. The stems and branches are thickly studded
with hard, short, conical, sharp-pointed spikes, and at the base of
the stem vast flattened buttresses project, which give a wonderful
idea of strength and stability. In these grand forests the splendid
giant touraco (_Turacus cristatus_), the largest of the tropical
African plantain-eaters, finds a fitting habitat, and from its great
size compared with the other much smaller species, is evidence of the
magnificence of the forests and scenery of Cazengo and Golungo Alto.
I cannot help having a feeling of reverent affection and admiration
for this family of birds, whose exquisite plumage has most likely been
evolved through ages of the greatest tropical beauty, of dazzling
sunshine, bright flowers, and luxuriant vegetation in lovely valley and
mountain chain.
Coffee is found growing wild in these virgin forests, but it is
confidently believed to have been originally introduced by the old
missionaries, and since been spread by the agency of monkeys and birds.
Several important coffee plantations have been established, principally
in Cazengo, and with slave labour; but they exist under great
disadvantages, owing to the want of roads and means of conveyance,
this last being entirely effected by carriers, who are difficult to
obtain even at considerable expense. The coffee from the Portuguese
planters is all sent to Dondo, and thence down the river to Loanda and
the sea. That cropped by the natives is carried by them for sale to the
River Quanza and to Loanda, but a considerable part is taken across
the country all the way to Ambriz, where, from the low custom-house
duties, they receive from the traders a much larger amount of goods
and powder in exchange than at Loanda. I noticed on the natives
certain kinds of cloth customarily passed in trade in Ambriz, and I
had a further proof of the Cazengo and Golungo Alto coffee thus going
northward, in the considerable number of natives recognised in Cazengo
by my servant, as having been seen by him trading coffee at Ambriz, his
native place.
The town of Cazengo consists of half a dozen houses, occupied
principally by Portuguese traders, the “residencia” or house of the
“chefe,” and the huts of a small native population. It is about two
days’ journey from Dondo (on the River Quanza), and the River Lucala is
passed about six miles before arriving there.
The district of Golungo Alto gives the same name to its town, which is
most picturesquely situated and surrounded by luxuriant vegetation,
and is reached in another two days’ journey from Cazengo, through
exquisite scenery. Starting from the town of Golungo Alto in a
northerly direction, I arrived in the afternoon at the River Zenza,
and slept a few miles beyond it at a place called Gonguembo, at the
house of a respectable black, who was a kind of government official for
that district, and who was married to a very comely black woman from
Loanda. I was most hospitably treated by these good people, and a clean
bed in a nice airy room was prepared for me; they would not accept
any remuneration for their kindness, so I had to content myself with
making them a present of some handkerchiefs I had with me. Next day I
continued to travel in the same direction, sleeping at night in a wood,
and the day after arrived at a place called Mayengo, near the River
Lombige, there only a noisy mountain torrent of most beautifully clear
water. It was here that the two white men with the party of blacks
were exploring for gold, and they had already obtained a few ounces of
dust from the sand of the river by washing it in pans and a couple of
rockers.
The following morning I proceeded about ten miles farther in the
direction of the course of the Lombige, to another place where a little
gold-dust had also been obtained.
The formation of the country from Golungo Alto to the auriferous ground
of the Lombige is a hard clay slate, in which I observed only a few
small quartz veins, and in my opinion it is a poor gold country. Not
more than a couple of pounds weight of gold were obtained after many
months working, and the exploration was finally abandoned on the death
of Senhor Flores, which happened at the Lombige.
My friend Mr. Richard Smith, of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the
Royal School of Mines, has kindly assayed a sample of gold from
Lombige, with the following results:--
Gold 93·860
Silver 5·352
Copper 0·404
------
99·616
equal to 22¹⁄₂ carats fine.
From Golungo Alto to the south the geological formation is a hard,
compact, quartzose granite rock. At Cazengo is found gneiss, granite,
and a hard quartzose slaty rock, with in places a curious rock
seemingly composed of disintegrated granite and clay slate. The strike
of the clay slate is about E. and W., and it dips to the S.S.W.
The few natives I saw about the Lombige seemed rather a fine race. They
belong to a tribe called the Dembos, which is the name of that part of
the country, and they have lately driven back the Portuguese, who had
attempted to encroach on their territory with the customary exactions
of the “chefes.”
To show that they bore no ill-will to the Portuguese, but only desired
to resist the grasping oppression of the “chefes,” they escorted to the
River Zenza, near Golungo Alto, a small number of unfortunate troops
they had surrounded, and who, without pay, provisions, ammunition,
shoes, or clothing, had been obliged to surrender, and they greatly
insulted the Portuguese by offering to give these poor soldiers a
month’s pay in cash! I was at Loanda when several batches of soldiers,
composing the so-called expedition to the Dembos, arrived, viâ the
River Quanza, in a disgraceful state of starvation and rags, and the
poor devils were loud in their complaints of the way they had been
treated and robbed by their own government and officers.
A more shameful manner of exposing men to disease and the enemy cannot
be imagined. A local newspaper at Loanda exposed the scandalous way
in which the war was conducted; and the merchants represented the
true state of the case to the government at Lisbon, but no attention
was given to them, as the governor at Loanda reported that there was
nothing going on in Angola to call for special notice.
The great forests on the slopes of the chains of mountains and valleys
of the country about Golungo Alto and the Dembos are also full of
coffee trees growing wild, and they are gradually being cleared of bush
or underwood by the natives so as to enable them to collect the berry.
I did not hear anywhere that they had taken to planting coffee, nor
are they likely to do so as long as they can find it growing wild. As
far as has been ascertained, wild coffee is only found growing in the
forests of the country of the second elevation from the coast, nor does
it grow well in the littoral region, where the air is much too dry: it
is a plant requiring a moist heat and the shade of large trees; and a
certain amount of elevation above the level of the sea may possibly
have something to do with its proper growth.
The future production of coffee on the whole West Coast of Africa might
be simply unlimited, as far as extent of ground eminently suitable for
its cultivation is concerned: it becomes only a question of time and
labour. The coffee plant is not the only one formerly introduced by the
missionaries or Portuguese which has spread itself over a large extent
of country in Angola, as I saw beautiful watercress growing wild most
luxuriantly in several of the rivulets and wet places in Cazengo, and
Dr. Welwitsch found parsley and fennel growing wild abundantly at Pungo
Andongo.
[Illustration: PLATE XI. BELLOWS--MARIMBA--NATIVE SMITHS--RAT-TRAP.
_To face page 213._]
Cazengo has been celebrated from time immemorial for its iron, smelted
by the natives, and the bellows (Plate XI.) employed in the process
appears to date from the earliest times, being in fact identical with
that used by the ancient Egyptians.
The object of the double arrangement is to obtain a constant current of
air from the nozzle; there are no valves in it, and the tops of the
cylinders are tightly closed with a peak-shaped cover of sheepskin in
which there is no hole or aperture. They are worked alternately and
very rapidly, and blow into a baked-clay tuyère about twelve inches
long, of which the under end is much wider than the nozzle of the
bellows that just rests inside it. The object of this is apparent,
as, from the bellows having no valve for the admission of air, which
therefore enters it through the nozzle, were this to fit tightly in the
tuyère it would alternately blow into and draw air from the fire. For
ordinary blacksmith’s work the forge is simply a small round cavity
scooped out in the ground, the fuel being charcoal; and in this, with
one bellows, a welding heat is obtained, and they are enabled to make
hoes, &c., out of ordinary iron hooping or other waste scrap-iron.
Iron smelting from the ore is but little practised now in Angola, as
the iron hooping from bales obtained from the traders nearly suffices
for the few purposes for which this useful metal is required; but I
once had the opportunity whilst travelling of seeing the operation
of smelting going on at Cazengo, and of obtaining the following
information on the process. There was no furnace proper, simply a
somewhat larger excavation in the ground, with three pair of bellows
hard at work at equal distances round it. There was neither cover nor
chimney to the fire, which was fed with charcoal. The ironstone was a
gossany-looking brown ore, and was broken into bits about the size of
small walnuts.
I was informed that the first operation took some hours, and did not
reduce the iron to the fused state, but only to an apparently metallic
spongy condition, without much diminution in the size of the pieces.
These reduced pieces are separated from those only imperfectly acted
on, the latter being again submitted to the first process with fresh
ore; the former are then raised to a high heat and welded together with
a hammer, on a block of iron for an anvil, into a small bar.
In the management of the fire, and in welding, the natives employ water
and sand in the same way that our smiths do. The bellows and the tuyère
are slightly inclined downwards, and are secured to the ground by
strong stakes driven into it on each side, to which are attached cross
pieces passing over the bellows and tuyère (Plate XI.). I have seen
these bellows in every part of Angola, and in Loango and Cabinda, north
of the River Congo, among tribes speaking entirely different languages,
but it is of exactly the same pattern everywhere.
The natives of the interior, like those of Loanda, that is to say, of
the country comprised between the Rivers Dande and Quanza, speak the
Bunda language. The division on the latter river is very marked, the
Quissamas and the Libollos on the southern bank speaking a distinct
language. The natives beyond the River Dande speak the Congo language,
and its dialects of Ambriz and Mossulo.
This large Bunda-speaking population offers points of great interest,
and most strongly and favourably impresses the observer, auguring well
for its future civilization as far as it can go. It speaks volumes for
the superiority of this part of the negro species to know that very
fair reading and writing in Portuguese has been handed down from father
to son from the time of the former missionaries to the present day.
It is impossible not to admire and honour the wonderful work of those
good men. Palpable signs of their industry, and of their example
and teaching may still be seen everywhere in Angola. Plantations of
cocoa-nut and oil-palm trees, groves of orange, lemon, and other fruit
trees, the introduction of the coffee and other useful plants, the
ruins of extensive monasteries with which were associated their schools
of industrial arts, all bear witness to their good work, and last but
not least the love and veneration in which their name is held amongst
all classes of blacks, who consider a padre almost as a god;--their
name for a priest is Ngana Nganga (God’s sir), Ngana being “Senhor,”
sir, and Nganga their word for God.
Although as completely imbued as their more uncivilized brethren
with the belief and practice of “fetishes” of all kinds, they still
retain many of the usages taught them by the missionaries;--they will
have their children baptized by a padre to give them one or more
Saints’ names; and though they will call a girl or boy such a name as
“Thursday,” if he or she happens to have been born on that week-day,
or the name of a tree or plant, or place, or any circumstance they may
fancy connected with its birth, yet it must also bear the name of
Antonio Domingos, or Maria Roza, or some other favourite combination
of Portuguese Christian names. The christening is celebrated with the
usual accompaniment of sponsors, and, as is customary in Catholic
countries, these will not intermarry or live together as man and wife,
or with the parents of the child.
A sheet of foolscap paper is a very usual article to receive from the
traders with other goods in barter for produce; this they roll up
carefully, and hang by a bit of string to their stick or pack.
For pen they use the quill of any bird; their ink is charcoal or burnt
ground-nuts ground fine with the juice of the wild tomato; for wax or
gum they use the very sticky mass enveloping the seeds of a beautiful
red-flowering parasite (_Loranthus sp._).
These natives are extremely fond of writing to one another, and also
to the “chefes” or authorities, and their letters and petitions are
sometimes most amusing and laughable, as they have the usual love of
their race for pompous or high-sounding words and phrases.
They are fond, on occasions, of wearing coats and trousers, often
made of very extraordinary quality and patterns of cloth, and boots
and shoes. Their houses or huts and customs otherwise are not
distinguishable from those of the natives of other parts of Angola.
A curious hard-wood shrub (_Decamera Jovis-tonantis_, Welw.), called
by the natives Nduí, is considered a sure preservative against
lightning, and branches of it are placed on the huts to save them from
being struck by the electric fluid. This belief is peculiar to the
Bunda-speaking race. It is also only among these people that tapioca
is prepared, though rarely, from the starch of the mandioca-root, by
drying it over iron or copper plates.
A very singular custom is common to them and to the natives of Novo
Redondo farther south. When a relative or other person visits them, a
dish of “infundi” or “pirão” is prepared, and should there not be a bit
of meat or fish in the larder (no uncommon circumstance by the bye)
they send out to a neighbour for the “lent rat” as it is called. This
is a field-rat roasted on a skewer, and it is presented to the guest
who, holding the skewer in his left hand, dabs bits of the “infundi”
on the rat before he swallows them, as if to give them a flavour, but
he is very careful not to eat the rat, or even the smallest particle of
it, as this would be considered a great crime and offence, and would be
severely punished by their laws. It is supposed that the host has duly
preserved the dignity of his house and position, and has performed the
rites of hospitality in presenting his guest with meat and “infundi,”
though he has not tasted a morsel of the former, which is returned
intact to the owner from whom it was borrowed. This example of a sham,
knowingly played by both host and guest as an act of politeness, seems
very curious in the extremely unsophisticated state of the negro:--in
our superior state of society, shams as patent to all are too common to
attract attention.
The Bunda-speaking natives of Angola are extremely indolent: by the
better class, such as those who can read and write, it is considered
derogatory to perform any manual work whatever. A little trading in wax
or other produce is the most they indulge in, and this is principally
made the means of obtaining goods or money on credit from the traders,
or in some other way imposing on them. They are specially clever at
any little roguery of this kind.
In the mornings, the rising generation may be seen assembled in groups
squatted on the ground, wrapped up in a cotton cloth manufactured in
the country, and with a printed alphabet in their hands lazily learning
their letters. No inducement that I could offer of pay or anything
else, whilst I was exploring in Cambambe, would make them work, and as
their style of living is exactly the same as that of other blacks, the
plantations, tended by their women and female slaves, suffice them for
their daily wants. I lived on beans for a week on that occasion, as I
would not pay half a sovereign in money or cloth for a single fowl, and
sheep and goats in proportion. When the tax-gatherer came round with
the soldiers, and they had not the wherewithal to pay him, I had my
revenge, and bought a large number of fowls at a penny each, goats and
sheep at about a shilling a head, and fat oxen at five to ten shillings
each, from the very blacks who a day or two before had refused to sell
oxen at any price, and fowls, &c., only at such exorbitant prices.
I had to provide food for the forty or fifty blacks who were with me,
and an ox was generally killed every day for them, but not being used
to so much animal food it did not agree with them. One morning they
came to me headed by an old native of Ambaca, who presented me with a
petition written in high-flown language, praying that I would not give
them any more meat, but that I would order beans and “infundi” to be
cooked for their rations instead. Of course, I assented to the desired
change, which, moreover, was more economical.
The natives of Pungo Andongo are the most deceitful, and the worst
generally. Those of the district of Ambaca, contiguous to Cazengo
and Golungo Alto, are a very extraordinary set of blacks. They are
distinguished by a peculiar expression of countenance, manner, and
speech, which enables them to be at once recognised as surely as a
raw Irishman or Scotchman is with us. They are the cleverest natives
of Angola, speak and read and write Portuguese best of any, are the
greatest cheats of all, and are well described by the Portuguese as
the Jews and gipsies of Angola. They are the greatest traders in the
country, and collect and deal in all manner of hides, skins, and other
articles, for which they travel great distances and amongst other
tribes. They will least of all work at any manual labour; trade and
roguery are their forte, and they have often suffered at the hands of
other tribes for their cupidity.
During a famine, a few years back, in the Quissama country, which
the Ambaquistas (as the natives of Ambaca are called) used to visit
with farinha, &c., for the purpose of purchasing rock-salt to trade
with in other places, they bought a large number of the Quissamas as
slaves, at the rate of a small measure of meal each; but the succeeding
season, on a number of Ambaquistas going to Quissama, they were robbed,
flogged, branded with hot irons, and otherwise tortured and punished,
and finally put into canoes and started down the river, arriving at
Muxima in a lamentable condition, and only a few recovered from their
ill-treatment. This revenge was taken by the Quissamas because the
Ambaquistas took advantage of their dire necessity for food to buy
their sons and daughters as slaves for small portions of meal. To the
present day, to vex an Ambaquista, it is sufficient to ask him if he
has any Quissama rock-salt for sale!
Of course they have never been to Quissama since; and should the
Portuguese desire to conquer that country, as yet not reduced to
submission, they could count upon a large contingent of volunteers from
Ambaca. Ambaca is said to be comparatively flat, but very fertile, and
it has lately been sending a large quantity of ground-nuts to the River
Quanza.
In Cazengo and Pungo Andongo the largest gourds I have ever seen are
grown, which when dried are employed by the natives as vessels to carry
oil, water, “garapa,” or other liquids; or, the top being cut off,
are used as baskets for meal, beans, &c. I have seen them so large
that they were enclosed in a rope-net, and when full of “garapa” or
water were a good load for two men to carry, slung to a pole on their
shoulders. The plants are generally trained up the sides and on the
grass roofs of the huts, on which they produce a plentiful crop of
flowers and fruit. I have also seen the gourds supported on a kind
of nest of dry straw or grass, placed in the fork of a three-branched
stick stuck in the ground.
Cotton is grown sparingly everywhere. It is picked from the seeds and
beaten on the ground with a switch to open it out, and then spun by
hand. This was the constant employment of the natives, particularly
of the women and girls, but quite lately this industry has greatly
fallen off, owing to the greater importation of Manchester goods. The
cotton-thread was woven by the natives into strong thick cloths, but
these are now not easy to obtain for the same reason.
Food is most abundant:--mandioca, maize, beans, massango (a kind of
millet), ground-nuts, &c., growing with the greatest luxuriance in
the fertile ground and lovely climate. Beautiful and tame cattle are
easily reared, as well as sheep, goats, and poultry; but, as usual, the
great indolence of the natives prevents them from availing themselves
of the wonderful capabilities of the soil and climate to any but an
infinitesimal degree.
It is rare to see any stores of food, so that if, as sometimes happens,
especially in the littoral region, the rains should fail, a famine is
the result, and hundreds die.
When a little indian-corn or other seed is kept, it is enclosed in
large, smooth, spindle-shaped masses of long straw, and these are hung
to the branches of the trees. The straw keeps the wet from entering
to the corn, and it also keeps out rats, as, should they run down the
short rope, they slip off the straw and tumble to the ground.
Large and small pots for cooking and holding water are made in many
places. They are made of clay, and are burnt by being built up in a
heap in the open air with dry grass and covered with the same, which is
then set on fire and allowed to burn out; when cold, the pots are found
completely baked, without the use of anything like a kiln. Clay pipes
for smoking are also made, and burnt in the same manner (Plate V.).
Many of the towns in the interior, in the more out-of-the-way places,
are completely isolated for several months by the growth of the high
grass towards the end of the rainy and the beginning of the dry season.
In travelling it is the custom of the guides to lay a handful of grass
on the paths that they wish the rest of the party to avoid; and this
is the universal practice of the natives all over Angola, to indicate
the path to be taken by others following them, and which from the
height of the grass and the number of intersecting paths, would be
difficult to keep without some such mark. Blacks, of course, never
travel but in single file, and I was once asked by a negro the reason
why white men always walked side by side, and not one behind the other
as they did, but my reply failed to convince him of the advantage of
our plan.
For some years the “chefes” have had the paths leading from each
capital town of their divisions kept clear of grass and weeds for a
breadth of from six to twelve feet by the natives of the town nearest
it, but even then the blacks not only walk in single file, but, what is
very curious, tread out and follow a winding path in it from side to
side. Their own paths are never straight but invariably serpentine, and
this habit or instinct is followed even when a broad, straight road is
offered them.
Whilst I was at Cambambe, a somewhat eccentric Portuguese (not a
military man) was “chefe” of Pungo Andongo, and he took it into his
head that he would break the natives of this habit of walking in single
file, and he actually fined and otherwise punished a number of them,
but, of course, he never succeeded in making them alter the custom
except when passing before his house. The blacks will never move a
stone or other impediment in the road. If a tree or branch fall on it,
and it is too large to walk over comfortably, no one pushes it aside,
however easy such an operation may be, but they deviate from the path
and walk round it, and this deviation continues to be used ever after,
although the obstacle may rot away or be otherwise removed.
I twice saw in Cambambe the remarkable “spit-frog” described by Dr.
Livingstone. This insect is of the same shape as the ordinary British
“spit-frog,” but is quite three-quarters of an inch in length. Its
scientific name is _Ptyelus olivaceus_. The larvæ, like the British
species, have the property of secreting a copious watery froth, in
which they envelop themselves, a number being found together on a thin
twig or branch, and the amount of water secreted is so great as to
drop constantly from the branch on which they are living, so that the
ground beneath becomes quite wet. Though the amount of water abstracted
from the atmosphere is something enormous for so small a creature, the
very hygroscopic state of the air there is quite sufficient to account
for its source.
Lizards are very abundant on the rocks, and there are some very pretty
and brightly-coloured species. Chameleons are also abundant, and the
natives are everywhere afraid to touch them. The Mushicongos believe
that if they once fasten on the wool of a black’s head, nothing can
take them off, and that they are poisonous; but their dislike of
these harmless creatures does not prevent them from trying a curious
though cruel experiment--the quick and mortal action of nicotine--on
them. They insert a bit of straw or grass into the wooden stems of
their pipes, so as to remove a small portion of the nicotine and
other products of the combustion of the tobacco, and when the poor
chameleon opens its jaws in fear, they pass the moistened straw across
its tongue and mouth, and in a very few seconds it turns on its side,
stiffens, and is quite dead. This very small quantity of the poison is
wonderfully rapid in its fatal action.
The ground is cultivated with a hoe like that described in use about
Ambriz, but with a double instead of a single handle (Plate XIV.).
The natives, like those of the country to the north, eat considerable
quantities of the ground-nut, and from the following analysis by B.
Corenwinder (‘Journal de Pharm. et de Chimie,’ 4th series, xviii. 14)
its great value as an article of food is apparent:--
Water 6·76
Oil 51·75
Nitrogenous matter 21·80
Non-nitrogenous matter containing starch 17·66
Phosphoric acid 0·64 } 2·03
Potash, chlorine, magnesia, &c. 1·39 }
------
100·00
The proportion of phosphoric acid found in
the perfectly white ash was 31·53%
I am convinced that, from the amount of nitrogenous matter, and the
form in which the large quantity of oil is masked in the ground-nut,
its use by invalids and persons of delicate constitution would be
attended with valuable results. The nuts are delicious simply roasted,
or, better still, afterwards covered with a little sugar dried on them
in the pan.
A small plant bearing pods containing one or two roundish seeds, and
like the ground-nut ripening beneath the soil, is also sparingly
cultivated in Cambambe and the surrounding districts. It is the
_Voandzeia subterranea_ of botanists.
The round fruit, about the size of a small apple, of a handsome leaved
plant is employed by the natives of the same places for washing their
cloths, &c., instead of soap, and Dr. Welwitsch named the plant the
_Solanum saponaceum_ from this circumstance.