TOWN OF
BENGUELLA--SLAVE-TRADE--MUNDOMBES--CUSTOMS--COPPER--HYENAS--MONKEYS--
COPPER DEPOSIT--GYPSUM--HORNBILLS--BIRDS--FISH--LIONS.
The town of Benguella is situated on a level plain near the sea, and
backed, at a distance of about six miles, by a line of hills. The
appearance of the town from the sea is rather picturesque; to the
north, at a distance of little more than a mile, is seen the green belt
of forest marking the course of the River Cavaco, a white sandy bed in
the dry, and a broad, shallow, running stream in the rainy season.
The town is large, consisting of good houses and stores, irregularly
distributed over several fine squares and roads; the custom of the
houses having large walled gardens and enclosures for slaves, in
former times, stamping it with a wide straggling character.
In the wet season the squares and roads are all covered with a
luxuriant growth of grass and weeds in flower, giving the town the
appearance of a wild garden.
The soil of Benguella is very fertile, and all kinds of fruit and
vegetables grow splendidly. The trade is large and increasing yearly,
particularly in beeswax, of which a great quantity is exported. There
is, of course, the usual incubus of the custom-house, with its high
duties and vexations weighing heavily on all enterprise and commerce.
Not far from the beach is a large fort, garrisoned with a force of
soldiers that supplies detachments to the districts of Dombe Grande,
Egito, Novo Redondo, Catumbella, Caconda, and Quillengues.
During the time of the slave-trade Benguella was one of the principal
shipping ports of Angola, many thousands of slaves being sent off from
it to the Brazils and Cuba. The last two or three shipments took place
whilst I was working the copper deposits near Cuio Bay and at Quileba,
near Benguella. They were principally brought for sale by the natives
of Bihé; and I once saw a caravan of nearly 3000 blacks arrive, of whom
1000 were slaves for sale. The whole caravan was loaded with beeswax
and other produce for barter.
Of these and other slaves that constantly arrived only a few
were shipped; the rest were then in great demand for extensive
cotton-plantations from Benguella to Mossamedes. The average price of
a full-grown, healthy man or woman was about three pounds in cloth
or other goods, and as low as five shillings for a little nigger. I
must do the traders at Benguella the justice to say that they never
separated mother and child; as for other ties of relationship, they did
not seem to exist amongst the slaves brought down for sale, and I never
heard of any being claimed by them. There was no cruelty whatever in
the manner the slaves were brought in the caravans from the interior,
and they were never bound or coerced in any way.
The last shipments of slaves took place from “Bahia Farta,” a few miles
south of Benguella. Every one in Benguella, from the governor of the
district to the lowest employé, knew of the transaction, and received
the regular scale of fees for shutting their eyes to it.
I am happy to say, however, that every one of the shipments turned
out a total loss to the shippers, though they stood to gain enormous
profits, the price of the raw article being, say three pounds, and
worth some thirty pounds each on arrival at Cuba. The slave-trade
in the district of Benguella died out entirely from the activity of
the cruisers off the coast of Cuba, and from the Spanish authorities
capturing the slaves after they were landed on the island. The Spanish
slave-dealers also no longer sent cash and vessels to Angola for the
purchase and shipment of slaves, and the consequence was that the
proceeds of several cargoes shipped at the expense of the Portuguese
traders on the coast were entirely appropriated by the Spaniards, who
did not even vouchsafe an acknowledgment of the cargoes, but left the
captains and supercargoes to think themselves lucky that they escaped
with their lives.
Only a very large number of cruisers on the Angolan coast could have
prevented the shipment of slaves, as every man and woman, white
or black, was interested in the trade, and a perfect system of
communication existed from all points, overland and by sea. The few
foreigners who, like myself, were not interested in the slave-trade,
knew better than to risk their lives by meddling with what it was
absolutely impossible they could prevent. Other foreigners and
Englishmen were indirectly interested in the trade, such as the traders
at Ambriz and farther north, who, as already mentioned, received hard
cash in Spanish gold, at a profit of two to three hundred per cent. for
the goods of pious Manchester and Liverpool, with which almost every
one of the thousands of slaves shipped were bought.
Before the war in America raised the price of cotton so high as to
induce the Portuguese at Benguella and Mossamedes to plant cotton
on a large scale, a great many slaves were employed in picking
orchilla-weed, which grew abundantly on the trees and bushes within the
influence of the sea air; and I knew men who had their two or three
hundred slaves thus engaged, collecting as much as from two to three
tons a day. There is very little collected at present, the country
having been picked nearly bare, and the aniline dyes so reducing the
price in Europe that it was no longer worth seeking. These slaves were
gradually employed in cotton-planting instead, and fortunes were made
by the successful planters.
[Illustration:
PLATE XIII.
MUNDOMBES AND HUTS.
_To face page 185._]
All these flourishing plantations will be completely destroyed on the
coming liberation of the slaves, as nothing will induce the natives
of Benguella to work at anything of the kind. They belong to a tribe
called the Mundombes, who are of a wild, roving disposition, and very
unlike the rest of the tribes inhabiting Angola. Their clothing is
principally skins and hides of sheep or wild animals, and they rub
their bodies and heads with rancid cow’s butter or oil, with which
they are fond of mixing charcoal-dust, and they are the only natives
in Angola who wear sandals (made of raw hide) on their feet. They
are very dirty, never making use of water for washing; are generally
about the middle height, and ugly in face. The women especially are
very rarely comely, either in face or figure, and they will not live
with or intermarry with blacks of other tribes. Their huts are mostly
round-roofed and low (Plate XIII.). They are very independent, and
will not hire themselves to any kind of work.
The women cultivate the ground for the indispensable mandioca and
beans; the men hunt, and tend large herds of cattle that thrive
remarkably well in the country, and also flocks of sheep, which they
rear for food.
Cattle are their principal riches, and are seldom killed for food,
except when the owner dies, when, if he be a “soba” or chief, as many
as 300 oxen have been known to be killed and eaten at one sitting,
lasting for several days. On these occasions the whole tribe and
friends are assembled, heaps of firewood collected, fires lit, and
oxen killed one after the other till the herd is eaten up, not a
native moving away from the feast or gorge till the last scrap is
consumed. The flesh is cut into long thin strips and wound round long
skewers,--these are stuck upright round the fires, and the meat only
allowed to cook slightly. The meat is eaten alone, without any other
food whatever and without salt, as that would make them drink, which
they do not do, as they affirm it would prevent them from eating much
meat; the blood, entrails, and even the hide, toasted to make it
eatable, are consumed, a big feast lasting from ten to fifteen days, or
sometimes more.
I have often seen Mundombes rolling on the ground groaning with pain,
and on asking what was the matter with them, have been answered with a
laugh, “Oh! he has eaten too much meat!!”
They are fond of dividing their cattle into herds of 100 head each,
and are wonderfully clever at tracking strayed cattle, and also in
recognizing any they may have once seen.
A most singular custom of these natives is that of the women and girls,
with their heads covered with green leaves and carrying branches of
trees in their hands, and singing in chorus, taking round to all their
friends and acquaintances any young woman of their tribe who is about
to be married; but the most curious part of the ceremony is the manner
in which the interesting young bride is prepared. She is stripped
perfectly naked, and whitewashed from head to foot with a thick mixture
of a kind of pipe-clay and water, which dries perfectly white, and
in this manner she is taken in procession to visit and receive the
congratulations of her friends.
I never could learn what the meaning of this ceremony was; they always
confined themselves to telling me “that it was their custom to do so.”
It appears that this extraordinary custom is also common to some hill
tribes in India and in the Andes of South America, but I never heard of
it anywhere else in Africa.
The richer Mundombes have an odd manner of making their beds. A layer
of clay about six or nine inches thick and about two feet wide is made
in the huts, and when dry constitutes their sleeping place; this they
rub over with rancid butter to make it smooth, and they lie on it
without any skin or cloth under them!
The Mundombes generally wear their hair in a large woolly bush, but the
young men and women cut it into a variety of strange forms and patterns.
Their arms are knobbed sticks often fancifully carved, small axes
(Plate XIV.), bows and arrows, and “assagaias” or spears, generally
much ornamented with beads, &c. They are expert hunters, and the
abundance of large game supplies them with more animal food than other
tribes of Angola.
They are a hard, wiry race, capable of undergoing great fatigue and
hunger, and a very good trait in their character is that they are
good-natured and merry. They are not a bad race, but are wild, roving,
and intractable to teaching or civilization. Not one of them can be
induced to work beyond carrying loads or a hammock, which latter they
have also a unique way of doing. Supposing eight to be carrying a white
man in a hammock, three will range themselves and run along on each
side; at a loud clap of their hands, one Mundombe from the right will
shove his shoulder under the pole behind the carrier in front, who
passes to the left. Another on the left does the same with the carrier
behind, who passes to the right, and so they go changing round and
round every few yards, and running along all the time without stopping
a moment.
It took me several months before I could induce the Mundombes at
Benguella to carry the copper ore from the mine at Quileba to
Benguella, and this was more from distrust of not being paid than
anything else. I used to give them a load of ore, and a small ticket
which was either paid in copper money or was endorsed by the agent at
Benguella, and was then passed by them at any shop in payment of the
cloth or rum they might purchase.
Next to the Cabindas I think the Mundombes are more fond of rum or
other spirits than any tribe in Angola, and they seem capable of
drinking almost any quantity without other effect than making them
extremely jolly. They will never stop in Benguella at night, but all
clear out before sunset to their towns and villages a little way off.
Pieces of copper are sometimes brought to Benguella by the caravans,
which are said to be smelted by the natives of Lunda. They are cast in
a very peculiar form, something like that of the letter X. All I have
seen have been of this shape, and all have thick inner edges joined by
a ridge (Plate XIV.).
I have never been able to ascertain or guess what the mould could
possibly be that invariably gives this character to them, for whatever
variation there may be in the length of the arms or waist, the
thicker inner edge, connected with a more or less prominent ridge, is
always there.
[Illustration:
PLATE XIV.
1. Native-smelted Copper.--2. Powder-flask.--3. Mundombe
Axe.--4. Manner of securing Fish for drying.--5. Hunters’ Fetish
(Benguella).--6. Manner of carrying in the hand (Native Jug).--7.
Gourd Pipe for smoking Diamba.--8. Wooden Dish.--9. Double-handled Hoe.
_To face page 190._]
The first hills seen from the sea behind the town of Benguella are
composed of layers of fine sandstone of all thicknesses, from a foot
or two to an eighth of an inch, and separated by layers of the finest
dust, so that slabs of any desired thickness can be obtained without
difficulty; a good deal of massive gypsum or sulphate of lime is also
found in these hills. Immediately behind these recent sedimentary
deposits (in which I never found the least trace of fossil remains)
comes the gneiss rock of the country.
At a place called Quileba, about six miles due inland from Benguella,
I explored a deposit of copper ore at the junction of the gneiss with
the sedimentary beds. This deposit yielded about 2000 tons of very
good ore, mostly earthy green carbonate containing some sulphide, and
was found adhering to the gneiss in an irregular-shaped mass, from the
surface of the ground to a depth of about three or four fathoms. Not
an ounce more could be found either deeper, or in the vicinity, when
this mass was exhausted. The whole of the ore was raised and sent to
Benguella for shipment in less than two years, and was all carried
by blacks, men and women, who came from Benguella for that purpose.
These were partly Mundombes, and partly slaves of the inhabitants of
Benguella. I also had about fifty miserably small donkeys from the Cape
de Verde Islands, but they were more troublesome than useful.
One of the principal plants around Benguella is the shrubby jasmine,
and it grows in such quantities as to present a very pretty appearance
when in flower, the clumps in which it grows being covered with white
blossoms; and in the still, early mornings the air is so strongly
loaded with the scent of these flowers as to give people a headache who
pass through the bush for any distance.
Jackals and hyenas are very abundant at Benguella, and were much more
so in the slave-trade times, when the blacks who died were simply taken
out a little distance and thrown into the bush. Graves have to be
dug deep and covered over with a heap of heavy stones to prevent the
hyenas from digging out the corpses and crunching them up. A great fat
Cabinda in my service at Cuio Bay fell down dead one afternoon whilst
dancing with some others of his countrymen, and I had to defer burying
him till notice of his sudden death had been given to the “chefe” at
Dombe Grande, that he might send to ascertain that the man had not
died from any foul play. This took some days, during which his body
smelt anything but nice to us, but was evidently most appetizing to
the hyenas, who every night flocked, howled, and laughed round the hut
where it lay, watched over by his countrymen. He was at last buried,
and covered over with the usual heap of stones, but the ground was
dry and soft, and the smell of the body strong, and next morning we
found that a number of hyenas must have been at work, and had actually
burrowed into the grave from the edge of the heap of stones, had pulled
the body out, and eaten it on the spot! Not a particle of bone even
could be seen, and besides the scratched and trodden ground, a few
shreds and scraps of rags of the cloths the Cabinda had been wrapped
in, were all the evidence of the grand supper of negro flesh the hyenas
had had.
On dark nights especially the hyenas perambulate all over the town
in search of bones and offal of every description, and I have often
heard them fighting and making a terrific noise in the open squares at
Benguella.
Zebras are abundant in the rocky country about Benguella and
Mossamedes, and their bray is very peculiar, being like that of the
donkey without the long drawn notes made during inspiration.
A large dog-faced monkey (_Cynocephalus sp._) is very abundant in the
rocky and arid littoral zone of Benguella, going about in troops of
from twelve to twenty. When feeding, they always have two or more of
their number perched on the high rocks as sentinels, and on the least
sign of danger they utter a hoarse grunt and all take to flight, the
young ones tightly clasping their mothers’ backs. It is said by the
natives that if a monkey sentinel does not perform his duty properly,
the others set upon him and worry him well as a punishment, and a
Portuguese assured me that such was the fact, and that he had witnessed
one being punished in this manner.
It seems at first sight almost incredible how these large creatures can
find sufficient food on the desert rocks where they are found, but
I ascertained that their principal food is the thick fleshy root and
stem of a low bush, and several species of large onion-looking bulbs.
There are also a number of trees and bushes that yield them food in the
shape of berries and fruits, especially one called “Umpequi” (_Ximenia
Americana_), bearing plentifully an astringent plum-like fruit, from
the large kernel of which the natives of Mossamedes manufacture a fine
oil.
On this part of the coast the natives use the wood of the “Bimba”
tree (_Herminiera Elaphroxylon_) to construct a kind of boat or raft,
which is perfectly unsinkable in the heavy surf at the mouths of the
rivers. This tree principally grows in the stagnant water of marshes,
and is about twenty feet high; its trunk attains to as much as a foot
in diameter. It is covered with spines, and bears very large and
beautiful pea-like flowers of a golden orange colour; the wood is soft,
and as light as pith. The peeled stems are skewered together in two
or three layers, with sides about a foot and a half to two feet high,
and the ends finished off in a point, the whole looking like a punt
built of thin logs. The water, of course, is free to rush in and out
everywhere, and the “bimba,” as the boat is also called, floats like
a dry cork on the sea. People in it may get washed over and wetted
through by the surf, but the “bimba” never upsets or sinks.
About twenty or twenty-four miles to the south of Benguella is situated
the district of Dombe Grande. There is here a large native population
on the southern bank of the River San Francisco or Capororo, governed
by a Portuguese “chefe.” The road to it from Benguella passes over
slightly undulating ground, but very arid in character, alternately
sandy, dusty, and of gypsum rock.
About half way, at a place called Quipupa, there is a small spring
of ferruginous water, which is the halting-place of the natives who
frequent the road to and from Dombe Grande. It is a wonderful relief
from the desert road to arrive at the River San Francisco, and see
stretched for miles the beautiful green expanse of Dombe Grande. The
river is perfectly dry for one half of the year, and is then a broad
band of pure, dazzling, white sand, but the land near it is extremely
fertile, and very large quantities of mandioca and beans are grown.
The mandioca is made into “farinha” or meal, and thousands of bushels
are sent by road to Benguella, or to Cuio Bay for shipment. The sand
of the river will even grow splendid crops of this root as soon as the
water dries up.
Towards the sea the valley of this river is very broad; and it is
here that the extensive cotton plantations, to which I have already
referred, exist. This part of the country is called “Luache,” and in
it there are some very curious lagoons and quicksands. One of these
lagoons is extremely deep. A Portuguese told me he had tried to sound
it, but had failed to touch the bottom.
At another place the road for some considerable distance is over a
narrow path composed of the roots of large sedge-like plants interwoven
and grown together, and yielding under every step. The Mundombes take
their cattle over this path, but should one walk away from it at the
side, it sinks immediately in the black mud, and is seen no more.
There is a great deal of pure sulphur in the gypsum hills on the
northern bank of the river at Dombe Grande, and going across them
once, I came to a small eminence that seemed to be all sulphur, and
with a knife, a stick, and a few wedges that I cut, I managed to detach
a solid block of sulphur of about thirty pounds in weight.
At Luache the trees and bushes are covered with a vast quantity of a
curious leafless parasite. This is a creeper, which grows luxuriantly
in great masses of long, thin, green strings or stems, sometimes
completely covering the tree. These are full of tasteless mucilage
when fresh, and are employed in decoction as an emulcent in coughs
and colds. When dry these wire-like stems become black and hard, and
give the trees a very mournful and dismal appearance. This plant is
a species of Cassytha (_C. Guineensis?_) and although excessively
abundant in the province of Benguella, becomes scarce to the north.
About nine miles south of Dombe Grande is the little bay of Cuio, in
13° S. lat., to the interior of which I explored a copper deposit in
1861-1863. This deposit was situated four miles from the bay in the
bottom of a small circular depression or valley in the gneiss rock of
the country. It was evident that the copper ore had been brought from
a distance by the action of water, and precipitated in the bottom of
this cup or basin.
The lower part consisted of a bed of the rare indigo-blue sulphide
intimately mixed together with quartz gravel or sand, the blue sulphide
forming the matrix of this curious conglomerate, in which were also
found large, rounded, smooth, water-worn masses of hard compact gneiss.
This bed alone yielded nearly 1000 tons. Another 1000 or 1200 tons were
obtained from a higher part of the valley, and consisted of a hard
amorphous mixture of sulphide and blue and green carbonate, the latter
apparently due to the surface decomposition of the former. Some small
masses of this copper ore contained silver, from a mere trace to over
100 ounces in the ton. In one place I found a few tons of lead ore,
earthy carbonate and sulphate, with only a trace left of the galena
that had no doubt supplied the two by its decomposition. Specimens of
these ores were exhibited in the London International Exhibition of
1862, and were awarded honourable mention.
I was the first in Africa to make plaster of Paris from the gypsum
rock of the country, and to apply it to cover walls of houses, for
flooring, and even for roofing. I had to build stores at Cuio mines,
and houses for twenty-two white miners, and as there was no grass or
other material fit to roof them with, I put a layer of plaster of
Paris, about an inch and a half thick, on a framework of palm-leaf
stems, and it withstood the rain admirably. It is magnificent material
for flooring in that country, absorbing moisture and preventing the
white ant from getting through. The Portuguese soon after made great
use of this material, which had existed in inexhaustible quantities
unknown to them for so many years.
The road from Dombe Grande to Cuio passes through some deep
perpendicular ravines cut in solid gypsum rock by the action of the
waters, and in other parts of Benguella it is equally abundant. It
requires no kiln for burning: it is sufficient to make a pile of small
pieces of the rock with any kind of fuel or brushwood at hand to burn
it into proper plaster of Paris; in fact, if burnt in a kiln, or
exposed to too great a degree of heat, it will not set afterwards when
mixed with water.
In the bare, arid country of Benguella there are a number of birds, the
colouring of whose plumage so closely accords with that of the ground
as to be barely distinguishable at a little distance. Such are the
sand-grouse (_Pterocles namaquus_) and three species of bustards, one
of which (_Otis picturata_, Hartl.) was a new and undescribed species.
These bustards are very abundant, and are found in pairs; they have
a curious, loud, hoarse, clucking cry, which can be heard at a
considerable distance, and are very shy; they run along the ground with
great rapidity, and when alarmed fly off in a straight line, but very
little above the ground, and when they alight they always run on for
some distance. Their flesh is excellent. Several Portuguese attempted
to keep them in their gardens, and rear them, but without success.
In the woods of thorny trees and bushes, and particularly in the sandy
ravines, several species of small hornbills are very common. Two were
undescribed species (_Tockus elegans_, and _Tockus Monteiri_), and
are very odd birds in appearance and habits. I found that their food
consisted of grubs, grasshoppers, and other insects, hornets’ nests,
and hard seeds. They dig in the sand with their long curved bills, when
seeking their food, throwing the sand behind them between their legs.
They look very comical when sitting on a tree, their soft feathers
puffed out like those of an owl, and they raise and depress their crest
feathers, uttering loud, long-drawn, unearthly cries, like the squall
of a sick baby.
They are considered as “fetish” birds by the natives, who state
positively that it is the male bird who sits on the eggs, and that the
female shuts him up in the nest so that he cannot get out, and feeds
him till he has hatched the eggs, when she tears down the nest and lets
him out. The imprisoned bird is then very lean and in ragged plumage,
and the natives have several proverbs bearing upon this singular habit.
In Benguella, when a man looks very thin and miserable, they always
say, “he looks like the hornbill when he has been let out of the nest.”
I offered a large reward to any black who would find me a nest of these
birds, as I wanted to verify this extraordinary story, but I never
succeeded in seeing one. There is no doubt that the statements of
the natives are correct, as other species of the same bird, in India,
&c., have exactly the same habit; the only particular in which I think
the natives may be wrong is in the male bird being imprisoned by the
female; it is more natural to suppose that the contrary takes place,
and that it is the female who is boxed up.
The “Panda,” or wattled crane (_Grus carunculata_) is common in the
country to the interior of Benguella, and is often brought for sale to
the coast by the caravans. They get very tame and playful, and it is
amusing to see them make rushes in fun at the women and children, with
their wings and beaks wide open.
A trader at Egito had one that used to play for hours with a young
donkey. The crane would run at and flap his wings in the donkey’s face
till it started after him for a race, when he would keep just a little
ahead and only take to flight when hard pressed, on seeing which the
donkey would generally give a loud bray of disappointment. At other
times the crane would chase the donkey, and it was very comical to see
the perfect understanding that seemed to exist between them, and their
evident enjoyment of play and fun.
The ox-bird (_Buphaga Africana_) is very commonly seen on the cattle
at Benguella, and the following description of it is from my notes on
a collection of birds I made there (‘Proceedings of the Zoological
Society’ for 1865):--“Abundant all over Angola, which, generally
speaking, abounds in cattle. It appears to feed entirely on ticks: the
stomach of this specimen contained no less than twenty-five. Its flesh
is very dark-coloured, strong-smelling, and its blood extremely thick
and dark. It is curious to watch the manner in which they crawl all
over the body of an ox or large animal, under its belly and between its
legs, which they are enabled to do by their strong claws tipped with
exceedingly sharp, hooked nails.
“The beak is soft, of a bright red at the tip, graduating to bright
yellow at the base. I once saw a nest of these birds, which they
appeared to be finishing. It was large, loose, of dry grass, and nicely
lined with long hair, seemingly taken from the tails of cattle. These
birds were constantly robbing the hair from the tail of an old mule
I had at Benguella. They will accompany a herd of cattle only for a
certain distance, when they will return to their usual locality, and
others immediately make their appearance and appear to take charge of
the herd.”
The neighbourhood of Benguella, Catumbella, and Dombe Grande is famous
for the variety of its small and beautifully-coloured birds, and the
Mundombes capture them in thousands, to sell to the Portuguese at
Benguella, who export them to Loanda and Lisbon. These birds are said
to be more hardy, and to live better in confinement than those caught
at Loanda.
Several of these little birds are greatly esteemed by the Portuguese
as cage song-birds; such are the “Maracachão” (_Pytelia elegans_),
noted for its exquisitely sweet song, the “Bigode” (_Crithagra ictera_)
or “moustache bird,” the “Viuva” or long-tailed whydah-finch (_Vidua
paradisea_), and others.
They are captured with birdlime, the very sticky, gummy matter
enveloping the seeds of the beautiful parasite--a species of
Loranthus--already mentioned as being employed by the natives of
Cambambe as gum for sealing letters. This plant grows very abundantly
on trees, but most usually on the thinly-leaved spiny bushes near the
coast, and even on herbaceous plants. I have often observed it growing
luxuriantly on cotton bushes.
Many kinds of ducks and other beautiful aquatic birds inhabit two
lagoons, called the “Bimbas,” about seven or eight miles inland from
Benguella. From Benguella to Mossamedes almost all the numerous bays
on the coast are inhabited by Portuguese, who employ their slaves
either in fishing or in cotton and sugar-cane planting. The principal
plantations are at Equimina and Carunjamba. Formerly all were engaged
in orchilla-weed picking, as already stated.
There is no trade whatever between Benguella and Mossamedes, the
littoral region being very desert in character, and but little
populated, and the small quantity of produce from the interior finding
its way to either one or the other of those places.
The fishery on that part of the coast is mostly carried on by deep
lines, and the fish caught are opened flat, and salted and dried in
the sun. Very large quantities are thus prepared and shipped to Loanda
and to the Portuguese islands of St. Thomé and Principe. A great
proportion is consumed by the slaves on the plantations.
Great numbers of a dogfish, called “Cassão,” are also caught. The
livers of this fish are thrown into large iron pots and melted into
a strong-smelling oil, which is shipped to Europe, and employed to
adulterate whale and other fish-oils. It takes about 300 livers to make
a quarter-cask of oil. In the season (for these fish are not always on
the coast) a boat with two or three blacks will take from 60 or 70 to
300 fish each night, the latter being considered a large take.
The lines and nets of the fishermen are prepared or tanned by steeping
them in the juice of an exceedingly curious plant growing in the sand.
This plant, specimens of which I sent to Dr. Hooker, proved to be a
new species of the genus _Hydnora_, a Rafflesiaceous plant. It is an
underground parasite on the roots of the euphorbia trees and bushes,
and consists of a square stem from one to two inches thick, soft in
texture, and of a beautiful rose-colour. This stem is covered with
a thin dark skin, and is full of tubercles; it has no leaves, and is
attached to the roots of the euphorbia, from which it derives its
nourishment.
At certain seasons it sends up a thick stalk through the sand, on the
end of which it bears a large red flower of a very extraordinary shape,
and with an offensive odour of badly decayed meat. There are only three
other species known; two in South Africa, and one in Buenos Ayres.
Besides its use for tanning lines and nets, it is also employed by the
natives as a valuable astringent in cases of diarrhœa.
During the latter years of the slave-trade, these various industries
were turned to a double account. When a vessel was on the coast
seeking a cargo of slaves, the planters, &c., of course always had a
stock ready. At other times any objection or suspicion was met by the
fact that the large number of slaves on the coast were employed in
the legitimate pursuits above mentioned, so that no slave barracoons
existed, and all were as industrious as bees when a cruiser, or some
local Portuguese governor or “chefe,” fired by zeal, or by disgust at
the little games carried on, sometimes without his usual fee, appeared
on the scene.
Lions are common in the country, more especially to the south of
Dombe Grande, about Carunjamba and Lucira. I spent a week once at
Carunjamba, arriving there shortly after a number of lions had caused
the proprietor of a fine plantation to be in forced confinement for
days within the high walls enclosing his house and grounds, and in
which his slaves and herds of cattle and sheep were lodged every night
to preserve them from the attacks of these animals. I saw the ground
all trodden down with their footprints, where they had gone round and
round, attracted by the scent of the cattle within.
These incursions of lions are periodical, and happen shortly after
the first rains have covered the sterile ground on the coast with a
beautiful crop of young grass. The antelopes come from the interior to
feed on this sweet grass, and the lions follow their steps to feed on
them.
Numbers of slaves used to be eaten by the lions in the orchilla-picking
time. I knew one man who lost twelve in a short time at the Bay of
Bomfim, and another seventeen at Lucira, and they had to give up
collecting till the lions retired. If a lion once tastes negro flesh,
he prefers it to beef, and has been known to kill the black herdsman
and not touch a head of his cattle.
The Portuguese in Angola are not valiant at lion-hunting. The
proprietor of the large sugar-cane plantation at Equimina used to
recount how he went out one night to shoot a lion that had devoured
several of his slaves, and used to visit the cattle enclosure nightly.
He saw the lion approach him as he knelt on one knee near the high
stump of a tree against which he leant his gun to steady his aim, and
waited till he thought it was sufficiently near, when he fired both
barrels between its eyes. A tremendous roar instantly followed his
shot, and he ran for his life and bounded over the high thorny fence
forming the enclosure. Nothing more being heard of the lion, he went
with his blacks in search with torches, and found it dead, and so
firmly clasping the stump of the tree with its paws and claws, that
they were with difficulty detached from it.
He used to say that the thought that he might have been in the
lion’s dying embrace instead of the stump, cured him of going out
lion-hunting; and he never could make out how he had managed to clear
the high fence at one jump, as he did on that night when terror lent
wings to his feet.