ON BOARD PORTUGUESE STEAMER ESTAPHANIA,
PROVINCE OF ANGOLA, _April 24, 1860_.
Being so far down on the south-west coast of Africa, my full intention
had been to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope, if by any possible
conveyance I could get there; but it appears I have run out the end of
the chain, and no opportunity offering, I must get back by the best
possible means. This steamer is my only chance, direct to Portugal,
and, if nothing presents itself, I must turn my face again towards
Europe, with the prospect of a thirty-five days’ passage, touching
along the African coast at Ambriz and the Island of San Tomé, and
thence up to the Cape de Verdes.
The captain of the English gunboat Lynx, now bound to the island of
Ascension, has kindly offered to take me, through the recommendation
of the English consul, but the chance being less of getting away from
there I declined.
This is the province where the African traveller, Livingstone, came out
when he returned to England. The captain of the Lynx met him recently,
on the east coast of Africa.
The colonial government here is in trouble. I noticed Portuguese and
black soldiers going on board of a brig moored near us. The negroes
rose near Ambriz in large numbers, attacked the troops, and succeeded
in killing and driving into the river some one hundred and forty men.
One of the officers, who dined with a government employé where I was
invited the other day, narrowly escaped with his life.
The heat is now most oppressive and overpowering. We have frequent
thunderstorms with vivid lightning, which tends to purify the
atmosphere. It is far the safest to sleep on shipboard, as the fever is
prevailing ashore.
Maxillas are used for moving about the town of Loanda, as the least
exertion produces violent perspiration, and exposure to the sun brings
disastrous results. The mode of conveyance is somewhat like the
palanquin in the East Indies, but not so spacious or convenient. You
are carried by two negroes, instead of four or six, as are used there.
Here a sort of sofa bottom of cane work is suspended by cords from a
light roof, attached to a strong pole, resting upon the shoulders of
the bearers. A cushion supports the back, and curtains are floating on
each side, which keep off the sun, and the motion produces a gentle
breeze. In this manner you make your visits and excursions in the town
and suburbs.
There are no American or English men-of-war in port. We have three
persons on board waiting for a passage; one a purser of an American
man-of-war going home invalided; a Portuguese from Benguela who has
exposed himself and got the fever; and myself, afflicted with “Job’s
comforters,” which keep off the same disease. Our numbers will be
augmented in a day or two.
The English are making great efforts to introduce the culture of
cotton in Africa, so as to render them less dependent upon the United
States. I heard at Acra, on the Gold Coast, that a few bales had been
shipped to Liverpool. In Liberia I learned that the Manchester Cotton
Association had sent medals and fifty pounds sterling as premiums,
for the encouragement of the growth of the plant in that district.
I learned also at Bonny that two bales, purchased at Rabba on the
Niger, had been brought down by the Rainbow, attached to the Niger
expedition, which is the first from that country. The captain reports
he could have filled his ship with uncleaned cotton. The price of the
cleaned was from three to four cents per pound, our currency, uncleaned
about one cent. Another report said one hundred and fifteen pounds of
cotton in the seed were bought for five and-a-half yards of cotton
velvet and eight pounds of salt. There is plenty of raw cotton, and
gins and presses are all that is required to produce a merchantable
article. If the English persevere and the natives turn their attention
to cotton, there is no calculating what the production might in time
amount to; but there is this satisfaction for the American planter,
the consumption is rapidly increasing, and there is not much fear of
a surplus for years to come. The culture of the plant, as I have seen
it in Algeria and the East Indies, cannot come in competition with the
negro labor at the South; but we may rest assured that the British are
using every means possible to have it produced, and make themselves
less subject to our Southern King Cotton.
I must say something of a peculiar race of negroes on the African
coast, who seem far superior to their fellows. They are the Kroomen,
who make invaluable sailors for men of-war-and merchant vessels, and
indeed are indispensable for all labor on shipboard, saving the white
mariners from service and consequent fever. They are generally large,
stalwart, well-formed men, obedient and industrious. They are shipped
in Monrovia by vessels of war for the cruise, and receive from five
to eight dollars per month, the chief as much as twelve dollars. In
Sierra Leone, merchant vessels procure them for five dollars per month.
Many of them understand a little English, and they could not be made
slaves of without great difficulty. They rather look down with contempt
upon common negroes. On shipboard they answer to the call of the roll.
Some names given them are so ludicrous one can scarcely refrain from
laughing when he hears them. Some bear the names of ships upon which
they have sailed, and feel highly flattered in consequence, such as
Constitution, Congress, Vincennes, Dale, &c., but the others, Up Side
Down, Tom Bottle, Sunbeam, Main Mast, Main Hatch, Joe Propeller, Inside
Out, Tar Bucket, Ash Bucket, Last One, Nothing New, and so on, display
the extraordinary nomenclature conceived by the Jack Tars. When on duty
ashore from men-of-war they wear blue woollen shirts and pants, but
always on shipboard they have the privilege of the native waistcloth.
They choose their chief, who is at the head of the gang, and whom they
obey most rigidly. The Marion will land sixty or more at Monrovia
before she leaves the coast for the United States, being the complement
of two vessels. They save their money to increase the number of their
wives.
The process of coaling here is of the slowest kind, and that of
ballasting ships the same. The distance from the shore is considerable,
and the manner of doing things is, as the Portuguese language describes
it, poco-a-poco, little by little. The coal or ballast is put in at
the rate of thirty-six tons per day, with baskets like good-sized soup
dishes, passed from hand to hand, not unlike the old-fashioned system
of handing buckets at a fire.
No freight of consequence is offering, as the disturbance in the
country has checked the movement. Ordinarily elephants’ tusks, palm
oil, gum, coffee, etc., are coming forward.
We are now in the height of midsummer, with the thermometer over a
hundred. There is no such thing as restraining perspiration, except
by the fever. What would one give for a cooling draught of ice water,
and the other luxuries and comforts of a northern clime, which are not
obtainable even at an advance of two hundred or three hundred per cent.
We are looking forward to our deliverance from this heated atmosphere
in a few days at least, and to be under motion, when some circulation
will be produced.
The slow, backward Portuguese colony even requires strangers, as well
as its own citizens, on leaving it to procure a passport, with all the
formalities attending the same, at an expense of five dollars, without
recognising the passport of one’s own country. This may be in part
caused from apprehension of the escape of felons and soldiers, who are
sent to this convict colony to expiate their crimes. I should think no
worse punishment could be inflicted than a residence in such a climate.