COUNTRY FROM THE RIVER CONGO TO
AMBRIZ--VEGETATION--TRADING--CIVILIZATION--COMMERCE--PRODUCTS--IVORY--MUSSERRA--SLEEP
DISEASE--SALT--MINERAL PITCH.
The southern point, at the entrance of the River Congo, is called Point
Padrão, from a marble “Padrão,” or monument raised by the Portuguese
to commemorate the discovery of the River Congo by Diogo Cam, in 1485.
At a short distance from it there formerly existed a monastery and
missionary establishment dedicated to Santo Antonio. That part of the
southern bank of the river opposite Banana is called Santo Antonio
to this day, and a few years ago a Portuguese trader opened a house
there for the purpose of trade; in this he was followed by the agent
of a Liverpool firm, but the result, naturally to be foreseen, took
place, and both factories were robbed and burnt down by the rascally
Mussurongos. Some time before this took place, I was waiting at Banana
for some means of conveyance by sea to Ambriz, but none appearing,
I determined, in company with a Brazilian who was also desirous of
proceeding to the same place, to cross over to Santo Antonio, and try
if we could induce the natives to allow us to pass thence over land to
Cabeça da Cobra. This we did, and remained at the trader’s house till
we got carriers and permission, on making a small present to the king
of Santo Antonio town, to pass through. No white man had been allowed
to do so for many years.
We started one night as soon as the moon rose, about one o’clock, and
after travelling a couple of hours, almost the whole time over marshy
ground and through a dry wood, which we had to pass on foot,--as it
was a fetish wood and it would have been highly unlucky to cross it in
our hammocks,--we arrived at the town of Santo Antonio, which appeared
large and well populated. Here we rested for a little while, whilst we
got some fresh carriers, and the king and several of the natives came
to see us and received two pieces of cotton handkerchiefs, and a couple
of gallons of rum, which we had brought for them. The old bells of
the monastery are still preserved in the town, hung from trees, and
we were treated with a din on them in return for our present. We then
continued our journey over good dry ground till we arrived at Cabeça da
Cobra, or “Snake’s Head,” in time for a late breakfast at the house of
a Portuguese trader. Here Senhor Fernando José da Silva presented me
with a letter of introduction he had brought with him from Lisbon some
years previously, and which he had not before had an opportunity of
delivering.
I at once engaged him to help me in developing my discovery of the
application of the fibre of the Baobab (_Adansonia digitata_) to
paper-making, and in introducing among the natives the new industry of
collecting and preparing it, and I must here render him a tribute of
gratitude for his friendship and the unceasing activity and energy with
which he has laboured to assist me in permanently establishing this new
trade, in the face of the greatest difficulties, privations, and hard
work for long years on the coast.
The coast line from Cabeça da Cobra to Ambriz is principally composed
of red bluffs and cliffs, and the road or path is generally near the
edge of the cliffs, affording fine views of the sea and surf-beaten
beach below. The country is arid and thinly wooded, and is covered with
hard, wiry, branched grass; and the curious Mateba palm grows in great
abundance in the country from the River Congo to Moculla, where it is
replaced by the Cashew tree as far as Ambrizzette. The flat-leaved
Sansevieria (_S. longiflora_) is extremely abundant, and disappears
south almost entirely about Musserra, where it is in its turn replaced
by Sansevieria Angolensis. These changes are very curious and striking,
being so well marked on a comparatively small extent of coast. The
Baobab tree is everywhere seen, its vast trunk throwing, by comparison,
all other trees into insignificance: it is less abundant perhaps from
the River Congo to about Ambrizzette; from that place, southwards, the
country is one open forest of it.
The natives as far as Mangue Grande are Mussurongos. From this to
Ambriz they are a branch of the Mushicongo tribe. The Mussurongos are
at present an indolent set, but there are signs that they are becoming
more industrious, now that they have given up all hope of seeing the
slave-trade again established, which enabled them, as one said to me,
to be rich without working. Since the last slave was shipped from this
part of the coast, about the year 1868, the development of produce in
the country itself and from the interior has been very great indeed,
and promises in a few years to be still more, and very important in
amount. This will be more particularly the case when the present system
ceases, by which the natives of the coast towns act as middle-men to
the natives from the interior. At present nearly the entire bulk of the
produce comes from the interior, no extensive good plantation grounds
being found before arriving at the first elevation, which we have seen
to commence at from thirty to sixty miles from the coast, the ivory
coming from not less than 200 to 300 miles.
The blacks, on arriving from the interior, put up at the towns on the
coast, where the natives, having been in constant intercourse with the
whites for years, all speak Portuguese, and many of them English. It is
a fact that the natives speak Portuguese more correctly than they do
English, which I attribute to the good custom of the Portuguese very
seldom stooping to murder their language when speaking to the blacks,
which the English universally do, under the mistaken idea of rendering
themselves more intelligible.
These blacks act as interpreters and brokers, and are thereby enabled
to satisfy fully and successfully their innate propensity for roguery
by cheating the natives from the interior to their hearts’ content.
They bargain the produce with the white men at one price, telling the
natives always that it is for a much lower sum, of course pocketing the
difference, sometimes amounting to one-half and more. It is a common
thing to be asked to have only so much,--naming the amount for which
they have pretended to have sold the produce,--paid whilst the owners
are present, and getting a “book” or ticket for the rest, which they
receive from the white trader at another time.
It has been found impossible to do away with this custom, as the
white men are almost dependent for their trade upon these rogues,
called “linguisteres” (derived evidently from the Portuguese term
“lingoa,” “tongue,” or interpreter). These have their defence for the
custom, first, that it has always existed, a great argument with the
conservative negro race; secondly, that it is their commission for
looking after the interests of the natives from the interior, who
would otherwise be cheated by the white men, who would take advantage
of their want of knowledge of the selling prices on the coast; and
thirdly that they have to make presents to the natives out of these
gains, and give them drink at the towns to keep them as their customers
and prevent their going to other towns or linguisteres. The natives
from the interior, again, are very suspicious and afraid of the white
man, and they would hardly dare approach him without being under the
protection of the coast negroes. There is no doubt that the development
of the trade from the interior would increase greatly if the natives
and owners of the produce obtained the full price paid by the white
men. There is almost a certainty, however, that the system will not
last much longer, as the natives are beginning to find out how they
are cheated by their coast brethren, and are already, in many cases,
trading direct with the white men.
The system adopted in trading or bartering with the natives on the
coast, comprehended between the River Congo and Ambriz, is somewhat
complicated and curious. All produce (except ivory) on being brought to
the trader, is put on the scales and the price is agreed, in “longs” in
English, or “peças” in Portuguese. This “peça” or “long” is the unit of
exchange to which all the multifarious articles of barter are referred:
for instance, six yards of the ordinary kinds of cotton cloth, such
as stripes, unbleached calico, blue prints, cotton checks, are equal
to a “long;” a yard and a half of red or blue baize, five bottles of
rum, five brass rods, one cotton umbrella, 3000 blue glass beads,
three, six, eight, or twelve cotton handkerchiefs, according to size
and quality, are also severally equal to a “long;” articles of greater
value, such as kegs of powder, guns, swords, knives, &c., are two or
more “longs” each.
As each bag of coffee (or other produce) is weighed and settled for,
the buyer writes the number of “longs” that has been agreed upon on
a small piece of paper called by the natives “Mucanda,” or, by those
who speak English, a “book;” the buyer continues his weighing and
purchasing, and the “books” are taken by the natives to the store,
which is fitted up like a shop, with shelves on which are arranged at
hand the many different kinds of cloth, &c., employed in barter. The
natives cannot be trusted in the shop, which contains only the white
man and his “Mafuca” or head man, so the noisy, wrangling mob is paid
from it through a small window. We will suppose, for instance, that a
“book” is presented at the window, on which is marked twenty “longs” as
the payment of a bag of coffee; the trader takes--
A gun--value 4 longs
One keg powder 2 ”
One piece of 18 yards stripes 3 ”
One of 18 yards grey calico 3 ”
One of 18 yards checks 3 ”
Eight handkerchiefs 1 ”
Five bottles of rum 1 ”
One table-knife 1 ”
Three thousand beads 1 ”
Five brass rods 1 ”
--
Total: 20 longs.
--
This is now passed out, the trader making such alterations in the
payment as the natives desire within certain limits, exchanging, for
instance, the handkerchiefs for red baize, or the piece of calico for
a sword, but there is an understanding that the payment is to be a
certain selection, from which only small deviations can be made. If
such were not the case the payment of 100 or more “books” in a short
time would be impossible. It is by no means an easy task to trade
quickly and successfully with the natives; long practice, and great
patience and good temper are necessary. A good trader, who is used to
the business, can pay the same “book” for a great deal less value than
one unaccustomed to the work, and the natives will often refuse to
trade with a new man or one not used to their ways and long known to
them.
It is rather startling to a stranger to see and hear a couple of
hundred blacks all shouting at the top of their voices to be paid
first, and quarrelling and fighting over their payment, or pretending
to be dissatisfied with it, or that they have been wrongly paid.
Ivory is purchased in a different manner; the tusk is weighed, and
an offer made by the trader in guns, barrels of powder and “longs,”
generally in about the proportion of one gun, one keg of powder, and
two longs; thus a tusk, we will say, is purchased for twelve guns,
twelve kegs of powder, and twenty-four “longs.” The natives do not
receive this, but a more complicated payment takes place; of the twelve
guns they only receive four, the rest being principally in cloth,
on a scale well understood, the guns being calculated generally at
four “longs” each; the same process is carried out with the kegs of
powder, only a certain number being actually given in that commodity:
the twenty-four “longs” are given in cloth and a variety of small
objects, including razors, cheap looking-glasses, padlocks, ankle
rings, playing-cards, empty bottles, hoop-iron off the bales, brass
tacks, glass tumblers and decanters, different kinds of beads, &c. The
amount first agreed upon is called the “rough bundle,” and the trader,
by adding the value of the guns, powder, and “longs,” and dividing the
sum by the weight of the tusk, can tell very nearly what the pound
of ivory will cost when reduced by the substitution of the various
numerous articles given in lieu of the guns and powder agreed upon on
the purchase of the tusk.
The small extent of coast comprised between Ambriz and the River
Congo is a striking example of the wonderful increase of trade, and
consequently industry, among the negroes, since the extinction of the
slave trade, and evidences also the great fertility of a country that
with the rudest appliances can produce such quantities of valuable
produce; about a dozen years ago, a very few tons, with the exception
of ivory, of ground-nuts, coffee, and gum copal only, were exported.
Last year the exports from Ambriz to, and not including, the River
Congo, were as follows:--
Adansonia fibre 1500 tons
Ground-nuts 7500 ”
Coffee 1000 ”
Sesamum seed 650 ”
Red gum copal 50 ”
White Angola gum 100 ”
India-rubber 400 ”
Palm-kernel 100 ”
Ivory 185 ”
Besides this amount of produce, the value of which may be estimated at
over 300,000_l._, a considerable quantity of ground-nuts find their
way to the River Congo from the interior of the country I am now
describing. This is already a most gratifying and interesting result,
and one from which valuable lessons are to be deduced, when we come
to compare it with what has taken place in other parts of the coast,
most notably in the immediate neighbouring country to the south in the
possession of the Portuguese, and is a splendid example of the true
principles by which the African race _in Africa_ can be successfully
civilized, and the only manner in which the riches of the West Coast
can be developed and made available to the wants of the rest of the
world.
There can be no doubt that our attempts to civilize the negro by purely
missionary efforts have been a signal failure. I will say more: so
long as missionary work consists of simply denominational instruction
and controversy, as at present, it is mischievous and retarding to the
material and mental development and prosperity of Africa. Looking at
it from a purely religious point of view, I emphatically deny that a
single native has been converted, otherwise than in name or outward
appearance, to Christianity or Christian morality. Civilization on
the coast has certainly succeeded in putting a considerable number of
blacks into uncomfortable boots and tight and starched clothes, and
their women outwardly into grotesque caricatures of Paris fashions, as
any one may witness by spending even only a few hours at Sierra Leone,
for instance, where he will see the inoffensive native transformed into
a miserable strutting bully, insolent to the highest degree, taught to
consider himself the equal of the white man, as full as his black skin
can hold of overweening conceit, cant, and hypocrisy, without a vice or
superstition removed, or a virtue engrafted in his nature, and calling
the native whose industry supplies him with food, “You nigga! Sah!”
This is the broad and characteristic effect of present missions on the
coast, I am sorry to say, and they will continue to be fruitless as
long as they are not combined with industrial training. That was the
secret of the success of the old Catholic missionaries in Angola; they
were traders as well, and taught the natives the industrial arts,
gardening, and agriculture. What if they derived riches and power,
the envy of which led to their expulsion, from their efforts, so long
as they made good carpenters, smiths, masons, and other artificers of
the natives, and created in them a new life, and the desire for better
clothing, houses, and food, which they could only satisfy by work and
industry?
On landing at Bonny from the steamer, to collect plants and insects on
the small piece of dry land opposite the hulks in the river, we saw the
pretty little church and schoolroom belonging to the mission there,
in which were a number of children repeating together, over and over
again, like a number of parrots, “I know dat I hab a soul, because I
feel someting widin me.” Only a few yards off was the village in which
they lived, and a large fetish house exactly the same as any other;
not a sign of work of any kind, not a square yard of ground cleared or
planted, not a fowl or domestic animal, save a lean cur or two, to be
seen; the children, and even big girls, or young women, in a complete
state of nudity,--nothing in fact to show any difference whatever from
any other town in the country. Can any one believe for a moment that
the instruction afforded by that mission was of any avail, that the few
irksome hours of repetition of texts, writing and reading, explanations
of the Bible, &c., could in the least counteract the influence of the
fetish house in the village, or the superstition and ignorance of the
children’s parents and elders, or remove the fears and prejudices
imbibed with their mothers’ milk? Is it not more natural to suppose,
as is well known to be the case, that this imperfect training is just
sufficient to enable them when older to be sharper, more dishonest and
greater rogues than their fellows, and to ape the vices of the white
man, without copying his virtues or his industry?
I remember at Ambrizzette a black who could read and write, forging a
number of “books” for gunpowder, and thus robbing some of the houses
to a considerable extent. The natives wanted to kill him, but on the
white men interceding for his life, they chopped off the fingers of his
right hand with a matchet, to prevent his forging any more. Educated
blacks, or even mulattoes, cannot be trusted as clerks, with the charge
of factories, or in other responsible situations. I do not remember a
case in which loss did not sooner or later result from their employment.
Trade or commerce is the great civilizer of Africa, and the small part
of the coast we are treating of at present is a proof of this. Commerce
has had undisturbed sway for a few years, with the extraordinary result
already stated. The natives have not been spoilt as yet by contact with
the evils of an ignorant and oppressive occupation, as in Portuguese
Angola, or, as on the British West Coast on the other hand, by having
been preached by a dozen opposed and rival sects into a muddled state
of assumed and insolent equality with the white race, whom they hate
in their inmost hearts, from the consciousness of their infinite
inferiority.
Commerce has spread before them a tempting array of Manchester goods,
guns, gunpowder, blankets, rugs, coats, knives, looking-glasses,
playing cards, rum and gin, matchets, tumblers and decanters, beads,
silver and brass ankle-rings, and many other useful or ornamental
articles, without any duties to pay, or any compulsory regulations
of passports, papers, tolls, or hindrances of any kind; the only
key necessary is a bag of produce on the scales; a fair, and in many
cases, even high price is given in return, and every seller picks and
chooses what he or she desires;--and let not rum or gin be abused for
its great share in the development of produce, for it is a powerful
incentive to work. A black dearly loves his drop of drink; he will very
often do for a bottle of rum, what he would not even think of stirring
for, for three times the value in any other article, and yet they are
not great drunkards, as we shall see, when describing their customs;
they so divide any portion of spirits they can obtain, that it does
them no harm whatever. The rum and gin, though of the very cheapest
description, is pure and unsophisticated, the only adulteration being
an innocent one practised by the traders, who generally mix a liberal
proportion of water with it.
When a black does give way to intemperate habits, his friends make him
undergo “fetish” that he shall drink no more, and such is their dread
of consequences if they do not keep their “fetish” promise, that I have
known very few cases of their breaking the “pledge.” Sometimes a black
is “fetished” for rum or other spirit-drinking, but not against wine,
which they are beginning to consume in increasing quantity; the kind
they are supplied with being the ordinary red Lisbon.
In describing the different kinds of produce of this country, the first
on the list, the inner bark of the “Baobab,” or Adansonia digitata,
claims precedence, it being the latest discovery of an African
production as an article of commerce, and of great importance from its
application to paper-making, and also from its opening a new and large
field to native industry.
It was on my first arrival in Ambriz in February 1858, that this
substance struck me as being fit for making good paper: a few simple
experiments enabled me to make specimens of bleached fibre and pulp
from it, proving to me conclusively its suitableness for that purpose.
Having been engaged in mining in Angola, it was not till the year
1865 that I finally determined to proceed to Ambriz, with the view of
developing my discovery, and I have ever since been actively engaged
in establishing houses on the part of the coast I am now describing,
for bartering the Adansonia fibre,--pressing and shipping the same
to England. In my long and arduous task I have met with more than
the ordinary amount of losses and disappointments, from commercial
failures and other causes that seem to fall to the lot of discoverers
or inventors in general; but I have triumphed over all obstacles and
prejudices, and have established its success as a paper-making material
beyond any doubt.
The Baobab, or “monkey fruit tree,” is well known from descriptions as
one of the giants of the vegetable kingdom. It rears its vast trunk
thirty or forty feet high, with a diameter of three or four feet in
the baby plants, to usually twenty to thirty feet in the older trees.
Adansonias of more than thirty feet in diameter are rare, but they have
been measured of as great a size as over 100 feet in circumference; the
thickest trunk I have ever seen was sixty-four feet in circumference,
and was clean and unbroken, without a crack on its smooth bark.
The leaves and flowers are produced during the rainy season, and are
succeeded by the long pendant gourd-like fruit, like hanging notes of
admiration, giving the gigantic, nearly leafless tree a most singular
appearance. Millions of these trees cover the whole of Angola, as
they do in fact the whole of tropical Africa, sufficient to supply an
incalculable amount of paper material for years, but for the indolence
of the negro race. I have no doubt, however, that they will in time
follow the example of the Ambriz blacks, and a very large trade be
developed as in the case of the palm-oil and the india-rubber trade.
The leaves of the Baobab when young are good to eat, boiled as a
vegetable, and in appearance are somewhat like a new horse-chestnut
leaf about half grown, and of a bright green; the flowers are very
handsome, being a large ball of pure white, about four or five inches
across, exactly like a powder puff, with a crown of large thick white
petals turned back on top of it. After a few days the flowers become
tipped with yellow, before dropping from the tree. The trunks, even
of the largest trees, have properly speaking no wood, that is to say,
a plank could not be sawn out of it, or any work made from it;--a
section of a trunk shows first a thin outer skin or covering of a
very peculiar pinkish ashen white, somewhat like that of a silver
birch, some appearing quite silvery against the colour of other trees
and foliage; then there follows about an inch of substance like hard
mangold wurzel with fibres, then the thick coat of fibrous inner bark,
which readily separates; next, the young wood, very much like the inner
bark, and lastly, layers of more woody texture, divided or separated by
irregular layers of pith, the most woody parts having no more firmness
than perfectly rotten mildewed pine wood, and breaking quite readily
with a ragged and very fibrous fracture.
The centre of these vast trunks easily rots, and becomes hollow from
the top, where the stem generally branches off laterally into two or
three huge arms. This is taken advantage of by the Quissama blacks,
who inhabit the south bank of the River Quanza, to use them as tanks
to store rain water in against the dry season, as it is a country very
destitute of water.
The hollow Baobabs are very seldom open from the sides; I only remember
one large tree of this kind in which an aperture like a door gave
admittance into the empty centre; this was in Cambambe, and the hollow
was large enough for two of us to sit inside, with a small box between
us for a table, and have our breakfast, and room to spare for our cook
to attend on us. Whilst we were comfortably enjoying our meal in its
grateful shade, our cook suddenly gave a shout and rushed out, crying
“Nhoca, Nhoca,” “Snake, Snake,” and sure enough there was a fine fellow
about four feet long over-head, quietly surveying our operations; a
charge of shot settled this very quickly, and down he fell, a victim to
his curiosity.
The inner bark of the Adansonia is obtained by first chopping off the
softer outer bark of the tree with a matchet, and then stripping the
inner bark in large sheets. The smaller trees produce the finest and
softest fibre, and it is taken off all round the tree, which does not
appear to suffer much injury. A fresh layer of bark grows, and is thick
enough to take off in about six to eight years. The bark is only taken
off the large trunks in places where the outer bark is smooth and free
from knobs, &c. In the course of time, the trunk growing, shows the
scar, high above the ground, of the place where the bark has been taken
off years before. The layers of inner bark when cut are saturated with
sap; the pieces are beaten with a stick to soften them, and shaken
to get rid of some of the pithy matter attached to them. The bark is
then dried in the sun, when it is ready for pressing into bales, and
shipping.
This inner bark is put to a variety of uses by the natives. It is
twisted into string and rope for all sorts of purposes, or used in
strips to secure loads, and to tie the sticks, &c., in making their
huts. Finer pieces are pulled out so as to resemble a coarse network,
and the edges being sewn together, make handy bags for cotton, or gum,
grain, &c.; and very strong bags are woven from thin strips, in which
coffee and ground-nuts are brought down from Cazengo to the coast.
Several amusing incidents occurred on my introducing the trade in
Baobab fibre among the natives. I had great difficulty at first in
inducing them to take to it, but they soon saw the advantage of doing
on a large scale what they had been accustomed to do for their own
small necessities; their principal reason for suspicion about it was
that it had never before been an article purchased by the white men;
they would not believe it was for making paper, but thought it must be
for making cloth, and one old fellow very sagely affirmed that it was
to be used for making mosquito curtains, from the open texture of the
finer samples. It was debated at the towns whether it should be allowed
to be cut and sold, and finally agreed to, and the trade was fully
established at Ambriz for several months, when a report spread amongst
the natives that the object of my buying it was to make it into ropes
to tie them up some fine day when they least expected it, and ship them
on board the steamers as slaves. Such was the belief in this absurd
idea that all the natives employed at the factories disappeared, and
not a man, woman, or child appeared in Ambriz for several days, and the
place was nearly starved out.
I had an old black as my head man of the name of “Pae Tomás” (Father
Thomas) who was very much respected in the country; he had been with
me for some years, and it took all his influence to get the natives to
return to Ambriz and to bring in fibre again for sale.
Another instance of how any little variation from the usual state of
things will excite the suspicions of these natives, even accustomed
as they have been to contact with white men for many years, was the
appearance at Ambriz of a four-masted steamer,--one of the Lisbon
monthly line: such a thing as a “ship with four sticks” had never been
seen before, and without waiting to inquire, every black ran away from
Ambriz, and the same thing happened on her return from Loanda; it
was only after repeated voyages that the natives lost their fear of
her; they could give no other reason than that it had never been seen
before, and that therefore it must be a signal for the white men to do
something or other they could not understand.
It was not till some time after putting up and working the hydraulic
press at Ambriz that I was able to go north and establish them at
other places. I had to invite the King and Council of Musserra to come
to Ambriz and see it at work, and convince them that it was quite an
inoffensive machine, and could only squeeze the fibre into bales; only
by this means could I get their leave to land one there and erect it
and begin the trade, and I believe that had I not been already long
known to them I should have been unable to do it so soon. They somehow
had the idea that the cylinder was a great cannon, and might be fired
off with gunpowder, and I might take the country from them with it, but
they were reassured when they saw it had no touch-hole at the breech,
and that it was set upright in the ground and worked by water.
At Kimpoaça, a neighbouring town was averse to one being landed there,
but as I had obtained the leave of the king and the townspeople they
felt bound to allow me to set it up, and for about a fortnight that
the surf prevented its being landed the whole of the inhabitants were
on the beach every day with loaded guns, to fight the other town, if
necessary, as they had threatened forcible opposition to its being put
up--it all went off quietly, however, but a couple of years after, the
rains having failed to come down at the proper time, the fetish men
declared that the “matari ampuena,” or the “big iron,” had fetished the
rain and prevented its appearance.
The matter was discussed in the country at a meeting of the people of
the neighbouring towns, and it was determined to destroy the press and
throw it into the sea if it was found to be a “feiticeiro,” or wizard.
This was, of course, to be proved by the ordeal by poison, namely,
by making it take “casca,” the bark that I have already described as
determining the innocence or guilt of any one accused of witchcraft;
but this difficulty presented itself to their minds, that as the “big
iron” had no stomach or insides, the “casca” could have no action, so
after much deliberation it was resolved to get over the difficulty by
giving the dose to a slave of the king, who represented the hydraulic
press. Very luckily the poison acted as an emetic, and the press was
proved innocent of bewitching the rain. After some time, the rains
persisting in not coming down, the poor slave was again forced to take
“casca,” but with the same fortunate result,--the press was saved,
and the natives have never again suspected it of complicity with evil
spirits.
It was these hydraulic presses for baling the baobab fibre, at Ambriz
and elsewhere, which more than anything else firmly established amongst
the natives the name they had given me of “Endoqui ampuena,” or, the
great wizard. There is something to them so marvellous in the simple
working of a lever at a distance, by a little water in a tank, that no
rational explanation is possible to their minds,--it is simply a case
of pure witchcraft.
The fruit of the baobab is like a long gourd, about fourteen to
eighteen inches in length, covered by a velvety greenish-brown coating,
and hanging by a stalk two to three feet long. It is filled inside
with a curious dry, pulverulent, yellowish-red substance, in which
the seeds, about the size of pigeon-beans, are imbedded. The seeds
are pounded and made into meal for food in times of scarcity, and the
substance in which they are embedded is also edible, but strongly and
agreeably acid. This gourd-like fruit is often used for carrying water
or storing salt, &c., the walls, or shell, being very hard and about
a quarter of an inch thick. From its shape it makes a very convenient
vessel for baling water out of a canoe, one end being cut slantwise,
and it is used by the natives everywhere on the coast for this purpose.
The finest orchilla weed is found growing on the baobab trees near
the coast, and the natives ascend the great trunks by driving pegs
into them one above the other, and using them as steps to get to the
branches. These trees are the great resort of the several species
of doves so abundant in Angola, and their favourite resting-place
on account of the many nooks and spaces on the monstrous trunks and
branches in which they can conveniently build their flat nests and rear
their young.
There is something peculiarly grand in the near appearance of these
trees, and it is impossible to describe the sensation caused by these
huge vegetable towers, that have braved in solitary grandeur the hot
sun and storms of centuries; and very pleasant it is to lie down under
the shade of one of these giants and listen to the soft, plaintive
“coo--coo--coo” of the doves above, the only sound that breaks the
noonday silence of the hot and dry untrodden solitude around.
A lowly plant, but perhaps the most important in native tropical
African agriculture, the ground-nut (_Arachis hypogæa_), next deserves
description. Many thousand tons of this little nut are grown on
the whole West Coast of Africa, large quantities being exported to
Europe,--principally to France,--to be expressed into oil. We have
already seen what a great increase has taken place in the cultivation
of this nut in the part of the coast I am now specially describing, and
I believe that it is destined to be one of the most important oil-seeds
of the future.
The native name for it is “mpinda” or “ginguba,” and it is cultivated
in the greatest abundance at a few miles inland from the coast, where
the comparatively arid country is succeeded by better ground and
climate. It requires a rich soil for its cultivation, and it is chiefly
grown, therefore, in the bottoms of valleys, or in the vicinity of
rivers and marshes. The plant grows from one to two feet high, with a
leaf and habit very much like a finely-grown clover. The bright-yellow
pea-like flowers are borne on long slender stalks; these, after
flowering, curl down, and force the pod into the ground, where it
ripens beneath the soil. Its cultivation is a very simple affair. The
ground being cleared, the weeds and grass are allowed to dry, and are
then burnt; the ground is then lightly dug a few inches deep by the
women with their little hoes--their only implement of agriculture--and
the seeds dropped into the ground and covered up. The sowing takes
place in October and November, at the beginning of the rainy season,
and the first crop of nuts for eating green is ready about April;
but they are not ripe for nine months after sowing, or about July or
August, when they are first brought down to the coast for trade.
A large plantation of ground-nuts is a very beautiful sight: a rich
expanse of the most luxuriant foliage of the brightest green, every
leaf studded with diamond-like drops glittering in the early sun. The
ground-nut is an important part of the food of the natives, and more
so in the country from Ambriz to the River Congo than south at Loanda
and Benguella. It is seldom eaten raw, but roasted, and when young and
green, and roasted in the husks, is really delicious eating. It is
excessively oily when fully ripe, and the natives then generally eat
it with bananas and either the raw mandioca root, or some preparation
of it, experience showing them the necessity of the admixture of a
farinaceous substance with an excessively oily food. The nuts are also
ground on a stone to a paste, with which to thicken their stews and
messes. This paste, mixed with ground Chili pepper, is also made into
long rolls, enveloped in leaves of the _Phrynium ramosissimum_, and is
eaten principally in the morning to stay the stomach in travelling till
they reach the proper camping-places for their breakfast or first meal
and rest, generally about noon. It is called “quitaba,” and I shall
never forget the first time I tasted this composition: I thought my
palate and tongue were blistered, so great was the proportion of Chili
pepper in it.
A considerable quantity of oil used to be prepared by the natives
from this nut by the most rudimentary process it is possible to
imagine. The nuts are first pounded into a mass in a wooden mortar; a
handful of this is then taken between the palms of the hands, and an
attendant pours a small quantity of hot water on it, and on squeezing
the hands tightly together the oil and water run out. Since the great
demand for, and trade in, the ground-nut, but little oil is prepared
by the natives, as they find it more advantageous to sell the nuts
than to extract the oil from them by the wasteful process I have just
described. Ground-nut oil is very thin and clear, and is greatly used
in cookery in Angola, for which it is well adapted as it is almost free
from taste and smell.
The greater part of the several thousand tons of nuts that at present
constitute the season’s crop in this part of the country is grown
in the Mbamba country, lying parallel with the coast, at a distance
of from thirty to eighty miles inland, or at the first and second
elevation. Some idea of the great population of this comparatively
small district may be formed from the fact that the whole of the above
ground-nuts are shelled by hand, and brought down to the coast on the
heads of the natives. It is difficult for any one unacquainted with the
subject to realise the vast amount of labour implied in the operation
of shelling this large quantity by hand.
The trade in coffee is almost entirely restricted to Ambriz, and it
comes principally from the district of Encoge, a considerable quantity
also being brought from the Dembos country and from Cazengo, to the
interior of Loanda, from which latter place the trade is shut out by
the stupid and short-sighted policy of high custom-house duties on
goods, and other restrictions on trade of the Portuguese authorities.
Very little of the coffee produced in the provinces of Encoge and
Dembos is cultivated; it is the product of coffee-trees growing
spontaneously in the virgin forests of the second elevation. The
natives, of course, have no machinery of any kind to separate the berry
from the pod, these being dried in the sun and then broken in a wooden
mortar, and the husks separated by winnowing in the open air.
The sesamum seed (_Sesamum indicum_) has only very recently become an
article of trade in Angola. It was cultivated sparingly by the natives,
who employ it, ground to a paste on a stone in the same manner as
the ground-nut, to add to their other food in cooking. It is as yet
cultivated for trade principally by the natives about Mangue Grande,
and only since about the year 1868, but there is no doubt it will be
an important product all over Angola, as it is found to grow near the
coast, in soil too arid for the ground-nut.
The red gum copal, called “maquata” by the natives, is of the finest
quality, and is almost entirely the product of the Mossulo country.
It is known to exist north, in the vicinity of Mangue Grande, but it
is “fetish” for the natives to dig it, and consequently they will not
bring it for trade, and even refuse to tell the exact place where it is
found, but there can be no doubt about it, as they formerly traded in
it with the white men.
Until about the year 1858, it was a principal article of export from
Ambriz; vessels being loaded with it, chiefly to America, but with the
American war the trade ceased, and it has never since attained anything
like its former magnitude. I believe it to be a fossil gum or mineral
resin. I have examined quantities of it, to discover any trace of
leaves, insects, or other remains, that might prove it to have been of
vegetable origin, but in vain.
It is obtained from a part of Angola where white men are not permitted
by the natives to penetrate, and I have consequently not been an actual
observer of the locality in which it occurs; but by all the accounts
received from intelligent natives, it is found below the surface of a
highly ferruginous hard clay or soil, at a depth of a few inches to
a couple of feet. It is very likely that if the ground were properly
explored, it would be found deeper, but most probably this is as deep
as the natives care to dig for it, if they can obtain it elsewhere
nearer the surface. It is said to be found in irregular masses, chiefly
flat in shape, and from small knobs to pieces weighing several pounds.
These are all carefully chopped into small nearly uniform pieces, the
object of this being to enable the natives to sell it by measure,--the
measures being little “quindas” or open baskets; the natives of the
country where it is obtained not only bring it to the coast for barter,
but also sell it to the coast natives, who go with goods to purchase it
from them.
The blacks of the gum country are so indolent that they will only dig
for the gum during and after the last and heaviest rains, about March,
April, and May, and these, and June and July, are the months when it
almost all makes its appearance, and they will only allow a certain
quantity to leave the country, for fear that its price on the coast may
fall; hence only a few tons of this beautiful gum are now obtained,
where some years ago hundreds were bought. It is said by the natives
that no trees grow on or near the places where the gum copal is found,
and that even grass grows very sparingly: the very small quantities
of red earth and sand sometimes attached to the gum show it to be so
highly ferruginous, that I should imagine such was really the case.
The white Angola gum is said to be the product of a tree growing near
rivers and water, a little to the interior of the coast. I have never
had an opportunity of seeing the tree myself, however.
We now come to one of the most curious products of this interesting
country, namely, india-rubber, called by the natives “Tangandando.”
It had been an article exported in considerable quantities north of
the River Congo, and knowing that the plant from which it was obtained
grew in abundance in the second region, about sixty miles inland from
Ambriz, I distributed a number of pieces of the india-rubber to natives
of the interior, and offered a high price for any that might be brought
for sale. In a very short time it began to come in, and the quantity
has steadily increased to the present day.
The plant that produces it is the giant tree-creeper (_Landolphia,
florida?_), covering the highest trees, and growing principally on
those near rivers or streams. Its stem is sometimes as thick as
a man’s thigh, and in the dense woods at Quiballa I have seen a
considerable extent of forest festooned down to the ground, from tree
to tree, in all directions with its thick stems, like great hawsers;
above, the trees were nearly hidden by its large, bright, dark-green
leaves, and studded with beautiful bunches of pure white star-like
flowers, most sweetly scented. Its fruit is the size of a large orange,
of a yellow colour when ripe, and perfectly round, with a hard brittle
shell; inside it is full of a soft reddish pulp in which the seeds are
contained. This pulp is of a very agreeable acid flavour, and is much
liked by the natives. The ripe fruit, when cleaned out, is employed
by them to contain small quantities of oil, &c. It is not always easy
to obtain ripe seeds, as this creeper is the favourite resort of a
villainous, semi-transparent, long legged red ant--with a stinging bite
like a red-hot needle--which is very fond of the pulp and seeds.
Every part of this creeper exudes a milky juice when cut or wounded,
but unlike the india-rubber tree of America, this milky sap will not
run into a vessel placed to receive it, as it dries so quickly as to
form a ridge on the wound or cut, which stops its further flow.
The blacks collect it, therefore, by making long cuts in the bark with
a knife, and as the milky juice gushes out, it is wiped off continually
with their fingers, and smeared on their arms, shoulders, and breast
until a thick covering is formed; this is peeled off their bodies and
cut into small squares, which are then said to be boiled in water.
From Ambriz the trade in this india-rubber quickly spread south to the
River Quanza, from whence considerable quantities are exported.
The ivory that reaches this part of the coast is brought down by
natives of the Zombo country. These are similar in appearance to the
Mushicongos, to which tribe they are said to be neighbours, and are
physically a poor-looking race, dressed mostly in native grass-cloth,
and wearing the wool on their heads in very small plaits, thickly
plastered with oil and charcoal dust, which they also plentifully apply
to their faces and bodies.
They are about thirty days on the journey from their country to the
coast, which can therefore be very closely calculated to be about
300 miles distance. The road they follow passes near Bembe, and the
caravans shortly afterwards divide into three portions, one taking the
road to Moculla, another to Ambrizzette, and the third to Quissembo,
the three centres, at present, of the ivory trade. The caravans of
ivory generally travel in the “cacimbo” or dry season, on account of
the great number of streams and gullies they have to cross on their
long journey, and almost impassable in the rainy season. These caravans
never bring down any other produce with them but ivory, except at
times a few grass-cloths, some bags of white haricot-beans, and fine
milk-white onions, neither of which are cultivated by the natives near
the coast. The tusks are carried by the natives on their heads or
shoulders, and, to prevent their slipping, are fastened in a sort of
cage of four short pieces of wood (Plate IV.). Very heavy teeth are
slung to a long pole and carried by two blacks. The largest tusks I
have seen were two that came to Quissembo, evidently taken from the
same animal; they weighed respectively 172 and 174 pounds!
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
1. Ankle-ring--2. Ring to ascend Palm-trees.--3. Cage for carrying
Ivory Tusks. 4. Engongui.--5. Fetish figure.--6. Mask.--7. Pillow.
_To face page 140._]
The knives on Plate V. were obtained from natives composing these
caravans.
From all the more intelligent natives I always obtained the same
information respecting the origin of the ivory brought down to the
coast, namely, that it was all from animals killed, and not from
elephants found dead. The natives from the interior always laughed at
the idea of ivory becoming scarce from the numbers of elephants that
must necessarily be killed to supply the large number of tusks annually
brought down,--the number slaughtered must therefore be very small in
comparison to the living herds they must be in the habit of seeing on
the vast plains of the interior. They are said to be shot, and that the
natives put such a charge of powder and iron bullets into their guns
that when fired from the shoulder the hunter cannot use his gun again
that day, so great is the kick he gets from its recoil. I can well
understand that this is not an exaggerated account, from the manner in
which blacks always load a gun, the charge of powder being one handful,
as much as it can hold, then a wadding of baobab fibre, then lead shot,
or lead or iron bullets (in default of which they use the heavy round
pieces of pisolitic iron ore very common in the country), another wad
of baobab fibre, and the gun must then show that it is loaded a “palm,”
or about eight or nine inches of the barrel.
On festive occasions, or at their burials, the guns are loaded with a
tamping of “fuba,” or fine mandioca-meal, instead of other wadding, and
they then give a terrific report when fired off, and not unfrequently
burst.
This coast abounds with fish, but very few of the natives engage in
their capture, as they make so much by trading that they will not take
the trouble. Several fish, such as the “Pungo,” weighing as much as
three “arrobas,” or ninety-six pounds, visit the coast only in the
“cacimbo” or cold season of the year, or from June to August.
The Bay of Musserra is a noted place for large captures of this fine
fish, as many as forty or fifty being caught in a day by the natives,
with hook and line, from their small curious shaped canoes. It is a
very firm-fleshed fish, and cut up, salted, and dried in the sun, was
a great article of trade at Musserra, being sold to the natives from
the interior, particularly to the “Zombos” composing the caravans of
ivory, who are very fond of salt fish. There was a great row in the
season 1870, which was a very scarce one for ground-nuts, between the
natives of the interior and the blacks at Musserra, on account of the
latter taking to collect Adansonia fibre in preference to catching
“Pungo,” and therefore disappointing the inlanders of their favourite
salt delicacy.
The canoes on this part of the coast, and as far north as Cabinda, are
very curious, and totally unlike any that I have seen anywhere else.
They are composed of two rounded canoes lashed or sewn together below,
and open at the top. This aperture is narrow, and each canoe forms, as
it were, a long pocket. The natives stand or sit on them with their
legs in the canoe, or astride, as most convenient according to the
state of the surf, on which these canoes ride beautifully.
The town of Musserra was formerly a large and populous one, but
small-pox and “sleep disease” have reduced it to a mere handful.
This “sleep disease” was unknown south of the River Congo, where it
formerly attacked the slaves collected in the barracoons for shipment.
It suddenly appeared at the town of Musserra alone, where, I was told
by the natives, as many as 200 of the inhabitants died of it in a few
months. This was in 1870, and, curious to say, it did not spread to the
neighbouring towns. I induced the natives to remove from the old town,
and the mortality decreased till the disease died out.
This singular disease appears to be well known at Gaboon, &c., and is
said to be an affection of the cerebellum. The subjects attacked by it
suffer no pain whatever, but fall into a continual heavy drowsiness
or sleep, having to be awakened to be fed, and at last become unable
to eat at all, or stand, and die fast asleep as it were. There is no
cure known for it, and the patients are said to die generally in about
twenty to forty days after being first attacked.
There was nothing in the old town to account for this sudden and
singular epidemic; it was beautifully clean, and well built on high,
dry ground, surrounded by mandioca plantations, and the last place to
all appearance to expect such a curious outbreak.
About four or five miles inland of Musserra, on a ridge of low
hills, stands the remarkable granite pillar marked on the charts, and
forming a capital landmark to ships at sea (Plate V.).
[Illustration: PLATE V.
Granite Pillar of Musserra.--1. Wooden Trumpet.--2. Hoe.--3. Pipe.--4.
Knives.--5 and 6. Clapping Hands, and Answer.
_To face page 145._]
The country at that distance from the coast is singularly wild in
appearance, from the whole being broken up into what can only be
compared to a vast granite quarry:--huge blocks of this rock, of
every imaginable size and shape, are scattered over the hilly ground,
thickly interspersed with gigantic baobabs and creepers. Some of the
masses of rock imitate grotesquely all manner of objects: a very
curious one is exactly like a huge cottage-loaf stuck on the top of a
tall slender pillar. Others are generally rounded masses, large and
small, piled one on top of another, and poised and balanced in the
most fantastic manner. This extraordinary appearance is due to softer
horizontal layers or beds in the granite weathering unequally, and to
strongly-marked cleavage planes running N.N.E. and S.S.W.
The granite pillar itself stands on the top of one of the last of the
low hills forming the rocky ridge that comes down to within a few miles
of the coast. It consists of a huge slice or flat piece of granite,
facing the sea, standing upright on another block that serves it for a
pedestal. The top piece is about forty-five feet high, and twenty-seven
broad at the base, and eight to ten feet thick. Its faces correspond to
the cleavage plane of the granite of the country, and from large masses
that lie around on the same hill, it is clear that these have fallen
away from each side, and left it alone standing on the top. The square
pedestal on which it stands is about forty feet long, and twenty high,
by twenty-seven wide. I climbed once to the top of this square block
by the help of a small tree growing against it, and found that the
top piece rested on three points that I could just crawl under. Under
some lichen growing there I found numbers of a beetle (_Pentalobus
barbatus_, Fabr.), which I presented to the British Museum.
A considerable quantity of salt is made by the natives of this part of
the coast, from Quissembo to Ambrizzette, particularly at the latter
place, in the small salt marshes near the sea, and with which they
carry on a trade with the natives from the interior.
At the end of the dry season the women and children divide the surface
of these marshes into little square portions or pans, by raising mud
walls a few inches high, so as to enclose in each about two or three
gallons of the water, saturated with salt from the already nearly
evaporated marsh. As the salt crystallizes in the bottom of these
little pans, it is taken out, and more water added, and so the process
is continued until the marsh is quite dry. In many cases a small
channel is cut from the marsh to the sea (generally very close to it)
to admit fresh sea-water at high tide.
It is an amusing sight to see numbers of women and children, all stark
naked, standing sometimes above their knees in the water, baling
it into the “pans” with small open baskets or “quindas,” and all
singing loudly a monotonous song;--others are engaged in filling large
“quindas” with dirty salt from the muddy pans, whilst others again are
busily washing the crystallized salt by pouring sea-water over it till
all the mud is washed away, and the basketfuls of salt shine in the sun
like driven snow.
Towards evening long lines of women and children will be seen carrying
to their towns, on their heads, the harvest of salt, and great is the
fun and chaff from them if they meet a white man travelling in a
hammock,--all laughing and shouting, and wanting to shake hands, and
running to keep pace with the hammock-bearers.
The proprietress of each set of little evaporating pans marks them as
her property by placing a stick in each corner, to which is attached
some “fetish” to keep others from pilfering. This “fetish” is generally
a small bundle of strips of cloth or rags, or a small gourd or baobab
fruit containing feathers, fowl-dung, “tacula” (red wood), or very
often some little clay or wooden figure, grotesquely carved, and
coloured red and white.
Quantities of little fish are also captured about the same time from
these marshes, being driven into corners, &c., and prevented from
returning to the marsh by a mud wall. The water from the enclosure thus
formed is then baled out by the women with baskets, and the fish caught
in the mud. I have often seen as many as twenty women all standing in a
line, baling out the water from a large pool in which they had enclosed
shoals of little fish. These are spread out on the ground to dry in the
sun, and the stench from them during the process is something terrific.
When dry they are principally sold to natives from the interior.
Many kinds of aquatic birds of all sizes flock in the dry season to
these marshes, where a rich abundance of finny food awaits them, and it
is curious to see what little regard they pay to the women collecting
salt or baling water, and singing loudly in chorus, very often quite
close to them. The reason of this tameness is that the natives seldom
fire at or molest them, only a very few hunters shooting wild-ducks for
sale to the white men, though they will always eat any kind of rank
gull or other bird that a white man may shoot. Very beautiful are the
long lines of spoonbills, flamingoes, and herons of different species,
standing peacefully in these shallow marshes, their snow-white plumage
and tall graceful forms brightly reflected on the dark unruffled
surface of the water.
The marshes on this coast are fortunately not extensive enough to
influence much the health of the white residents; they are all
perfectly salt, and free from mangrove or other vegetation, and
generally dry up completely (with rare exceptions) in the dry season,
when sometimes the stench from them is very perceptible.
The worst season for Europeans is about May, June, and July, when the
marshes are quite full from the last heavy rains, and exhale no smell
whatever.
The point at Musserra is composed of sandstone, the lower beds of which
are strongly impregnated with bitumen, so strongly, indeed, that it
oozes out in the hot season.
At Kinsao, near Mangue Grande, and a few miles to the interior, a lake
of this mineral pitch is said to exist, but of course the natives will
not allow a white man to visit the locality to ascertain the fact,
and it is also “fetish” for the natives to trade in it. The fear of
annexation of the country by the white men has caused the natives to
“fetish” and absolutely prohibit even the mention of another very
important article--malachite--of which there is every reason to believe
a large deposit exists, about six miles up the river at Ambrizzette.
The scenery up this little river is very lovely, but the natives will
not allow white men to ascend more than a few miles or up to a hill
beyond which the deposit or mine of malachite is believed to exist. In
the slave-trading time quantities of this mineral in fine lumps used to
be purchased of the natives from this locality, but on the occupation
of Ambriz by the Portuguese, in 1855, for the purpose of reaching the
malachite deposit at Bembe, the natives of Ambrizzette closed the
working of their mine, and it remains so to this day, and nothing will
induce them to open it again.
I have had many private conversations with them, and tried hard to make
them work it again, but, as might be expected, without success.