Through Angola, a coming colony

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

FFIE-MACKENZIE

THROUGH ANGOLA

THROUGH ANGOLA

A COMING COLONY

BY

COLONEL J. C. B. STATHAM

C.M.G., C.B.E.

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY

FELLOW OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY

FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

DIPLOMAT!-: IN TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

WITH 138 ILLUSTRATIONS
2 MAPS AND 4 CHARTS

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS

EDINBURGH & LONDON

I 922

PREFACE

WHEN still a child, forty years ago, I was
taught to hold a gun and try not to be
afraid when the bigger folk with me were
hunting bear and tiger in India. During the last
twenty years a notebook and camera have gone
with the guns, but so far none of the diaries of
these fifteen hunting trips have been published.
This book, taken largely from the last diary, was
written in Dublin, simply to wile away the long-
curfew hours of waiting and suspense of an officer's
life in Ireland. What to me was a curfew task
may be of value as the first work published in
English for fifty years on Angola, a wonderful
African colony, with vast bracing uplands and
wealth in its many resources, a fauna of rare
animals, a flora of many beautiful plants, and
great promise of future colonization and commerce.
It was at an Angolan port that Livingstone,
my boyhood's hero, and the bravest yet gentlest
of all explorers, ended his first great African
journey in 1853, and as my first African journey,
made many years ago, had been a pilgrimage to
where his heart lies buried at Lake Banguelo,

vi THROUGH ANGOLA

both sentiment and interest urged me to Angola
to see a country which he had crossed.

The two chapters on the voyage to Angola, by
way of the islands of the Desertas, with their wild
goats ; of Cape Verde, and their barren grandeur ;
San Thome and Principe, with their tropical
beauty, may interest those who sail by them or
care to know their story. That on the history of
the colony goes back 350 years, and is full of
curious incident and quaint custom taken from
original works of earlier centuries in Portuguese,
Italian, Dutch, and French.

Three chapters deal with the railways of the
colony. The story of the Benguella-Katanga line
and how a Briton fought single-handed to prevent
German control of this valuable commercial and
strategical route, is a small tribute to one of that
famous band of men of whom Rhodes was the chief.

The chapter on the highlands of Angola, land,
soil, stock produce, and 400 species of its plant
life may benefit the settler, as that on the
economic future may interest the investor.

The description of 350 animals, and the quest and
hunting of the g;ant sable will give an idea of Angola's
fY.una and that splendid newly-found antelope, of
its habits and the country it lives in, and induce
others to seek it with mercy and protect its future.

The pages devoted to insects and the diseases
they carry are written from many years of scientific

PREFACE vii

observation of African insect life and tropical
maladies ; while those on physiography and climate
may help the traveller in Angola to avoid its un-
healthy regions and seasons.

The description of native customs and religion
were written from notes made on this journey,
and from older historians like Cavazzi, Carli,
Dapper, and Douville, who described these customs
before they were affected by Western civilization.

To keep the large map up to date, projected
as well as actual roads and posts are shown, and
constantly changing villages omitted. Names are
spelt as in Portuguese maps. For their pronun-
ciation, C has a K sound ; Ch and X that of Sh ;
and vowels are pronounced continentally.

I am indebted to Mr. W. Smith, M.A., of
Edinburgh, and Mr. Studt for revising the botany
and geology chapters ; to Lieut. -Col. Tate and
Majors Hayes, Kelly, and Finlayson for help in
other directions ; to Mr. Leo Weinthal of the
African World; to Mr. Whitside of Bedfont, Mr.
W. Scott of Glasgow, Captain Cossart and
Mr. Perestrello of Madeira, and Messrs. Grenfell
and Hart of Mossamedes for the loan of twelve
photographs ; and to Colonel Roma Machado for
sending me books and maps.

J. C. B. STATHAM.

EDINBURGH, February 1922.

CONTENTS

PART I
THE JOURNEY

BY THE DESERTED ISLANDS TO ANGOLA, AND
THROUGH IT IN QUEST OF THE GIANT SABLE

CHAPTER I

THE QUEST OF THE GIANT SABLE — ENGLAND TO MADEIRA — PAGE
THE WILD GOATS OF THE DESERTAS . . .3

CHAPTER II
MADEIRA TO ANGOLA BY THK WEST AFRICAN ISLANDS . 18

CHAPTER III
LOANDA TO MELANJE AND THE NORTHERN AM.OI.AX HAU.V, \v 32

CHAPTER IV

THE MARCH SOUTH TO FIND THE SABLE . . .43

CHAPTER V
MY FIRST GIANT SABLE ... .60

CHAPTER VI
A NIGHT WATCH : PHOTOGH \PIIY AND BAD LUCK . 73

x THROUGH ANGOLA

CHAPTER VII

THE HOME OF THE SADLK — A PLUCKY BEAST — THE PEOPLE PAGE
MET — THE COUNTRY TRAVERSED . . .89

CHAPTER VIII
CROSSING THE CENTRAL PLATEAU OF ANGOLA . . 104

CHAPTER IX
THE CENTRAL ANGOLAN RAILWAY . . . .115

CHAPTER X
A LION ADVENTURE AND A CHAMELEON STORY . .129

CHAPTER XI

SOUTH AGAIN — CATENGUE TO LUBANGO, AND A BUFFALO

STORY ....... 140

CHAPTER XII

MY JOURNEY IN THE PLATEAU AND DESERT LAND OF SOUTH

ANGOLA AND ALONG THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY . .155

PART II

THE COLONY

ITS PAST, PEOPLE, ANIMALS, PHYSICAL
FEATURES, FARMING, PLANTS, AND FUTURE

CHAPTER XIII
How THE PORTUGUESE TOOK AND HELD ANGOLA . .169

CHAPTER XIV
ANGOLAN TRIBES — THEIR ORIGIN AND RELIGION 190

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER XV

PAGE

CHARACTER, HABITS, AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANGOLA NATIVES 208

CHAPTER XVI

NATIVE HUNTERS AND THEIR WAYS — (TAME AREAS AND THE

WAY THERE ..... . 228

CHAPTER XVII
THE WILD ANIMALS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION . . 245

CHAPTER XVIII
SOME INSECTS MET BY THE WAY .... 283

CHAPTER XIX

PHYSIOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, AND CLIMATE — HEALTH AND DISEASE 299

CHAPTER XX

LAND AND SOILS — STOCK AND PRODUCE OF NATIVE FARM

AND EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT . . . .318

CHAPTER XXI

*

OTHER FLORA OF THE COLONY, ITS DISTRIBUTION AND NATURE 339
INDEX TO THE FLORA ..... 364

CHAPTER XXII
THE ECONOMIC AND GAME FUTURE OF THE COLONY . . 367

BIBLIOGRAPHY FROM AUTHOR'S LIBRARY . . . 379

GENERAL INDEX 38]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE GIANT SABLE AT HOME — HUGE BEASTS WITH WONDROUS

HORNS ...... Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

THE DESERTED ISLANDS, WHERE I HUNTED WILD GOATS . 8

DESERTED ISLANDS — SHEER DOWN, 800 FEET BELOW, WAS

THE SURGING SEA . . . . .8

FUNCHAL HARBOUR ...... 9

DESERTED ISLANDS — CARRYING THE GOAT HOME . . 9

PAREISHA AND Two OF THE LUGGER'S CREW . . 9

GOAT HEADS BY THE ENTRANCE OF OUR CAVE . . 9

THE " GOBLIN COUNTRY" . . . .17

WATERFALL ON DANDE RIVER . . . .32

CONGO DISTRICT, WTOMEN MAKING DRESSES FROM BARK FIBRE 33
KINDLY FOLK AND GOOD MOTHERS . . . .33

MY FIRST CAMP IN THE SABLE COUNTRY . . 48

DOMESTICS AND CARRIERS , ... 48

AN OLD HUNTER'S GRAVE NEAR A iiuT (UNDER WHICH HE

is BURIED), WITH HUNTING TROPHIES AND CALABASH . 49

BOY HUNTER'S GRAVE, WITH RUDE MODELS OF ANIMALS, AND
Two DUIKER SKULLS SHOWING AGAINST BINOCULARS AND
CARRIER'S FACE . . . . . .49

xiv THROUGH ANGOLA

FACING PAGE

MY SECOND BULL SABLE . . . . .64

CAMP AND HEADS of THE FIRST Two SABLE BULLS KILLED . 64
THE 60-lNCHER . . . . . .65

"THE KING is DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING!" . . 96

A SABLE Cow . . . . . .96

CAMP BETWEEN LUCE AND LUSENGO RlVERS, WITH HEADS OF

SEVEN BULL AND ONE Cow SABLE IN FOREGROUND . 97

" PLANT/' NEAR CHISONGO, FOR EXTRACTING SALT FROM THE

MUD OF THE LUSENGO RIVER . . . -97

CROSSING THE COANZA RIVER AT C'HUSO VILLAGE . .112

THE OPEN HIGH PLATEAU . . . . .112

THE OLD TRANSPORT METHOD — Ox WAGONS . .113

AND THE NEW — BENGUELLA-KATANGA (CENTRAL ANGOLAN)

RAILWAY. . . . . . .113

THE BUSY PIER AT LOBITO BAY . . .128

CATUMBELLA RIVER . . . . . .129

THE BED OF THE COPOROLLO RIVER, WITH BUSH AND Two

BAOBAB TREES . . . . . .144

A WELL-BUILT VILLAGE . . . . .144

A STOCKADED VILLAGE . . . . .145

How BABIES ARE CARRIED IN ANGOLA . . . 145

"JiMMY" SITTING ON MY HAT AND WEARING HIS HARNESS . 176

WXLWITSCHIA MIRABILIS — THE OcTOPUS-LIKE PLANT OF THE

DESERT, SOMETIMES 10 FEET ACROSS AND A HUNDRED
YEARS OLD . . . . . .176

MOSSAMEDES PoRT AND ToWN IN THE SOUTHERN DESERT . 177
THE EASTERN TELEGRAPH COMPANY'S HOUSE AT MOSSAMEDES 177

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv

FACING PAGE

THE CONGO, MBUNDU, LUNDA, AND SOUTH ANGOLA LANGUAGE

GROUPS OF THE TRIBES OK THE COLONY . .192

" RARA Avis" — A LADY WITCH DOCTOR . . . 193

RAIN-MAKER ....... 200

TRIAL BY FIRE ORDEAL .... 200

TRIAL BY POISON ORDEAL ..... 200

A NATIVE FUNERAL DANCE . . . . .201

WITCH DOCTORS CALLING DOWN RAIN . . .201

A WITCH DOCTOR . . . . . .201

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS OF ANGOLAN

NATIVES . . . . . . .216

HEAD-DRESS OF ANGOLAN TRIBKS . . . .216

HEAD-DRESS OF ANGOLAN TRIBES . . . .217

GRINDING CORN AND PREPARING " INFCNDI " . . . 224

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS ..... 224

A TREE OF SACRIFICE, WHERE SLAVE VICTIMS WERE TIED, AND

EATEN ALIVE BY ANTS TO CELEBRATE A TREATY OR A FEAST 225

GRAVE OF RICH NATIVE, WITH THOSE OF HIS BELONGINGS

NEEDED IN THE OTHER WORLD .... 225

GUIDE AND GUN-BOY ..... 232

TRANSPORT DONKEYS ...... 232

TREKKING BY WAGON — AND BY MOTOR . . . 232

A CONTRAST IN TRANSPORT METHODS — WAGON TEAM PASSING

A MOTOR-CAR ...... 233

CARRIERS DANCING — AND RESTING .... 233
A HERD OF SABLE — SOME LYING DOWN 240

xvi THROUGH ANGOLA

FACING PAGE

A REED BUCK . . ... 241

A MAN-EATING LEOPARD . . . . .241

TELEPHOTOGRAPH OF DUIKER HIDING IN GRASS . . 288

THE ORYX ... ... 288

DRIVER ANTS ON THE MARCH .... 289

A MIXED LODGING — AN ANT-BEAR BURROW IN AN ANT-HILL 289
RAINFALL MAP . . . . . .301

THE LIMESTONE HILLS OF THE COASTAL BELT . . 304

GEOLOGICAL CHART OF ANGOLA .... 305

APPROXIMATE AND COMPARATIVE CONTOURS OF ANGOLA FROM

THE SEA TO THE FRONTIER .... 307

BRITISH SETTLERS — AND THEIR FARM . . . 320

PLOUGHING IN THE BENGUELLA HIGHLANDS . . . 321

AN ANGOLAN Ox ...... 336

TRANSPORT OXEN ...... 336

ANGOLAN CATTLE ...... 337

A FARMSTEAD . . . . . .352

OUTBUILDINGS OF THE FARM — NEW STYLE AND THE OLD . 353
WHEAT YIELDING 40 BUSHELS AN ACRE . . . 368

WATER-POWER ...... 368

SETTLERS' HOUSES ...... 369

MAP OF ANGOLA .... In front

MAP OF SABLE COUNTRY AND ITS APPROACHES At end

PART I

THE JOURNEY

BY THE DESERTED ISLANDS TO ANGOLA,
AND THROUGH IT IN QUEST OF THE
GIANT SABLE

CHAPTER I

THE QUEST OF THE GIANT SAP.LE — ENGLAND TO
MADEIRA — THE WILD GOATS or THE DESERTAS

N the voyage to Angola, in April 1920, a
Portuguese judge gravely told me that
no countryman of his would be considered
sane if, after live years of the hazards and dis-
comforts of war, he set out at once for a year of
life in the African wilds. He added equally
gravely that of course Englishmen could not be
judged by any ordinary standard. And yet there
was great happiness for me in going back to so-
called savage Africa, from which, as the ancients
said, came ever something new ; where, unknown
to modern history, was once an ancient civilization,
recorded to-day in legends of long-gone empires,
and the relics of a culture coeval with the more
ancient States of Europe and Asia.

I was happy to go back to a land where any
day of march or search might bring some such
record of these far yesterdays of the human
African story, as it could bring something new
of its wonderful animal life ; looked forward to
those evenings by the camp fire where the old
men spoke of legend, and the young men of animal
lore. There was happiness in going back to watch

4 THROUGH ANGOLA

by wood and stream the life of bird and beast,
back to bush life with all its charms, and to the
great peace and silence of the jungle.

In the weary war years, one had dreamed
many hunting dreams. I was again in the lands
of the dwarf elephant and the pygmy hippo, or
hunting the gorilla in the Cameroons, and the
elephant in the Congo. Then would come that
longing to go back to the Barue and make sure
if the rumour of its white rhino was true, or to
know if that record giant eland, met years ago,
still roamed near the Bakoy River in Senegambia.
Though the foolish stories of the Brontosaurus of
Banguelo could never tempt one back to these
swamps, yet I did wonder whether a friend's story
of a new animal, half-hog, half-deer, possibly an
African babaroussa, was worth following to the
wilds of West and Central Africa. But all these
old haunts were too unhealthy for a war-worn
man ; to return to Canada or Sardinia was not
to escape civilization, and all hope of an expedition
planned to Siberia and the Kadiac Islands was
abandoned through transport and other difficulties.
Then I remembered what Captain Varian had told
me in France in 1917 of a little-known country
called Angola, which I remembered only as the
land of Livingstone's first great African journey,
and of a new antelope, the giant sable, which lived
in healthy highlands, and it was to follow again my
hero's footsteps, and for photographs and speci-
mens of this rare animal, that I went to Angola.

The common sable (Ilippotragus niger) has a
shoulder height of 13 hands in the bull, and some-

THE GIANT SABLE 5

what less in the cow. The colour, except for the
white of the belly and inner surfaces of the limbs,
is black in the adult bull, and varies from brown
in the young male to a dark fawn in the female.
On the face arc two white patches, one on the jaw,
the other a stripe running from eye to muzzle.
Both sexes carry a mane and curved, ringed horns,
3 to 4 feet long in the bull, but much shorter in the
cow.

The giant sable of Angola differs from the
common sable in its larger body, brighter chestnut
coat of the cow, and the shorter face-stripe x of the
bull. The most striking difference, however, lies
in the wondrous massive horns, which in the bull
sweep from head to flank in a glorious curve, 5 feet
in length. From European and native reports, and
the result of a trip in 1913, Varian described the
giant sable as inhabiting the watershed between
the Loando and Coanza Rivers ; while in 1919
he had shot them near the Loando. Major Odium
told me, some years ago, that he had seen sable
antelope with enormous horns near the Etosha Pan
in South- West Africa, just south of Angola, while
Selous found exceptionally long-horned sable on the
Chobe River, near the south- cast corner of Angola.

My trip to Angola has determined the northern
distribution of this splendid antelope, but it has
not solved the problem of how and from where
the sable arrived in their present location between
the Coanza and Loando Rivers. Are the big-
horned sable seen by Selous to the south-east of

1 This is not characteristic, as I have occasionally seen common
sable with short face-stripe.

6 THROUGH ANGOLA

Angola, and similar animals seen by Odium below
the southern boundary of Angola, giant or common
sable V If they are giant sable, perhaps portions
of these southern herds have trekked northwards
till Lheir march was stopped by the unfordable
nature of such large rivers as the Coanza and
Loando, in which waters] led this group of sable
now remains, separated from their kin hundreds
of miles to the south and south-east. On the
other hand, we mav have in this watershed a

«/

small family of sable antelope which, through a
long residence in special conditions, have altered
to a small extent in their skin markings, and
developed through special food material the mag-
nificent horns which distinguish them.

My war leave was to start in April 1920, a
very suitable date for the trip.

Angola, being situated south of the Equator,
has reversed climatic conditions to those obtaining
in Europe or Northern Africa. The hot season
and the rainfall occur between October and April,
the cold or dry season from May to September,
and it was during this part of the year that I
hoped to do most of my hunting in Angola. During
the rainy season the coarse grass grows here,
as elsewhere in Africa, to a height of many feet,
and with the thick foliage which the rains have
brought to all plant life, it is difficult to see or
track game animals. After March and April,
when the rains south of the Equator have ceased,
and the dry season has commenced, the natives
burn the drying grass to make hunting easier,
by destroying the cover which hides the game,

A TERRIBLE JOURNEY 7

and to clear new fields for cultivation. The dry
season is not only the cold, but also the healthy
season in Africa, for the absence of water in small
streams and pools means the absence of malarial
mosquitoes which breed in them.

Both the Portuguese Steamship Lines sailing
to Angola start from Lisbon, and after calling at
Madeira, San Vincent, and occasionally the more
southern Portuguese islands of San Thome and
Principe, visit the Angolan ports of Cabinda,
Loanda, Lobito Bay, and Mossamedes. Owing
to the rush of Portuguese passengers to Angola,
it had been impossible to secure a passage from
Lisbon to that colony, so I sailed for Madeira in
the Edinburgh Castle on 1st May, there to await
the Portuguese ships, and hope for a vacant berth.

On the voyage I met Yule, who in 1907, at
Broken Hill, had one day lifted me from the
hammock which had carried me, often delirious,
through hundreds of miles of bush from Lake
Banguelo in Central Africa. This terrible journey
happily ended in the kindly hands of Yule and
his friends, the first white men seen for many
weeks. Yule, who was now working at Elizabeth-
ville in the Congo, was returning there from short
leave in England, to hard Mother Africa, who,
though she often punishes her children, can always
call them back to her again.

On my arrival at Funchal, Madeira, all my guns
and stores for Angola were placed in bond in
the Custom-House — a convenient and economical
arrangement, effected rapidly by the Customs
officials of the port.

8 THROUGH ANGOLA

So far everything had gone well, but my mis-
fortunes began when I went to one of the best-
known English shipping companies, which appar-
ently was content to advertise the arrival of ships
without taking the trouble to verify their sailings.
A ship advertised to arrive on 25th May, passed
the island without calling ; others advertised to
arrive in June came in July, and it was only with
the help of a friend, Mr. Hinton of Madeira, that
I managed to get away from the island.

To those intending to visit Angola, I would
say avoid Madeira and its shipping agencies. If
travelling by a Portuguese ship from Lisbon,
book your passage several weeks in advance.
The best course is to sail from Rotterdam, or by
English ships that arc beginning to sail again,
generally from Liverpool, to Angola. Come back
if you can in the same way, for this will save you
the perfectly infernal Customs worries at Lisbon.

I will not describe modern Madeira, further
than to say that it is a beautiful island mountain,
rising to 6000 feet above the sea, that its climate
is like that of the south of France, and its
'' Quintas," or country houses, are as beautiful
as Funehal itself is ugly and dirty.

Two and a half months of my precious leave,
and the best of the hunting season, had been lost,
but not entirely wasted, as by hard study I learned
Portuguese, a language which helped me on my
trip through Angola, and to read old histories of
this part of Africa.

It is a curious fact that our friends the Portu-
guese, who allege that Livingstone, Bruce, Speke,

FUNCHAI. HARI5OUR

DESERTED ISLAM >S-- -CARRYING THE GOAT HOME

'.

V *A^^^^^^MBBWH™PPIfe

GOAT HEADS MY THE ENTRANCE OF OUR CAVE

A ROMANCE OF 1314 9

Grant, and other British explorers of the nineteenth
century did but follow in the footsteps of earlier
Portuguese travellers and discover the already
known, have forgotten that it was an Englishman,
and not, as they claim, a Portuguese, who dis-
covered Madeira. According to the Portuguese
it was Jean Gonsalvez and Tristan Vaez who, in
1420 A.D., discovered Madeira, and Vaez and Joao
Zarco who found Port Santo in 1428. They omit
to record that one of their own historians, Antonio
Galvano, gives the credit of the discovery to the
English sailor Macham as early as 1344 A.D.
In Hakluyt's Voyages is the following translation
of Macham's discovery :

" The voyage of Macham, an English Man,
wherein he first of any man discovered the Hand
of Madera, recorded verbatim in the Portugall
history written by Antonio Galvano.

" In the year 1344, King Peter the fourth of
that name reigning in Aragon, the Chronicles of
his age write that about this time the Hand of
Madera, standing in 32 degrees, was discovered
by an English Man, which was named Macham,
who sailing out of England into Spaine, with a
woman that he stole, arrived by tempest in that
Hand and did cast anker in that haven or bay,
which now is called Machico after the name of
Macham. And because his lover was seasicke,
he wreiit on land with some of his company, and
the shippe with a good winde made saile away,
and the woman died for thought. Macham, which
loved her dearly, built a chapell or hermitage, to

10 THROUGH ANGOLA

bury her in, calling it by the name of Jesus, and
caused his name and hers to be written or graven
upon the stone of her tombe, and the occasion of
their arrivall there. And afterwards he ordcined
a boat made of one tree (for there be trees of a
great compasse about) and went to sea in it,
with those men that he had, and were left behinde
with him, and came upon the coast of Afrike,
without saile or oare. And the Moores which
saw it tooke it to be a marvellous thing, and pre-
sented him unto the king of that countrey for a
woonder, and that king also sent him and his
companions for a miracle unto the king of Castile."

When first discovered, the Madeira Islands were
covered with dense forests, and a fire set alight
at Madeira is said to have lasted for seven years.

In my equipment was a " Reflex " quarter-
plate camera, built years ago to my design, for
use with tclephotograph lenses, which for the
moment were a 25-inch Grandac and a 13-inch
Telecentric. Both to test the camera and for the
excellent sport they afforded, I obtained permission
from Mr. Hinton and Captain Cossart to hunt
wild goats in the Dcsertas, islands near Madeira,
of which they arc the thirteenth owners or lords.

The first lord of the Descrtas was Zarco, who
discovered them in 1428, and his family held
these islands in fief to the Portuguese Crown for
nearly five hundred years. They then passed to
a Madeira family, and finally were purchased
by Hinton's and Cossart's fathers, some forty
years ago, for the sport they afforded and any

THE DESERTED ISLANDS 11

revenue which the gathering of Orehilla moss
(a once i'amous dye product) might yield.

These islands were first occupied in the
fifteenth century, and used mainly for pastoral
purposes, as is shown by this extract from Hakluytfs
Voyages, as quoted from the letters of Thomas
Nicols, an Englishman, in 1526 :

" On the East side of the He of Madcra sixe
leagues distant standeth another litle Hand called
the Desert, which produce th oncly Orchcll, and
nourisheth a great number of Goates, for the
provision of the maine Hand."

A great cloud-burst destroyed the few farms
and the old Chapel of Deserta Grande over a
century ago, and drove away the inhabitants with
their flocks and herds. Ever since then the
islands have been left to wild goat and sea-gull,
which haunt crag and crest of their wall-like cliffs,
and to the seals, which live deep down in caves
where the sea breaks over a rocky shore.

There are three islands in the Dcsertas, and
while all arc precipitous, they differ much in size.
The most easterly, Chaon, about half a mile long,
is flat topped, and some SCO feet high. Deserta
Grande, the central island, nearly 12 miles long,
rises to a height of 1500 feet in the centre, sloping
to 600 or 700 feet at either end, by an open valley
westwards, and a sharp saddleback to the east.
Bugio, the eastern island, though called Monkey's
Back, resembles a crocodile's more closely. It is
some 7 miles long, and rises in a line of sheer
cliffs from the sea.

12 THROUGH ANGOLA

On Bugio there are big black goats with horns
up to 2 feet in length. Those of Deserta Grande
are smaller, both in head and body, and mostly
brownish in colour. There were once wild sheep
on the island, but the last of them was shot nearly
fifty years ago.

Chaon, the smallest island, has no goats, but
only Belgian hares. There are a few wild cats
as well, the progeny of ships' cats, stranded from
a wreck.

The goats of the Desertas are usually hunted
by drives, and the beaters come from a village
called Canico, in Madeira. They arc splendid
climbers, who have learned their work while
hunting for puffins and Orchilla weed on the
cliffs. When I sailed one day early in June from
Madeira for the Desertas, three of these moun-
taineers were to have accompanied me ; but it
wras a " Festa " day, and any one who knows
Madeira knows that no true Madeira man will
work on a " Festa " day, so it happened that twro
of the three hunters were not ready, and the
lugger sailed with only one guide beside the crew.
This guide was Zabrugar, otherwise called Pareisha,
the veteran of the Desertas, seventy years old,
but hardy, and with the foot of a goat.

After a rough crossing in a heavy sea, the
lugger anchored in the lee of Chaon Island, and
Pareisha and I were landed by boat, through
the surf, on a rocky cove called Castaneira. The
boat's crew went off to rejoin the lugger, promising
to return next day if the sea allowed it ; and old
Pareisha and I picked our way over the rocks

WILD GOATS OF THE DESERTAS 13

with our food and blankets, the rifle and camera,
to sleep in a cave under the cliffs.

The next day the boat failed to come, and
we had to climb a cleft in the cliffs and carry
our kit as best we could. Cossart had told me at
Madeira that Pareisha was the best climber of all
the mountaineers of Canico, and I could well believe
this, for the old man climbed with the big camera
and haversack better than I did with rifle alone.

The cliff path was so steep that I had to use
both hands and feet in the climb. When we at
last stood on the crest of the eastern cliff of the
island, we could see below us the flat-topped
island of Chaon rising like a table from the sea,
while 20 miles farther eastward was Madeira.
Sheer down, hundreds of feet belowr us, was the cove
from where we had climbed, with the ever-restless
sea. To the west lay an open valley, sloping
upwards for several miles to a hill in the centre
of the island, and in the foreground of the valley
was a herd of wild goats with one big ram.

We had been late in starting and the scenery
would stay but the goats would not, so down I
went, toe and elbow, to the old game, the best game
in the world, the matching of a hunter's craft
against the wiliest of all animals, the wild goat
in his mountains. But alas ! I had reckoned
without Pareisha, who liked climbing and would
beat for goats, bub who did not think it meet for
the King of the Canico Highlanders to crawl on
his belly like any snake in the grass. Tims it
was that, after creeping along painfully for some
distance on the stony ground, I found old Pareisha

14 THROUGH ANGOLA

walking upright, yards behind me. Owing to his
stubbornness I lost my first chance, as the goats
saw Pareisha and ran, giving me a difficult shot
at a hundred yards at the ram, which appeared at
the time to have been missed, though actually
mortally wounded and found dead soon after.

A mile or so up the valley, searching continually
for goats, we came to a rough stone wall and a
broken well ; farther on, a ruined house and the
remains of a chapel — all that was left of three
hundred years of human occupation. Man was
driven from the island by the fierce wind and rain
a hundred years ago ; then the wild sheep disap-
peared (even a pair of moufflon from Sardinia placed
on the island have never been seen since) ; the
last of the pine woods is nearly gone, the dying
trees throwing out innumerable cones in a pathetic
and desperate endeavour to reproduce their kind.

The goat alone is left, as hardy as a life amidst
little grazing and less water can make him ; wary
and ever more watchful as the years go by, but
happy possibly in the freedom of the wilds.

After continual searching we saw and then
stalked on the northern cliff of the island a small
herd, of which the big goat was mortally wounded
and found refuge in a precipice, from which it
seemed impossible to retrieve him ; but old
Pareisha went down the cliff without a word, and
a couple of hours after brought up the goat. I
watched part of his climb, and the ground he
traversed was so steep as to have been very difficult
for a young mountaineer to have crossed, un-
burdened ; for an old man of seventy to have

WILD GOATS OF THE DESERTAS 15

done so, with a goat on his back, was a marvel.
I would never have asked Pareisha to go down the
cliff, and would have stopped him had I known
his intention, but from what one saw of him later
in the day it was easy to realize that the old man
was as sure-footed on these rocky precipices as
the goats he hunted. The dead goat was about
30 inches high at the shoulder, and of a brown
colour, with dark forequartcrs and beard, a black
saddle, and a dark line running down the back.
The horns, 13 inches long, had the spiral twist of
the domestic and not the wild goat.

I had no wish to go on killing, the least part
of hunting, now that the specimen I wanted was
lying there ; but the Lords of the Descrtas had
asked me to kill off some of the older rams in the
interests of breeding, so I resolved that the
hunting of each of them should be worthy of the
wonderful barren mountain in the sea. While
Pareisha watched for goats, I fear my eyes saw
only the blue sea and breaking white foam on the
shore, and purpling heather on the hill, where
sunshine and shadows were chasing each other
as the fierce wind swept the clouds across the sun.

Curiously enough, however, it was I who
saw the old goat, just a glint of horn behind the
rock where he was lying. A delightfully difficult
stalk brought me within a hundred yards before
the goat saw me, jumped and ran, but fell to the
shot. A much bigger male now showed himself
—a cripple — one leg was stiff and his pace slow.
Lie was spared, perhaps less for his sake than that
of the harem, which surrounded him so affectionately

16 THROUGH ANGOLA

to hustle him away. It was growing dark, the
sun had set in a glory of reds and yellows, turning
to purple and grey, so we started to scramble down
the steep cliff to our cave by the sea.

About fifty or sixty goats had been seen during
the day, and the great majority had been of the
same brown colour as the two shot. Some, how-
ever, were of a lighter tint, but still carried the
dark saddle marking and back stripe of the brown
goat. The does were generally brown, though one
or two were almost black in colour. The kids
were usually light fawn, a few were grey.

There is some evidence of protective colora-
tion and reversion to the wild type in the mark-
ings and colour of the goat of the Desertas, which
continues to approximate more closely to that of
the rocks among which he lives ; the black-and-
white animals are being eliminated, possibly
through their conspicuousness ; and the rock-
coloured goat is now the dominant type. Unable
to sleep for thirst (our remaining water supply had
become tainted), I lay awake listening to the cry
of hundreds of gulls and puffins, indignant perhaps
at an intrusion into their lonely island home.

We managed next day to attract the attention
of the lugger's crew, who brought us fresh water,
and carried our blankets and food up the cliffs to
the valley, while we hunted the higher ground
which lies above it ; first stalking a herd which
contained no good head and was left in peace, and
then a big goat in what I called the " goblin
country," a land of deep gullies and weird columns
of red sand, mixed with round volcanic stones.

LEAVE THE DESERTAS 17

These columns were of all sizes and shapes, eut
out from the soil by the storms of many years.

In this goblin country, the old goat lay behind
a rock well guarded by three nannies. The stalk
was successful, and I felt so sure of the animal
that, instead of waiting for him to get up, I fired
when he was lying down, and the bullet went over
his back. In a flash, the old goat, who knew
what a bullet meant, was round a corner, and when
next seen was running down the cliff 300 yards
away. I would far rather have photographed
goats than shot them, but the terrific wind, drift-
ing mists, and rain rendered this impossible.
Though we worked hard all day, we never saw
another good head, and went back to our blankets,
under a wall of the ruined house, to sleep as best
we could, in a gale that was driving the rain
through our clothes to our very bones.

The next day, after losing one good head
through a shifting wind which spoilt a good stalk, I
managed to bag another, of 14 inches ; but bitterly
regretted that my camera had been left behind,
for the sun came out as we approached the herd,
and gave me the chance of a good photograph.
After this I always carried the camera, and had
one wonderful chance, when a goat came grazing
to within 30 yards of where we were having lunch
behind a rock. The movement I made to get the
camera betrayed me, and the goat bolted.

That night I left the Desertas, and left them
with deep regret, but our food and water supply
were exhausted, and the men of the lugger Avere
clamouring to get back to Madeira.

CHAPTER II

MADEIRA TO ANGOLA BY THE WEST
AFRICAN ISLANDS

OX 4th July, the first Angola-bound ship
entered Funchal harbour, and through
niy friend Hinton's influence my passage
was secured. That night, as Madeira faded into
the shadows, I felt that at last the weary
weeks of waiting were over, and new lands and a
happier life lay ahead.

The Mossamedes, which now sailed under the
green-and-red flag of Portugal, had been once
the P. & O. liner Sumatra, an old friend, met
years ago, bound for Indian seas. Far-away days
those — of youngsters eagerly looking forward to
life in India : of youth and hope and comradeship,
which time and war have sadly changed.

But now we sailed, a very different company.
There were Portuguese officials, both military
and civil, merchants, planters, and agents, bound
not only for Angola, but for one or other of the
West African islands as well. A large number
of the Portuguese were mulattoes, and some of
those who had no negro blood were very dark,
probably through an old-time Moorish ancestry.
There seemed to be no colour line and class dis-

i3

A QUESTION OF COLOUR 19

tinctions as we know them — blaek, brown, and
white, or white, brown, and black : the order of
social precedence could be either way ; while
Portuguese officers had black wives, and white
women dark husbands. Even to one who had
travelled in foreign colonies, the extent of this
intermingling W7as remarkable, and even more
astonishing was the presence on board of illegiti-
mate children returning from Portugal where
they had been educated with their father's
relatives. This absence of a colour bar and the
free mating of the Portuguese with coloured
women may lose him respect among natives,
but, it is only fair to say, seems to gain him a
certain measure of their affection.

There were a dozen Americans aboard going
to Angola to work in the great mineral concessions
which America had obtained in Angola. The
men were mostly young and energetic, very like
young Englishmen, and as keen to see the new
country and know the woods and wilds as one's
own countrymen would have been.

The meals on Portuguese ships are tea and
biscuits in the early morning, lunch at eleven,
tea at four, dinner at seven, supper at nine. The
wines were excellent and the food wras good, if
one could avoid the bachalau, a kind of mature
cod-fish, served as a stew with potatoes and rice,
a dish from which I would always slip away to the
deck and fresh air. One might get to like bachalau
in a breezy dining-room or on solid earth, as one
gets to like strong cheese, but I retire before this
very dead fish in a stuffy saloon at b

20

Four days after leaving Madeira we steamed
in between two barren islands, rising high from
the sea, San Antonio and San Vincent.

We had passed the fabled Sargasso Sea of
the ancients, where such masses of seaweed were
said to grow that ships were held fast until freed
by a favouring wind. It was here that Sataspes
is supposed to have been held fast and forced to
re burn to Egypt, from where he had started to
sail round Africa. Sataspes had been condemned
to crucifixion by Xerxes for the rape of the daughter
of Zopyrus, but his mother, the sister of Darius,
interceded with Xerxes, and the sentence was
changed to the African journey. Sataspes, after
passing out of the Mediterranean and wrhcn near
the Fortunate Islands, is supposed to have met
the seaweed of Sargasso, but, yearning for the
ilcsh-pots of Egypt, had sailed back there with
this story.

The wind was blowing half a gale as we steamed
into San Vincent harbour, a somewhat open road-
stead, depending on the mountain heights of the
two neighbouring islands for its shelter. In the
middle of the harbour is a small island and light-
house. Even here the seas were breaking in spray
100 feet up its steep rocks. At San Vincent were
lying a dozen ships of all nations, and four ships,
too, that will never sail the seas again ; for they
are the wrecks of vessels torpedoed in the Great
War. San Vincent has become one of the world's
main coaling and cable stations, for it lies on the
great sea-way to South America. We were in
quarantine for a supposed case of small-pox,

SAN VINCENT 21

and could not land to escape the coal dust, which
we suffered for two days, so slow were the methods
of coaling by barges, and so great the press of
ships to be coaled, for the ships' flags of nine nations
were flying in the bay.

The great barren hills of San Vincent remind
one much of Aden. Rising abruptly from the
sea were great hills with rocky crag and sandy
valley, with never a patch of green, and in the
foreground an ugly, shadclcss town. Here, unlike
the stillness of Aden, were the endless rush of
wind and the roar of the sea.

The Islands of Cape Verde were discovered by
Luis de Cadamosto and a Genoese gentleman in
the service of Portugal in 1440, whose adventures
are to be found in Ramusio's Voyages of the
sixteenth century. The first island these sea
captains saw they called 13 oa Vista, to show their
happiness, and from this island, which was un-
inhabited, and where the doves were so tame that
the sailors killed them with their hands, they saw
two other islands near them, and others farther
away to the north and west. After leaving Boa
Vista, they sailed south to an island they called
San Thiago, as this was the saint day on which
it was sighted. At San Thiago they found a river
with fresh water and numbers of great turtles,
which they declared were very good to eat.

I am afraid the turtles had all been eaten before
the Mossamedes steamed into the harbour of San
Thiago and anchored off Praya, which is the
Government centre of the whole group of the Cape
Verde Islands and the sent of the bishop and

22

cathedral church. Thiago is very much prettier
than Sau Vincent ; trees and grass are to be found
in the valleys of the island, which does not rise
into the barren rocky mountains and ravines that
are so mournful a feature in San Vincent.

We reached Principe Island on 15th July,
a week after leaving San Thiago. If San Vincent
is the Aden of West Africa, Principe and San
Thome might compare with Ceylon. I had never
seen anything quite like Principe before. Fer-
nando Po and Tcncriffe have far higher mountain
peaks, and the wealth of verdure at the former
island is much libr what one finds at Principe,
but Principe looks as if it had been blown up from
the sea, or had blown itself up after rising from it.
It is a tumbling mass of bleak jagged peaks and
pinnacles and sheer seaward cliffs, all that would
make a forbidding Dore picture, if Nature had
not come in and covered up the rugged ugly
scars with beautiful palms and trees, shrubs and
creepers. When we were there, the summit of
Principe was always wrapped in cloud, which
would break for a moment to show some great
black peak and then close again, as if Nature was
reluctant to lift the veil from these fantastic
shapes and grim precipices. Below the clouds
was the lower mountain, verdure-clad and restful,
if it were not for the black cliffs rising sheer from
the sea, which the mist could not hide — the cloven
hoof, as it were, of the forbidding cloud-hidden
peaks of the mountain summit.

Principe looks as if it should be full of goblins
and cjhosfs ; it certainly wnr-; once haunlcd bv an

THE ISLAND OF PRINCIPE 23

evil as great as any of them, the Glossina palpalis,
the fly that carries sleeping sickness. This evil,
now banished through the energy of the Portu-
guese Government and the island planters, and
the skill of their medical staff, took heavy toll of
human life and profit in the cocoa plantations
before it was destroyed.

There are two yearly crops of cocoa in the
island. The greater grows from October to
January, and the lesser from April to May. The
pod when ripe is cut down from the cocoa bushes
with a long-handled knife, and is then shelled to
extract the cocoa beans inside it. These beans
are carried by the numerous little Decauville
railways to the factory, where they are dried in
large trays and fermented in the same process,
to reduce the acid in the bean and improve its
quality. Sometimes, as in the Cameroons, there
is a special hothouse plant to accelerate this
fermentation. When dried the beans are put in
sacks for export. The process is very simple and
depends mainly on manual labour.

Besides cocoa, Principe grows sugar, rubber,
and quinine, and there are a large number of palms
on the island which yield excellent palm oil. The
food plantations of mealies, yams, and beans,
and the fruit, bananas, mangoes, and bread-fruit,
growing everywhere, make the island ideal for the
African negro, who can have plenty with little effort.

The next day we sailed for San Thome, which
lies farther from the mainland, immediately north
of the Equator.

The Portuguese cnll Principe and Snn Thome

24 THROUGH ANGOLA

u Pcrolas do Occano ;; (Pearls of the Ocean),
and they are well named, for their beauty is
wonderful and their fertility extraordinary.

San Thome, an island a li'tle larger than Man,
rises from a deep blue sea to a rocky summit
several thousand feet above it. Here all but the
highest crags are clothed in a dress of glorious
green, in which palms and great ferns, creepers,
trees, and shrubs, run riot in a soil that is almost
pure leaf mould. Blues and greens of every shade,
with black rocky hilltops set in drifting clouds
—that is my memory of San Thome from the
sea. If a feast of beauty can content you, there
will be no disappointment here.

Whatever man may do to disfigure Nature, and
he does much when he builds on a beauty spot
like this. Nature covers the wound with green
bandages, leaving only so little of house or hut
that from the distance at any rate she seems to
have won in her battle for beauty. Where man
concentrates his ugly strength and builds long
streets of houses or great factories, and plucks off
the green bandages, there only is San Thome ugly.
And her town and port arc very ugly ! Man has
even tried to make the hillsides ugly, by cutting
away Nature's home-made green, and bringing in
orderly rows of eoeoa and coffee plants, where
once were only beautiful forest shrubs. But the
cocoa trees he has planted take on all shades of
colour in the autumn, both leaf and pod, and
there is beauty in the coffee plant, so that if the
new garden is more ornamental, it is scarcely less
beautiful than the old.

SAN THOMfi 25

The cocoa plantations at San Thome cease at
a height of less than 2000 feet, and above that
Nature is paramount again.

When I was at San Thome in the month of
July 1920, and again in December of that year,
the dread scourge of Phylloxera was upon the
island, and nearly one-third of the cocoa plants
had been destroyed. On the higher plantations,
1500 feet above the sea, the disease had been less
virulent, but here moulds, due possibly to excessive
rain and constant mists, had taken toll of plant
and profit. Notwithstanding these drawbacks,
the export of cocoa from San Thome is prodigious,
for from little over 100,000 acres of cocoa planta-
tion from GO to 80 million pounds of cocoa are
shipped every year.

There is a large number of well-equipped
plantations on the island, and Mr. Johnson, the
British Vice-Consul, who was kindness itself to me
when at San Thome, convinced me that, in the
economic as well as the humanitarian aspects of
cocoa planting, the Portuguese have little or
nothing to learn from any other colonial power.
The planters are rich, and their ' roshas " or
plantations well equipped with plant for treating
the cocoa, while there arc thousands of miles of
Decauville railway for its transportation. The
native labourers, of whom there are about 30,000
at San Thome alone, are well fed, housed, and
hospitalized, and appear well treated and content.

Hound the question of the labour at San
Thome and Principe a storm of controversy has
. A certain section of the British press some

26 THROUGH ANGOLA

years ago, and a section of the press of Angola
recently, have denounced what they called " The
Slave Labour of the Plantations."

The truth is this. The recruiting of natives
for the cocoa islands takes place not only from
Angola but other colonies as well, and is carried
out on similar lines to the recruiting for the
Transvaal mines, and is under a similar concession.
This recruiting department, while financed and
organized by the cocoa planters themselves, is
controlled by Government, and the recruiting agents
arc Government officials. The native contracts for
terms of two or three years, receives food, clothing,
a house, and at least 10s. a month for a nine-
hour day, and can earn more than double his
wages in bonuses. Every man has a pay-book
which can be regularly inspected by a Government
inspector or any visitor to the plantations. At
the end of his contract, the native has complete
liberty to decide as to whether he will stay or
not, and the English people I met at San Thome
were unanimous in stating that there is no
forced labour or compulsory retention of these
indentured labourers.

The Portuguese case, for which I hold no brief
but a sense of justice, could be judged on its
economic basis alone. The plantations are very
rich and the business a very profitable one. It
pays every planter, and it pays the Government
of San Thome to treat the native more than well,
and attract him to the island, for fear that Angola
or other colonies will offer better inducements to
retain their native labourers. Every native who

SLAVE LABOUR ? 27

leaves the cocoa, islnnds must return lo his colony
with at least CIO in cash, even il." lie has been
repatriated without having done any work at all.
That is the law of the land, but, needless to say,
most natives come back to Angola with far more
money than this.

On the other hand, I have been told from un-
prejudiced sources that these repatriated labourers
complain that they arc not paid in money, but in
kind, in cloth or other trade goods. It should be
easy for the Government of Angola to refute this,
or if true, remedy it. It is also said that some of
the labour that goes to San Thome consists of
people who have refused to work or pay taxes in
the colony. This is difficult to reconcile with the
constantly repeated declarations of the Angolan
authorities, that all cocoa labour is free ; and
personally, I have no reason to doubt the state-
ment of the Portuguese Government officials.

That section of the Angolan press which
attacks to-day in violent language the indentured
labour of these islands, is undoubtedly interested
in the retention of all native labour in Angola.
The higher pay of the island cocoa plantations
not only induces the Angolan native to go there,
but the competition raises his price, already high,
in the Angolan market. Every native lost from
Angola to the cocoa islands is an economic loss to
the colony, and Angola needs every man of her
very limited native population for her own economic
development.

While one can. have every sympathy with the
reasons that prompt the Portuguese Angolan

28 THROUGH ANGOLA

settler to abuse the emigration of the Angolan
native to San Thome and Principe, it is easy to
recognize a motive which must influence his
judgment.

Of the abuse that appeared some years ago
in a section of the British press, on labour condi-
tions in the island, I can only say that, while
not myself knowing the exact conditions that
prevailed then, I know of many Englishmen
who hold that it was not justified. The papers
that abused the Portuguese slave traffic in
cocoa, abused the Belgians years before for their
" rubber atrocities." I was then in the Congo,
and in a position to know the truth, and we know
now that these statements were prompted by
Germany and spread by the enemies of England
as well as Belgium. It is impossible to believe
that any section of the British press would de-
liberately invent lies about " Portuguese slaves ':
or " Belgian murderers," but it is undoubted that
a certain press, controlled and supported by
faddists and Little Englanders, has perhaps un-
wittingly or from contrariness supported more
than one campaign started by the enemies
of England. If Portugal, our oldest ally, and
Belgium, for whom we have fought, will remember
that the best of the British never attack their
friends, they can then afford to treat with contempt
those who do.

The earliest reference I have been able to obtain
of the island of San Thome is given in Hamusicfs
Voyages. A Portuguese pilot wrote a full and
quaint history of :> voyage to San Thome in 1552.

ANGOLA AT LAST 29

and mentions that this island and Principe were
discovered eighty years earlier.

Passing by the Islands of Cape Verde to Benin,
this nameless navigator describes how in Benin,
on the death of a King, his courtiers were placed
in the grave, a deep and wide well with a narrow
opening over which a stone had been placed.
On every day after the King's death, these men,
lying in the darkness of their living tomb, without
food or water, were asked if they were serving
their dead King faithfully. When no answer came
back from the grave, a great fire was lighted on
the stone above it, and burnt offerings of animals
placed round about the tomb. Sailing on to San
Thome, the old- world pilot describes how wonderful
was the sugar-cane of the island, and how delicious
the flesh of its pigs. He describes the delights
of the potato called the yam, and tells how the
natives live to over a hundred years, though
suffering much from malaria (of which is given
a good description) and even, curiously enough,
from venereal disease. There were Portuguese
on the islands even then, but their prosperity
was not to come for many a year, as first the
French and then the Dutch raided the island, and
the slaves revolted more than once.

Cocoa was planted, and prosperity came in
the nineteenth century.

Five days after leaving San Thome, the Mossa-
medcs steamed into the roadstead of Cabinda,
first occupied in 1783. Cabinda, though politically
Angola, is geographically a Congo province, for it
lies north of the river, a small patch of territory,

30 THROUGH ANGOLA

both in climate and in appearance undistinguishable
from the neighbouring Belgian Congo. There are
English and French traders as well as Portuguese
at Cabinda, and the pallor of the people was enough
to condemn the climate of a country which is
purely tropical and unhealthy.

A few hours after leaving Cabinda, we passed
through the estuary of the Congo. Curious it was
to see the yellow water of the river mixing with
the green of the ocean, for in places the yellow
formed undefined bands in the green, bands
crested with scum from the river. The Congo is
geologically quite a young river. It has yet
formed no delta, and has possibly only just broken
through to the sea, from a great lake which it is
thought existed where the lower Congo Free State
is placed to-day.

We completed the crossing of the Congo
estuary during the night, and dawn found us off
port San Antonio and the true Angolan coast,
facing a landscape different to anything I had seen
in any other part of Africa, for here and all the
way as we sailed southwards the land of was a
reddish colour ; near the coast were low hills, and
beyond these, yet more hills appeared to rise in the
distance. There was no forest coming down to the
beach, as one knew it on the equatorial west coast.
Here, if the green life of the land did come down
to meet the green-brown sea, it was because a
river had brought its tree belt with it, while man-
groves as an advanced guard stood root-high in
the brackish waters of the estuary. The reddish
hills were dotted with baobabs, euphorbias, and

A LAND OF GREAT SPACES 31

acacias, with long grass growing between the
trees.

It was the dry season, the grass was changing
from green to yellow, and there was dust on the
trees, giving the picture of an arid coast-line which
stretches from the Congo to Benguella, there to grow
more desert-like and become a desert near Mossa-
medes. Yellow grass and dusty trees, the scrub and
desert, could only mean a long dry season, while the
terraced hills extending far inland gave every hope
of a healthier climate approaching that of South
rather than West Africa.

To me, with my last memories of Africa, the
dense tropical forest of the Cameroons and Spanish
Muni, this open country was heartening, for
though it did not have their luxuriant beauty, it
promised what was better still, a healthier, drier
climate, and the chance of seeing game and follow-
ing it, as one could never do in denser forest.

On 27th July we arrived at Loanda, the capital
of a colony of 480,000 square miles, divided into
nine great districts. Six of these on the coast,
or accessible, — Congo, North and South Coanza,
Benguella, Mossamedes, and Huilla, — were under
civil governors, and subdivided into " concilhos "
and " circunscripsions," Those to the east and
interior, Lunda, Mexico, and Cubango, inaccessible
and unexplored, were under military governors
who ruled military subdivisions called " capitanias
Mor," an old name for the command of a Captain-in-
Chicf. Only some 3,500,000 people inhabit these
great spaces, and in some districts as large as
England there are but a few thousand.

CHAPTER III

LUANDA TO MELANJE AND THE NORTHERN
ANGOLAN RAILWAY

IT was dusk when the ship entered Loanda
harbour, and steamed between a line of
cliffs and a long sand-spit to where the
lights of a town shone out at the harbour's end.
It was night when we anchored, but I went
ashore to decide whether to go inland from Loanda
by the line to Melanje, its rail-head, or sail south
to Lobito Bay, and there entrain for Chinguar,
where the Central Railway for the moment ended.
From Melanje to the sable country was to travel
some 200 miles south-cast over an unkno\vn track ;
from Chinguar, a day's motor ride to Bihe, and
thence four days north-east by a wagon road.
My ship left in a week from Loanda ; the next
train in six days. The loss of time was equal, but
in one plan lay the hope of a new game country,
and the chance of mapping the big sable to the
north ; so the decision wras made for the northern
road.

When rowing to land next morning, the cliffs
of Loanda seemed red in the light of dawn, and
lay ahead like the arc of a gigantic bow, \vhose
cord was that long spit of sand between the harbour

CONGO DISTRICT, WOMEN MAKING DRESSES FROM DARK FIP.RK

SAN PAULO DE LOANDA 33

and the sea. At one end of the cliffs, perched on
its highest crag, was the fort of San Michel, built
three hundred years ago ; and from this point
to the east, along the line of cliff, were a church,
a palace, and a convent, with many other solid,
time-worn buildings. These formed the upper
town.

Between cliff and sea was a shelving beach
covered with shops and houses, the lower or com-
mercial part of the town. Down by the beach
the little sixteenth-century fort of San Francisco
reminds us of Loanda's past ; the railway station
and a wireless mast speak for the present and
future.

The streets of the town are well paved and laid
out, and shaded with trees. The three hotels, all
in the lower town, were crowded; and I was glad
to find shelter, on my first night ashore, in the house
of the Eastern Telegraph Company. This house
was in the upper town, and, like most of the older
houses in Loanda (there arc few new ones), is
solidly built, its garden and courtyard surrounded
by high walls ; as is the case with all the original
houses, which were built to hold slaves.

The upper town is approached through good
roads ; one of them was being cut out of the solid
cliff by Portuguese convicts. There is no death
penalty in Portugal, and those who have deserved
it are sent to Angola, where they arc at first
employed at manual work in the towns ; after a
time, if they behave themselves, they are given a
ticket- of-leave and allowed to settle in the country,
belli"; free if they report themselves when OP lied
3

34 THROUGH ANGOLA

upon by the Commandants of their districts.
Thus some of the settlers in Angola are convicts
or of convict descent — a case of Botany Bay once
again.

There is now at Loanda a High Commissioner
for the economic development of the colony, as
well as a Governor-General. In 1920, however,
the latter alone was there, receiving me
courteously ; and when he realized that my visit
to Angola was made solely to hunt and photo-
graph wild animals, promised to grant my permit
for arms as soon as possible. There have been so
many prospectors and company promoters coming
out to Angola lately, and so much litigation
and quarrelling over concessions for oil, timber,
precious stones, and railways, that the Governor
was naturally cautious in promising anything
till he was sure of my plans.

Loanda has a theatre, several bars, billiard-
rooms, restaurants, and a band-stand ; and every-
body who is anybody collects at the Central
Hotel at least twice a day for cocktails. It was
here that I met Mr. Virgilio Monteiro, the official
dispatcher to the Loanda Customs, a man to whose
energy and kindness I owe much. The British

O •/

Consul, Mr. Bringes, who was busy at the time
and unable to help me himself, did the next best
thing, by handing me over to Virgilio Monteiro.

In the intervals between helping him to get
my guns and kit through the Customs. I explored
the native quarters and markets of the town in
search of servants. In the markets were a number
of sellers, mostly women of Lofnuh;. while the

A NATIVE MARKET 35

buyers were men of the town, or others who had
come down from the interior by train or road.

Though many of the women and men were
wearing cast-off or shoddy European clothes, it
was pleasant to see that the great majority had
not followed this stupid custom, which turns a
good black into a poor magpie, and wore either
black or striped cotton robes. In the case of the
women these were bound tightly round them,
tucked in above, just under the arm-pits, and
hanging below to near the calves, one hip and leg
being left free. The men more often wore just a
loin-cloth and a shirt.

The goods for barter were laid out on a
1 Loanga " or papyrus mat on the ground, some-
times shaded by a large umbrella.

There were not many European goods for
sale ; Loanda is too full of European and native
shops for such wares to be sold in the markets,
but the stalls had native pipes, rolls of tobacco
and snuff, and much to tempt the native appetite.
Here were dishes of food-stuffs, very messy and
oily, and dried salt fish ; while between them were

«/ '

calabashes of "garapa" or native beer. There
were fruits such as bananas and paw-paws, and
vegetables like tomatoes, chilli peppers, and sweet
potatoes. Everywhere was oil, the product of the
palm or the ground-nut.

Among the natives at the markets were those
from round about Loanda, Cabindas and other
Congo people from the north ; and Bailundus,
Songos. and JUihe men from the interior. All
these people speak the Bundu language, but many

36 THROUGH ANGOLA

of its dialects are so different from each other as
to be unintelligible between one tribe and the
other.

It was very necessary to obtain servants who
spoke or understood some of the dialects of the
countries to be traversed and English or Portu-
guese as well, but the prospect of obtaining
any such treasures seemed remote. The twenty
carriers to accompany me from the rail-head at
Melanje on the expedition after giant r-able had
been arranged by telegram by the Govovnnv-
General at Loanda, who assured me that they
would be ready on my arrival at Melanje.

The last day in July was a strenuous one, but
with the help of Moiiteiro all the provisions.
camp equipment, and guns were passed through
the Customs. The duties vary in the different
Angolan ports. In Cabinda there is a G per cent.
ad valorem duty, possibly because goods there
would have to compete in prices with those in the
neighbouring state of the Congo. In other ports
the duty varies, and also depends on whether the
goods are of Portuguese origin or come out in a
Portuguese ship. At Ambriz the tariff ranges
from 6 per cent, to 12 per cent. At Loanda,
Benguella, and Mossamedes that on most goods is
25 per cent, ad valorem.

My bill was 70 escudos on provisions, which
had cost £16, nothing at all on camp furniture
and photographic material, 120 escudos on three
guns and 500 cartridges, which were priced at their
cost value of £50.

At Lobito Bay the guns of British sportsmen

GUN AND GAME LICENCES 37

may bo passed in free of duty, by the local in-
lluence of the British officials of the Benguella
railway. Of course those who pay duty on their
guns can sell them in the country ; and this has
a certain advantage, as guns fetch a good price
in Angola just now, as indeed do all European
goods.

Croat care is taken in counting every cartridge
brought to Loand:-;, and all are taxed ; these pre-
cautions; are taken to prevent the natives from

•in ing arms and ammunition, and giving
trouble in the interior.

The 1st of August was mainly spent in getting
my licence to carry arms. This document is
entitled " Alvara di Licenca para uso e porte de
Anna," and gives permission to the holder to
carry two rifles and 200 cartridges for each, for
the space of twelve months. When obtained, the
licence has to be registered in the Administrative
Oilicc ni the port of entry, as in all District Head-
quarters which MIC traversed in one's journey.

The various steps needed to obtain this licence
are (quoting1 from my diary) as follows :

1. Ob lain the licence from the office of the

''" Secretar-General ': (Secretary) to
the Governor. The cost in stamps
is about 2s.

2. Obtain a permit from the local Military

••[ien<! Headquarters to bring the
v, capons into the country.
.3. r il-ese guns at the " Materiel di

Gncna " (Ordnance Department),

83 THROUGH ANGOLA

where they must be deposited till
all formalities have been carried
through, and they have been stamped
on the stocks.

k The rifles have then to be registered at
the Municipal Offices of the port of
embarkation, and all District Head-
quarters passed through.

On the margin of the licence is a description
of the holder and his signature ; while on the
main portion of the page it is stated that " the
person marginally described is licensed to carry
anus for twelve months, being responsible for any
illegal use of such arms." It further states that
the licence must be registered within three days
in the " Fazenda " and Administrative Offices of
his residence (in the case of a foreigner, his port
of embarkation is for technical purposes his resi-
dence), and ib to be presented i\t all Headquarters
of districts where he carries it. The arms licence
bears the signature of the Governor, Headquarters
Staff, Ordnance Department, and the Adminis-
trative Officer.

Besides the gun licence, a big-game licence
should be obtained, the cost of which is 30 escudos
(15 for residents). A special licence is required to
shoot elephants and certain reserved animals, the
cost of which is 50 escudos (25 for residents).

With the help of Hollis, Bringes' assistant,
two servants were at last found \vho spoke
Portuguese ; a lad called Domingo became my
personal servant, and an ugly little fellow was

THE LOANDA-MELANJE RAILWAY 3<J

made my cook. Augusto, as he called himself,
said he had been cook to the Governor of Melanje
—who would surely choose a good chef ! He also
said he knew a little of our road south to the sable
country. In this, however, Augusto lied. With
the blundering aid of the newly-acquired servants,
my kit had been cleared from the Customs and
repacked ; and stores, clothes, and cartridges so
arranged that no load weighed more than 50 lb.,
all that a native will carry on a long clay's march.

One evening after dinner with Mr. Monteiro
and his family, he took a party of us to the Loanda
theatre. It was a gala night, and the Governor
was there. The building is a modest one, but the
acting was good and the audience enthusiastic.

On most occasions there was an excellent
dinner to be had at one of the restaurants, and
just at this time the company could be relied on
to be cheerful, for the town was full of American
oil engineers. A very fine lot of young fellows
were these Americans, full of go, or " pep," as
they themselves call it, and very optimistic about
the oil future of the country.

It took three hours at the station on the
4th August to ensure a place for myself and all
my stores for that night's journey to Melanje ;
nor did the train give promise of comfort, for the
first class carriages looked cramped, while those
for natives were merely covered trucks.

The train was crowded and hot, with eight or
ten people in every compartment, meant to hold
six. To add to other troubles, Augusto the cook,
who was to have helped at the train, did not turn

40 THROUGH ANGOLA

up till live minutes before it started ; and Domingo,
the other servant, was so exeited at this, his first
long journey from home, that he broke our only
bottle of gun oil over my elothes.

We started at last, but my troubles were not
over, for we stopped fifteen minutes later at the
upper town station to take a fresh crowd of people
into the train. Monteiro, ever my friend, had
mentioned me to some people who were travelling
in a speeial carriage, so I found myself invited
to share the private saloon of Senhor Eduardo
Lorenz.

Sleepless through the dreadful jolting of the
train, my night was spent watching the country
we were passing, lit up as it was by the myriad
sparks that flew from the funnel of our wood-fed
engine. The sight was like a Brock's benefit night
at the Crystal Palace. The engines only spark
like this when climbing under forced pressure, and
the chance of sell ing the carriages on lire is then
very real.

By live o'clock next morning, seven hours
after starting, we had covered only 60 miles,
owing to the steepness of the gradient. All the
early morning we passed through open and some-
what arid country, with baobabs and euphorbias
as the principal trees, while the ground was covered
with grass 3 or 4 feet high. The game round here
includes eland, bush cow, roan, kudu, water buck,
reed buck, bush buck, duiker, and occasionally
elephant.

The Loanda to Mclanje line is a Government
railway, and was the first in Angola. Owing to

LANDSCAPE OF NORTH COANZA 41

wood fuel and the continued ascent to Melanje,
300 miles away, the train rarely travels faster
than 20 miles an hour ; and though the official
time for the journey from Loanda to Melanje
is twenty hours, it usually takes much longer.

The line lies roughly parallel to the River
Coanza and just north of its main tributary, the
Lucala. First following the valley of the Dande
River, it then crosses the Dande-Coanza water-
shed, to approach, 160 kilometres from Loanda,
the River Coanza and the old town of Muxima,
one of the first posts occupied by the Portuguese
in the sixteenth century.

The train had been steadily mounting the hills
ever since it left Loanda, and when we reached
Cassualola, a refreshment station on the Lucala
River, at midday, we were 500 to 600 feet above
sea-level. Just to the south lies Massangano,
another old Portuguese fort, for many years the
main town in the interior.

Where the railway approached the Coanza,
and again later the Lucala River, the scenery
changed from open to closer forest. Soon after
leaving Cassualola, we left the valley of the
Lucala River to run up that of its small tributary,
the Luimbe — a pretty valley this, between forest-
covered hills. The train was now passing through
the country of N'gola Cafiixe, whose people had
fought the Portuguese during the seventeenth
century, and sometimes with success.

The land continues to rise. At the 165th
milestone the height is 700 feet. Nine miles
farther on, it hay risen 1000 feet, and at the town

12 THROUGH ANGOLA

of N'dala N'tando to nearly 2500 feet above the
sea. This town, which is now the ca. i.al of a
district, is also the centre of a fine game country,
where bush cow, roan, eland, water buck, and
other game animals are said to be numerous.

We were now on a plateau, and from here for
the next 120 miles up to Melanje were able to
travel much faster, as the country was more level,
and sometimes sloped down for a space, as where
the train ran down to meet again the valley of the
Lucala River. Just before we crossed this river
the train reached Ambaca, where we dined at
6 p.m., the hour when due at Melanje, still 90 miles
away. For the next six hours the train passed
through open forest and grass plain, not unlike
the plateau of Northern Rhodesia, to the terminus
at Melanje, 3000 feet above the sea.

CHAPTER IV

THE MARCH SOUTH TO FIND THE SABLE

NIGHT and candlp- light found me up and
packing, in the little railway carriage
where I had slept, while the day was
just breaking when I left it to discover if my
carriers had been collected for me by the Governor
in Mclanje. Of course it was too early to find the
Governor up when I went to his house ; but when
one has waited five years for a hunting trip, it
is hard not to wake early.

Facing a square in front of the railway station
were the Governor's house and oiUces, and the
houses and barracks of officials and native troops.
Beyond these was a little street of shops and
stores ; and beyond the town were hills which
looked purple in the gathering light, except where
their summits were turning to rose-red from the
iirst beams of the rising sun. Not far from
Mclanje jungle commenced again, for white men
arc only at the beginning1 of things in Angola.

It wras at the second visit that I found the
Governor's secretary, for the Governor was away
making a new Headquarters for the district, and

o i 3

though the secretary was kindness itself, lie told
me thai the carriers could not be ready before

44 THROUGH ANGOLA

midday. These Government carriers hi Angola
are paid at the rate of 60 eentavos for the lirst day,
40 for the next, and 30 for each succeeding day,
and their food (2 Ib. of flour) cost GO eentavos a
day when I was in Angola. The cost of a carrier
in 1920 was thus not far short of 100 eentavos
(1 escudo, or dollar) a day.

An escudo ac par equals 4s. ; when I was in
Angola in 11)20 it averaged is., and as I write,
only Gd. At tlie latter rate the Angolan carrier
costs an Englishman less than he would have to
pay in most British African colonies, but a Portu-
guese, what to him is nearly 4s. a day.

As it was diilicult to give any exact period of
employment for my twenty carriers, the Portu-
guese authorities kindly allowed me to pay these
men on completion of service, with the condition
that their pay be sent to the authorities and not
given to the men. The natives complain that
they see little of the wau^ earned in this way :

\j «T^ t/

that this money is either entirely appropriated by
the Portuguese ; or that only a portion of it is
paid to the carrier, and then in the shape of
trade goods bought from merchant friends of the

o o

authorities.

There may be some Portuguese officials capable
of such petty larceny, but it is impossible to believe
that it is practised by the majority, who, though
poorly paid, appeared to treat the natives well.
The carriers may be influenced to buy trade
goods with the money they have earned ; such
purchases are useful to the Government in en-
couraging trade and in making the negro, who

CARRIERS AND LOADS 45

has thus spent his money, work in order to gain
more.

The curse of African Governments is the
inherent laziness of the negro, who will not work
if he can possibly avoid it. It is absolutely
necessary to carry out public works in new African
colonies : roads, bridges, railways, and buildings
have to be constructed; and without some system
of forced or induced labour, European colonization
in Africa would be impossible.

In Enp'lish colonies in Africa such good wages

o O o

arc paid the negro that prices have risen, and the
native cannot buy his wife and cattle without
earning money. The Portuguese cannot afford
such wages, though they are forced to pay
them just now. Their normal method of making
natives work has been to levy a hut tax (1-i- to 2|
escudos a year) and have some form of forced
labour, every District Commandant having the
power to commandeer labour at least for Govern-
ment purposes.

While still waiting for the carriers, a visit to
the Melanje branch of the Ultra Marino Bank had
increased my funds to 1200 escudos (£60), and
brought me several hundred small notes of the
value of 20 centavos (2d.), which were necessary
for payment on the line of march.

The carriers arrived in the afternoon, and,
though too late to march that day, the evening
was spent in arranging every detail of the expcdi-
{ ion, and carrying out a rehearsal of the duties for
the march, so that the start next day, 7th August,
could be well made at an early hour,

46 THROUGH ANGOLA

The loads, which did not in any instance
exceed 55 Ib. in weight, were allotted in accordance
Avith the strength of each carrier. They wrere so
arranged that the heaviest were the least bulky,
for extra weight is in many ways less objection-
able than bulkiness in a load. In long grass or
bush country, a small heavy box may be prefer-
able to a lighter bundle of awkward camp fur-
niture. If the loads arc not carefully weighed and
allotted, the older and stronger carriers will choose

o

the smallest, apparently lightest loads, though
occasionally the crafty ones thus overreach them-
selves. I have sometimes allowed a scramble for
carefully arranged loads, just to see the bafllcd
look on the face of the over-crafty carrier, who,
with the suddenness of his choosing, has found quil o
a small box to be infernally heavy, while he has
left the bulky but light load to a younger carrier.

My luggage consisted of eighteen loads, made
up as follows :

! K)0-lb. tent . . .

1 v.-ilise with clothing, books.

and cartridges . . ,, I ]o;id of 1 ,"> ..

1 box with cartridges, photo-

graphic and medical ma-

terial ...... 1 .. 5.~> ..

1 box with clothes, books, and

cartridges .... ,. 1 ,, .">() ..

] lot of camp furniture, bed

chair, and gun case . .. I ., o.'> ..

I cook's box, with plales, pans,

cutlery, and any opened tins .. 1 .. -lo ,,
1- loads of provision boxes \viih

contents sufficient 'or t li i'ee

•wri-ks i- Io;i Is of •"><) to

EQUIPMENT OF AN EXPEDITION 47

1 load of rice, potatoes, and

onions .... making 1 load of 30 Ib.

2 loads of food for carriers . „ 2 loads of f>0 to 5.") 11).
1 load of 2 axes, 1 saw, rope,

bush knives, nails, etc. . „ 1 load of 30 Ib.
1 hammock ....,, 1 load for two men.
1 giant sable skull and horns . „ 1 load of 25 Ib.

Each of the four provision boxes contained
the following provisions :

Two dozen candles, a large bottle of brandy and one of lime
juice, small bottles each of pepper, salt, chutney, sauce, and tablets
of saccharine ; 1 tin of curry powder, 2 of Quaker Oats, 8 of milk,
2 of coffee and milk, 2 of jam, 1 of com flour, -i of assorted tinned
meats, and 6' of sardines ; 1 Ib. of tea, 1 of sago, 5 each of rice and
sugar, 10 of Hour, 3 of lard ; and 2 do/en soup squares.

The soup squares and tinned meats were for
use on the days when no game was procurable ;
the flour, rice, and sugar were calculated at the
rate of I Ib. of the former and 1 Ib. each of the

£l

latter for my daily use.

It is unwise to leave behind all the many
little luxuries which may make all the difference
in a tropical climate like Africa, where health is
undoubtedly affected by discomfort ; but it is
often impossible, in some of the out-of-the-way
corners of the earth, where I prefer to hunt, to
find enough transport for even the recognized
necessities of life, and for this reason my equip-
ment is generally organized into two sections,
which plan permits of its division. One section
consists of the minimum for emergency purposes ;
the other, that which is taken if transport permits.
My emergency kit can be carried by five people ;
my ordinary safari numbers t wcnty to twenty-five.

48 THROUGH ANGOLA

On my Northern Angolan journey I marched
with full equipment and twenty carriers, and
with five men and emergency kit from Central
to South Angola.

My clothing consisted of a soft felt hat, a
khaki coat, three strong khaki " bush " shirts with
large pockets, and three pairs of strong drill
trousers made to loop up into " shorts " during the
day, or let down over the gaiters as a protection
from mosquitoes and when passing through fly
country. With this kit \vcre half a dozen cotton
vests, a dozen pairs of strong woollen socks (a
size too large, to allow for shrinking), pyjamas,
towels, handkerchiefs, and other necessaries, and
two spare pairs of strong boots fitted with Phillips'
soles. All this personal kit was usually packed
in the Wolsclcy valise made of kapok, which,
thouoii onlv weiffliino1 0 lb.. is warm enough to

c"? i- *—

render blankets unnecessary.

The camp furniture consisted of a light tent
(on this trip it was a bigger one than usual), a fold-
ino- chair, and a mosauito room to erect within

<""> -1-

the tent, besides a mosquito bed curtain ; on
emergency marches the valise and small curtain
alone accompany me. My gun included a
Jeffrey 0*333 and Ross 0'280 magazine rifle, each
with 150 cartridges, a double O'oOO cordite (for
emergency and moral support, for I practically
never use it), wivh 50 cartridge . a pair of x6 bino-
culars, prismatic compass, books (preferably poetry
and works of science), notebooks, and a photo-
graphic outfit. The latter consisted of a quarter-
plate box " Hefl^x " camera of my own design.

MY FIRST CAMP IN THE SABLE COUNTRY

DOMESTICS AND CARRIER.-

Will!!!

rf]

BCA HUNTER'S GRAVE. WITH RUDE MODELS OF ANIMALS, AND TWO

DUIKER SKULLS SHOWING AGAINST BINOCULARS AND CARRIER'S FACE

PERSONNEL 40

It had a 12-inch bellows extension, a front recessed
to hold a medium-sized telephoto lens (Ross tele-
centric 13-inch or Busch 16-inch), yet still capable
of accommodating a small 6-inch lens ]ike my
big Grandac-telephoto combination, which gave
with suitable bellows extension up to 35 inches
focal length. There were 30 dozen film packs
(plates have been regretfully discarded, as they are
apt to break), with sufficient tabloid and com-
pressed developing and fixing chemicals to deal
with these films and 100 prints. Two develop-
ing tanks and a daylight developing paper bag
were carried — as well as canvas water bags to
hold cold developing water. To economize water
—which is sometimes a precious fluid in the bush
—a hypo eliminator like permanganate of potassium
was included in the outfit.

The caravan consisted of two domestic servants
and twenty carriers, of whom seven were under-
sized and four of them mere boys. The loads
were so arranged that the four light ones were
carried by the youngsters and the others by the
bigger men. The only two Portuguese-speaking
natives were told off to carry the empty hammock,
and were under observation for use as gun-boys.
Their names were both Coque, so they were called
Coquc Primo and Coque Sccundo.

The cook, Angus to, and the house-boy were
each given a rifle, the double-barrelled 0'500 bore
and the 0'333 Jeffrey Mauser, while I carried my
0'280 Ross magazine rifle for game on the road.
The tclephoto camera and case were carried
si r-nypcJ to UK; hammock,
4

50 THROUGH ANGOLA

The giant sable skull which we carried had
been borrowed with some difficulty from a trader
in Melanje, who said that it had been left with
him by a professional hunter who had shot the
sable at a place called " Cangandalla," some
15 miles to the south of Melanje.

Knowing from experience how much easier
it is to show a picture than describe an animal,
I had come prepared from England with a number
of photographs of sable and other antelopes, for
identification among the natives, but when the
sable skull was found at Melanje, I realized how
much better it would be to have the real thing
than a picture.

We had started, the last load had been lifted,
and the road directions given. My heart was
singing the song of the open road, and Walt
Whitman could not have sung it with more
joyousness.

The first marching day of any expedition should
be a happy one, and in this case the march was
something that had been lived over and dreamed
of for five long years. Marching well ahead of my
men, I skipped like any schoolboy the moment I
was out of their sight ; for it would never have done
to let a native see one skip.

The early morning of an African winter or
spring is perfect in its freshness, and the dawn
lights of the African highlands are very beautiful.
To see the purple colour of the hills change to rose
as the sun rises, and the black of the forests to
green as the sunlight touches the leaves, is to
live in I he land of the beautiful. From grass.

JOY OF THE OPEN LIFE 51

leaf, and flower, wet with the dew, comes the scent
of freshness ; and the cold morning air and the
marching make the blood go rushing through
one's veins. Then, after four or five hours of
marching, comes rest, when the caravan is halted,
fires are lighted, and food is cooked ; and one
confesses that the smell of the breakfast equals
the scent from the morning grass.

When the days are getting warmer at the end
of spring, or in summer, there is a long halt at
midday, in the shade, and if it can be, by a stream,
and then the caravan marches again in the even-
ing until camp is reached. Now the tent is
pitched, the evening fires lighted, and round them
gather careless, happy carriers, who will laugh and
sing to the simple music of the "sansa" till long
into the night. Sometimes one is too tired to sleep,
or too happy, that first night in camp ; and then
the silence of the forest is so strange that the hunter,
who has escaped from the noises of the town, may
lie a\vake to listen for the voices of the jungle.

Marching south-east from Melanje, through
some 9 miles of open country, we reached at
11 a.m. the Cuinje River, a tributary of the
Coanza ; and after lunch, the post Cangandalla,
10 miles farther on, in the afternoon. The
streams we passed were at their lowest, for the
rains, which had ceased three months before in
May, were due again in the coming month of
September, and where now were shallow clear
streams or even a line of stagnant pools, would
soon be a racing nn->: ^orhaps impassable flood of
yellow water.

52 THROUGH ANGOLA

The Portuguese have a military post with a
Chief of District at Canganclalla. This officer
had formerly been administrator at Madzamba,
in the Cheringoma range in Mozambique (Por-
tuguese East Africa), where many years ago,
when hunting near Madzamba, I had killed a
number of lions and among them some man-
eaters, which had given a good deal of trouble
locally. When the former Commandant rccog-
ni/«xl his visitor, he treated me with the greatest
kindness, and did everything possible to assist my
plans.

The buildings at Cangandalla were in a
wretched state of disrepair, and my friend in-
formed me that the Angolan. Government did not
spend money on ils administration as freely as
the privately organized Mozambique Company
did in East Africa.

A I dinner we had many a good yarn of the
old days in Mozambique, and laughed heartily at
the recollection of the tricks of one sportsman,
who, after poisoning a number of lions, had written
a book on his hunting experiences, in which even
the photos of the lions suggest death by poison.
One of this sportsman's native boys had been with
me in 1908, when we came acros-, i:hc mummified
eareas scs of his poisoned animal baits ; and here I
was, listening to the story of the Commandant of
Madzamba, in whose district and to whose know-
ledge the poisoning of these animals had been
carricv! out,

ii wu;j noi (i<M;f by the- i'arnoi..-. sbori sinan
alone; he formed u sort o.l syndicate, the other

A "TARTARIN" OF MOZAMBIQUE 53

two members of which, Frenchmen like himself,
were more or less professional hunters. One of
these poor fellows died of black- water fever ;
another is said, probably untruly, to have died
from the effects of strychnine, through approaching
a poisoned and dying lion incautiously and being-
bitten in consequence. The third probably still
lives, famous as a big-game hunter.

After dinner the Commandant sent for the
heads or Sovas of neighbouring villages, and
questioned them as to the varieties of game in
the neighbourhood, and especially with regard to
the giant sable; and now the value of the sable
skull we had brought came in,

In England I had been told that the big
sable was called " Sambakalop;o " in the country
of the Luimbe tribes, where these animals had been
shot by Captains Varian and Blaine the year
before. " Sambakalogo ': meant nothing to the
people of the Melanje district, who could also
make little of the photographs of ordinary sable
shown them, calling them "Malanka" (roan
antelope). The moment, however, the natives saw
our fnnnt sable skull, they all said " Kohvab,
'Colwaly which is apparently the district name for
this arirnal.

It was not surprising that they mistook my
photograph of a 39-inch sable (a good head for
Portuguese East Africa, where it had been shot)
for a roan antelope, as the shapes of these two
animals and their horns are very similar, though
the roan does not usually carry horns of more
than 30 inches. The giant sable, however, the

54 THROUGH ANGOLA

" Kolwah," with its 60 inches of heavy horn, could
not by the simple African mind be identified with
the similar but smaller East African variety.

The Sovas told us that the " Kolwah ' was
only found south of the Loando, and between that
river and its parent stream the Coanza, and no-
where else. They said that the game of the sur-
rounding country consisted of roan, eland (rare),
reed buck, water buck, cob, and sitatunga ; and
that the last-named, which I wished to photograph
and shoot, was found in several places in the
district, the nearest being the Coque River, which
we should pass on our way south to the Loan do.

On 9th August, after a friendly fn rowel 1 from
my kindly Portuguese* host, we marched first south-
west for seven miles and then south-east for
another eight or nine, nnd crossing the small
streams called the Hondo, Calumbira, and one or
two others, all practically dry at this season,
reached in the afternoon the Coque River, a few
miles from its junction with the Coanza. Camp
was pitched beyond the river, sluggish and over-
grown with papyrus, leaving here and there a pool
of open water. The flats near the river were
carpeted with shoots of grass and reeds that would
be several feet high in the rains ; rnd along the
edge of sloping banks, which must hold a flood
of surging turbid water in the rains, were jungle
scrub and a few forest trees. It was such a river
as sitatunga love, and that hour of the evening
when the animals arc moving down from the forest
to the river to graze on the young grass, and drink
as is their wont before sunset-

EVENING BY THE RIVER 55

Perhaps even more fascinating than the watch
by a jungle pool at night, is the walk and watch
by an African river at sunrise and sunset. Then
and there you may study the ways of the wild
animals, and there, if possible, the rifle should
give way to the camera, and a desire for trophies
to the delight of observation. A good sitatunga
head was needed for my collection, as none had
yet been seen elsewhere in Africa worthy of it ;
but I hunted the river bank that evening as much
for the joy of watching wild things and their
ways as for any hope of a head. And the evening-
brought its reward ; for one after another of the
commoner antelopes came down from the forest
to drink and sometimes to graze.

A reed buck, a graceful fawn-coloured antelope
a little larger than a fallow deer, with short,
forward-curving horns, was the first to leave the
forest, followed by two does. Soon after, a little
duiker, smaller and more graceful than a roe deer,
picked his way daintily over the stubble to the
wrater. Not far from me a family of wart-hog,
weird-looking pigs with big warts and long tushes
on their disproportionately large heads, and little
tufts on their quaint upstanding tails, came to the
river — the sow fussy, the boar truculent, and
both comically anxious for their young, who were
wilful and inclined to wander. Far down the
river a roan, with the build and height of a hunting
cob, was taking his evening drink. Near by, an
otter was busy fishing among the reeds.

Dusk was approaching fast, and the hour of the
sitatunga, that almost amphibious antelope which

50 THROUGH ANGOLA

lives in swamps, where he alone can walk with his
long splayed hoofs and lie concealed with his nose
above the water. Rarely seen in the swamps
except at night, the sitatunga in undisturbed
country may be seen just before dusk and after
dawn. It was nearly dark when I saw the first
of these animals— a young male and a doe — leave
the swamp to graze ; they walked clumsily on
the hard ground with their long splayed hoofs,
so well adapted for crossing a reed or papyrus-
covered swamp. It was delightful to watch these
rare buck, and stirring to think that perhaps a
really big head might appear at any moment.
And then I caught a glimpse of a brown shaggy
body and a big pair of long twisted horns moving
in the swamp ; and stalking quickly in the failing-
light, fired. The animal fell to the shot, but
recovered and plunged further where deep water,
the dense papyrus brake, and nightfall prevented
us following it.

The next day, though we sep.vchcd the swamp,
we failed to find the wounded sitatunga, and on
two more mornings and one evening spent by the
banks of the river, no sitatunga and very few
tracks were seen. We learned that the natives
of a neighbouring village hunted these animals
by burning the prmyrus and spearing them from
canoes. Very few remain on the Coqne, and in a
few years these too will be gone.

The next morning, just before we resumed our
march south, one of my men found the decom-
posing body of the sitatunga. The flesh and skin
were useless, but the beautiful spiral horns, which

THE EDUCATED NATIVE 57

measured 29 inches, were worth keeping, so after
cleaning the skull we marched south for some
nine hours, 20 miles through an undulating open
country with occasional forest, and reached a
village called Chimbangue at dusk, where I found
two black traders, who travelled in hammocks,
already encamped. The younger, who was dressed
in European clothes and spoke Portuguese, asked
me in an impertinent manner to sell him some
venison ; he was surprised to hear that English
hunters did not sell their game nor give it away,
except to their friends or followers.

I like the savage black, and live on the best of
terms with him in the bush, and my gun-boys
have more than once risked their lives for me ; but
it is difficult to feel the same degree of friendship
for the partly educated negro.

The aloofness of the Englishman towards semi-
civilized races like the Indian, Egyptian, Sierra
Leonean, and West Indian is no doubt a source
of difficulty and even danger to the Empire.
These natives may secretly respect us, but they
dislike our attitude or aloofness and wrongly
consider it one of contempt. They get on better
with the Latin races, who, both men and women,
fraternize with them, treat them as social equals,
and even intermarry with them. I have always
thought that the troubles in India and Egypt,
which are spreading to the educated negro races
in Africa arid Jamaica, are as much social as
political.

At Chimbangue we came across native graves ;
one, that of a chief's son, was surmounted by a

58 THROUGH ANGOLA

staff ; another, that of a woman, had a broken
pot on the mound ; while on the third, that of
a hunter, were placed the skulls of some of the
animals he had shot.

On the following day we left Chimbangue, the
first village so far met in Angola with its true
name on the map ; for as villages are moved on
the death of a chief and renamed after his successor,
no map can keep up to date. Marching at day-
break next day we reached the Loando River
two hours later, and crossed it at a point some
15 miles from its junction with the Coanza. At a
village on the north bnnk of the river were some
reed buck horns and the remains of a very big
sitatunga head, with horns of nearly 33 inches in
length.

The villagers declared that the " Kolwah " or
giant sable was to be found a day's march to the
south, and sitatunga and cob an hour's march
away to the east, where a river called the Luan-
shesha flowed from the north-east into the Loando.
Sending the carriers along by road to pitch a camp
at this river junction, the rest of us canoed up the
Loando, a deep river 60 to 100 yards wide even
in the dry seasons of the year, and navigable for
nearly all its course, though a fcw miles before it
meets the Coanza it flows over as a cataract at
N'Dongo.

We camped near the junction of the Luan-
shesha and the Loando, and hunted for sitatunga
in the evening. A number of cob, in herds of
ten to twenty, were feeding on the open flats by
the banks of the river ; they were so shy as to

A NEW ANTELOPE ? 59

be unapproachable within 300 yards. One was
wounded, but got away.

These animals looked like Button's cob in the
distance, but were darker in colour and had
bigger horns. They were certainly not red lechwe,
and though about the size of black lechwe, had
a lighter coloured coat.

The natives said that these cob were numerous
along both the Coanza and Loando and many of
their tributaries, and that we should meet many of
them on our march south. The apparent certainty
of obtaining other specimens induced me to leave
the cob country and continue the search for the
sable. Unfortunately I never again shot one
of these animals, and the skull of the cob wounded
on the Loando (and picked up two days later) is
the only specimen obtained of what may be indeed
a new species of antelope, unless it is the animal
described by Baum as Adcnota ambuellensis.

CHAPTER V

MY FIRST GIANT SABLE

NCE across the Loando we had entered the
long and narrow watershed which divides
this river from the Coanza, into which it-
flows. This country is over 200 miles long and
from 20 to 60 broad. Towards its southern end
and on the Luce and Lusengo, tributaries of the
Loando, the big sable had actually been shot.
The nature of the watershed varies ; it is over
4000 feet high, hilly and forested, towards the south
and the sources of the rivers ; only 3000 feet, less
undulating and more open, near where the Coanza
and Loando join. (See Ivlap at end of i ook,)

The natives said that the sable were to be found
in all the watershed, and more plentifully toward'
the south, bul not beyond the rivers ; and the
depth and width of the crocodile-haunted Coanza
and Loando made this limited distribution of
the sable probable. The question was. were the
sable limited to certain forest patches, or were
they also in the flats ? Bid they only browse
on certain bushes, as 1 had heard in England, or
did they graze as well ? A few sable were reported
on a strep. rn called the Rumelia, a tributarv of
the Loando. to the POUT]].- west of our first earnp.

I FIND SABLE til

and again on the Bungo River, south of the
Rumelia.

The best method of finding and mapping out
the distribution of the sable appeared to be to
make a series of oblique traverses from one river
to the other, for in this way the whole of the
watershed could be thoroughly explored for the
.-•rjimals. As my map was very inaccurate, we
j;id to rely on compass bearing and native informa-
tion for direction ; but the scheme seemed feas-
ible, and we started the lirst oblique traverse
from the Loando south-west to the Coanza on
13th August, reaching the Rumelia stream after
a three hours' march.

Here we camped where a Portuguese profes-
sional hunter had stayed for three months, while
lie hunted K;r prolit in the neighbourhood. During

1 O o

this tin,,; the natives say he killed twenty giant
sable, five in one day, besides many roan, cob, and
other antelope. It was rather bad luck starting
my sable hunt in a country so thoroughly shot
over.

The villagers declared that all the country
between the Loando and Coanza Rivers was the
" house " of the giant sable, and in the evening
sliowcd me the spoor and droppings of a bull,
which were similar to, but a little larger, than
those of an ordinary sable. Just before dark
we saw two giant sable, apparently young bulls ;
they were of a brown colour and carried horns
about 40 inch; : I

Tiu- daj iftei m\ arrival OP the Rmnclia.
^.•iiilc in in ,iii u/rest, we came suddenly

62 THROUGH ANGOLA

on a bull sable about 100 yards off and half hidden
behind a tree. The sable's head was on one side
of the tree and his hindquarters on the other, his
" vitals " being covered by the trunk. Although
I expected a big-horned beast, the size of the
bull's huge curved horns, which actually showed
on both sides of the tree, so astonished me that
I lost the fleeting chance in wonderment. When
I recovered from my astonishment and manoeuvred
to take the shot, the sable dashed off and got
safe away. It would have been possible to shoot
the animal in the hindquarters, but, having already
wounded two animals in succession on this trip,
I was particularly anxious not to add a third to
this number. We followed up the spoor of this
sable for some miles, and saw him again when he
was running through open forest, 300 yards
away, but he never gave another reasonable
chance.

The villagers who lived near our last camp
brought in a cob's head, apparently the one I had
shot two days before ; the horns were certainly
bigger than those of a Buffon's cob.

The country towards the Coanza River is
undulating and forested, that towards the Loando
open with plains of short grass and many ant-
hills. My information in England was that the
giant sable browsed on a particular kind of bush ;
but the local hunter said they were to be seen
grazing in these flats, so we searched them to
settle the point, and get, if possible, photographs
of a herd in the open.

We foil lid n good deal o!' spoor of hot]. s;ih]r

A SPLENDID SIGHT 63

and roan in the open flats, and my boys saw a
sable bull, the tracks of which we followed up
north-east to a stream called the Quitobo, where it
was decided to form a flying camp. There were
a good many roan and reed buck in this country,
a few duiker were seen, and one little antelope that
looked like a " stein buck."

The 16th of August was a red-letter day, as
it brought me my first sable, and the following is
copied from my diary of this day :

" I left Quitobo camp for the main camp on the
Rumelia stream at eight o'clock in the morning
and ahead of my caravan. While on the road
I saw and stalked a solitary bull roan. The
animal, however, was warned of my presence
by two reed buck, which whistled so continuously
that the roan galloped off. On my way back to
the path I saw some twenty or thirty sable ante-
lope. The herd were grazing in open grass land
and looked a splendid sight, with the sun glinting
on the bright chestnut coats of the cows and the
deep black skin of the one big sable bull. It at
once struck me how much brighter in colour the

o

coats of these cow sable were than those of the
ordinary sable, and how much longer the horns
they carried. The horns of the bull sable looked
immense, although this animal was the farthest
of all the herd from me. The roan which had
originally been stalked and lost had run towards
the sable, and it was evident that they were
alarmed ; for the cows were looking around
anxiously, and even the bull had ceased to feed.
To add to the drwjrer of rnv nresonce bcinj?

64 THROUGH ANGOLA

betrayed, my old enemy, the reed buck, again
spotted me as I crawled towards the sable, and
the little beggars began to whistle, telling all the
world of the danger. Something had to be done
and done quickly. The herd was still 400 yards
away and there was little or no cover.

" I stalked rapidly and painfully over the
stubbly, burnt grass, but could not safely approach
nearer than 200 yards from the herd and 250 from
the bull, which was beyond them. At this distance
there was a little tree, and standing up behind it
I fired at the bull. Partly through excitement,
but mainly, as I found afterwards, owing to bad
ammunition, the first three bullets missed the
sable, apparently going high. Fortunately, the
herd could not find out where the shots were
corning from, and though restless, stood their
ground. Lowering my riile sights from the 200
yards' leaf to that of 100, I fired again, hit and
knocked over the bull.

" With his fall the herd rushed off, sweeping
round in a magnificent gallop across my front,
some of the animals passing within 50 yards of
me, among them a younger bull, which carried a
brownish coat and horns of about 40 inches. The
wounded bull picked himself up and moved off
in the opposite direction to that taken by the
herd. He was followed up but could not be shot,
as my rifle, which had jammed after every shot,
had finally iammcd so hard that the breech

J u

would not open. Fortunately my boys had now
come up, and taking another riiie (the 0'280 Ross)
I approached the sable, who was walking slowly

-MY SECOND BULL SABLE

CAMP AND HEADS OF THK FIRST TWO SABLE BULf.S KILLED

{Sec pa^

THK 6C-INCHKR

A NARROW ESCAPE 65

away, apparently very badly hit. A shot from
the 0'2SO at 150 yards again knocked the sable
down, and he lay so still that I thought he must
be dead, and walked up to him somewhat care-
lessly. When within some 10 yards, the bull
jumped up and charged me, and I had some
difficulty in avoiding the sweep of his horns just
before he was killed at very close range. The
animal had a body as large as that of a roan and
much larger than that of the ordinary sable, the
shoulder height measured roughly 4 feet 9 inches,
and. the horns, which were very massive and had
little curve, 54 inches. The markings on the face
were entirely different from those of the ordinary
sable, for, instead of the long white bar from eye
to muzzle, the light patch on his face only ex-
tended for a short distance below the eye, and
was more of a cream than a white colour.

"My gun-boys told me that a still larger bull
had gone off to the west, limping as if hit, but
though we searched for two hours we could find
no tracks of the animal. One of the stray bullets
which missed the first may have hit another bull
hidden in the grass well behind the herd, but it is
more probable that the natives had mistaken the
direction they thought the supposed second bull
had taken, and confounded him wit] the animal
already shot.

" After skinning the sable, cutting off the head,
and dividing up the meat into suitable loads, we
marched back to the main camp on the Rurnelia,
a cheery, singing crowd. The natives were happy
in their visions of unlimited meat and beer, and
5

66 THROUGH ANGOLA

I was equally happy in the possession of a splendid
trophy.

" After spending two hours in preparing the
sable head - skin, I went off to see if my luck
would hold again, and stalked with just one man
along the banks of the Rumelia stream. The
evening was a perfect one ; the forest was here
open and park-like, and in the glades green grass
was springing up through the charred stalks and
ashes of last year's burnt growth. Winding
between its grass and tree- covered banks, the
stream, now no longer running, spread out in a
series of jungle pools, the haunt of all kinds of
birds and small animals. My guide and I walked
very quietly down the path which followed the
stream, listening and watching for any sign of
that jungle life which I felt sure must be plentiful
in such surroundings. In turn we saw a red
duiker, a genet, what looked like an otter, and a
serval. Just before dusk, we suddenly came upon
a bull sable, standing and watching us from a
burnt patch of forest --looking exactly like one
of its charred and blackened tree stumps. He
ran off before I could fire, but a lucky shot knocked
him over, and a second one killed him. This
animal, though smaller in the body than the herd
bull shot in the morning, carried a long pair of
horns, measuring 56 inches. We left the body of
the sable where it lay, after covering it over with
branches to prevent carnivora eating the meat
and destroying the skin.

" It had been a lucky hunting day, but the good
fortune did not extend to photography; for the

PHOTOGRAPHIC DIFFICULTIES 67

loss of a screw from the lens brought light into
my camera, and fog to the films, of which two
dozen were spoilt."

Photography in the African wilds is a very
different matter to the gentle art as practised in
a colder country, with cold and clean water to
develop in. The warm, muddy water, the heat of
a closed tent, and the continuous bites of mos-
quitoes or sand-flies do not help one to turn out
the results that can be obtained at home, or on
expeditions in colder countries. Only those who
have tried to photograph in tropical Africa know
these difficulties. The main obstacles to good
results in the development and fixation of films
are the inconvenience and even danger of working
at night, and the difficulty of procuring cold and
clear water, or even a sufficiency. The incon-
venience of working at night is due to the fatigue
after a hard day's hunting preventing efficient
film development or causing its postponement.
Such delay diminishes the great advantages of
the early development of exposed films, and if
unduly prolonged will actually destroy their value.
This inconvenience and the danger from mosquitoes
in night photography can be overcome by the use
of a daylight developing tank and bag, but this
advantage is counterbalanced by the increased
warmth of the tent and water in the daytime,
which cause over- development and frilling in
films.

Over- development can be checked either in
the tank or dish by using a shorter time limit ;
but film frilling can only be obviated either by

68 THROUGH ANGOLA

using formalin before development (an incon-
venient process in the bush when water is scarce),
or partly checked by using alum after develop-
ment, which cannot of course stop any frilling
started in the process of development itself. The
frilling, which is continued to a limited extent in
the washing and fixation of films, can only be
dealt with by speeding up these processes as much
as possible. The question of the clarity of the
water may be met by filtration through cotton
wool or linen ; and as regards quantity, consider-
able water economy can be effected by using a
hyposulphite eliminator, such as permanganate of
potassium, which reduces the amount of washing
after fixation.

On the 18th of August, after spending the morn-
ing preparing the sable head-skin, while my carriers
packed up the camp, we marched south to a new
limiting- ground, where I had been assured that
the giant sable carried huge heads. This hunters'
land of Canaan was supposed to be three hours*
march south ; but we reached the village and
stronm where we were to camp an hour after
starting. This is typical of Africa ; the truth is
exceptional, lies the rule. Though annoyed, I
decided to camp, and had my tent pitched in the
forest, south of a little stream called the Mala,
which flows north-east into a larger one called the
Bun go.

In the evening I hunted the country to the
north-cast of the camp, taking two of my own
men, nnd the srmdc who had insisted that lie was
taking me l"o new sable (jiT'iiml. though it was

A CHIEF OVERREACHES HIMSELF 60

soon recognized to my annoyance as country we
had already hunted over unsuccessfully more than
once.

The history of the little deception which had
been practised on me is so typical of Africa that
it is worth narrating.

My guide, who came from the village near the
Rumelia stream, apparently had not the authority
to let me hunt on the Mala stream ; this privilege
rested with the Sova (or village chief), who
wished to gain all possible advantage in the way
of meat and presents which the white man would
bring to him. The guide then, instead of telling
me the truth, and that it was useless camping
In a country the surroundings of which we had
explored unsuccessfully, decided to risk my wrath
rather than that of the Sova of Mala.

When we came back from my hunting that
evening, I sent for both the guide and the Sova,
and held a lough Court of justice, After listen-
ing to the confessions of both the native fhief
and the guide, who were forced to admit under
cross-examination that they had lied with intent
to deceive, I dealt out my sentence and punish-
ment, which was that both guide and Sova should
accompany me and carry a load of the white
man whose time they had wasted. The other
men of my caravan, who had sat round in a circle
listening to the case, were then asked if what had
been said was not true, and what had been done
was not just ; they all answered with a shout, that
it was true and it was just, and chai'ied both the
guide and the Sova unmercifully for having been

70 THROUGH ANGOLA

caught out in their tricks. Detection is about the
one crime that the African native considers really
serious. We kept the Sova and the guide prisoners
in camp, as otherwise they would have run away,
and I should never have seen them again.

Next day, while the safari marched south-west
to the Bungo River, I went with two men to the
north-west to look for sable, arranging to meet the
carriers at the first village we met on the road.
While searching the beautiful open forest country.
we saw a solitary bull sable feeding in a glade
some 300 yards away. I crawled painfully across
a part of this open glade, pricked and cut by the
numerous small ant-hills and very hard stumps
of burnt grass. The sable spotted me when still
150 yards away, so I fired at once, and was
fortunate enough to kill him dead with the shot,
the bullet hitting him at the point of the shoulder.

On approaching the sable, it was seen that his
head was much smaller than it had appeared from
the distance. The animal was a small one, and
the horns had looked big only in comparison with
his small body. They taped just over 52 inches,
and were the smallest yet obtained. The shoulder
height of this sable was 4 feet 5 inches. Like
all the sable killed up to the present, it was in-
fested with ticks, of more than one kind. One
variety, which had a dorsal plate coloured with
two quarterings of red and two of green arranged
alternately, bit me on the finger, raising a painful
lump, which remained irritable for many months
after the bite.

Carrying the head and head-skin, but leaving

THE BUNCO RIVER 71

most of tlic meat, we marched to a village called
Bunga Calunga, where we arrived at eleven o'clock,
and camped some 500 yards south of the stream
called Bungo and about half a mile from the
village. This river is probably the same stream
as the one called Bungo in the Portuguese map of
this district, but, like most villages and rivers in
this map, is incorrectly placed, flowing some
30 miles north of where it is marked. As far as
I can gather, the Bungo stream flows north-east
into the River Loando, which it enters near
Quitobo camp, where we had spent two days.
Into this stream also flow the Rumelia, Quitobo,
and Mala tributaries. The Bungo just before it
enters the Loando is apparently called the Calu.

The above description gives some idea of the
river system as I understood it from the natives,
though their information is probably nearly as
wrong as the Portuguese map I painfully tried to
use as a guide.

We struck camp on ;he 20th of August, and
marched south-east towards a village called Quis-
sondc, where a native hunter who knew all about
the game in the district was said to live. On
the road we found fresh sable spoor crossing the
path, half a mile from where we had left camp.
Halting the carriers, we took up the spoor and found
it led back to the fields of the village of Bunga
Calunga.

In these cultivated patches we found many
tracks of what were apparently nightly visitation
by sable, which were ;vt< adily destroying the crops
of the wretched villagers. This decided me to

72 THROUGH ANGOLA

repitcii camp, and hunt in the neighbourhood for a
i'ew more days.

Leaving my men to arrange camp, I took a
couple of natives and hunted the forest for many
miles south of the river, and in the direction from
which the sable tracks appeared to come ; but
though we found a good deal more spoor, did not
come across any sable. We went out in the even-
ing south-east of the village in a direction where the
villagers said that the sable slept during the day.
The wind, however, was capricious and gusty,
and we saw no sable, though we came across a
good deal of spoor, including that of two big bulls.
On a grave near the village we found the skull
of a sable, and on passing the village itself in the
evening, I was shown a small bush near the Chief's
house, which was covered with skulls of hares,
duiker, genet, ratels, and other animals which I
was unable to identify. Tracking, hitherto difficult
owing to the hardness and dryness of the soil,
should be easier after the first rainfall, which had
been threatening for some days.

CHAPTER VI

A NIGHT WATCH : PHOTOGRAPHY AND BAD

LUCK

IT was September, the end of the dry season,
and the streams were running very low.
There was just a line of muddy pools
along the bush-fringed bed of the little river. To
these pools the beasts and birds of the surrounding
country came by day or night to drink. There
were tracks of roan and reed buck, duiker and
oribi, an old spoor of a sable and of a big bush
pig. Just as we were leaving the line of pools,
I came across the recent tracks of a lioness. She
had come to drink, and perhaps to wait for her
dinner. Had she found it ; had the little river
witnessed one of those jungle tragedies, so terribly
common in Africa ; had the night seen the
stealthy stalk — the rush — the killing — of some
animal come down to drink, perhaps from miles
away, but finding death instead ?

This was the first lion spoor I had seen in
Angola, and, the moon being full and the skies
clear, it was decided to watch for the lioness that
night.

There is something fascinating in the stillness
and loneliness of a watch by a jungle pool. It

71 THROUGH ANGOLA

stirs one to see wild life so close, and so unconscious
of man's presence.

There is the careful approach of the animal
that fears that death lies at the pool, the pitiful
pretences made to run away from the shadows,
just to make sure that those shadows do not hold
a waiting lion or leopard, who may be tempted to
make a premature attack. Sometimes one may
even see the destroyers themselves come down
to drink : lion or panther, serval or hunting-dog.
These come down stealthily but fearlessly. There
may come to the pool, with heavy movement
and unperturbed, buffalo or rhinoceros, or even
elephant.

Then there is a happier side of the picture to
be seen, more often before dusk has fallen, when
some lesser beast or bird comes down to drink
and rest. The birds will chatter incessantly.
It may be a thanksgiving song for the precious
water ; perhaps it is just scandal they talk, but
anyhow it sounds happy enough. The lesser
animals sometimes linger at the waterside, long
enough to let one see something of their ways ;
and when there is a young family with them, and
father, mother, and little ones have time to play,
the watcher will have the best reward of all.

It is ever a pity to bring death and wounds to
scenes like these, and I had never hitherto killed
any animal, except lion or leopard, at a night
watch.

And now my diary will speak for itself.

" Last night I sat up for five hours for the
lioness, sat up alone, 2 miles from my cam]), and

THE JUNGLE POOL 75

told my men on no account to come lor me unless
they heard three signalling shots. My watch was
from a platform built high in a tree, from which
one could see not only the pool where the lioness
had come to drink, but also two other pools
farther away, and a little game path that ran by
the river bank.

" The chance of the lioness coming to this
part of the stream was slender, though she had
drunk here twice on succeeding days. But there
was the chance that she might come before dark
to one of the other two pools, or along the game
path, where her movements would be more silent
than in the leaf-strewn ground of the surrounding
jungle.

" Just before sunset, flocks of doves and guinea-
fowl, and birds in lesser families and even in
pairs, came cooing and clucking to the waterside.

;' At sundown a little duiker antelope came
down from the forest to drink, watching every
bush and shadow, stopping often, and listening
always. Twice feigning fear, he made pretence to
run away, hoping, no doubt, to entice any hidden
enemy to make a premature attack. Then he
came cautiously to the water's edge, drank
hurriedly, and went back to the shelter of the
forest.

" While it was still light, a delightful family of
striped genets, father, mother, and four little ones,
came in single file to the pool. One parent led,
and the other kept guard behind. These little
beasts did not seem as frightened as the duiker.
They frisked about in the intervals of drinking,

70 THROUGH ANGOLA

and had a great deal to say to each other. (The
genet is so small and moves so quickly that
perhaps he has few dangerous enemies, and little
fear in consequence.)

" At one of the other pools, a heavy animal,
probably a roan antelope, had thrust his way
through the bushes to the water, had drunk, and
crossed the stream to the forest on its other bank.
' It was now dark, and an owl was hooting
on my tree, a tribute to the stillness of my watch ;
and o. nightjar was calling his monotonous, end-
].L.^:> KGie in the bushes near the pool. I had made
up my mind not to fire at anything but the lioness,
but could not keep from thinking of the big pig
track near the pool, and wondering if it might be
Iliac of the rare giant hog, an animal hitherto
unknown in Angola.

' It was nine o'clock, and bright moonlight,
when a heavy animal came forcing its way through
the bushes towards the stream. Then a dark ob-
•only appeared beyond the pool. From
•mi, *10 feet above the ground, the shape
was of a hyifjna, with its high shoulders and

sloping back, but the colour was not the grey of
a hyaena at night. The colour seemed black. I
felt very puzzled and uncertain as to what the
beast eouid be, when the recollection of the big-
pig track came suddenly to my mind. Doubt
changed to certainty : the animal must be a gaint
hog, and my rifle swayed just a little through
excitement when the shot was fired. The bullet

i struck — there was no doubt of that — for the
rush was that of a sorely stricken beast, and a

A SAD MISTAKE

little later there seemed to come from the forest
the sound of a falling body, and then stillness.

" It would have been safer to wait for the
dawn. The lioness was possibly somewhere near
the stream, and to be in the forest at night with
her was unwise. Her very presence, however, did
but increase my desire to guard this new animal,
and what I thought a great trophy, from beirsi'
eaten by the lioness or other prowling thing that
lived on flesh.

" It was difficult work trying to follow in the
track of the wounded animal, and one was un-
certain how dangerous a wounded giant hog
might be in the dark. In half an hour, when only
100 yards of track had been followed, I saw some-
thing which looked too dark for a shadow. It
was not a shadow. It was a dead animal— a sable
—a sable with a small, deformed body. An injury
to the hind legs in early life had made them
much shorter than the fore legs, and thus given
the antelope a sloping back like that of a hyaena
or a hog. The horns were close set and small
for a sable, though all such horns are so big that
it is difficult to understand how I failed to see
them. Perhaps it was the darkness, the height
of the platform above the ground, or my excite-
ment."

Whatever the reason, a sad mistake had been
made, and any big-game hunter will realize the
bitterness of my disappointment.

The only animals that any sportsman m?w
shoot at night watches arc carmvorn, or, rs«; in rhi--.
case, something which appeared rare anr new to

78 THROUGH ANGOLA

science. Here an animal had been killed that
was of little worth as a trophy, while any chance
of a shot at the lioness had been destroyed for one
night at least. The deformed sable when measured
next morning was found to be 4 feet 3 inches high
at the shoulder and only 3 feet 8 inches high at
the rump, and its shape even in daylight was very
like that of a hog.

For the next two days I hunted hard for sable.
There was only one small herd of eight or nine
cows and two bulls in the neighbourhood, and as
I myself was tracking, I got to know some of these
animals individually. The ground was hard and
the tracking difficult, but all the more interesting
on that account ; for tracking is the very salt of
all hunting in Africa, as stalking is the salt of
hunting in the hills.

It is easier to approach the larger African big
game than wild goat or sheep, or even the deer
family in other countries.

To allow some one else to do all the tracking is
for the hunter equivalent to letting the American
guide, the Indian shikari, or the Scottish gillie,
direct the whole of the stalk. Not one of these
things is true hunting (though it may be called
shooting), and those who do them may be called
big-game shots, of whom there are many thousands
to-day : they are not big-game hunters, of whom
there are very few.

To find and judge the age of a track ; to know
the animal, its sex, its size, and the way it has
moved ; to guess its very mood — whether anxious,
or uncertain, or tranquil ; — this can all be done

TRUE HUNTING 79

by patience and a practised eye ; while the size
and shape, the depth and direction of the track,
will each one tell its story to the tracker.

To examine grass and shrub for signs of feeding,
and know when game have fed ; to study the
animal you pursue, and gain a knowledge of the
place you hunt in ; to follow up a beast, track
by track, over earth and stones, through grassy
plain and leaf-filled forest, and find the track
where hidden under stone or blade or leaf ; and
then to bring your game to view : that is hunting !

A fair head obtained like this is better far than
a record met at hazard and shot with ease.

Chance is a wayward mistress ! For two days
I had tracked from morning to midday, and from
afternoon to well into night, without ever bringing
my tracking to the view of a good bull. Cows we
came across in this way, and some photographs
were obtained, but neither of the two bulls that
roamed this country could ever be tracked home.
Once I got so close to an old bull, after hours of
tracking, that I smelt him, though neither of the
two natives with me could do so, nor would they
believe that this little gift, which has often helped
me in my hunting, was true, till the bull dashed
off from close beside us in the bush.

Then came the turn of Mistress Chance, for
while walking back to camp in the early morning
after my second night of watching, I saw my
friend the big bull sable grazing in a forest clearing,
a few hundred yards away. The stalk was very
easy, and the great head of 60 inches fell to a
single shot.

SO THROUGH ANGOLA

Then came Chance again ! The lioness had
been stalking too. Had she stalked me or the
sable ? At the shot she appeared for a moment
near me, and then was hidden in the bush. I
followed her up for over an hour, but lost her in
ground where a soft-footed animal, walking warily,
may leave no trace.

We marched again south-west for a dozen
miles through open forest and waterless country,
to reach Bonji, and a salt river called Longoe,
6 miles from where it joins the grert Conn/a to
the west. On the flats beyond the Longoe River
many cob were grazing, like that one I had shot
on the banks of the Loando. There were no
canoes near our village, and I could not cross the
river, so never knew if the cob, whose head alone
I now possessed, was or was not new to science.

While we camped by the Longoe, I hunted all
the country westward to the Coanzn, still a great
river, though here a thousand miles or fart her from
the sea.

Between the Longoe and Coanza there were
very few sable ; but I found the spoor of roan,
reed buck, eland, oribi, and duiker, while, south of
the Longoe, cob were always feeding in the marshes.

On the 30th August we marched out from
Bonji village, on a road which ran south-eastwards
along the Longoe River. Three hours after start-
ing we met a herd of sable, which moved off as
we saw them, and I followed with camera and
o'iro. The photography which followed was diffi-
cult, as it was the South African spring, and tb<'
sun shone fiercclv at middav.

ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHY 81

It is harder to stalk with a big camera than a
rifle, for while one can sometimes allow a rifle butt
to trail behind along the ground when crawling
on hand and knee, this cannot be done with a
frail machine like a camera. My quarter-plate
" Reflex " had a length of only 9 inches when
closed, but when open with extended bellows
and big lens mounted, was nearly 3 feet long.
To open up the camera and adjust the lenses
was the work of five or more minutes, and once
the game was alarmed and moving, as in this
case, the stalking had to be done with open camera
so as to be always ready for a picture. It was
only after two hours' crawling, through sharp
stubble and thorns in a torrid heat, and hiding
behind every bit of cover, that I managed to take
some twenty photographs of the herd. The bull
had horns of about 57 inches, a better head than
three of those already shot ; but I was content
with his picture, a far better momento to a hunter
of moderate means, than a trophy which took two
men to carry for weeks on the journey, and cost
a fortune to bring to England and mount.

Photography solves one of the difficulties of
the poor big-game hunter, who, with no suitable
house of his own, is compelled to store his trophies
at great expense or hang them in clubs or museums
where he rarely sees them.

The very difficulty of the telephotography of
animals makes it splendid sport, ai -1 a successful
photograph provides a delightful and very portable
record of the day's hunting.

The great heat and exhaustion c:\ ;•;•'.'! iciieed
6

82 THROUGH ANGOLA

during the day had brought on a sharp attack
of fever, and it was with relief that I got back
to where camp had been pitched under two immense
forest fig trees (mulembas).

The only water in the surrounding country
came from a shallow well, where every living
thing for miles around — beast, bird, or insect-
was compelled to drink. It looked like pea-soup
and stank horridly. But though many natives
like water that has a taste and smell, all appar-
ently do not do so, for somebody stole my small
store of filtered water, so that, with the increased
thirst brought by the fever, I suffered a good deal
that night. My lips were parched and my tongue
dry, but it would have been madness to drink the
water of the well without boiling it, and when
boiled, the stench it gave off was so foul that my
fever-stricken stomach could not tolerate it. At
last, by mixing it with coffee — for tea could not
hide its nauseous flavour— I was able to prepare
a drink which could be taken. For those who
have never known what real thirst may mean, or
what sufferings it can bring when combined with
fever, it is didicult to realize the joy of my first
drink of good water, when I reached a spring next
day.

We had camped at the village of Cunde Cunde,
near the Longoe, but higher up the stream than
where we had first met it at Bonji village.

It was while I was still very weak from fever,
and hunting to shoot for food, that I met the big
bull sable. He was walking along the opposite
c(]r?c of a forest clearing, and I determined to try

o *•

HARD TRACKING 83

and shoot him, as it was too dark to take a photo,
and my men were clamouring for meat. Too
weak to carry out a successful stalk, I was forced
to open fire at long range, and owing partly to a
shaky hand, and partly to faulty ammunition,
which jammed at every shot, the sable escaped
wounded into the forest, where it was too dark to
follow.

Leaving camp before dawn the next morning
with two men, we took up the spoor of the wounded
sable, and followed it for ten hours, the hardest
bit of tracking I have ever done. Though one
often spoors the elephant for a whole day, this
spooring is done with good trackers, whereas
here I had to rely largely upon myself — and five
years of war and absence from the jungle had
made me rusty at the game. We came across
blood where the sable had rested, and from the
position of the blood-stains to the body it seemed
likely that he was only wounded in the neck, a
belief made certain by finding blood-stains below a
bush on which the bull had browsed, and below
where his neck would be when browsing. The
meeting with the sable brought us all misfortune,
as by leaving and returning to camp before and
after daylight, we had missed seeing an invasion
of malarial mosquitoes.

Our camp was pitched 011 a bluff, high above
the Longoe River and at some distance from it,
but not fur enough to prevent nearly two hundred
of these deadly insects finding their way into my
tent, while several, gorged with my blood, were
within the mosquito netting.

81 THROUGH ANGOLA

We moved camp at once, and I served out
large doses of quinine to all my men for several
days, but many of us were attacked by fever a
fortnight later. (The incubation period of malaria
is from ten days to a fortnight.)

In the dry season in Africa, and this applies
to Angola, mosquitoes, except near swamps, are
never numerous, and these swamp mosquitoes
are usually not of the type that carry malaria.
Never have I seen such numbers of malarial
mosquitoes as on the Longoe River. One of my
boys said it should be called " bad river," because
its water was so salty ; it deserves this name for
its mosquitoes, and is one of the most dangerous
spots in Africa.

On the great Sabi River in Mozambique I
once found a dozen malarial mosquitoes in my net,
near where four of a party of five Boer hunters
contracted malaria and died ; and I have come
across bad mosquito countries all over Africa,
but never like the Longoe River. I would strongly
advise hunters coming from Lobito by wagon road
and by railway, to keep well south of this fever
country, which is far inferior as a sable ground to
that farther south.

The next few days were spent in trying to get
photographs of sable, and with hard work and
painful stalking some two dozen more pictures
of herds and single animals were taken, at distances
of from 50 to 150 yards. A bull had also to be
killed for food, much to my regret, as it had been
impossible to find other game or obtain Hour.
With a diminished ration, my carriers had become

85

discontented and restless, and if I had riot procured
meat, would have run away.

Although we had fled from the mosquitoes at
Cunde Cunde village, the line of the traverse and
our road still lay along the Longoe stream, where
we found small villages at three or four points,
at one of which I saw the African desire for meat
overcome fear of fetish, when a sick village Chief
who had been banned by witch doctors from his
own village, crept across the forbidden ground
to beg a piece of venison. This village, larger
than the others, was defended by a stockade of
heavy timber built in the old days of intertribal
warfare ; but these were over, and under the
Pax Portuguesa the defences were rapidly falling
into disrepair.

We camped at a village near a stream called
Cummunga, from where I hunted the surrounding
country, to realize that along the Longoe was little
other game than water buck and roan, and that
sable were scarce both here and along the remaining
distance of the second traverse to the Loando.

As there was no object in completing the
second, we started the third traverse ; when, the
guide having failed us, I had to move by compass
for 15 miles until we reached the Coanza, and
nearly as many more on the fourth traverse from
this river south-east to the Loando.

There were no villages on the right bank of
the Coanza, though many were marked there on
the map, the natives having abandoned this
bank years ago for the other, owing to severe
epidemics of small-pox. Not only were there no

86 THROUGH ANGOLA

villages where villages were shown on the map,
but the rivers on it were also all wrongly marked.
Two of these, shown as the Zanca and Canda, no
one had ever heard of, while another, called the
Longoe, which we met and followed for a day's
march on our fourth traverse to the south-wrest,
was not marked on the map at all. I called this
river the Southern Longoe, to distinguish it from
the other mosquito-haunted river of that name
which we had met farther north. Near the
Southern Longoe we met a broad new road running
roughly north and south to join Melanje, with a
new post called Chimbango ; and following this
road for three hours to the south, we came to
a well-built Portuguese post, where I found my
friend Colonel Cardozo, and two other Portuguese
officers, who entertained me most hospitably.

Some 8 miles to the east of the delightful
forest-clad hills of Chimbango flowed the River
Loando, the goal of my fourth traverse. To the
south-west of Chimbango, and some 30 miles
away, was the country where Varian had shot his
first sable, and where these animals were known
to be numerous. I marched there, halting at a
Portuguese store called Tetua, about 15 miles
from Chimbango, where I arrived late at night
without any of my caravan, who had lost their
road.

It was at this time that I suffered a very great
misfortune, the destruction of most of my photo-
graphs. The setting alight of a paper-made dark-
room lamp by the fall of its melting candle, not
only fogged two dozen films which were being

DISASTER 87

developed, but burnt another three dozen thai
were being dried. Within a minute I had lost
the work of weeks, and probably the finest photo
records of big game I have ever taken ; but such
mishaps all come in the game, and this is the third
time in twenty years that I have lost in a moment
the work of an expedition. Once in little Thibet
my plates fell down a precipice ; one box of films
lies in the bed of a Central African river, upset from
a canoe ; but there are not even ashes left of my
Angola films.

One of my reasons for approaching the sable
country from Loanda by the northern railway
to Melanje and the north, instead of from Lobito,
the central railway, and the south, had been to
map out the distribution of the sable antelope.
To this end I had. made a series of traverses, or
oblique zigzags, across the Loando-Coanza water-
shed. These had commenced from its northern
end, starting from the Loando River, and would
take me to the southern limit of the sable country.

The first traverse started from the Loando
and the most northern point of the watershed, and
took me through a fair sable country to a point
40 miles to the south, where the Longoe flowed into
the Coanza. (See Map at end of book.)

The second traverse followed up the valley of
the Longoe, which ran roughly south-east to its
source near the Loando River. This second tra-
verse, where sable were very scarce, wras broken
off at a place called Cumimmga, and not completed,
as information was obtained that a few sable
would be met with right up to the Loando.

88 THROUGH ANGOLA

From Cummunga, the third traverse to the
south-west had brought me through 20 miles of
pathless bush, where there were uo sable, to the
River Coanza ; while a fourth traverse took me
south-east along another stream, called the
Longoe, to the new Portuguese post at Chimbango,
not far from the Loando River.

The fifth and last traverse to the south-west,
which had brought me in some 20 miles, to the
known sable country near the Luce and Lusengo
Rivers, was to take me later to the southern end
of this country, and to the Coanza at Chuso
village ; where river fords, beaten paths, and
wagon roads led to civilization, motors, the
railway, and Lobito in the south.

CHAPTER VII

THE HOME OF THE SABLE— A PLUCKY BEAST—
THE PEOPLE MET— THE COUNTRY TRAVERSED

HERE at last was the country Varian had
described that Christmas in Rouen in
1917, and here he, Van der Byl, and
Elaine had hunted their first sable two years later.
One could see readily it was a good sable country,
for their tracks were everywhere, and in this land
of glade and open forest the sable found not grass
alone, but other food which served them when the
grass was rank or dry, for in certain places in the
forest the quinsolle shrub was plentiful, and in this
" sable bush " the animals were more often to be
found.

The quinsolle grows, with slender stem and
tendril-like branches, eager to climb any support
it meets, and giving a milky juice like rubber
when bruised. The leaf of the shrub is oval,
some 2 inches long and dark green in colour, and
the small flower is somewhat like a jasmine.

Another plant, the chinbimburee, which the
natives say the sable also loves, is much smaller
than the quinsolle, only 2 or 3 feet high, bearing
long slender leaves and pods like beans.

In the north I had found that grass formed

90 THROUGH ANGOLA

nine- tenths of the food in the stomachs of the
sable, but then it was the time when the young
grass was springing up after the burnings ; and
all animals love young grass. It is likely that at
other times the quinsolle and the chinbimburee
serve as food for the sable.

It was the first evening on the Luce River, and
an hour before sunset, that we came across the big
herd of thirty sable. There were five bulls in
all, and one huge fellow ; the rest were cows
and little ones. The herd was scattered and
grazing, half hidden by the trees of an open forest.
My one desire \vas to take a photograph, and
replace some of those that had been lost ; as the
light was fading and there was no time to lose, I
started at once to crawl towards the sable with
the camera, while the local guide, strongly dis-
approving of this way of hunting, crept behind
me with my gun. The herd kept moving away
from us as fast as we could creep on hand and
knee, and all this time the sun was sinking lower,
the shadows were lengthening, and all hope of
taking photographs was slowly dying out.

Then came temptation in the eager plcnding
of the local guide, who knew only that he needed
meat for his village, and who could not understand
my losing time and every chance " to point
against the sable a long black box which could
not kill them." Then, too, I remembered that
one sable cow was needed to complete my museum
specimens, and I thought, not without misgiving,
to kill one that had no young rnlf; but the
question was derided by the big bull of the herd.

A SABLE HERO 91

He had been behind, acting as a rear-guard, and
had grown suspicious of the two curious creatures
he had at last seen, and was now watching. Sud-
denly he left the herd and walked slowly back
towards us. The splendid beast had come back
to challenge the intruders. With neck arched,
mane erect, shaking his head and immense horns,
the big bull came towards us and away from the
herd. There were young bulls to be shown an
example, and there were all his harem to watch
his gallantry — and gallantry it was. The bull
did not suspect that the two crawling things were
men — for no antelope will face man, but he thought
we were leopards or wild dogs, terrible enemies in
either case ; and we might have been lions — worse
enemies still.

When 100 yards away, he stopped and began
to paw the ground — a splendid sight ; and I
bitterly regretted the hopeless light and my useless
camera. Then something we did, or the sight
of my rifle, must have warned the sable that the
animals in front of him were men and no battle
was possible, for he turned suddenly and looked
back preparing, I think, to escape. The horns
looked what they were, nearly 5 feet long ; and T
was after all but the villain of the story, where
the sable was the hero ; and by these immense
horns I wras tempted, and fired. The bull walked
forward very slowly for a few paces, and then fell
—dead. The next shot bagged a cow, but though
still the villain, I will say this— while tempted by
an easy chance at another cow with what looked
record horns, I stayed my hand because she stood

92 THROUGH ANGOLA

over a young calf. The cow killed had no calf,
but neither had she a head comparable to the
other.

Even after the two shots, the herd would not
cove off, but stood bewildered and uncertain
what to do, and it was easy to realize how one
could kill many sable from one herd. Of course,
though begged to do so, I never fired again. We
watched the herd till dark; watched the mothers
drawing the young near them ; watched the
younger bulls, hesitating and uncertain wyhat
they should do ; for with the loss of the master
bull, another must take his place— ' The King is
dead ! Long live the King ! ' The horns of this
bull measured 59 inches, those of the cow 30 inches ;
both their skins were in perfect condition, and
very suitable for museum specimens.

I hope the reader will not judge me a butcher.
In the last six weeks I had killed only a dozen
animals of- all kinds — a number scarcely sufficient
to supply our need in food ; during the whole five
months of the Angolan trip, my total bag was
only eighteen, while in my last half-dozen hunting
trips I had not killed fifty animals in all.

It is difficult not to slaughter animals in Africa,
as the natives cannot understand why anybody
should let off a buck which he could kill ; and
their desire for meat is insatiable. Then, again,
food other than meat is not always procurable,
as was the case in our present hunting country,
where the villages were small and miserably poor,
and food had to be fetched at great expense from
Tetua, manv miles away. Tiic force of circum-

PHOTOGRAPHING A LION 93

stances compels one to shoot more animals than
one wants for trophies, or cares to kill, and the
greatest force in these circumstances is the dis-
content of the meatless negro.

The next week was devoted entirely to an
endeavour to get photographs of sable ; but at
this time, when they were most needed, I never
succeeded in taking any good ones. One day I
took unwittingly a very rare and curious picture,
that of a lion, small and out of focus on the plate
it is true, but a lion notwithstanding, walking
through the grass, looking crestfallen, as if after
an unsuccessful stalk. There had been the spoor
of lions in the forest, and the sable had been shy,
moving much in the past few days, and driven off
their usual haunts. When at last I found them,
the photograph failed, as the herd hurriedly
galloped away just before it was taken. On the
film and hard to recognize, so bad the focus, was
the lion. My determination to stop shooting and
photograph instead had brought trouble in the
camp, for the carriers, who had bartered much
of the sable meat to the villagers for small and
trifling things, now clamoured for more, and were
getting mutinous.

Without letting my present carriers know, I
had sent back to my friends at Chimbango for
twenty-five new ones, and they arrived just when
things were at their worst. The arrival of the new
carriers was dramatic in its moment. The men
realized my power, and begged as hard to stay
as they had prayed to go. As they had worked
well fur v;»c in th-; past, ten oi ihe nest were kept,

OJ. THROUGH ANGOLA

and the others sent baek contented to Chimbango,
with full pay and a good present to each one.

When camped on the Luce River we had
hunted all the country between this stream and
the next one south, the Lusengo, and all the
country round about and up to the Loando River,
into which both streams flowed. There was little
other game except sable, a few roan and reed
buck, and an occasional eland ; ;md though I
heard both lechwe and puku were to be found
on the Loando, saw none.

The Lusengo is another of the numerous salt
streams to be found in Angola. The salt in the
stream comes from the soil it passes over in its
course, and especially from the so-called salt
springs at Chisongo. Near this village the Lusengo
flows past a low hill into a small swamp, and the
soil in this neighbourhood is so heavily impreg-
nated with salt that the natives are able to extract
it readily, by stirring soil and water in a hollow
tree trunk, and allowing the salt solution to filter
through to another hollowed tree trunk placed
below the first one. The "plant" employed is
shown on the accompanying photograph.

The whole income of Chisongo village appears
to be derived from the salt business, and there are
a great many tree-trunk " plants " in operation.

On the 18th September we marched south
from Shakashimas, reaching the Lusengo stream
near Chisongo village in one and a quarter hour.
The Caluando, which flows north-eastwards to the
Luimon, a tributary of the Loando, was reached
two hours later, and Missonge, from which the

A CHASE AND A SPEECH 05

villagers had already run away on our approach,
shortly after. ___^

The inhabitants apparently mistook our party
for that of a Portuguese official collecting labourers,
and when we realized this we approached the
next village of Tunda, situated 5 miles higher
up the Caluando, very cautiously ; sending an
advance party to explain that we were merely
hunters needing a guide and a little food, for both
of which we were willing to pay very handsomely.
The Chief of Tunda promised everything, and
then ran away with all the men of the village,
and we spent the evening rounding up the planta-
tions, trying to find a guide and food. After two
hours of cross - country scouting and encircling
movements, we captured four women working in
a field, and one of them, the Chief's daughter,
a very pretty girl too, promptly gave away the
hiding-place of her father and several other men.

When the fugitives had been collected and
marched back to their village, I told the men
that it was discourteous and inhospitable for
them to run away from a white traveller, and
cowardly to leave their women in the village if
they thought we were bad people. The wromen
were shown how unworthy their men folk were
of their charms, which they evidently preferred
to leave to others ; paid handsomely for all the
food commandeered, encouraged to keep the
money, and give none to their worthless husbands .
This little speech was received with roars of
laughter from the women of the village and my
own carriers, and the presents with still greater

96 THROUGH ANGOLA

enthusiasm. The Sova and the other men of the
village remained glum and crestfallen, and were
chaffed unmercifully by my men.

While the rest of the carriers marched direct
to a village called Quingombe, two and a half
hours to the south, three of us made a detour to
the east to search for sable, but saw nothing but
their spoor. We returned to find the carriers
waiting in New Quingombe, a dirty and shadeless
village, whilst only 300 yards away on a hill was
the beautiful deserted site of Old Quingombe.

On the summit of this hill grew great mulemba
trees (Ficus psilopoga), in a circle so regular
in outline that the trees which formed it must-
have grown from the original stockade which
surrounded the village, perhaps a hundred years
before. Among these trees hundreds of birds
were singing merrily, revelling in the wonderful
coolness and greenery ; while in the dense shade
below was a carpet of green grass like English
turf. From this hill could be seen, 6 miles to
the east and near the Coanza River, another hill
with a similar great clump of trees. The natives
called this place Mulundu ; they said that a native
sable hunter lived there, and that opposite
Mulundu and between it and Massanga, a village
on the other bank of the Coanza. was a wa^on

o

crossing whence a wagon road led to Bihe in the
south.

The camp at Quingombe was so delightful
that we remained there two clays ; and yet,
probably because one Chief had died, this beauty
spot had been abandoned by his successor for the

"THE KING is DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING!"

PLANT," NEAR CHISOXGO, Fi >R EXTRACTING SALT FROM I UK MVI

THE QUINGOMBfi LEOPARD 97

new village in a shadeless site in scrub jungle.
The afternoon was spent hunting to the south-west
of Quingombe, where we sawT much spoor but no
sable.

A leopard had been taking weekly toll of the
calves, goats, and dogs of Quingombe, and the
villagers asked me to shoot the marauder, a
powerful beast of whom they were very frightened.
That evening a platform was built in a tree, and
a goat borrowed to serve as bait.

To those who do not know the scheme of night
watching for leopards, it may be explained that
the best way to get a shot at these cunning animals
is to tie up a goat or dog below a watching plat-
form, and near a path the leopard uses in his
nightly prowls ; for all carnivora prefer to follow
paths rather than leave them for the leaf- covered
ground of the bush, where their footfall might be
heard.

For a village-hunting leopard, it is better to
watch near the village itself ; for he is less sus-
picious in the scene of his former murders, and
the bait, be it goat or dog, if he can hear his mates,
will keep calling out to them. A white or light-
coloured animal is more readily seen at night than
one of a colour which could be confused with that
of the leopard, and shot in mistake for it, a not
unusual occurrence. On a moonlight night, a
piece of cotton-wool, or phosphorescent paint on
the foresight, is enough to ensure good sighting.
On a dark night, an electric light attached to the
hat, a dry battery in the pocket, and switch on the
rifle near the trigger, is my own device for shooting.
7

98 THROUGH ANGOLA

When a leopard comes to a bait, it is usually
about sunset, at ten o'clock, or just before dawn.
The Quingombe leopard never showed himself,
though more than once a big silent something
moved in the bushes below the tree.

Too tired to continue the strain of a watch as
severe as that needed to bag so cunning a beast
as a leopard, I took the goat back to its parents
at midnight, and returned to camp.

The next day, the 20th September, we marched
from Quingombe south-west towards the Coanza,
to continue the fifth traverse of the Loando-Coanza
watershed, which had started at Chimbango near
the Loando, and was to end at Chuso on the
Coanza. (See Map at end of book.) For the in-
formation of those who may hunt in this region,
I will again quote from my diary.

" Leaving Quingombe at 8.20 a.m. we passed
by a plain named Sandanbiza, and at short
intervals a series of small streams called the
Cascella, Futa, Dinba, Cassenje, and Jamba, all
flowing eastwards to join the Mazi River, which
we reached at one o'clock ; and an hour later,
Cave, a large village on the hills above the Mazi
valley. The hills on which Cave stood must be
5000 feet above sea-level, and the highest point we
reached in the Loando-Coanza watershed. After
leaving Cave we marched south-west down to
the Coanza valley, camping at a village two hours
later. The next morning, another I.1, hour's
march brought us to the Coanza River, opposite
Chuso village, where there is a ferry/'

The journey through the sable country, carried

FIVE TRAVERSES OF A WATERSHED 99

out in five traverses of the Loando-Coanza water-
shed, had now been completed. The first traverse
from north to south, starting from the River
Loando, had ended at the Coanza where it is
joined by the Longoe. The second, from this
point south-eastwards, was broken off at Cummunga
and before the Loando was reached. The third
was from Cummunga south-westwards to the
Coanza ; the fourth, south-eastwards from the
Coanza to near the Loando at Chimbango post ;
while the fifth and longest traverse had been from
this post to the Coanza at Chuso. These five
traverses had been made through a watershed
some 200 miles long, tongue-like in shape and
varying in breadth from 40 miles at the base
of the tongue to 20 or so at the broad tip, where
the Loando joins the Coanza at an obtuse angle.
The slope of the country is from south-east to
north-west, and from some 5000 feet at the Loando
source to just over 3000 where the rivers meet.
Owing to the slope of the land and the narrowness
of the Loando-Coanza watershed, nearly all the
tributaries within it are small, and most of them
flow in a sort of herring-bone pattern north-west
to the Coanza and north-east to the Loando.

In my first traverse, from the Loando south-
westwards to the Coanza, the three streams crossed
were the Quitobo, Rumelia, and Bungo, all
flowing north-east to the Loando. The second
and fourth traverses were made along the course
of two tributaries of the Coanza, each called the
Longoe, and in the third traverse between them
I had crossed over small streams flowing north-

100 THROUGH ANGOLA

west to the Coanza. In my fifth and longest
traverse, from Chimbango near the Loando to
Chuso on the Coanza, three rivers, the Luce,
Lusengo, and Caluando, and five small tributaries
of the Mazi, which had been passed, all flowed
north-eastwards to the Loando. The traverses
had crossed most branches of the herring-bone-
pattern drainage of the Loando - Coanza water-
shed. This watershed is comparatively sparsely
inhabited, in the north by the Songho tribe, and
in the south by the Luimbes.

The destruction of the power of their Chiefs,
and the great mortality caused by epidemic
small-pox thirty years ago, have done much to
diminish the number and alter the character and
customs of these people. The Songho villages
were small and wretchedly built, and there were
no big Chiefs and few witch doctors to impose
the older and more dreadful customs and cere-
monies on their people.

Beyond an occasional dance, and one funeral
ceremony similar to that seen elsewhere, there was
little to remind one of what Douville, the French
traveller, described when on a visit to these people
a century ago. He states that he found it difficult
to pass through the Songho country without
bribing them and consenting to the sacrifice of
animals, the blood of which, mixed with ashes,
was used to anoint the feet and head of the
travellers.

Speaking of the funeral ceremonies of the Sova
or Chief of Catenda on the Coanza River, Douville
describes how the mourners dancvJ nnd shouted.

DEATH CEREMONIES OF THE SONCxHO 101

draped in vines and carrying sprigs of leaves,
how the witch doctor sacrificed a goat before the
dead Chief's house, and after mixing its blood with
palm wine in a boiling pot, commenced to incaiit
amid the smoke of the fire. Working himself into
a frenzy, he rushed into the hut where the dead
body lay, and soon after spoke, as if with the voice
of the dead man, who thanked the people for their
remembrance of him. The hair of the late Chief,
with the nails of his fingers and toes, were then
distributed among the people.

The arms of the corpse were so placed that the
hands rested one on each side of the face, with the
thumbs under the chin, and the little fingers near
the eyes ; the knees were drawn up, and on the
body were placed charms and fetishes. The body
was wrapped in blue cloth, placed in a net
hammock, and carried to the grave, amid a pro-
cession of his people, some of whom carried spears
and others garlands of leaves ; while the chief
mourners wept loudly, and the drummers beat a
slow march on draped drums. The dead Chief's
widows, who had washed themselves in a stream
into which a pig's head had been thrown, followed
the bier amid many other women.

After the body had been laid in the grave, the
people ran round shouting and throwing mud and
stones into it until filled, and a mound had been
formed, on wrhich was placed the Chief's hat of
office. This done, the drums were undraped and
the procession marched back to gay tunes and
dances, to feast, drink, sing, and dance all night.

At midday the next day the people came

102 THROUGH ANGOLA

together to elect their new Chief, around whose
neck the collar of chiefship was placed by the
eldest noble, who, presenting the Chief with a cup
of poison, summoned him to swear upon it an
oath of just leadership to his people.

There is much in all this that resembles our
own funeral and coronation ceremonies.

Douville described the Lemba tribe, who in-
habited the country near the Cunhinga River, as
inordinately superstitious, and under the influence
of their witch doctors. They sacrificed human
victims to their superstition and lust of blood,
and reverenced spirits, especially those of light-
ning and of health.

On the death of a man, his principal wife stood
near the corpse, while she sang the song of the
dead ; though should the body be that of the
wife, the husband stood silent. At midnight an
animal was sacrificed, and its blood placed in a
vessel near the corpse as an offering to the gods.
This blood was then partaken of by the relatives
as a sacrament. The night then ended in re-
joicing, the dead man being asked to intercede for
his relatives in the other world, and procure them
houses and wives in a Negro heaven of shady
forests and limpid streams.

On the second day, the dead man's fetish
images were placed round his body with food and
wine, and the spirits called on to witness the
completeness of the sacrifice.

At midnight another animal was sacrificed
to the spirits ; and on the third night, when from
the advancing putrefaction of the corpse it was

FUNERAL RITES OF LEMBAS 103

assumed that its spirit had left, it was carried to
the grave in a hammock, wrapped in blue cloth,
with food in its hands and fetishes on the body.
When the burial was over and the grave adorned,
the mourners came back to feast, dance, and sing
their last farewell to the dead, whose house they
now burned.

Widows were compelled to purify themselves
by purgation and bathing, and isolate themselves
in huts in the forest for the space of two moons,
before they could re-marry, which they rarely
failed to do, especially if they had children, who
were looked upon as a source of wealth and a
dowry.

Among these Cunhinga people circumcision
rites were practised within a year of birth ; and
after the child had been cured, it was carried to
the fetish hut of some particular spirit, to whose
protection it was committed.

Like their neighbours, these people of the
Cunhinga were very superstitious, consulted their
gods before any important event, and made
sacrifices, even of human victims, to propitiate
the spirits they feared. Their most potent
weapons were arrows poisoned with leaves of a
plant, which caused rapid muscular paralysis ;
and of their beverages, one, made by infusing and
fermenting the wood of a tree called " inka," was
strongly intoxicating.

CHAPTER VIII

CROSSING THE CENTRAL PLATEAU OF ANGOLA

WE left the sable country, and commenced
our march across the Central Angolan
plateau on the 23rd of September, when
we crossed the Coanza, first its line of marshes, and
then the main stream near the village of Chuso.
It took my caravan about an hour and a half to
cross the river, which even here, 1000 miles from
the sea, is deep and 100 yards across at the driest
season of the year.

In the rainy season, when the Coanza overflows
its banks, the flooded lower lands and marshes
must form a lake in front of Chuso village.

From the Coanza, here some 4000 feet above the
sea, our march lay south-westwards through rising
hill and valley, past Belmonte, in the 13ihe country,
with an altitude of 5400 feet, to Chinguar, where the
Central Angolan (Benguella-Katanga) Railway ends,
and the plateau reaches nearly 6000 reet in height.

Leaving the Coanza, our road rose slowly by
winding path, through glade and open forest, and
crossed the watershed between the Missimoi River,
flowing to the Coanza near Chuso, nowr behind us
in the north, and the little stream of the Viniboi,
which joins the Coanza farther south.

THE HIGH PLATEAU 105

On the first day's march, some 15 miles, we
crossed three streams and passed three villages,
before we camped at Almafodas store. From here,
a motor track — an hour's walk — led us to the great
motor road, 150 miles long, which, starting from
Neves Fercira on the Coanza, 15 miles south of
Chuso, passes through Belmonte to Chinguar.
Along this road we marched for 20 miles, past a
store called Camacupas and twro others, then the
rising town of Catabella, and camped at dusk
an hour's inarch beyond it.

A wagon track from Bihe runs near the motor
road, and on the track the Boer settler of the
plateau may be seen slowly driving his long span
of sixteen oxen, while a motor-car may pass him,
moving at ten times his oxen's pace.

Five miles west of Camacupas, a wragon road ran
northward, I wras told, to the Coanza, and its
crossing at Massanga. Any hunter of the sable,
coming from Bihc by wagon, might take this
track to cross the river there.

The third day's march was over a country
of open hill and dale, like the high veldt of the
Transvaal, but better watered with clear mountain
streams ; that evening we reached Belmonte (Bihe).

We now had crossed 50 miles of the plateau,
while 80 miles of still higher and more open country
lay between us and the rail-head at Chinguar. At
Belmonte I was forced to stay a day, as the carriers,
engaged to this point only, refused to take me
farther till doubly paid.

Though there lias been trade at Belmonte for
over fifty years, and the little town lies close to the

106 THROUGH ANGOLA

track of the on-coming Katanga Railway, it does
not show at present the promise of its future. The
two hotels are bad, the dozen stores are lifeless,
and there is a listless look about the population.
There were but three motor-cars to make use of the
splendid motor roads the Government has built,
and the charges of a car journey were prohibitive.

The traders of Belmonte appear to make little
commercial effort. The decreasing value of Por-
tuguese money has much to do with this, as it
must be difficult to carry on business in a coinage
which depreciates every day. The curse of the
speculative spirit, which waits for benefits to come
from the efforts of others, and a rise in value of field
or forest bought cheaply, with a view to sell at
profit without work, is the more serious factor in
the situation.

From Belmonte to Chinguar we did some
strenuous marching, when 80 miles were covered
in three days. The land was open hill and dale,
like that we had left behind us, and we marched
past several streams. These were the head waters
of large rivers like the Coquoma, flowing south-
east to join the Coan/a, and the Cuchi and Cutato,
on their way to the Cubango.

It was late at night when we arrived at
Chinguar. We had then marched for six days,
and covered 120 miles of the great Angolan divide.

While the highlands of Angola in general form
the main watershed between those two mighty
rivers, the Congo and Zambezi, their central
portion, bounded by the Coanza on the east and
north, sloping gently to the Cubango and the

A WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY 107

Cunene in the south, and abruptly to the westward
and the sea, divides more particularly the Coanza
from the Cunene and tributaries of the Zambezi.

Rare it must be to find in any country the
source of so many great rivers, confined within so
small a field, yet flowing to seas so distant from
each other ! The Cunhinga and Cutato, rising
close to each other, join the Coanza some hundreds
of miles apart ; and the Coanza itself, which flows
to the Atlantic, rises near the Cubango and Cutato,
branches of the Zambezi, which river once poured
its great flood into the Indian Ocean.

The Cuvo and Cunene, two other rivers rising \
near the township of Huambo, flow into the
Atlantic Ocean very far apart. The rivers flowing-
northward from the plateau cut their valleys
deeper than those flowing to the south, and give
better power for irrigation than these sluggish
southern rivers, with their swampy, shallow
valleys.

In these well-watered highlands, 5000 feet and
more above the sea, with a temperature of 60
to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and a rainfall of over
10 inches, there must be a future for the white man.
There is little malaria in the country, and on the
plateau I saw neither malarial mosquito nor
tsetse fly. Rinderpest has been absent for years
together, and lung sickness is the only serious
animal disease.

Though cereals r?nd slock do well, few but
natives arc farming ; yet, by crossing pedigree
stock with the hardy local race of cattle, there
should come a breed lit for the meat markets of

108 THROUGH ANGOLA

Europe, which are closer to Angola by sea than
most other parts of Africa. This should be a
cattle country, for if Europe failed to give a
market, the rich Congo colony would always need
! great quantities of meat.

If the Portuguese would but colonize the
country, or leave others to develop it, Angola
would be a second Argentine. Some effort is
being made at last to encourage such develop-
ment ; fair land laws have been lately made, of
which the details are given in Chapter XX.
These laws allow a settler to take up 100,000
acres at a rent of only a halfpenny an acre, and
to hold it without tax, if 200 times the rental is
spent within two years. If not, a graduated tax
has to be paid.

There are several native tribes in the Central
Angolan plateaux. The chief among them are the
Bihenos, who live round Belmonte; the Bailundos,
who live to the north of them ; and the Ganguella,
who live chiefly in the south-east and south-west
of the Bilics.

This Bihe plateau shows how rapidly Africa is
altering her appearance, her fauna and flora,
through the march of civilization.

A hundred and fifty years ago this country,
which to-day consists of bare and breezy uplands,
cultivated, built over, populated, and practically
gameless, was a forested region and a paradise for
game, occupied by a few Ganguella villagers.
Soon, and this future is not far distant, the railway
which already reaches Chinguar will have passed
through Bihe ; Belmonte, its capital, a township

A ROMANCE OF BIHfi 109

even to-day, may have grown to a city placed
on the great iron highway from the rich Congo
copper fields to the sea at Lobito Bay.

The very history of Bihe and its people is a
romance.

On a visit to a village of the sparse Ganguella
people, came a beautiful maiden from the Zambo
tribe, who live near the Loando River (the giant
sable country) to the north. Her name was
Cahanda, and her father was chief of the Gambas,
and called Boma. From the southern land of
Humbe, and in pursuit of elephants, which he was
following up the Cunene River, came a son of the
Humbe Chief, a mighty hunter called Bihe, with
his band of fellow- hunters. The two young people
met at the Ganguella village, and Bihe wooed
and won Cahanda. After conquering the Gan-
guellas, Bihe built himself a banza, and founded
a kingdom. The father-in-law, the Chief of the
Gambas, being won over, sent his people south
from the Loando to help Bihe.

The race of the Bihes is thus a mixture of the
Humbes of the south, the Gambas of the north,
and the original Ganguellas ; but the great slave
traffic, which passed through the Bihe plateau,
has brought about a further mixing of peoples,
and the character and physique of the Biheno is
probably as much due to the vigorous air and pure
water of his uplands as to his racial descent.
There have only been some six generations of the
Bihe since the foundation of the tribe 150 years ago. ,/

The Portuguese obtained their influence in
this country in a curious mnmier. One of the

110 THROUGH ANGOLA

Bihe Chiefs, jealous of a brother's popularity, sold
him as a slave, when he accidentally fell into the
hands of the Portuguese at Loanda. The growing
unpopularity of the Bihe Chief caused the people
to send for the brother, and the Portuguese
Governor, seizing his opportunity, not only freed
the princely slave, but helped him to regain his
kingdom, and in doing so established a new
Portuguese commercial centre, that of Belmonte,
the present capital of Bihe.

P" These Bihenos are by nature traders and
travellers, and through Portuguese example they
have learnt the value of commercial travelling.
They quickly learned this trade, purchasing goods
at Benguella to sell them to distant tribes, who
readily exchanged valuable ivory and slaves for
any worthless European goods brought them.

Carriers are nowadays obtained in the Bihe
country through the Government or European
traders, but a few years ago they could only be
obtained through the Chiefs, by giving presents,
or recruited by volunteers from the natives.
In the Bihe, the merchant engages carriers in
groups, led by a chief carrier or " pombeiro," who
may speak a little Portuguese, and negotiates the
terms on which the men engage. The carriers
arc paid a wage rate in proportion to the distance
travelled. They have to be fed on the journey,
except for the first three days, when they feed
themselves. The Bihe carriers and their pom-
beiros have traversed most of Central and South
Africa, and an old IJihe porter bus nsiinlly a wide
I knowledge of the continent.

BIHfiNO CHARACTER 111

The story of the voyage of two pombeiros
across Africa from 1801 to 1811, described in the
Portuguese colonial records of 1842, is a remarkable
account of a wonderful journey.

The Bihe, though a vigorous, intelligent, and
fairly hard-working race, bear a bad moral reputa-
tion, being vicious, cunning, and cruel, the result
probably of their slave-trading and commercial
dealings. They have more idea of a future state
than most African tribes, ideas possibly influenced
by their contact with Europeans, but are really in
the hands of witch doctors, like most negroes.
The avarice of the Bihenos is well illustrated by
their method of fining for all offences when
they governed the country. This " mucano," as
it is called, was extracted under the most flimsy
pretexts from the native, as it was from the
European trader till the Portuguese definitely
took over the country. As the offended parties
were allowed to form themselves into judge and
jury, the accused had no chance of escaping his
fine.

Before the Portuguese occupation, the Biheno
form of government was similar to that of other
African tribes, probably a little more elaborate,
owing to their greater intelligence. The Chief or
Sova had his Court of " Macotas,"who were courtiers
and favourites rather than counsellors, and had
little influence on any decision made. A custom
among the Bihe people was for the Sova to have
a fool or jester, as he also had a personal A.D.C.,
who collected the royal spittle, but only to cast it
out of doors, and not anoint his own or any other

112 THROUGH ANGOLA

head with it, as was formerly done among some
of the Congo tribes of Angola.

The burial rites of Bihe Sovas were similar
to those of Chiefs of other tribes, in that the dead
lay in state for many days. The body, however,
was not smoked or preserved, but allowed to
decompose and fall to pieces in the hut where it
lay. The Sova's death was not announced until
such time as the head of the corpse fell off the
body.

The death rites were only then carried out.
The hut in which the body had lain was demolished,
and the body buried, wrapped in an ox hide,
under the floor of a hut in the royal enclosure.
The death rites in the old days included mal-
treatment of any strangers who were in the country,
and on the appointment of a successor to the
dead Chief, two heads, one of an antelope and
the other of a human being, were needed for the
coronation ceremony.

r~* The Bihe people are practically vegetarians,
as they do not eat cattle, and there is too little
game in the country, especially since the outbreak
of rinderpest, for venison to bulk largely in their
menus. That they like meat is evident from the
relish they had for the buck meat which I shot
for them ; and they occasionally eat domestic
pig, even when the meat is putrid, and will eat
dogs, rats, and even lizards and ants on occasion.
They have never been ordinary cannibals, but
in earlier days at their ceremonial feasts, called
" guissunges," human flesh was eaten mixed with
that of other 'meat.

.

HE ( H'KN H1C1I PLATEAU

\See

THE 01. 1) '1 RANSl'oRT MKTHOI) — OX WAGONS

AND THK \E\V— liKNGUKI, LA-KATANGA 'CKN'I'RAL ANGOLAN"' KA1LWAV

113

They are great wine-drinkers, using beer made
from Indian corn and fermented by a kind of
hops. This " capata " is made by boiling maize
and hop seeds for several hours ; it is not very
intoxicating, and I have found it sustaining. If
honey or sugar is added to " capata " a good deal
more alcohol is produced, and this "guisanga" is ,
very intoxicating. •*— '

The older - established villages show strong-
stockades, constructed at a time when these
tribes were constantly at war with their neighbours,
but since the Portuguese have destroyed the power
of the Chiefs, and stopped all intertribal wars
and the carrying of firearms, the fortification of
villages has ceased.

The plateau which has been described in this
chapter, continues for another 200 miles and more
towards the sea. The long road which crosses it
from Central Africa to Benguella, and over part
of which we had marched for so many days, has
seen many changes, and will see more before this
century is over. It was once the track of the
slave traders, who for centuries followed this road
from Central Africa, through Bihe to the slave
markets at Loanda and Benguella, where slave
ships awaited their cargoes for the Indies and
Brazil — in very truth a road of suffering and
hideous cruelty !

Along part of this road came Livingstone,
who did so much to destroy the slave trade ; on
it Cameron, Capello, Ivens, and Serpa Pinto, each
in turn, took up and carried the torch of hope
and mercy which Livingstone had lighted.

114 THROUGH ANGOLA

To-day, a motor track is where the old slave
path ran ; and beyond Chinguar, westwards, the
steel rails run over 300 miles ; while to the east
and the centre of Africa they are pushing their
way, a sign to all men that the peace of civiliza-
tion has come at last and to stay.

CHAPTER IX

THE CENTRAL ANGOLAN RAILWAY

IN the last chapter I have told the story of
the great hunter Bihe, who came north hunt-
ing elephants in the central highlands of
Angola, to meet there a wife and found a colony.

A hundred and iifty years after, came a reso-
lute, far-seeing Scot, Robert Williams, to plan and
build a railway, which, passing over the highlands
of Angola on its way to Katanga, the richest
comer of the earth, is opening up another colony,
that of the white man.

The story of Williams the engineer and the
Central Angolan (Benguella-Katanga) Railway is
as great a romance as that of Bilie the hunter
and his wooing.

One of that group of great - hearted Britons
who have done so much, and against great opposi-
tion, in Africa, for their country, Williams went
to South Africa in 1881, to become the friend
and helper, lirst of Rhodes, and then of Jameson,
in their great schemes for the extension of British
territory to the north, and the Cape to Cairo
Railway. Thanks to Rhodes and his friends,
Rhodesia became British, but the Cape to Cairo
scheme by Luke Tanganyika and the "All-Red

116 THROUGH ANGOLA

Route " fell through, owing to German opposition.
Rhodes turned to Williams to find an alternative
route through the friendly country of the Belgian
Congo, an alternative rendered commercially ad-
vantageous by Williams' and Grey's discovery
of the immensely rich Katanga territory, through
which the line could pass on its way to the navigable
Congo, and thence by a short line to the navigable
Nile. Williams overcame the political difficulties,
but was temporarily unable to supply the financial
needs of the new route.

In the enforced interval, unsupported and
undaunted by the check, he sought, found, and
obtained the concession for a western gate and
railway avenue to his El Dorado of Katanga, a
shorter railway route and avenue than either
the southern, which ended at Cape Town, or the
eastern at Beira. lie had ensured a quicker sea
journey to the markets of Europe than was
possible for Beira or Cape Town, and avoidance
of the heavy Suez Canal dues which an East
African port must face.

Williams had found for the seaward gate of
this western railway avenue the greatest harbour
of West Africa. Lobito Bay ; had wrought even
better than he knew, for he had not only initiated
a great commercial and strategic railway and
harbour scheme, but forestalled Germany, to whom,
in its blindness, the British Government had
apparently, as far back as 1898, bequeathed its
political interests in Angola.

Through the friendship of the Portuguese
Government, the wisdom oT Kinu' Leopold of the

A RAILWAY ROMANCE 117

Belgians, and the backing of Portuguese, British,
and Belgian friends, this enterprise has passed
from endeavour to success, to the better prosperity
and friendship of three friendly and allied nations,
Britain, Belgium, and Portugal.

There were rumours of rich finds of copper in
the Katanga region when in 1907 I crossed the
Congo hinterland, intent only on hunting and
happy at getting away for a little from the un-
ceasing toil of scientific work. I did not dream
that within a few marches to the north-west was
a chain of rich copper-bearing hills, stretching for
200 miles in length and 10 miles in width, and
now known to be the greatest copper deposit of
the world ; a copper Hand, which has already
produced 140,000 tons of copper, is turning out
40,000 tons a year, and will produce later 100,000
tons annually.

I knew in that journey, though, that the story
of red rubber and the Belgian atrocities was
greatly exaggerated, if not entirely untrue, for
I never met or heard of any of these things. It
is probable that there was a close relation between
the discovery of the wealth of Katanga and the
story of the Belgian atrocities ; for the Kaiser
in his desire for the one, had invented the other,
and found degenerates and traitors of the type
of Roger Casement to carry out the unclean
intrigue to estrange Belgium from England. The
K iser imagined that possibly with the help of a
very small but anti-patriotic section of the British
people, he might win his way to the wealthy
heritage of the Congo. But this crafiy scheme

118 THROUGH ANGOLA

was to be defeated by the good sense of the Belgian
people and the Avisdom of their King Leopold,
who always suspected the German Kaiser.

England retained Belgium's friendship, in spite
of the abuse of this gallant nation by the un-
patriotic section of our press.

King Leopold helped Williams in the con-
struction of the Lobito- Katanga Railway, com-
menced in 1903, and later to carry the Cape to
Cairo Railway from Broken Hill to the Congo
frontier, and through that State towards its
goal of Cairo.

How Williams defeated the Hohenzollern's
aims and ambitions in Angola, which had been
fostered by our agreement in 1898 to allow them
a free hand, is a good story of its own ; for, guard-
ing1 his secret, and within a week of leaving

o ' o

London, Williams had obtained a concession from
the Portuguese Government at Lisbon to build
the line from Lobito towards Katanga. This
concession forestalled the Germans, to the wrath
of the scheming Kaiser, who on finding himself
baffled, nearly dismissed his Minister for allowing
such a check to Germany's ambitions to be brought
about under his very nose.

In 1907, when I was at Broken Hill in the
Belgian Congo, there was only one outlet for the
immense wealth of Katanga, that to the south and
east, by Bulawayo to Cape Town or Beira. To-day,
this Central African line, the future backbone of
the African railway system, can take one by rail
or river through Stanleyville to the sea at Boma,
and will soon take one north from Stanleyville

A LINE WITH A FUTURE 119

to the Nile near Lake Albert, and thence by
this river and its railways to the Mediterranean
Sea.

Of the feeder lines of this central line of com-
munication, the railway from Katanga to Lobito
will, when completed, be the most important of
all, commercially and strategically. Commercially,
because it will bring thousands of tons of ore,
copper, gold, and platinum, hundreds of miles
nearer Europe ; will bring the high plateaux of
the great Zambezi- Congo divide, with its vast
possibilities of cattle ranching, stock raising, and
cereal cultivation, into close touch with the meat
needs of Europe ; and will take the settler from
the sea to the Bihe highlands, a second Argentine,
and beyond them to another land, Katanga,
richer than Brazil. Strategically, because it forms
a short cut, not only to war needs in copper, but
provides another route to India and Egypt, should
the Mediterranean be closed to Britain.

In October 1920, the rail-head was still at
Chinguar, where it had arrived in 1914 ; but
Paulings, the great African railway contractors
who have done so much for Africa, and incident-
ally for Great Britain, are pushing forward, with
their usual energy, the work of railway construc-
tion eastwards to Katanga.

I left Chinguar on the morning of the 1st, and
after a comfortable journey with two breaks for
food at Huambo and Cuma, and a sleep in the
carriage at Ganda, where the train halted for the
night, arrived at Lobito Bay on the afternoon of
the second dav.

120 THROUGH ANGOLA

I have taken you across the 300 miles on a
" flying carpet " because I want to bring you back
on this railway by the way you will follow it
yourself if you go to Angola.

When approaching Lobito Bay from the sea,
one cannot at first see the harbour ; there looms
ahead a line of barren cliffs and what appears to
be a sandy beach below them. It is not till the
ship is close to the cliffs, that what appeared a
sandy beach is found to be a long, narrow sand-
spit, 3 miles long, a mile or more from the shore
and parallel to it ; while between the cliff-girt
coast and this narrow sand-strip lies one of the
finest harbours in the world. There is little tide,
and a great fleet could anchor in these waters — so
still in all winds, that it might be a mountain and
not a flat ribbon of sand only 300 to 400 yards
wide which protects it.

On the narrow sand- spit will one day be a
great commercial port, on the hills above it a
residential city, and in the water of the bay will
lie great ships come with merchandise, to go with
the cattle and the food grown on the Angolan
highlands, for the workers of Europe. If one
climbs the hills on the mainland, the harbour lies
at one's feet. Seawards is the yellow ribbon of
sand, month by month changing its look, as new
houses, gardens, and yards rise up in the growing
city. At the wooden pier, jutting out from the
spit, two small steamers are loading, while another
waits its turn in the bay.

Where the spit springs from the land is a
lagoon, once a mangrove swamp, which looks

LOBITO BAY 121

from this height like a grass- covered valley ; it is
nothing more than an African swamp, ugly to-day
but useful to-morrow, for the dock and wharf
space it will give. Contrasting vividly with the
green of the swamps is the yellow of the limestone
hills which fringe the coast, stretching away to the
north and south and east as far as one can see.
Between these hills and the shore, and looking
very small from this height, shimmer the steel
rails of the railway which, starting at Lobito, runs
past Benguella, and then ever eastwards to climb
over these hills on to the great bracing plains of
the east, and then across them to such mines as
King Solomon never dreamt of, the greater land
of Ophir — Katanga.

Life on the open, breezy, and mosquito-free
sand- spit at Lobito is more pleasant and healthy
than in the neighbouring towns of Benguella and
Catumbella, but this advantage will be abolished
if the building speculator overcrowds the site.
There are already banks, shops, a Governor's
house, British Consulate, and the railway terminus
with its offices and workshops.

The railway is staffed by both Portuguese
and British ; the Machados, father and son,
who were in control of the management, working
with the same zeal as the British officials, Messrs.
Varian, Clark, and Johnston, who are technical
experts. To all of these, Mr. Duthie the Vice-
Consul, Mr. Russell, Mr. Petersen, and especially
Mr. Tudor Pole, the constructor of wireless
stations, I am indebted for much kindness and
help.

122 THROUGH ANGOLA

I do not know if the network of twenty wire-
less stations in Angola will do all that my friend
Pole, an enthusiast on the subject, claims ; but if
it will render Angolan telegrams quicker than a
train or the post, or even a native runner, it will
have achieved something. Perhaps there is gall
in the ink as I write, but you will read a little later
how even the august orders of the Governor may
be as naught to a telegraph clerk, and a help-
less traveller may struggle through discomfort to
failure in the grip of a one-man-telegraph strike.

Lobito has an excellent water supply, piped
from the Catumbella River, 8 miles to the south.
Everywhere there is electric power and light,
derived from turbine plant in the same stream.

The steamship lines which call at Lobito
include cargo boats of the Elder-Dempster and
other lines from Liverpool, and an occasional
Union Castle ship from Southampton. Two
Portuguese lines, the Government "Transports"
Maritimus and the subsidized Empreza National,
are supposed each to send a ship a month to the
Angolan ports, including Lobito. An American
service is helping their great oil interests in Angola.
and Italian ships are talked of.

But, reader, beware ! ! Listen to one who has
suffered grievously. Take an English ship direct
to Lobito if you possibly can, and if you cannot
find one, book your passage on the Portuguese
lines, weeks ahead.

When one has come down from the hills above
the harbour and looks at them from the sea, they
appear as a line of bare limestone ridge and terrace,

BENGUELLA TO CHINGUAR 123

mounting ever eastwards to the plateaux and high-
lands of Central Angola. These hills are pierced
by the valleys of many a mountain river, and if
engineering alone had dictated the route of the
Benguella Railway it might have been running
to-day from Lobito by the Catumbella valley to
the plateau, but local and political influences de-
termined that the line should go first along the
coast to Benguella, to begin its climb through the
mountains up the steep little valley of the Lengue
River, a tributary of the Cavaco.

For the first 15 to 20 miles the railway runs
along a sandy seashore, past the Catumbella River
valley and the old-world town founded three
centuries ago, where Cameron in 1804 found his
way to the sea, weary and foot-sore, after crossing
the African continent. It passes through Ben-
guella town, once the greatest slave and ivory
market of this coast, yet the capital of the district,
lying stretched along its open, useless bay, a great
collection of old-world balconied houses in high-
walled slave compounds, separated by wide, shaded
avenues.

Benguella lies dormant, but jealous ; ns a
woman who sees a younger rival growing to fame
and power by her side. She cannot compete with
Lobito ; Nature itself forbids it. The harbour is
worthless, the deadly mosquito is here, and the
fever it brings ; but the toAvn has several thousand
inhabitants, of whom some 3000 are whites, and
the Governor's palace and such society as the
district boasts are still at Benguella. The line
passes through the Benguella plantations, and is

124 THROUGH ANGOLA

moving now due east over the foot-hills to the
valley of the Lengue,

At San Pedro, where the older rocks, mostly
gneiss, begin to appear among the lime, sandstone,
and marl formations, the ascent is so steep that
the rails give place to rack and pinion for a couple
of miles. This section of the line, passing as it
does through a wild gorge, is picturesque and was
correspondingly difficult to construct ; for, climb-
ing ever upwards, it must pass and repass chasm
and river-bed to emerge from the Lengue valley
and enter farther into the waterless belt.

In this thirsty country every drop of water
required in the construction of the line and for the
workers had to be carried to the work, and a party
of lions which hunted near San Pedro, drank at
Bimbas, 10 miles away. Rain falls here but rarely ;
the scanty low scrub and the occasional euphorbia,
acacias, and baobabs are covered with dust, which
colours everything in monotones of yellow and grey.

The first rapid ascent from 300 feet at San
Pedro to over 1000 feet, 6 miles beyond it, has
brought the line to a rough terrace strewn with
granite domes and tors, but it is still ascending,
if more slowly. At the Coretava River, which
it crosses and recrosses nine times, the line has
reached an elevation of 2000 feet. In a series of
picturesque loops and curves, the railway passes
over the divide between this river and the Catengue,
and runs down a slope through scenery which
is passing from dreary scrub to open forest, till
water itself is reached where the Catengue River
flows by the post and station of that name.

CROSSING THE WOODED PLATEAU 125

Bird life, which has been absent in the scrub,
begins again ; and the kudu, roan, duiker, oribi,
and other antelope are able to support life on the
scanty grass which grows by the Catengue River ;
in this country too, I heard both lion and leopard
roar at night, and came across their spoor.

Catengue is a restaurant station on the line,
and the crossing-place of the old road from
Benguella to Quillenges and Lubango in the
south.

From the Catengue valley the ascent to the
higher plateaux begins again, past the valleys and
divides of this river and its neighbours, the Caim-
bango and Cubal. The landscape has been steadily
changing, the area of scanty vegetation is giving
place to a grass and open forest-covered country,
where there is always some water even in the dry
season, and in the rains many rushing streams.

At Cubal, 200 kilometres from the sea, is an
experimental cotton plantation. Of the varieties
grown, Caravomica, Egyptian, Upland, and
Peruvian, the first-named has done the best —
yielding 400 Ib. per acre in the first year, the plants
averaging 200 balls, and standing over 6 feet high.

Though cotton has been grown 011 the lowlands
of Angola for many years, this was the first attempt
made to cultivate it in the plateaux at 3000 feet.
Rubber and wheat have also done well on this
plantation. The soil of the region is, according
to an agricultural expert, " composed of de-
composed granite with its large potash content ;
the surface contains a fair amount of humus, the
subsoil is of a porous. .uTavelly nature, and there-

126 THROUGH ANGOLA

fore naturally drained, and the soil throughout
appears friable and easily worked."

Beyond Cubal station, where the line ascends
gradually along the valley of the Ganda, a tribu-
tary of the Cubal, the heavier rainfall, more
temperate climate, and increasing elevation are
altering the features of the country. The last
baobab and euphorbia have been passed, and an
open forest and grass- covered land reached, which
would be suitable for stock-raising if the tsetse fly,
that carrier of dreaded Nagana cattle disease, was
not so close by in the Cubal and Catumbella valleys.
The fly must be stamped out before this part of the
country can be used for stock-raising.

At Ganda, where the train halts for the night,
passengers may sleep in the train or in a good hotel
near the station.

Beyond Caconda station, which is reached at
250 kilometres, the line again crosses the valley of
the Catumbella River at 275 kilometres to reach,
40 kilometres farther on, Cuma, a growing town
4700 feet above the sea.

To the north of Cuma is an open country,
fertile, fly-free, and not unlike the Transvaal high
veldt ; where Mission stations, Boers, and the
Zambe/ia Exploring Company have large farms.

The 125, 000 -acre farm on the Cuito stream,
belonging to the Zambezia Company, has proved
remarkably successful this year (1920), the wheat
averaging nearly 30 bushels per acre, while other
crops have given equally good results ; the cattle
of the Farm, which depend on grazing alone, arc
\ fat and free from disease.

IN THE HIGHLANDS 127

From Cuma the line steadily ascends till it
reaches Elepi Town, where the height of the
plateau is 5300 feet, and there are a number of
farms. The country consists of grass-covered
hills, with occasional bush forest in the more
sheltered valleys, and is eminently suitable for
Europeans and stock-raising ; though the soil,
through the repeated burning of the grass, is not
as rich as it would otherwise be.

Beyond Elepi the railway climbs the Chicanda
gorge to reach at its crest an elevation of over
6000 feet, the highest point of the plateau ; from
where it descends to cross the valley and reach
the thriving town of Huambo, the centre of a
prosperous farming country.

Here and there along the railway occur granite
hills of extraordinary shape, with columnar and
dome-shaped granite peaks, hundreds of feet high
and bare of all vegetation, looking as if some
giant hands had carved and placed them there.

From Huambo to Chinguar, the terminus of
the line in 1920, the railway crosses an open and
comparatively flat divide, the source of many
mighty rivers like the Cuvo and the tributaries
of the Coanza and Cunene, which, rising within
a few miles of each other, flow to the Atlantic
hundreds of miles apart ; while in the same region
are the sources of the Cubango and its tributaries,
which actually join the Zambezi and pour their
waters into the Pacific Ocean on the other coast
of Africa. — \

This railway is prospering ; last year (1919)
over 50,000 tons of produce, mainly maize and

128 THROUGH ANGOLA

maize flour (40,000 tons), sugar (50,000 tons),
potatoes and onions (2600 tons), and wax (1800
tons) were carried over it from Chinguar to Ben-
guella or Lobito. During the same period 50,000
first- and second-class and 150,000 third-class
passengers were conveyed by train.

The construction of the line beyond Chinguar
should present few difficulties, as from this point
to the Belgian frontier, and beyond it to Katanga,
it will follow the great Congo-Zambezi divide, a
plateau gradually falling in elevation. Two or
three rivers, the Coanza among them, will require
to be bridged ; but I understand that none of the
engineering difficulties ahead are comparable with
those already overcome, and construction should
be rapid. As the country towards Katanga is
increasingly populated and fertile, the line should
pay its way, even before the great mine belt of
Katanga is reached, where the present annual
output of 40,000 tons of copper should yield in
normal years £500,000 in freight fees alone.

CHAPTER X

A LION ADVENTURE AND A CHAMELEON STORY

LIONS were once numerous in Angola, but
the commercial type of game- shot, the
merchant of skins, usually a Boer, has
slaughtered so much of the game that the lions
have died out for lack of nourishment, or have
retired farther and farther from the haunts of
men. In three months of hunting I had seen
tracks of but three lions, and there seemed little
chance of any success at my favourite sport of
lion hunting. Yet there was a family of lions
within 10 miles of Benguella, and this chapter
gives the story of the death of one of them at the
hands of a plucky Portuguese novice.

Mr. William Machado, the man who shot the
lion, was acting as director of the railway in the
absence of his father, and on my journey to the
south of Angola he took me with him, along the
railway line from Lobito to my starting-point,
Catengue. But we did not reach Catengue that
day, for at Benguella, our first stop, we heard
such good news of lion at Bimbas, that we decided
to go there instead.

We motored from Benguella to Bimbas, along
the open valley of the Cavaco River, and some-
o

130 THROUGH ANGOLA

times over its dry and sandy bed, under which
the water flowed, as happens with most of these
southern Angolan rivers that pass through desert
country. The road stopped at the pump station
of Bimbas, and here Machado left me to return to
Benguella.

Beyond Bimbas the valley became a gorge

*J \J O O

where the Cavaco emerged from the hills. Through

O O

these hills, the first of those terraced ranges which
end at last in the great Angolan plateau, winds
the railway ; by the river valleys where it can, or
over the hills on its way through the plateau to
Katanga. Leaving the open Cavaco valley for a
space, it climbs over the hills, past the station
of San Pedro, again to meet the Cavaco River,
near Catengue, 40 miles away.

At the head of the open valley was the pump
station of Bimbas : at the mouth of the gorge
two miles beyond it, were two lagoons and twro
small villages ; and somewhere in the valley of
the Cavaco River, hidden in rocky cave or in the
long grass by the lagoons, was this family of lions.
Round one village and the water-hole of the Cavaco
River near by it, were many of their tracks.
Three or four nights before our arrival, the lions
had killed five goats in this village, and the night
after had growled so fiercely round the little huts
that the villagers had fled, and the village was now
deserted.

There were two possible ways of trying to kill
these lions. One was to track them up by day
to their lair in the hills ; the other to wait for
them down by the village when they came to

THE LIONS OF EIMBAS 131

hunt for food and water at night. After following
their tracks far up the Cavaco, and questioning
every native met, I came to the conclusion that
one could never find them by tracking alone, for
they appeared to make a long nightly round, up
the Cavaco valley, then across to the railway line,
down this line, and back again to Bimbas. During
the daytime the lions could lie up anywhere in
this 20 miles circuit, in a country unknown to me,
and where no local native would now venture.
To get a shot at them by night meant sitting up
in some kind of platform, and over some animal
for bait. There was a suitable tree near the bed
of the river, where lion tracks were plentiful, but
no inducement could obtain any bait. I talked
persuasively to the villagers, promising a good
reward, pointed out how dangerous these lions
might become if let alone — all to no purpose, for
neither cow nor goat was to be had.

It were better to have stayed on and tried
persuasion for another day or so, or have brought
back bait from Benguella, than have left the valley
and the lions ; but twenty carriers were supposed
to be awaiting me at Catengue, brought all the
way there from Quillenges in the south, by a
special order of the Governor, and carriers were
so scarce that to miss them was to miss my journey
to South Angola.

If the lions were not for me I knew they should
be shot, and writing to Machado, advised him
to get a suitable rifle and watch for them in thr
river-bed, with an ox ac; bait.

Machado procured a bis; game rifle, and was

132 THROUGH ANGOLA

preparing the rest of the scheme for watching,
when he met and bagged one of the lions in a
much more dramatic way. During a trip by
trolley, accompanied by Mr. Clark, Machado met
two lions. It was evening, the sun had set and
darkness was coming on, when Clark saw an
animal running over the line, which he at last
recognized to be a lioness. She crossed the line,
Soon after, on the other side of the line, Machado
and Clark saw a maned lion.

Arguing very wisely that the lion would prob-
ably cross the line and join his mate, Machado.
who had the rifle, kept a sharp look out, helped
by Clark, who had only a shot-gun. They lighted
the trolley lamps, and motored on slowly. A few
yards farther on they came across the big lion,
standing on the line and blinking at the powerful
lights of the trolley. Machado fired at the lion,
which rolled over the railway embankment, below
which he lay groaning for a moment, then picked
himself up, and moved off into some low, scattered
bushes that grew near the line.

Up to this point Machado and Clark had
acted like old lion hunters, though this was the
first lion they had ever seen. From now onwards
they did things which, though wonderfully plucky,
no experienced lion hunter would ever think of
doing. They followed up a wounded lion in the
darkness, and gave to a native to carry the lamp
which they hoped would both light up the lion's
hiding-place, and frighten him as well. They
thought the bush was so open that the lion could
not hide in it, and would be easily seen with the

THE LION AND THE LAMP 133

powerful trolley lamp. Thirty or 1'orty yards from
the railway line, the procession of the intrepid
Portuguese and Seot and the unwilling native
lantern carrier, who had got thus far in safety,
heard a terrific roar. The native swung round
to bolt, knocking over Clark by a blow on the
head with the lantern as he did so, and Clark lay
stunned. The one remaining effective, Machado,
fired into the noise, and taking Clark with him
beat an orderly retreat to the trolley, when, wise
at last, and gathering speed, they motored into
Benguella.

It occasionally happens that a wounded lion
does not charge after his warning roar, when
followed in the daytime. This should happen
even less often at night, when he is always more
truculent.

My two friends had just had a very lucky
escape, and should have learned a lesson ; but
just listen to what they did next day.

With two or three other Portuguese gentlemen,
including a photographer and a large party of
unarmed natives, a search was made for the lion
as soon as the party could reach the scene of the
last night's adventure. A long line was apparently
formed at the point where the wounded lion had
rolled off the railway track the night before, and
the blood trail and spoor were followed up. Only
100 yards or so from the railway, the photo-
grapher spotted the lion's head, looking out of a
bush, and appealing to the " audience " not to
spoil a good chance of a dramatic photograph,
quietly walked towards the lion.

131 THROUGH ANGOLA

The lion, possibly from astonishment, and
more probably because, happily for the photo-
grapher, he was nearly dead, allowed the man to
approach within a few yards of him. Then he
roared, and charged. The photographer fled,
followed by the lion ; both fell, exhausted and
close to each other. Then Machado fired again,
and killed the lion.

When the body was examined, it was found
that the first bullet, fired the night before from
a large calibre Mauser rifle, had traversed the
abdomen, making a large exit wound, through
which a portion of gut protruded ; vital internal
organs, probably including the liver, had also
been injured. I believe the extraordinary luck
which protected this party of plucky novices was
largely the result of a wound causing shock to
that bunch of abdominal nerves, the splanchnics,
which arc both the aim and undoing of so many
boxers. The lion had got a knock-out blow the
first night, and this and the glare of the lamp
stopped him charging then, while his great weak-
ness, due to loss of blood, saved the photographer
the day after.

A curious source of consolation to me, in the
trying days at Bimbas, where I was struggling
to persuade frightened and drunken villagers
to help me procure bait or spoor the lions, was
my chameleon " Jimmy."

This was the second chameleon I had adopted
during my wanderings in Angola. The first was
found near the River Longoe ; this one, near the
Upper Coanza River, opposite Chuso village.

JIMMY THE CHAMELEON 135

Jimmy the First I met while being carried along
in a c' tipoia " or hammock, a prey to fever. He
was sitting on the branch of a Lush when captured,
and protested violently at his removal. A box
was made, and James installed therein was fed
on flies, which he took suspiciously and resentfully.
This chameleon was with me a fortnight, and
during this time he became a little tamer, but
could never be induced to capture flies while
sitting on my hand or hat ; and he never got out
of the habit of swearing at me in the quaint way
chameleons have. He was lost in a camp on the
Luce River ; probably one of the servants who
had been punished let him go, in revenge, and
left me lonely and lamenting till Jimmy the Second
was found, a week or so later.

My carriers, seeing how much the first
chameleon had been missed, brought me the
second, which they found on a tree. Jimmy
Secundus was smaller than the other, and though
he swore away at first, got tame very quickly,
learnt to hunt flies from my hand or hat, sit up
and beg, wear a little set of harness, and in fact
behave as all good little chameleons should. I
gained a good deal of prestige by wearing Jimmy
as a sort of button-hole and hat decoration, for
the natives consider chameleons to be actively
poisonous, and to have a poisonous skin, and seeing
that Jimmy did not do me any harm, they began
to think that I must be possessed of a big fetish.
The Portuguese, who called me " the man with
the chameleon," shared this belief about the
poisonous nature of the skin, which they supposed

136 THROUGH ANGOLA

was employed by the natives to poison each
other, and sometimes Europeans.

When on the way down to Lobito Bay from
Chinguar, the railway carriage was besieged by
people waiting to see Jimmy perform his fly-
catching tricks, and there were many " ohs ':
and " ahs " from both natives and Portuguese,
when James would whip out his 8-inch tongue
and pouch a fly at this distance from him.

Although Jim was not unhappy, and cer-
lainly well fed and looked after, yet he had a
constant desire to escape, and became thoroughly
artful in these attempts. He used to watch me,
and if he thought me asleep would creep out
of his box, or try to slip his little arms out of the
harness of soft grey wool which confined him.
Even if one had wished to, it would have been
unkind to give Jim his liberty once we had moved
from the Coanza River, as the whole character
of the vegetation in the coastal region and south
of Angola, where Jim had now arrived, was
different from that in the north, and it is doubtful
if he could have looked after himself, or survived
long in this strange country.

Although Jimmy may have had weary mo-
ments in captivity, he must have been happier
than the chameleon of the Dutch naturalist,
Bruin, who describes the animal as living on air,
though he admitted the chameleon appeared more
animated on the rare occasions when he was freed
from his box, and was seen actually to eat flies ;
or from the chameleon of Bosnian, the eighteenth-
century traveller, who, while agreeing with Bruin

A DISCOURTEOUS ADMINISTRATOR 137

as to the ability of his pet to live on air, denied
its fly- eating habits. Both at Lobito and Mossa-
medes, Jim found so many flies that he grew tired
of the diet and refused to eat any more, and had
to be taken out for walks, where he could find
other sorts of game, including spiders and various
kinds of small flies, amongst them a little black-
and-yellow striped one, which Jimmy used actually
to catch while it was hovering in the air. For a
long time Jimmy's need for water had not been
realized, but my attention was drawn to it by his
habit of nibbling at any shiny substance he saw ;
he took water readily when offered it, especially
in the hotter weather, and preferably in the form
of dewdrops.

Later on, when Mossamedes, the end of my
journey, was reached, Jim was left in the kind
hands of Mrs. Allen, the only English lady there,
and when saying good-bye to the little beast, I
felt an old friend had been lost, and a happy
chapter of comradeship in life's voyage was over.

When we left Bimbas, it was to resume the
journey to Catengue, which had been interrupted
by the search for lions. Collecting half a dozen
Mondombe carriers with difficulty, we marched
from Bimbas to the nearest railway station (San
Pedro), 5 or 6 miles away, and caught the daily
passenger train which ran from Lobito Bay to
Chinguar.

I found on arrival at Catengue that the carriers
which the Governor of Benguella had promised
to send me from Quillenges had not arrived — so
staved to collect others.

138 THROUGH ANGOLA

In my little room in the railway hotel, sleep
was impossible through the barking of dogs when
the window was open, and the stifling heat and
want of air when it was closed.

As midnight found me still awake, my camp
bed was carried to the verandah of the railway
station, where I slept peacefully till morning, not-
withstanding the pleasant remarks of the hotel
proprietor's son that the Catengue lions would
probably partake of an English supper.

I left this inhospitable inn at daybreak next
day to find another, where I met as much kindness
as I had experienced discourtesy at the first.
In my long journey through Angola this was the
only occasion when I had met with rudeness and
hostility to myself and my country, for, among
other unpleasant remarks, this hotel proprietor,
who was also Administrator, accused me of being a
spy. He said he knew all about spies, as he had
seen the Germans come to Angola, and, like me,
travel round the country with a big camera. It
was not difficult to deal with the hotelkeeper ;
the difficulty was to keep one's temper with the
Administrator of Catengue, the post he held for
the Portuguese Government ; but I kept it
notwithstanding.

The carriers allotted to me by this gentleman
were Mondombes of the Benguella province, who
wore skins dyed red with tacula, anoint ed their
bodies with oil, and were even less cleanly than the
other tribes met on the journey. The men, great
hunters and wanderers, are a pastoral people,
keeping large herds of cattle. The women arrange

THE MONDOMBE TRIBE 130

their hair in ringlets plaited with beads, and wear
heavy bead collars round their necks. In this
tribe, and especially in the southern part of the
country, there exists the curious custom of daub-
ing clay or ashes over prospective brides, who are
then given great freedom and allowed to wander
about and visit their friends.

A curious Mondombe custom is the planting of
a banana tree at the time of marriage. If no child
is born in the year which it takes for the plant
to bear fruit, the husband may dissolve the
marriage.

CHAPTER XI

SOUTH AGAIN— CATENGUE TO LUBANGO, AND
A BUFFALO STORY

OUR small party of nine people (two house-
boys and six porters) left Catengue
before daybreak on the morning of the
llth October.

The road lay first south-east for 100 miles to
Quillenges, and then a similar distance south-west
to Lubango, along the lower slopes of the Angolan
plateau. These uplands, some 2000 feet high,
rose eastward to highlands of twice this height,
and dropped westward by terraces through an
increasingly arid country to a desert plain and
then the sea, 100 miles away. The country was
covered with grass, light bush, and open forests
of small trees, except along the rivers with their
fringes of denser growth.

The Angolan winter was coming to an end. In
the uplands and interior the rains had already
commenced, but here the country still looked
parched and dry, for the rainfall is smaller than
in the north, and often capricious ; but clouds
were gathering, and the air was oppressive with
hints of approaching storms. The early morn-
ings were still cold, but in the day the heat and

GOOD CATTLE AND A BAD MULE 141

dust of the roads were becoming a discomfort.
Though I had reduced all equipment to bare
necessity, and carried a couple of rifles and heavy
haversack to lighten the other loads, it was with
difficulty we reached even the first water at
Gondombes, a cattle ranch 6 miles from Catengue.
The Mondombe carriers were lazy and unwilling,
and no encouragement or promises of beer could
make them march cheerfully, or prevent one
from deserting and leaving us to divide and carry
on his load.

Though the ranch was near a stream, this,
like all others in this coastward country, is dry
for most months of the year, and water for
irrigation and stock was drawn by hand pulley
and bucket from a well. It was a well-equipped
farm with likely stock, raised by crossing Angolan
cows and European bulls ; the nearest market
was Benguella, where the stock was sent alive or as
meat and hides.

Though convinced of a bright future for
Angola, from its climate and geographical position,
little had been seen to convince me of any hope
of immediate prosperity ; pegging of claims, wild
speculation in land, and indiscriminate cutting of
timber for rapid profit, were painfully evident
everywhere ; but sober development, such as that
at Gondombes, seemed to be the exception.

Senhor Duarthe, the manager of the farm, not
only gave me excellent information about the
game of the River Coporollo, a day's march to the
south, but arranged for his friend Senhor Mendez,
who was driving past there on his way to Quil-

112 THROUGH ANGOLA

lenges, to give me a lift and help me with carriers ;
as my own, through another desertion, had been
reduced to four. Mendez proved a most cheerful
companion, who drove an obstinate mule over a
terrible road with grim determination. Our two-
wheeled " Cape cart " swayed and rolled over
great boulders and into deep ruts, while Mendez
pulled and whacked at the mule, and I held on
to my precious guns and camera, and almost
equally precious bottles of Mendez' Chicago beer.
Though we escaped a smash, \ve suffered many
bruises, and were two very weary people who
arrived at the Coporollo River. In the 20 miles
between Gondombes and the Coporollo, there is
no water for most seasons in the year, and though
my carriers had been reinforced and their loads
lightened, it was doubtful if they could reach me
at the river that night.

Mendez only consented to leave me when
persuaded that an old hunter was quite safe
though alone. Soon after leaving the Coporollo
he ran into a herd of elephants, which crossed the
road a few yards in front of him. He told me
afterwards that the elephants appeared to ignore
him, but that both he and the mule were deeply
impressed at the sight of this line of great grey
bodies, ghost-like in the silence of their passing.

Though left with a Portuguese bun and a
bottle of the famous beer, I went off to the jungle
to hunt for something more substantial for dinner,
and to look for some shelter for the night. It
was fortunate that the carriers turned up at last,
for my hunting failed, and a hungry stomach and

THE COPOROLLO RIVER 143

a bed on the banks of the Coporollo would have
been a poor substitute for my good dinner and
camp-bed that night.

The Coporollo, like most Angolan rivers of the
arid coastal belt, runs a subterranean course
before it enters the sea. In this, the dry season,
it was just a trickling stream a few feet wide,
and only inches deep, while a few miles seaward
it disappeared into the sand, as most of its tribu-
taries had already done. In the rains, a yellow
flood pours down these rivers and over their banks ;
it comes like a wall of water, but in a brief period
the smaller river-beds are dry again.

Camp was pitched near a mighty tree, which
had thrown down so many aerial roots from its
branches as to cover a great space, giving deep
shade and a wonderful coolness, even in the
hottest time of the day. The aerial roots rose
up from the ground like the pillars of a great
cathedral, supporting, as it were, the lofty dome of
branch and leaf overhead. There are not many
such trees left on the Coporollo now, and will be
fewer in the coming years ; for, with timber
fetching 120 escudos a cubic metre at the ports,
the speculator is merciless to the forest trees, and
the giants of the river are falling fast. The con-
tinual destruction of the forests threatens that of
the many beautiful animals they harbour, and
even the rainfall and prosperity of the province ;
for there is no Forest Department here to stay the
speculator's hand, or plant new trees.

There are still a few elephant, buffalo, eland,
roan, water buck, pflllah, kudu, reed buck, bush

144 THROUGH ANGOLA

buck, red and blue duiker, and two kinds of pig,
harbouring near the bank of the river, for I found
the spoor of all these animals ; but they are so
disturbed by tree cutting and indiscriminate
shooting that before long this country will be
gameless.

A week's hunting in the country round the
Coporollo failed to give me a single photograph,
and a few buffalo, kudu, bush buck, and duiker
were the only game seen. The kudu appeared to
be of the normal type, though it is said that they
differ from those of the coast and other parts of
Africa, in having a darker colour and no mane.

While waiting on the Coporollo for the Gov-
ernor's carriers, several European prospectors
passed near us along the Catengue and Quillenges
road.

One party included Mr. Johnston, an experi-
enced hunter, who had just seen a herd of some
200 elephants cross a river a few miles to the
south ; accompanying him were a Mr. Bull and
Mr. Drummond, who had come for their first
shoot, but had seen only a few zebra, kudu, and
roan.

Another party consisted of two Portuguese
gentlemen, Senhors Cunhia and Tuscano, who
had hoped for a little hunting with their pegging
of timber land, but had seen no game at all.

I was very anxious to get young Tuscano a
buffalo, and with the help of a native hunter,
called Muganja, we spoored a herd of about a
dozen of these animals for several hours, coming
up close to them at midday, when they were

1'HK BED OK THE COPOROLLO RIVER, WITH HUSH AND

A WELL-BUILT VILLAGE

A STOCKADED VILI.AGK

BUFFALO HUiNTiNC 145

lying down in thick bush. The buffalo had circled
before lying down, a habit these animals acquire
when much hunted. We had unwittingly followed
this circling spoor, which inevitably must give
the animals the hunters' scent, if any wind at all
is blowing. The inevitable happened, and in a
moment there was pandemonium as the alarmed
animals crashed through the bush all round us,
without, however, giving us a chance of a
shot.

An attack of fever on this particular day left
me in no condition to control the tracker, who
should have stopped following the buffalo im-
mediately they circled, and waited to listen for
their bovine noises before making the final
approach.

Tuscano was both keen and quite cool when
the buffalo rushed through the bushes all round
us, though at sueli close quarters an irritable
bull (and one of them had a broken leg) or a
mother cow will sometimes charge. Though Latins
do not usually make such good hunters as Anglo-
Saxons, owing to their lack of patience in hunting,
they are just as brave, and while they still retain
their interest, as enthusiastic. We followed up
the buffalo for some time, but never met them
again ; and prostrated by fever and weakness, it
was only with Tuscano's help that 1 reached
camp.

Very different was my experience two days
later, both in steadiness in face of danger and
kindliness in distress, with T- — , a hunter of Dutch
and Irish descent; who had caiupr-d with his wagon

10

146 THROUGH ANGOLA

on the Coporollo. He was carrying stores in his
ox wagon, a favourite occupation of the Boer
settlers in Angola, which enables them to shoot
along the roads, making a good deal of money
above that obtained from transport work, by
selling the skins and meat of the animals they
kill.

Just north of the river, on the day Tuscano
and I were hunting south of it, T— - came across a
solitary bull buffalo, which he succeeded in killing
with the help of two hunting dogs, after the buffalo
had charged him more than once. He told me
that his dogs were trained to tackle buffalo, and
could hold them long enough to allow of several
shots being fired or photographs taken. The
dogs had apparently hung on to the buffalo's nose
and ears, and so worried him that the hunter had
been able to finish the buffalo without much
danger to himself.

I will let the reader judge of the value of both
the hunter and his hounds from the account
written in my diary on my return to camp, after
a day with both.

" IQth October. — Went out at daybreak this

morning with T , who tells me that he has shot

a large number of buffalo, and has great experience
of hunting; these animals, but knows of no better

o ?

way than by following them with dogs, which
hold them, and then allow of an easy approach.
Although the method did not appeal to me, it
was agreed that while the dogs held the buffaloes
and I took photos, T— would protect me with

A THRILLING MOMENT 147

his rifle. When the photographing was over, we
would kill a buffalo or two for T— — , who was in
need of the value of their skins.

' We came across fresh buffalo tracks an hour
after leaving camp, and in another hour came up to
some eight or nine animals lying down in a little
clearing in the bush, looking like the big black
boulders of which this country is full ; and it was
only when examined with glasses that the boulders
were proved to be buffalo.

" I was very keen on creeping up to the herd
and taking photographs at once, and had started
preparing my camera, when T— - begged me to
let the dogs ' hold the herd,' as he feared they
might get our wind and bolt. I agreed very
reluctantly, as the chance of getting buffalo in open
bush, and asleep, appeared ideal for a stalk with
a camera.

" T- — let loose the hounds when the ' Reflex '
camera had been strapped to my body, and
extended out ready for instant action. When
the dogs reached them the buffalo jumped up, but
instead of standing at bay, bolted, the bulk of them
running away from us. Three of them, two cows
and a big calf, galloped towards us with the dogs
after them. I began to focus on the leading

<—> O

buffalo, a big cow, which was difficult to photo-
graph, as she came fast towards me, necessitating
constant change of focus. Her image in the mirror
of the ' Reflex ' camera was getting bigger and

o o o

bigger, as I struggled to adjust the focusing screw,
and extend the bellows to keep the focus.

'' The photo was never taken, for I heard u

113 THROUGH ANGOLA

siiout of ' Run, Colonel, run ! ' and taking my head
quickly from the hood of the focusing screen, saw
T— - 30 yards away, running hard, with both
our rifles. There was little time to spare, the
buffalo were almost on top of me, and it was hard
to run with a 3-foot camera projecting from my
body. It is wonderful how rapidly one can move
when three big bounding bodies with three great
pairs of horns are galloping on you, and I got
out of their way just in time, with no further
mishap than torn clothes, scratched skin, and a
somewhat damaged camera. Old Muganja, the
tracker, pluckily ran towards the buffalo and
myself with the spare rille, and when he saw I
could not use it, strapped up as I was with the
camera, tried to lire it himself; but as he had never
seen a hammerless rifle, did not succeed, as it was
on ' safe.'

' We never saw any of this herd again, and
only got the dogs back an hour later, when they
returned with tongues hanging out, and looking
very done.

"When asked why lie ran array, T mur-
mured something about his belief that the buffalo
\vere going to be held up by the dogs every minute.
and as he did not want the buffalo to see him, he
kept out of the way. He said nothing about
leaving me in the lurch, but from an expression
iiiat he let fall later, to the effect that ' people
who were too plucky with buffalo never lived
lung,' I surmised that he had greater affection for
this world than for an uncertain future one: and
lie had nu remarks to make when told that, as fat

MORE BUFFALO AND MANY ELEPHANTS 140

as buffalo went, lie appeared not to be in any
danger of a move.

"We struck the spoor of another small herd a
little later, and after stating very emphatically
that the dogs should NOT be loosed if we came
across them, I decided to accompany
again. On this occasion he fired at a buffalo cow
a few feet away from me, while I was trying to
photograph her. I never expected the shot, and
could not possibly have got away this time, if the

buffalo, which T says he hit, had charged—

a quite likely thing for the cow to have done, if
wounded, as she was facing me, and so close. The
herd and the cow bolted away from us at the shot,
and after this I left the camera alone, and followed
up with the rifle till sure that there was no blood
spoor, or wounded animal to be dealt with, How
T- - could have missed the buffalo at 5 yards
is hard to say, but my trust had been so shaken
that when he wanted to borrow my rifle I refused
and went back to camp.

" I have been singularly foolish to-day, and
singularly lucky."

On the evening of the buffalo adventure, camp
was struck, and we matched south, parallel to a
river called the Chingaloi, and on our way to
Quillenges and Lubango. That night we halted
at the abandoned farm of a Sierra Leone boy, P
British subject, who had failed to make the farm
pay. The village and surrounding region are
called " Quinjambereet," from the name of a
forest tree which abounds here. The country is

150 THROUGH ANGOLA

hilly, covered with scant grass and open forest.
The game, while similar in variety, is even scarcer
here than on the Coporollo.

After hunting unsuccessfully towards the source
of the Chingaloi, which rises in some hills to the
east, we continued our march south again, reaching
the Mujambo River late at night. Here I found
my friends Cunhia and Tuscano encamped near the
junction of the Mujambo with its parent stream,
the Hanja, which itself flows into the Coporollo.
Both river-beds near our camp were dry, though
clear water could be found just below the sand,
and the beds of the river were full of water-holes
dug by men and beasts.

Tracks showed the presence of a large number of
elephant, mainly females and young, but all my
attempts on two days to photograph them failed,
for the few natives who knew the country were
afraid of them, and refused to carry rifle or camera
anywhere near a herd, which cannot be done by a
white man alone, tracking at the same time. The
difficulty and danger were increased by the fact
that these elephants were protected, heavy pen-
alties being enforced if one was shot, and it was
difficult to photograph without running the risk of
being charged, and having to shoot in self-defence.

After trying for a time to carry both camera
and rifle, I had to give up all idea of photography,
and continue the march south from the Mujambo
River for Quillenges. We marched late in the
evenings, and before daylight in the mornings,
to avoid the heat, and rested under trees at mid-
dav.

MARCHING SOUTH 151

One such halt was made at a river here called
the Catambue, but which is simply the upper
course of the Hanja. The custom of giving the
one river many names adds further to the diffi-
culties of the wretched African traveller, already
troubled with inaccurate maps and unreliable
native information. On the Catambue I found
the tracks of roan, eland, and kudu, and saw a
couple of klipspringer jumping from rock to rock
of a steep hillside.

On the sixth day of marching, and nearly
100 miles from Catengue, we reached Quillenges,
to find Senhor Mendez and receive his welcome
hospitality for the five days of our stay.

From Catengue all the way to Quillenges, I

had hoped against hope, and waited against time,

for the twenty carriers whom the Governor of

Benguella had telegraphed to the Administrator

of Quillenges to send up to me at Catengue. The

possibility of missing these carriers on the road

had had most disastrous effects on my trip. It

had prevented my stopping to hunt the family

of lions at Bimbas, had made me struggle on

slowly with only five or six men, and had kept me

to the main road when there was better shooting

on either side of it. The telegram had apparently

been held up by the telegraph clerk of the post,

who had put up a very effective one-man strike

for higher pay.

The valley of the Calunga River where Quil-
lenges lies was covered at this season of the year,
the spring, with young green grass, giving excellent
grazing to the large herds of cattle, which make

152 THROUGH ANGOLA

this district one of the richest in Angola. The
commonest trees in the valleys are baobabs and
acacias, and on the hills between them grow bush
and small timber. To north and east of the post
the hills rise abruptly, while to the south are more
hills over which we must climb as we march south
to Lubango.

The Quillenge ; people are tall and robust, and
once were warlike, but now are lazy, confining
their work to the herding of cattle ; the women
doing most of the agriculture. The girls wear
wooden anklets if virgins, and it is a great offence
for the parent to allow a giri to continue to wear
them if no longer innocent. The women spend
a good deal of time in plaiting beads into innumer-
able ringlets in their remarkable coiffures.

Most villages have a shelter, where the people
spend a good deal of time talking ; for they are
garrulous and, what often goes with it, fond of
drink ; and their morals are lax, for adultery is
not discouraged by the husbands, who benefit
financially by the indiscretion of their wives.

On the death of a Quillenge, there is much
feasting and noise, and the dead man's heir has
to supply meat to the whole village. If the dead
man is a Chief, he is dressed in gala clothes before
internment, and is buried, as were many ancient
Europeans, in a prepared ox-hide.

Besides the court-house, and the quarters of
the Civil Administrator of the district, there are
about a dozen stores at Quillenges, where trade
is very brisk, especially in cattle, more numerous
here than elsewhere in Anemia.

QUILLENGES TO LUBANGO 153

li: was nearly a week before the Administrator
of Quillengcs could procure me even eight carriers,
so prosperous are these pastoral people, but they
arrived at last on the evening of the 27th October,
and the march south wras resumed.

Six miles along the road wre found a store,
with its hospitable Portuguese owner and his
English guest, a Mr. Cooper, who was trying with
little success to buy cattle and wagons and arrange
for herdsmen and drivers to take them to the
great diamond field of the distant Kasai district.
From this store at Bonga a four hours' march
brought us to another at Lucando, and another
four hours' scramble over the hills to camp at a
village near Condombas. The next day was spent
climbing and ascending a still higher range of
hills to a store called Matakas, where my carriers
did not arrive till dark, and my first meal since
early morning was taken at midnight.

The land had been rising all the way from
Quillengcs, and was now well over 3000 feet above
sea-level ; while the comparatively well-watered
country was pretty with green glade and leafed
forest.

A march of 20 miles the next day brought us
ro the Cacoluvar River and two small farms of
Portuguese settlers, wan, barefooted, and poorly
dressed, who were living like the poor in Portugal,
though in ? country where white poverty is
impossible ; for the European cannot tolerate the
African sun and its climate in conditions similar
to those of the negro race, which has survived
them for centuries. Africa is not yet ready for

154 THROUGH ANGOLA

the poor white settler. A kindly honest folk
were these peasant Portuguese, who offered the
traveller of their best, and were grateful for the
drugs, dressings, and little luxuries given them.

On the 29th October we marched for three
hours along a cart road which wound its way up
the hills to Lubango, the capital of the Huilla
district, and the manner of our entry was un-
fortunate, for I had arrested a wagon driver for
flogging a young ox with fiendish cruelty, and was
obliged immediately on arrival to take him to the
police station to be dealt with.

CHAPTER XII

MY JOURNEY IN THE PLATEAU AND PESERT LAND
OF SOUTH ANGOLA AND ALONG THE SOUTHERN
RAILWAY

I HAVE told how an arid coast belt, growing
wider and more desert to the south, lies
between the sea and the mountains which
form the western walls of the highlands and
plateaux of Angola.

It has been said that mark of wave on granite
cliffs, and sign of shells beneath them, show that
the sea once rode to some of these hills ; and what
is now arid coast land was then beneath the sea.
In my journey from Loanda across the coast belt,
here narrow, and over the hills to Melanje and
the northern highlands, there was too much grass
in the coast land, where sand should be, too little
of cliff-like form in the hills, to remind me of the
sea. When I returned from the central highlands,
200 miles farther south to the coast, only the last
abrupt descent from arid hills to a sandy shore
recalled the story ; but this impression was lost
again in my march south from Catcngue through
the foot-hills of the plateau, for the sea was too
far westwards and the rise to the plateaux in the

east too gradual.

155

156 THROUGH ANGOLA

It was only when I climbed to Lubango,
reached this highest southern plateau here pushed
out bastion-like towards the coast, and looked from
a height of 5000 feet down past a rampart of
sheer granite cliff over a seaward desert plain,
that I knew that these hills had once overlooked
the ocean.

I felt that through some mighty freak of
nature, by sudden rise of earth's crust and by
receding seas, these sheer cliffs had known the
roar of wave and rush of salt sea winds ; that the
sandy plain before me was then deep below the
ocean, and the summits of the hills scattered in
it just rose as coastwise rocks above the waters.

If in the north and centre of Angola the coast-
ward wall of the highlands lies broken, and the
rise to higher plateaux is by terraced hills cut by
many a valley, here in the south, mile on mile,
was a rampart so steep, so rugged, so crowned
with granite dome and crag and pillar, as to give
the picture of some gigantic fortressed city.
South of the great bastion of Lubango and Huilla,
the mountain wall ran straight and sheer for
nigh 100 miles, till another bastion stood out
towards the sea in the very south to form the
northern escarpment of the Cunene River.

From its highest levels, some 5000 feet, near
Lubango and Huilla, the southern section of the
Angolan plateau slopes gradually eastwards to-
wards the upper reaches of the Cunene River,
150 miles away, and beyond it even greater
distances to the Cubango and then the Coando,
mighty rivers both, which flow, the one into a.

THE TRAIL OF THE BOER 157

desert lake, the other to the Zambezi and the
Indian Ocean.

This eastern portion of the southern plateau
is a land of great distances, hot and little in-
habited, but it once was filled with game. Most
of the great animals still roam its empty spaces,
and in the marshes of the rivers and the fly belts
of the forests yet find refuge from extermination
by that great enemy of all wild things, the Boer
hunter with his wagon.

To the south this plateau slopes to the lower
reaches of the Cunene, to form the northern
escarpment of this river, which in its encircling
course bounds the western section of this southern
plateau to the east and south.

In this high plateau are green glades and
forests, mountain streams and waterfalls. Town-
ships and villages have come, like Lubango, Huilla,
and Chibia, with their two or three thousand white
people, and villages of natives ; while here and
there are solitary farms of Boers, rough home-
steads with just a few acres of mealie corn to give
the owner bread, as the meadow land provides
with grass the oxen of his long wagon span. For
the Boer lives by hunting still ; he has killed most
of the animals on these beautiful highland slopes
and valleys, and now drives his long wagon team
to the Cunene, Cubango, or Cuando Rivers, where
lie can still shoot to his heart's content, until the
wagon creaks under the load of skins of what had
once been beautiful wild things.

Sometimes he goes down to hunt the seaward
desert plains where, instead of 1 lie green of glade

158 THROUGH ANGOLA

and meadow, and the running brook near his
homestead, there is the yellow of sand and grey
of leafless tree and granite boulder ; where the
mountain stream of the hills has hurried below
the ground as if fearing its death in the fierce
heat and dust of the plain, fearing it except when
in the flush of summer rain it can come over-
ground, a yellow7, foam-flecked torrent, racing down
a dry stream bed, to pass — and leave it dry.

The Boer has destroyed the game life of this
country as he destroyed it round his homestead
in the higher plateau, and lives to destroy it in
the south-eastern plains of Angola ; for when I
wandered in the desert to hunt and photograph
the game, there was so little of animal life that I
killed but one spring buck for food, and forbore
to disturb and destroy the few hunted creatures
that still found refuge in the scrub.

There were compensations for the lack of game
in watching the Chella Mountains from the plain
below them. It was delightful in those cool
hours before daylight and at sunset to see the
great wall of the Chellas turn from black to purple,
and from purple to pink and red and gold, and
see lights and shadows come where there had been
a monotone of colour. There was ever before
me the wondrous monolith of Cha Molundu, over-
topping the other granite peaks and columns ;
while near me, rising above the yellows and blacks
of the scrub, were the bare granite shapes of
Pedra Grande and Pedra Pequena, the saw-like
crest of the Scrra Cachimba, and in the distance
I lie Montcs Negro.

A RUGGED COUNTRY 150

Now empty of the animal life that once roamed
over it, there was a great silence in this desert
country, a silence that has succeeded the deadly
trail of the Boer hunter from the Cape northwards
and then westwards till it found Angola.

This coast belt appears to be of Tertiary
formation. For the first 20 miles and more from
the sea its surface consists of sand, and beds of
recent clay where once the rivers ran the whole
year round, and still bring alluvia from the hills
in flood-time, though otherwise seeking the sea
beneath the sand. Under sand and clay and
on the broken hillsides there are sedimentary
rocks of sand and limestone set with fossil sea
shells of all ages of the Tertiary period.

Where the scrub commences is the region of the
Primary rocks, which run mainly at right angles
to the shore, as the sedimentary formations run
parallel to it. Here are dark rocks of basalt
and reddish ones of porphyry, rocks of gneiss and
schists and granite. Towering over the plain arc
great monoliths of granite and gneiss ; bare of all
vegetation, they are sometimes cupped in places,
providing water cisterns for the animals and
wandering tribes of the country.

The rounded stones and the fossil sea shells
looked, to my inexperienced eyes, to confirm the
theory that this land had once been under the
sea, and the position of old landing pillars, now
far above high tidal mark, seemed to show that
the sea was still receding from the present shore.

The movements of the earth of this part of
Africa, and the slcady drying up of the south-

160 THROUGH ANGOLA

west portion of that continent by turning the
rivers dry, have driven away the animals that once
lived in them, for hippopotamus teeth and tracks
have been found in dry river-beds in Angola and
the countries to the south and west.

The animal life of this region, once number-
ing thousands of graceful spring buck, oryx, and
zebra, numerous eland and duiker (and sometimes
even elephant and rhinoceros near the foot-hills),
used to attract a large number of lions and
leopards : and wild dogs were abundant here
fifty years ago. To-day nearly all these have
gone, but there are still some of the smaller animals,
ratels, jackals, and genets ; while I found a few
birds, including the sand grouse and guinea-fowl,
and heard that duck of many kinds and even
flamingos and pelicans came here in the rainy
season, when there was water in the country. Of
other birds I saw several long-tailed doves, and
near the sea the white-headed crow.

Where the scrub commences there are stunted
acacias and tamarisks, but very few euphorbias ;
while the baobab is not met with till well within
the zone of scrub. To the south of Mossarnedes
is that curious octopus-like plant, the Welwitschia
mirabilis, which is described in the chapter on
the plant life of Angola.

The people of the southern coastal zone include
the Mondombes, whom we have already met.
Farther south are two coast tribes, the Ba Cuando
and Ba Cuisso, and still farther south the Ba
Chimba. All these people appear to be an ad-
mixture of the Irishman with the "Banf.ii. These

CURIOUS COASTAL TRIBES 101

tribes arc partly pastoral, but arc generally
wanderers and hunters. They wear few clothes,
often just a skin apron, with necklace of beads
and bangles on arm and ankle. They smear their
bodies with oil or butter, and most of their women
have an elaborately arranged head-dress.

All these tribes seem to have some knowledge
of a beneficent deity as well as evil spirits.

Amongst some of these people, when the older
folk are unable any longer to move with the tribes,
they are knocked on the head by their relatives,
and there is no burial, the body being left in the
desert. The Ba Coroca, another tribe in the
south, do have a funeral procession which carries
the corpse wrapped in cloth (or, if a Chief, in a
black ox-hide) to where it wrill be left. As no man
may see a corpse on the ground, the mourners,
who are in single lile, hand the body from one to
the other, each running away after handing it
over, until the last has thrown the body to the
ground, to race back to the village after his fellows,
without looking back.

There are few permanent villages in this desert
country ; where there are huts these are but
rough shelters of bush and grass, or even, as with
the Ba Cuisso, just a circle of stones to shelter
them from the wind.

The morals of most of the tribes are as primitive
as their clothing or their ideas of cleanliness.
Adultery is encouraged in order to bring profit,
and a rich lover is permitted visits for the fines
he pays in cattle.

The southern province of Angola is divided
ii

162 THROUGH ANGOLA

into tiie districts of Mossamedes, with head-
quarters at the port of this name ; and of Huilla,
where the chief town is Lubango ; though there
are two other townships of Huilla and Chibia. A
Governor is in residence at Mossamedes and
Lubango, and a new Governorship has just been
formed for the south-eastern portion of the colony.

At Lubango there are a number of Europeans,
mostly Portuguese traders and oiftcials, and in
this town lives the Director of the Mossamedes
Company, which holds mining and farm concessions
over most of the uplands of southern Angola.
There might have come wealth and prosperity
to this Company had the settlers on the land been
other than Boers, who seem incapable of develop-
ing it, and the governing power being other than
Portugal, which has been slow to take advantage
of the colony's natural wealth.

As things are, the Company has not flourished,
and its concessions seem likely to end. The
little railway which it iinanccd, a toy affair like
the familiar Decauville of France, crosses the
desert country from Mossamedes due eastwards
for some 50 miles through desert, and north-
eastwards through scrub jungle and up the
Moninho valley for a similar distance to Humbia,
the present terminus. One day the line will
come to Lubango, circling round to find a gap
behind the bastion, which it cannot climb directly.

And Lubango is preparing for that day : a
great hotel is to be built on a hillside above the
town, a lake is be ing dug. and the water of a
mountain stream brought to it to form a reservoir

MOTORING DOWN TILE CHELLAS 163

of water-power for all the light and machinery of
the town. I know one Portuguese at least, Senhor
Miranda, of Casa Pia, who hopes and waits for
better days, but works and helps the town's fortunes
and his own in the meantime.

When I left Lubango for the desert country
and Mossamedes, the first part of my journey was
over a splendid motor road which ran from Lubango
to the rail-head at Ilumbia. This road was
wonderful, not only in its surface and gradients,
but in the glimpses it gave of the scenery in the
Chella Mountains. For nearly SO miles the road
passed over hill and dale, by mountain streams,
past forest and occasional farm, till we came to a
pass in a rampart of the Chellas ; and then down
the pass we rode at 20 miles an hour. Our motor-
bus was greatly overfull and dangerously over-
loaded, but the Portuguese driver cared not a
rap for that, nor, I believe, did the passen-
gers, men and women. Would the brakes hold ?
Well ! That had to be seen. We had been late
in starting, and ahead lay the bi-weekly train.
One forgot weak brakes and possible disaster in
the glory of the view.

The road twisted and turned down the steep
paths ; often on one side was sheer cliff and on
the other a precipice ; sometimes we saw the
peaks of the Chellas above, at others the great
arid plain below ; here was a wondrous waterfall,
there a verdant valley ; and every view seemed
beautiful. At last we swung round a corner, and
there in the lowest valley lay the little railway
station and the little tov train.

104 THROUGH ANGOLA

Though only 100 miles from Huilla to Mossa-
incdcs, the journey takes over twelve hours, and
at times our " express " steamed so slowly that
the guard could run alongside of it for exercise.
I look back on that tiring night journey with
anything but regret, because after many years I
saw again the sun set and rise in a desert.

As the train moved westwards towards the
sea it passed through country which became ever
more barren ; until within 20 miles of the coast
there was not a bush or even a blade of grass to
be seen, but only rolling sand-dunes with here and
there reefs of rock emerging from the sand. Just
before Mossamedes one passes from empty desert
to an oasis where plantations have grown up in
the bed of the Giraul River, one of those streams
\vhose water runs beloAv the sandy bed for all
the year except when storm water floods its surface.

The town of Mossamedcs, with perhaps 3000
white people, lies at the head of an open bay.
It is an old-world place, founded in 1787 ; its fort,
palace, and church overlooking the sea are the
solid buildings of a former century, with that
dignity that never seems quite to come from the
modern buildings.

Surrounded by desert, Mossamedes is the
healthiest of the Angolan ports. The cold current
that sweeps round these shores from the southern
ocean brings coolness where otherwise there would
be heat ; though it does bring a fog in winter when
there is sunshine in similar latitudes on the
opposite coast of Africa.

II the: e is monotony in the glare of the white

MOSSAMEDES 165

houses and the yellow sand for those who always
live there, these whites and yellows give such
contrasts with the blue of the water in the bay
that there is compensation at least to those who
see it for the first time.

As in many other places along the African
coast, otherwise lonely to an Englishman, it is
gladsome to see the flag of the British Eastern
Telegraph Company, and know that under the
roof that flies it there is always to be found that
splendid hospitality which distinguishes its officials.

PART II

THE COLONY

ITS PAST, PEOPLE, ANIMALS, PHYSICAL
FEATURES, FARMING, PLANTS, AND
FUTURE

CHAPTER XIII

How THE PORTUGUESE TOOK AND HELD ANGOLA

THE galleys of King Necho of Egypt, manned
by Phoenician seamen, must have sailed
past the shores of Angola in 600 B.C.
on this the earliest known circumnavigation of
Africa ; as must the little Western ship, whose prow
Eudoxes found on the eastern coast of Africa ;
but it is probable that many travellers, including
the Etruscans, had preceded even the Phoenicians
in the search for the precious wares of Africa.

The voyages of Hanno, the Carthaginian ad-
miral, who two thousand five hundred years ago
sailed, with scores of ships and thousands of people,
to found colonies on the West African coast, and
those of the Phoenician traders, foreshadowed the
existence of mighty states and an African culture
established there possibly hundreds of years before
their arrival.

The discovery of monument and script, by
Frobcnius and others, in Western Africa, shows
that an ancient coastal empire, which may have
been Atlantis, existed where is now Yombaland.
This civilization possiHy may have owed its origin
to distant Tyre nncl Etruria, while great empires
inland to this consh acknowledged their metropolis

170 THROUGH ANGOLA

in far Byzantium, and a culture brought thence
by people from the East, across so-called unknown
Africa. These ancient West African civilizations,
which may have found their original impulse in
Etruscan and Byzantine culture, influenced in
the coastal provinces by later Phoenician and
Carthaginian intercourse, and in the interior by
that of Persia and Nubia, were adversely affected
many centuries later by the coming of Islam from
the North, which brought with it. not a new and
higher culture, as has been generally taught, but
a destruction of much that was beautiful, and a
degradation of what had been great.

The French claim for their Norman merchants
of Dieppe the discovery, in the fourteenth century,
of Scnegambia and the Gold Coast ; but it is to
the Portuguese navigators of the fifteenth century
that the discovery of most of the West African
coast and islands is due.

It wras that great Prince of Portugal, Henry
" the Navigator," who first, and from 1415 on-
wnrds until his death, inspired his sailors and sent
his ships to these unknown seas. It was the
Portuguese who rediscovered most of the West
African islands, and sailed more than any other
nation along the uncharted coast of Africa.

Though Prince Henry had been granted power
by the Pope to annex those lands " from West
to East " which he discovered, his navigators were
content to place just a wooden cross, with the
Prince's crest, where the little 100-ton ships bore
them, and it was not till Don Joao came to the
throne of Portugal that lie made use of the Pope's

THE DISCOVERY OF ANGOLA 171

authority, took possession of tin* Coast, and assumed
the title of Lord of Guinea.

Joao the Second bade his sea captains " erect
in prominent places, pillars of the height of two
men, bearing the escutcheon of the Royal House
of Portugal, and on each side of this crest one
inscription in Portuguese and another in Latin,
to state which King of Portugal had sent them,
and when and by which navigator the pillar had
been erected." Each pillar was to be surmounted
by a stone cross affixed to it in lead.

So it was that the Portuguese passed from
explorers to conquerors ; and the first of these
pillars of discovery and sovereignty, which were
later to be placed in many parts of Africa and
India, was erected by Diego Cao in 1485, when
he entered the River Congo, and negotiated a
treaty of commerce with the ruler of the country
whose vassal states were Loango and Angola.

Dapper, the Dutch historian of Africa, who
wrote in 1C68, and Cavazzi, the Italian monk,
who wrote in 1687, have described this mighty
kingdom, whifh comprised much of what is now
the French, Portuguese, and Belgian Congo and
the province of Angola, ruled by the Mani Congo,
who, to quote Dapper, was Lord of the Congo
and overlord of Angola and numerous other states,
Monarch of the Ambundo, and Lord of the Mighty
River Zaire (the Congo). The ruling class was of
Bantu stock, who had invaded the country within
recent times, from the east, overcoming the
original negroid peoples, whom they had conquered
and enslaved.

172 THROUGH ANGOLA

Diego Cao sent a small party of his people to
visit the Mani Congo, whose "Banza" or capital
was where San Salvador now stands. Impatient
of their return or overcome by an ambition to
carry back to the King of Portugal hostages from
the newly discovered kingdom, Diego sailed back
to Lisbon with a number of African chiefs, who
had been visiting his ship, and without waiting
for his own envoys. He comforted the terrified
natives on his ships and their friends ashore when
leaving, by promising to bring his captives back
in a few months, when he returned to fetch his
crew.

The African nobles received every kindness
from the King and people of Portugal, and went
back to the Congo a year afterwards with Diego
Cao, content and laden with presents. When
the Portuguese ships arrived in the Congo, they
found a great crowd of natives awaiting them
on the shore, and among them those Portuguese
whom Diego Cao had left behind, and who had
been well treated in his absence.

It must have been a strange and moving scene,
the arrival of the little Portuguese caravels, the
return of the Africans with their rich clothes and
stories of distant Portugal, and the meeting of
the sailors fresh from home with their comrades
who had lived with African savages for more than
a year, hoping against hope for a sight of the
familiar high-decked ships and the royal flag of
Portugal. It was possibly these lonely men who
carved on rocks near San Salvador those in-
scriptions and names of Diego Clio's company,

THE KINGDOM OF THE CONGO 173

which were only rediscovered a few years ago, after
they had been hidden in the forest for centuries.

On his second expedition Diego Cao not only
sent ambassadors to the Congo capital, but pro-
ceeding south, along the coast of Angola, discovered
the bay which he called Santa Maria, and the
cape which he called Negro; here he placed two
more pillars, one at each place, dying shortly
after.

The Congo King sent a number of his young
nobles with presents to Portugal, with the request
that priests might be sent to teach his people
the Christian religion, and merchants to establish
a trade between his country and Portugal. * The
first Catholic mission from Portugal arrived in the
Congo in 1490, founded the Portuguese settlement
of San Salvador in the native capital, and built
there a church. The reigning King of the Congo
accepted the protectorate of the Portuguese, was
baptized with all his court, and given the title of
King Joao, after the reigning Portuguese monarch.
It is said that, at the first reception of the Portu-
guese mission, the King sat upon an ivory throne,
wearing a hat of palm fibre and a coat of beautiful
antelope skin ; while from his shoulder there hung
down an antelope tail. The army of the king, in
three lines and with many drummers, made such
shouting as had never been heard before. The
King and his court, dazzled by the splendour of
the Roman ritual, the gifts of holy medallions,
crucifixes, and sacred pictures, and the delightful
method of baptism, which consisted in the eating
of salt, a rare and much-sought-after commodity,

174 THROUGH ANGOLA

became enthusiastic converts to the faith. At this
period the King would have ordered the death of
any of his subjects who refused baptism, but his
ardour for Christianity rapidly cooled when he
found objection taken to the number of his wives.
This prohibition by the Church was a much more
serious matter than what he had looked upon
merely as a change of gods and sacrifices, and
the King at once reverted to pagan:'' .,-.

The elder of the King's two sc , called Don
Alfonso, accepted the marital saTi^ce, became a
devout Catholic, and endeavoured to spread the
faith : while his younger brother took advantage

•/ o o

of this to embitter the King against the heir, with
the hope of gaining the throne for himself. lie
persuaded the King that Alfonso, through the
magic of the Christians, flew nightly to the King's
harem and away with one or other of his favourite
wives, and although Alfonso was able to disprove

<-— -L

this absurd story, even to the superstitious Congo
King, the latter never quite forgave his son, who
he still believed was making use of the magic of
the white priests to destroy his authority.

On the King's death in 1509, Alfonso advanced
with only thirty-six Christians to claim his throne,
and is supposed, through the intervention of St.
James, who appeared in a cloud accompanued by
a numerous cavalcade of angels, to have gained
a great victory over his brother's immense pagan
army. This victory, and others which he obtained
later — probably by the help of the Portuguese—
the priests ascribed to divine intervention, and
thus obtained a firmer hold than ever on the

PRESTER JOHN AND WEST AFRICA 175

country, and spread their missions still more widely
over it. It is possii ;le that the elaborate ritual of the
Roman Church, with its crucifixes and medallions,
stimulated the very custom of fetish and charm
which it was its purpose to destroy, and made
more difficult the work of conversion.

But it is to these early Portuguese missions,
and especially that of Fernando Po, who visited
Benin, that we are indebted for our scanty informa-
tion of the early history of Africa. The Congo
kingdom which the Portuguese visited in the
fifteenth century was of comparatively modern
creation, but possibly its predecessors — like Benin
and other older negro states of the West — had at
one time paid tribute and acknowledged allegiance
to a great prince called Oganc, who lived " twenty
moons of travel away cast." Ogane himself was
never seen by the ambassadors of the West African
kingdoms, but lived in mysterious seclusion behind
endless curtains in a great court, from which he
would send to his feudatory chiefs, by their
ambassador, a helmet of brass, a sceptre, and a
cross, as the symbols of their chieftainship and
authority under him.

Though some have considered that this Ogane
was the chief of the State of Gana in the Sudan,
my own feeling, after reading numerous descrip-
tions of the court of Prester John, is that it was
this mystic potentate, who, though 3000 miles
away in the east, was acknowledged from the west
of Africa, and this belief gains support from the
time taken on the journey and the emblem of the
cross carried bv the ambassadors.

176 THROUGH ANGOLA

Their discovery of Brazil and the Indies so
absorbed the Portuguese, that neither of their
great navigators, Bartholomew Diaz nor Vasco da
Gama, visited any ports in the Congo or Angola
in their voyage round the African coasts. These
colonies were left to lesser expeditions from
Portugal ; to Catholic missions and the merchants
who had long plied a trade between San Thome
and the Congo ports, and turned their attention
to the Angolan port of Loanda at the beginning
of the sixteenth century. The King of the Congo,
who was overlord of Angola, jealous of the growing-
power of his vassal, tried hard to prevent this
trade — but the Angolan Chief replied by sending
his ambassador to the Portuguese to beg for
protection and the teaching of the Christian faith.

Catherine of Portugal sent out Paulo Diaz
with three ships to Angola, where they arrived
in 1560, after visiting San Thome to fetch a
Catholic mission from that island. After a friendly
reception from the people, Diaz with twenty of
his men went inland from the mouth of the River
Coanza, where they had landed, to the native
capital, bidding his ship's company sail aw^ay if
they failed to return in a brief space. The
Angolan chief tried to detain the Portuguese, but
a native rebellion helped him to return to his ship
and to Lisbon.

Diaz returned to Angola in 1575 with f350 men,
and landed on the island of Loanda. welcomed
by its King and people and some forty Portuguese
who had emigrated from the Congo to Loanda,
where they built a church. After living in amity

"lIMMY" SITTING ON MY HAT AND WEARING HIS HARNESS

\Sce />«&

SOMETIMES 1O FEET ACROSS AND

.-

-*".'**
Till-; EASTLKX TELEGKAI'H COMI'AXV'.S HOUSE AT MOSSAM1-.

A RENEGADE'S STORY 177

for three years with the natives, the Portuguese
were treacherously attacked and nearly all mas-
sacred. This attack was probably instigated by
the King of the Congo, who was jealous of the
prestige and commerce which the presence of the
Portuguese brought to his vassal state of Angola.

There is no contemporary reference in Brito
to the story related in the Catalogue of the
Governors of Angola — written two hundred years
later — that the rising was clue to the treachery of
a renegade Portuguese, who secretly advised the
Angolan King that the white men were plotting
his overthrow and the conquest of the country.
This story goes on to say that the Angolan King,
on the counsel of his " macotas " or head-men,
sent for the Portuguese and accused them of
treachery ; then, feigning to accept their denial
of the plot, induced them to make an expedition
to the interior, where they were ambushed and mas-
sacred with a thousand of their native Christians.
The outlying Portuguese settlers were murdered
at the same time, and the renegade who had
betrayed his comrades was executed by the King,
who declared him unfit to survive them. The
King then endeavoured to entrap the remnants of
the Portuguese, 150 men and two guns, who were
with Diaz, on a journey from Loanda, but they
retired to the fort of Anzelle, and so decisively
defeated the hordes of natives sent to attack him,
that the King, repenting of his treachery, slew all
the counsellors who had advised him to this
course. Diaz, reinforced, attacked the natives,
defeating them in a battle in the district of

12

178 THROUGH ANGOLA

Quissama, and subduing neighbouring territories
of Ilamba and Dongo, founded a new town and
church at Macunde.

Three years later occurred another war, and
another great victory near Cambambe, where,
with a small Portuguese force and his native
auxiliaries, Diaz defeated a large native army.
This victory overawed the natives for a time, but
the latter, realizing how numerically weak the
Portuguese were, and how rarely reinforced, re-
peatedly rebelled ; forcing Diaz to establish an-
other base, Massangano, at the junction of the
Ilivers Coanza and Lucala. King Philip the First
again sent troops from Portugal, under Joao
Valez ; and with these forces Diaz endeavoured,
with varying fortune, to hold and extend the
area round Loanda and Massangano. At the

O

same time he founded a post at Benguella Velha,
which was shortly afterwards destroyed by the
natives, who massacred the garrison when fishing
from the beach.

. Luiz Serrao succeeded to the Governorship on
the death of Diaz in 1589, and a year later com-
menced a expedition to the River Lucala, with
the object of destroying the capital or Banza of
the Dongo, situated beyond it and near where
Pungo Andongo is to-day. This expedition was
unsuccessful, and the Portuguese were forced to
retreat to Massangano, a remnant of the force
alone escaping.

Luiz Pereira became temporary Governor until
the arrival from Portugal of Don Francisco
D' Almeida in July 1592, with 400 infantry and

179

thirty horses. The Jesuits, who wished to obtain
for themselves temporal power in Angola, plotted
against the Governor, and finally compelled him
to retire and to nominate his brother Jeronymo
to take over the office. The latter managed with
prudence and tact to conciliate the opposition of
the priests, and endeavoured further to extend
Portuguese conquests towards the salt sources of
Quissama and the silver mines of Cambambe in
the interior. He \vas, however, drawn into nn
ambuscade by the Chief or Sova Cafuxe, and his
force was practically exterminated.

Joao de Mendonca came out as Governor the
next year with more Portuguese troops. He was
accompanied by twelve white women, possibly
the first ladies to arrive in Angola, who, needless to
say, were married immediately on arrival. With
the aid of the newly-arrived force, a post was
established at Muxima in 1595, but the expedition,
being defeated near the River Bengo, was unable
to accomplish its main objective, that of defeating
the Chief or Cafuxe.

The succeeding Governor, Joao Coutinho, died
on a second expedition against Cafuxe soon after
his arrival, but his successor, Manuel Pereira, who
had been locally appointed, marching against
this Angolan Chief in 1603, and defeating him in
three big battles, captured the famous silver
mines of Cambambe.

Manuel Forjaz, who succeeded as Governor,
defeated a Dutch naval expedition sent to Loanda.
He also endeavoured to communicate with the
East African coast, and to this end formed an

180 THROUGH ANGOLA

expedition which he placed under Balthazar de
Aragao, who, however, failed to overcome the
difficulty caused by climate and native opposition
m this the first Portuguese attempt to cross
Africa.

Bento Cardoso, who succeeded to the Governor-
ship in 1G11, after subduing various native re-
bellions with an iron hand, founded Ambaca,
80 miles beyond Massaiigano. Manuel Pereira,
governing in 1603, was reappointed in 1015, and
during his rule at Benguella built the fort of St.
Philippe, and subjugated the neighbouring chiefs
of Dombe.'

About this period, the end of the sixteenth
century and the beginning of the seventeenth,
an English prisoner of the Portuguese, named
Andrew Battcl, who had served in several Portu-
guese expeditions in Angola, and survived many
adventures, was carried in one of their ships to
Benguella Velha. He describes how he saw an
army of the predatory tribe called the Jaggas,
waiting to ford the River Cuvo and attack the

O

local natives. The Portuguese, who were traffick-
ing for slaves, arranged to buy any prisoners the
Jaofffas made, and ferried the attacking army over

CO c5 «/

the river which had barred their way. The
Jaggas, a more warlike tribe than the Benguellas,
defeated the latter, slew and ate many and took
a large number of slaves, whom thcv sold to the

o «-

Portuguese at so low a price that they followed
the Jaggas into the interior in order to obtain
more.

When the Portuguese wished to leave the

AN ENGLISH PRISONER OF THE JAGGAS 181

country, the natives tried to prevent them, and
only consented to their departure if one of the
white men was left behind as hostage for their
return. Andrew Battel being the only English-
man, was chosen for this purpose by the Portu-
guese, and remained for several months in the
country, as the Portuguese did not return to
fulfil their promise. He describes the Jaggas
as roving outlaws, having no fixed homes or
possessions, but " depending on war for the supply
of all they wanted," who spent most of their time
" continually triumphing, drinking, dancing, and
banqueting with man's flesh." They marched
through the country as a devastating army, living-
oil the land, cutting down the palm trees rather
than tap them for their wine, killing those who
opposed them, and enslaving the rest. They
killed all their own young children who were unfit
to march with them, and they replenished their
ranks from the youth of the countries they con-
quered. Battel says " they make war by en-
chantments, and take the Devil's counsel in all
their exploits."

Superstitious to a degree, they reverence a
great image encircled by elephants' tcelh, each
one surmounted by a dead man's skull ; they
always consult the witch doctors before making a
journey or an attack. The Jagga Chief, wearing-
palm cloth across his middle, chains of shells in
his long hair and round his neck, " his body carved
and cut with sundry works and every day anointed
with the fat of men, sittcHi upon a stool " sur-
rounded by warriors auc! wiich doctors, and after

182 THROUGH ANGOLA

such ceremonials the chief wizard, on handing
the Great Jagga hi* " easengula," or axe, bids him
kill a male child brought before him, so that
strength and fortune may come to the adventure.
On the deatli of such a Chief, two wives with
limbs broken but still alive are buried with him.

Combined with their ruthless ferocity, was an
iron discipline w-hich accepted death at the hands
of their own Chief for a failure or retreat. They
extended their forays on at least one occasion
to the very capital of the Congo kingdom, San
Salvador, and even offered the Portuguese, who
came there to trade with them, choice portions
of human flesh as food.

: In 1G17, during the Governorship of Luiz de
Vasconcellos, there commenced a war with a Chief
called X'Zinga, which lasted many years. In 1621
one Chief sent his sister to Loanda to negotiate
a peace with the Portuguese. This remarkable
woman, who became a Christian and was baptized
by the name of Anna Zinga, at first charmed the
Portuguese with her intelligence, dignity, and
apparent zeal for the faith, but as rapidly lost
both their regard and her belief when she poisoned
her brother, gained his throne, and rcadopted
every pagan practice. She conquered the kingdom
of Matamba and waged continual war with the
Portuguese with the aid of armies of the savage
and predatory Jaggas, whom she conquered by
her personality and finally governed, outdoing
them for twenty-eight years in their bloodthirsty
practices.

The Queen would appear, on occasions of state,

A TERRIBLE QUEEN 183

clad in lion or leopard skins, ornate with plumes,
and armed with axe, sword, and bow, surrounded
by some fifty warriors, whom, on pain of death,
she insisted should dress as women and be called
her wives, and from whom unfaithfulness was
only tolerated if followed by the murder of their
children in such liaisons. Her every venture was
preceded by the sacrifice of man or babe, whom she
slew with her own hands, and her invasions were
terrible in their destruction, as they were skilfully
planned. When over sixty years old, advancing
age, or as some say the sight of a crucifix, caused
the Queen to revert to Christianity and friendship
with the Portuguese ; and she became as terrible
in her zeal for the faith as she had been in her
pagan practices and discipline, martyrizing un-
willing converts, and unchecked by the priests
in her inhumanities. She died in the faith in
1663, at the age of over eighty years ; and the
kingdom which she had wrested from the fiercest
of African tribes, and governed with iron will
and discipline, crumbled in the weak hands of her
successors to vassal states of Portugal.

During this period the Jesuits had again
plotted against Portuguese power in Angola,
several of them having in consequence to be sent
back to Lisbon in disgrace.

While under the suzerainty of Spain, Portugal
became involved in her wars with Holland.
Since the beginning of the seventeenth century
the Dutch had sent naval expeditions to the West
Coast of Africa, in order to obtain slaves for their
possessions in America. After several minor ex-

184 THROUGH ANGOLA

peditions, which harried rather than conquered
the Portuguese, a great fleet of twenty ships
appeared off Loanda in August 1641. The
Portuguese fled panic-stricken from Loanda on
the coast to Massangano, their township of the
interior.

When peace was declared in Europe between
Holland and Portugal, a local truce was signed in
Angola, but broken by the Dutch, who attacked,
defeated, and captured Pedro Cazar, the Governor,
and 187 troops on the River Bengo. The Portu-
guese Commander of Massangano managed through
spies to liberate Pedro Cazar, and when a relief
expedition sent from the Portuguese colony of
Brazil, which had been infuriated by the loss of
her slave traffic, arrived with Francisco Sottomaior
in 1645, this officer, with the help of the Portuguese
at Old Benguella, landed at Cape Ledo, marched
to Massangano and relieved the garrison there
from its siege by a force of Dutch and native
troops.

Sottomaior died soon after, but Salvador de Sa
Benevidcs, at the instance of Don Joao the Fourth
of Portugal, sailed in 1648 from Rio de Janeiro
with fifteen ships and 900 men. arrived off Loanda,
and demanded the surrender of that town. The
Dutch, who had 1000 white and many black
troops, took refuge in the fortress of Loanda,
and after repelling a first assault by the Portuguese
surrendered to their numerically inferior enemies.
After a thanksgiving service, and the rcchristen-
ing of Loanda to the name of San Paulo cla
Assompcaon clc Loanda (as it had been taken on

VICTORY AND DISASTER 185

Assumption Day), Bcnevidcs drove the Duteh out
of Benguella, Penda, and Loango, defeated and
punished the Congo King and the Angolan Chiefs
who had sided with the Duteh, and returned to
Brazil in 1650.

On New Year's Day, 1G66, a great battle
occurred between 400 Portuguese and 6000 native
auxiliaries, with two cannons, on the one side, and
a mighty host of many thousands of the natives
on the other. The victory which the Portuguese
obtained on this day is commemorated in a
painting in the church at Loanda.

Four years later a disaster almost as great as
this victory was sustained by the Portuguese
under Joao dc Almeida, who in endeavouring to
attack the native chief of Sonho Avas ambushed
and his force practically destroyed.

Sequcira, the hero of the 1666 victory, again
came to the assistance of the Portuguese in 1671,
and leading an expedition against the capital
of the Angolan King, the reputedly impregnable
Pedras de Pungo Andongo, captured it and de-
stroyed the King of Angola's army. The King
in despair threw himself from a high rock, and his
family and possessions were definitely forfeited to
the Portuguese Crown.

Between 1671 and the end of the seventeenth
century the little colony of Angola suffered from
a series of revolts, not only from the natives of
Quissama and Ambuilla, but also from among
the Portuguese colonial troops, whose indiscipline,
shown by the assassination of their splendid
leader Luiz de Sequcira during a battle against

186 THROUGH ANGOLA

the Gingas, came to a, head in an open rebellion
for more pay in 1091. The rebellion was only
suppressed after the leader had been shot and
many of the troops driven to the forests of the
interior/

The influx of Italian Capuchin priests to
Angola in the middle of the seventeenth century
especially affected the province of Sonho, which
became a stronghold of the Christian faith, and
the attack on these people by the Portuguese at
the instance and with the aid of the King of the
Congo and the Jaggas, was as unfortunate as it
was destructive ; for after a preliminary success,
the invaders were defeated and destroyed by the
ability and courage of the Sonho chief, who
taught his people to realize the feebleness of the
firearms of the period, and to despise the presents
which the Portuguese threw into the native ranks
to produce cupidity and confusion. One Portu-
guese survivor of the expedition, sent back
to Loanda with the ears of his dead comrades,
warned his countrymen, and saved the town and
fleet from destruction.

At the instance of Rome, Merolla, the historian
of this campaign, actually preached against the
slave trade in Sonho between 1683 and 1G87,
but limited his prohibition to heretics like the
Dutch and English, and went so far as to ex-
communicate and punish those who disobeyed.
The earlier methods of conversion used by the
Catholic priests, such as baptism by the eating
of salt (a luxury in the country), the distribution
of crucifixes and medallions, and even the offer

PERSECUTED PADRES 18?

of a white wife to a king who otherwise refused
conversion, were gradually changed to others more
forceable and less alluring.

A blacksmith who claimed divinity was beaten
till he disallowed it, an argument applied equally
to a queen who preferred to continue the worship
of her pagan gods.

The prohibition of polygamy by the priests
was resented universally, and retaliation was
effected in curious ways. The men would often
create a false alarm of approaching wild beasts,
and then hurriedly climb the nearest trees and
laugh at the futile attempts of the often portly
priests who struggled to imitate them. The women
obtained their revenge by continual immoral
overtures, which they knew would annoy the
priests, and by adopting suggestive attitudes near
the monastery, which compelled the harassed
padres to build their walls so high as to baffle
their fair tormentors.

Zeal was encouraged equally curiously. Carli,
another priest and historian, who found 200
Christians adopting self-inflicted penance, beating
each other with their hands, and carrying heavy
logs of wrood, increased it by placing whips and
thongs in the hands of the zealots, and gained
from the encounter by directing the converts to
carry the logs of wood many miles to his monastery
and for his use.

, The next period of lifty years, from 1700 to
1750, was one of comparative peace, during which
the commerce of the colony greatly increased ;
but this very prosperity brought about keen com-

188 THROUGH ANGOLA

petition from Dutch, English, and French traders,
to the detriment of the Portuguese at the ports of
Ambriz, Loanda, Cabinda, and Pinda. In 1759
the famous native fortress of Pedras d'F.nconge
was captured by the Portuguese from the native
Chief of Ambuilla.

Francisco de Sousa Coutinho, who was Governor
between 1764 and 1773, instituted many reforms
in the judicial customs, police, and hospital services
of the colony. He built a large part of what is
now the town of Loanda, including the fort of
San Francisco, founded the fort of Novo Redondo,
started foundries near the iron mines of Golungo,
and proved himself one of the best Governors in
Angolan history.

The remaining years of the eighteenth century
were uneventful but for two campaigns, one in the
north and the other in the south of the colony,
against Angolan chiefs, both of which wrere
successful.

The beginning of the nineteenth rentury was
notable for the excellent Governorship of Ante mi
dc Gama, who not only developed the mineral
resources of Angola, bat directed his attention
to the exploration of tins; part of Africa, especially
to the discovery of a route from Angola to the
eastern Portuguese possessions on the Zambezi
River.

Two native traders were dispatched from
Angola in 1801 who managed to reach Cassembe,
a town in Central Africa, where Francisco Laccrda,
the Governor of Portuguese Zambezi, had arrived
by an expedition from the East Coast some years

189

earlier. The Angolan traders finally reached the
East Coast in 1811, ten years after having left
Loanda, and returned to Angola by the same route
via Cassembe in 1815.

The years 1820 to 183G were marked by great
commercial progress in Angola, but also by much
social unrest ; a mutiny breaking out in the latter
year among the white troops, whose discipline
and prestige were only restored after a successful
campaign, and the conquest of the district of
Duke cla Braganza. The abolition of the slave
trade took place soon after, and brought about
profound economic changes in the colony.

In May 1854, Livingstone completed at Loanda
the first phase of his famous transcontinental
journey, which, commenced in Barotseland and
continued north to Loanda, ended at last at the
mouth of the Zambezi on the East Coast of Africa.

Portugal's title to Angola, discovered and
conquered by her adventurous and gallant sailors
and soldiers, is confirmed by numerous modern
treaties. The boundaries of Cabinda marching
with the French Congo were defined by a treaty of
1886, those of the north and north-east (of Angola)
towards the Belgian Congo by treaties of 1885,
1891, and 1891. The south-eastern frontier, con-
tinuous with Rhodesia, was settled in 1801 and
1905. The southern frontier, settled in 1880.
touches that finger-like process which Germany
pushed to the Zambezi in the moment of her power
and as a sign manual of her ambition, and is being-
readjusted with Germany's successor, the Union
of South Africa,

CHAPTER XIV

ANGOLAN TRIBES — THEIR ORIGIN AND RELIGION

1~^HE natives of Angola, with the exception
of a few Aboriginal people, are Bant;:s,
a mixed Hamitic and Negro race, which
now occupies practically all Africa south of the
Equator. Physically akin to the three Sudanese
Negro groups, the Bantu differs from them in
culture and in his language of co-ordinated pre-
fixes, where a prefix placed before a noun is
equally applied to verb, adverb, and adjective in
a sentence. From the other races of Africa,
whether Hamitic, Semitic, Hova. or Aboriginal,
he differs not only in speech and culture, but in
physical character as well.

From their original home somewhere between
Lake Tchad and the Congo, where, according to
Johnston, they had known both Egyptian and
Persian influence, the Bantu people migrated or
were driven long ago to found new and widely
distributed colonies. He considers that the date
of this migration could not have been more than
2000 years ago, because the word for fowl, a bird
only introduced to the Upper Nile about 400 B.C.,
is similar among all Bantu peoples, who must
have known it in their original home before
dispersal.

191

Moving, according to Johnston, first eastward
to avoid the Congo forests which barred a south-
erly advance from their original home, the Bantus
settled for a time in the region of the great lakes,
whence they spread south-west and south-east,
first conquering and then intermingling with the
aboriginal dwarf people of Africa.

The period when the invasion reached Angola
is uncertain. It has been placed as late as from
the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Though
legends among the Angolan natives describe the
great invasions of remote times as coming from
the north and east, there had been so many minor
and later translatory movements of tribes that
the history of the Bantu occupation of the country
is confused and obscure.

The natives of that part of Angola which I
traversed spoke the Umbundu language, and could
be grouped by link of speech, manners, and customs
into a central group of tribes. Along the coast
from north to south are the Mussulu, Quissama,
Sumbe, and Selle ; more inland, the Dombc,
Libolle, Amboim, and Ba Nano ; while warlike
tribes like the Jingas, Bangalas, Bondos, Songhos,
and Luimbes live along the Coango and Coanza
Rivers, and others, such as the Bailundos, Bihes,
Galangoes, and Quillenges, inhabit the central
highlands and their eastern and southern slopes.

To the north of this group and in the Congo
Province are the Congo or Ba Fiot people, speaking
the Kishi Congo language, and allied by speech
and customs to tribes beyond the river in the
Belgian Congo. They comprise the Mussorongo

192 THROUGH ANGOLA

and Muchicongo on the coast, and Zombo and
Bajacca in the interior.

To the east of the Umlundu group and beyond
the Coango River live a people speaking the
Lunda language and more closely allied to the
Congos than the Umbundus. Their greatest tribe
is the Quioco. Lunda once comprised a great
kingdom, with a Chief called the Muata Yamvo,
whose court and customs were the subject of
great interest in the las; cent ry.

In the south of Angola are a great number of
tribes whose speech is more akin to Umbundu than
Congo or Lunda, whose blood is much mixed with
that of the primitive Bushman, and whose char-
acter, with the exception of the Ambuella, has
been influenced by these primitive, hunting, and
nomadic tribes.

One fact was obvious even to a traveller like
myself : the tribes of the interior plateau were
physically superior to those of the coast lands, and
appeared to be of less mixed Bantu descent. These
differences are due partly to the influence of the
healthy and bracing climate of the uplands,
affecting the native physique as favourably as
the unhealthy and enervating coastal climate has
deteriorated it. They are also due to the inter-
mingling of the earlier Bantus with the original
coastal and forest pygmy-like tribes, which has
produced racial types like the Ba Tclicmo and
Ba Twa in the north ami the Ba Cuanclo and Ba
Cuisso in the south, while the later Bantu arrivals
remaining in the uplands of the interior have
retained a purer racial descent.

THK CONC.O, .MliUNDU, I.UNDA, AND SOUTH ANGOLA LANGUAGE GROUPS
OF THE TRIBES OF THE COLONY

KARA AYIS': — A LADY WITCH DOCTOR

BANTU AND BUSHMAN 193

Between the typical Bantus and the type
Aboriginal (Negrillo or Bushmen) who inhabit
Angola, there are of course much greater differ-
ences than those observed between the natives
of the uplands and coast. The type Bantu,
influenced by his Hamitic strain, is taller and
darker, with finer features, larger eyes, and less
prominent cheek-bones than the Aboriginal, whose
short and somewhat ungainly figure, yellow brown
colour, very flat nose, small deep-set eyes, and
prominent cheek-bones, place him at a consider-
able physical disadvantage to the Bantu.

These marked physical differences between the
two peoples are accompanied by differences in
speech and religious beliefs. The speech of the
Bushman is as primitive as that of the Bantu is
perfected, but there is little to choose between the
religious beliefs of the two races, and in fact the
ancestor- and nature-worship of the primitive
peoples seems a purer cult than the spirit-worship
influenced by magic and witch doctors of the
Bantu peoples, which is not dissimilar to the
Shamanism of the East.

In my journey in Angola there was no oppor-
tunity to study the beliefs of the primitive peoples,
and this western Bantu spirit-worship was practi-
cally the only cult met with.

There was no trace of that ancient belief, with
its mythology of sixteen divinities, similar to and
possibly derived from that of Tyre and Etruria,
which exists according to Frobcnius in Nigerian
Yorubaland, nor of that earliest Christian teach-
ing which he considers came to the West Coast
13

194 THROUGH ANGOLA

from Byzantium through Nubia fourteen hundred
years ago, and left its mark in the Central Sudan
and the West Coast kingdoms of Mossi and Nupe.

Mohammedan influence, which he considers
degraded these ancient civilizations a thousand
years ago, is still spreading in West Africa, but
has influenced Angola very little, though, if it can
destroy spirit-worship, it will redeem any misdeeds
of the past and work for the good of Africa.

If the purer Etruscan and Coptic beliefs ever
reached Angola in the past, they have now become
so obscured by the cult of spirit-worship as to make
the task of their rediscovery beyond the ability
of a traveller, and the spirit-worship of modern
Angola has itself been affected so greatly by the
influence of Western civilization, that it has
changed and is changing fast with the waning
power of its priests or medicine-men, and the
growing knowledge of the negro. This spirit-
worship cannot be regarded now as other than a
degraded cult, but it is still something more than
the fear of evil spirits, worship of images called
fetishes, and obedience to the power of the African
priest or witch doctor, that many believe it to
be, for there is a vague belief in a beneficent
deity, who is called by the Angolan Bantus
N'zambi, Zambi, Onzambi, and N'sambi in various
parts of north and central Angola (the slight
variation in pronunciation being entirely a question
of dialect), and Suku in the south. This god, being
considered beneficent, is not feared, and in conse-
quence is not regarded or worshipped.

/There is an omnipresent fear of evil spirits,

SPIRIT-WORSHIP 195

but the spirit-worship it entails is complicated
by magic and sorcery. The number and variety
of the spirits is very great, and the people appear
to believe in woodland elves and goblins as well as
spirits.

The profession of its priests or witch doctors
(called N'ganga) includes a great number of
specialists, each dealing with one or other mental
or physical malady, or devoting himself to the
arts of divining, spiritualism, or rain-making ;
while the witch doctors work with a surprising
wealth of ritual, incantations, taboos, and other
devices.';

Finally, a fetish is not an idol and is not
worshipped, but may be considered as were
charms and amulets in those mediaeval days-
objects which have acquired virtue through
spiritual influence, brought about by the witch
doctor in the one case or the blessing of some
saintly Christian in the other ; in fact, it is possible
that the cult of the fetish was encouraged by the
introduction of Christian charms, sacred images,
medallions, and elaborate ritual into Angola four

7 o

hundred years ago, and that the very Catholic
faith that came to destroy idolatry unwittingly
developed it.

In contrast with the negro's disregard of a
vague but beneficent deity, who, he thinks, will
not harm him and so need not be propitiated, is
his dread of evil spirits, the souls of evil people
come back from the tomb, to people the forest
and haunt and harm the living, and which must
for this reason be appeased,

196 THROUGH ANGOLA

There are certain spirits like our elves and
fairies, which the hunters specially consult, as
they are forest imps, but I was unable to discover
the difference between them and the universally
feared spirits. The spirits of evil people may come
back to haunt the forest and river, the village
and field, where they lived when in the flesh, and
their presence dominates and terrorizes the life of
the African savage. These evil spirits represent
not only the evil dead, whom they once animated,
they may also represent special ills, such as various
diseases, which are even given the names of evil
spirits. The spirit of the evil hunter may cause
evil in hunting, that of the fisherman in fishing,
of the husbandman to crops, and so on, and the
sacrifice must be animal or fish or produce as the
case may be, and be placed in forest, river, or fielol..
These spirits can be seen by the witch doctors
but only heard by the layman ; at least I have
never met any one but a witch doctor who said
he had seen one ; and the description of these
spirits was, as can be imagined, very conflicting
and^absurd.

. No native will go alone into the forest at night,
and even when in the house they will cower and
refuse to look up if they believe they hear a ghost
wralking about them or crying out. This terror
is, of course, taken full advantage of by the
clever and unscrupulous witch doctor, or his
imitators bent on theft.

. "Spirits, being evil, are feared, and being feared
must be propitiated. Such propitiation is carried
out bv means of charms and amulets, called

ANALOGIES OF BELIEF AND CULT 197

fetishes, from " Feitieo," the Portuguese word
for a charm, as the Portuguese were the earliest
of the modern Christian voyagers to meet the
African.

Fetish-men or witch doctors are those persons
who can see and deal with evil spirits, become
mediums for them, propitiate and even control
the spirits through charms and incantations. In
some British West African possessions where the
Portuguese word " Fetish " has not penetrated,
the term " Ju-ju " is used for the charm, and
" Ju-ju man " for witch doctor.

There is a nanalogy between the sorcerer, charm,
and amulet of Europe and Asia, and the witch
doctor and " Fetish " charm in Africa. The dress,
gesticulations, incantations, and fetish para-
phernalia of the witch doctor of Africa, and his
black and white magic, are singularly reminiscent
of what one reads of the sorcerer and his arts in
other parts of the world, and appear to be still
reflected in the tall hat and frock coat, professional
manner, surgery and dispensary fittings, imposing
instruments, and coloured bottles of the modern
physician and druggist. Have not these auxiliaries
a similar moral, hynotic, even suggestive effect on
the patient, whether black or white ?

Is not the spiritualism preached by some educated
people to-day similar to that of the witch doctor
when he embodies a spirit and becomes its medium,
while the spirit speaks and acts through him ? The
cults of the childhood of man are too deep rooted
to destroy completely. Through the spirit super-
stition he has fostered and the fetish he has

198 THROUGH ANGOLA

introduced, the African witch doctor gained his
power and livelihood, as did the European and
Asiatic sorcerers with their devils, jinns, and
amulets. In primeval days, physical force alone
was regarded and respected. The man who could
take his food from claw and talon, who could win
his mate from his fellow-men ; such a man must
necessarily have been physically strong, and the
weakling children were killed off, either when born
or in the terrible struggle for existence. Those
weaklings who survived developed cunning to
replace good strength, and from them probably
came the first sorcerers, doctors, and artists.
Though early forms of superstition and worship,
born of dreams and nature portents, probably
preceded the rise of the witch doctor, yet it is
probable that the cunning weakling took to the
earliest form of magic to ensure his possession of
food and a mate in a community of strong and
brave hunters ; and to increase his influence,
surrounded his work with mystery and elaborate
magic ritual.

If astuteness and cunning caused by physical
infirmity helped to produce the earlier magicians,
it is probable that this knowledge was transmitted
to their offspring, and later generations of those
skilled in sorcery and healing were taken from the
same family. The medicine-man of modern Africa
is even more often the son of a doctor father
than the physician of Europe. The profession of
witch doctoring in Angola includes that of medi-
cine, witchcraft, divining, and rain-making, whose
specialists are as numerous as those in Uarlcy

WITCH DOCTORS AND RAIN-MAKERS 109

Street ; it has its courses of instruction and
examination for initiates, a considerable degree of
combination among its members (a kind of medical
union in fact), and there may even be a standard
of professional etiquette.

Serpa Pinto, who travelled in Angola fifty
years ago, considered there were then three types
of fetish-men in the country — the doctor, the
diviner, and the wizard. The diviner foretold
the future, or the cause of trouble in man or
beast, village or house ; the doctor treated the
trouble if physical ; the wizard dealt with it if
supernatural and a spirit had to be exorcized.
It was the wizard also who tried to discover if
this evil spirit was without the body and could
be coaxed or driven from house or village, or
whether, embodied in a human being, this person
could be tried by ordeal.

It is difficult to-day clearly to define and
differentiate the witch doctors, as civilization has
diminished their powers and practice.

At the present time there is usually a witch
doctor in each large village, who uses incantations
as wrell as charms and drugs in his efforts at
treatment ; and if divining, caskets, and gourds
full of seeds, bones of all kinds, antelope horns,
fish scales, and other things as well.

After a vigorous shaking of the caskets and
gourds, certain of the charms arc thrown to the
surface, and from their nature the diviner predicts
and judges. He may in this way foretell that a
person, or even a house or village, is bewitched,
and then mav call in another doctor to cure the

200 THROUGH ANGOLA

person and exorcize the spirit or may deal with
the case himself ; for there are yet but few purely
physical healers working with herbs, cupping
and bleeding, counter-irritants and massage-
nearly all such people I met were involved in
witchcraft to some degree. In most cases, besides
the medicine, a charm (fetish) is given to the
patient who seeks relief ; the nature of these
charms or fetishes, which is very varied, is alluded
to later in the chapter.

Among the group of medicine-men there may
be a separate person specializing in rain.

The rain-maker is usually an elderly and
observant native, who is really the African
Meteorological Officer ; and despite all his tricks
and charms, probably depends a good deal on
the effect of wind direction, temperature, and
atmospheric pressure (as personally felt on an
oppressive day) to help him in his forecasts.
Though rarely at work, his fees are probably big
ones.

To impress his clients, the witch doctor not
only builds a mysterious fetish house near the
village where the dread spirit may live ; he also,
like every clever impresario, dresses his part, and
so decorates himself with feathers, paint, shells,
and charms of all kinds, as effectually to inspire
respect and terror in the villages where he lives
and operates. Once they have established a
reputation, one or other of the group of witch
doctors is consulted in every venture and mis-
fortune : in hunting expeditions and war. for
barrenness, sickness, drought, or deluge.

RAIN-MAKER

A NATIYK FUNERAL DANCE
(After Cavaz/.i, 1687)

WITCH DOCTORS CALLING DOWN RAIN
(After Cava/xi, 1687)

A WITCH DOCTOK

TRIAL BY ORDEAL 201

With great astuteness, the fetish-men have
established the belief that practically no severe
illness or death comes naturally, but is due to
the witching of the patient by enemies in the flesh
or spirit. In this way, they may obtain a fee,
both from those who consult them and also from
those — -and they arc generally rich people — whom
the medicine-men point to as the suspected be-
witching agents. It is useless for the suspected
person to urge innocence, for, if the usual pro-
pitiation of goats or oxen is not given to the accuser
and the fetish-man, the latter orders a trial by
ordeal. The " casca " or poison is prepared by
the fetish-man himself, and so concocted that
little is left to chance, and the accused is poisoned
and found guilty and his property confiscated.

Trial by ordeal is carried out in a number
of ways, among them being the placing of the
hand in a hive, to see if the bees will sting it, or
into fire or hot water ; or by " casca," the bark
of Erythrophlceum guineensis, which is cut up into
small pieces, and infused in cold water, or, as
occurs sometimes, in water which is heated by
dropping in a number of hot pebbles.

The poisonous decoction, so prepared, has both
emetic and purgative properties, and causes death
if enough is taken ; so that the victim's fate
practically lies in the hand of the fetish-man who
prepares the " casca."

The accused man is kept fasting in confinement
on the night previous to the ordeal— which may
consist in the drinking of the " casca " poison alone,
or followed by his running through lines of mocking

202 THROUGH ANGOLA

people or tinder a series of arches made by their
wands. \Voe betide the ailing wretch should he
stumble or fall, for the "casca" has then decided
against him ; and those who were once his friends
and even relations will fall on him without mercy
and hack him to pieces.

When the slave trade was in force, those
found guilty by ordeal were sold as slaves, and
quite a number of slaves were obtained in this
way, and sent down to the coast towns to be sold
to the Portuguese slave dealers. Possibly quite
as many slaves were obtained through witch trials
as by war and capture ; for as every illness or
calamity was considered due to witchcraft, the
number of accused was endless.

The fetish-man has other means of maintaining
his sway, and his income, than by " casca" trials :
by making and selling charms against every evil,
and to ensure good luck. These charms, called
" mokeeshoo," are of endless variety — shells, seeds,
little wooden images, teeth, claws, and horns of
various animals. Nearly every child carries a
charm ; and expectant mothers, and those who
wish for children, wear and trust to them. Besides
the charm used on the person, the family or the
hut itself may have its fetish, and I have seen
little figures, or even pieces of wood, decked out
with rags, at the entrance to villages or the paths
approaching them.

Fetish houses are probably more commonly
seen in the north than towards the south of Angola.
In these miniature huts, built generally near the
entrance to villages, and painted in red, white.

FETISH SYMBOLS 203

and black, there may be phallic symbols, or small
figures of men and women carved quaintly but
with a marked sexual character. These charms
or fetishes are not idols, as Cavazzi, the old
historian, thought, nor do natives worship them
as he believed. They are more in the nature of
blessed symbols, as were crucifixes or medallions
to a Catholic Christian like Cavazzi, or the written
passage from the Koran to a Mohammedan. The
object that has become a charm or fetish was, the
the native well knows, originally only a piece of
carved wood, a seed, claw, or small piece of antelope
horn ; and he will sell any such object cheaply.
It is only when the fetish-man has incanted over
these objects, has placed within them some magic
power (and so prepared them that they have
become even the occasional home of a spirit),
that they gain value, both monetary and spiritual.

The witch doctor usually puts magic into the
object which is to become a charm, by placing it
in a concoction which varies with the physician.
The actual ingredients may be simple things—
tacula dye, dung, or feathers are often used in
Angola ; or the witch doctor may place in the
charm parts of powerful birds, dangerous animals,
poisonous snakes, insects, and herbs, things express-
ing power and fear and dread. The personality
of the wizard himself, his forcefulness and reputa-
tion, count for more than his particular medicine ;
as it counts with the modern physician to-day.

Even when an object is made potent and
fetish by the native doctor, it is not worshipped
by the client : it is sacrificed to at one time with

204 THROUGH ANGOLA

libations of palm wine and gifts of food ; it may be
beaten at another to stimulate it to better action ;
and it will be despised and thrown away if it
ceases to bring the required success. It is the
favourite of the moment, and may be treated like
all favourites in misfortune.

There are some fetishes, those of big chiefs
and witch doctors, which may acquire a great
reputation, and are hired out at heavy cost to
different temporary owners.

Fetish houses, the miniature huts seen near
villages, are a kind of communal charm where the

o 7

evil spirit afflicting a village may be induced to
retire and cease from persecution by illness,
drought, or famine.

Fetishes are used for as many different purposes
as they are different in shape, size, and origin.
They are the medium to avert evil spirits from
the owner or to transfer such evil to an enemy.
They will propitiate the spirits of child-bearing,
of health or prosperity, of hunting and fishing
successes, and of disease or desire ; they become
ministers to every human emotion and ambition ;
behind them there stands their creator, all-powerful,
cunning, cruel, and unscrupulous — the witch doctor.

Is it any wonder that this particular class of
the African doctor group is rarely in need of
fields, or cattle, or harem ? Slowly but surely
the light of reason and logic is forcing its way
into the African's mental darkness ; but the
craft of the doctors is highly organized ; they are
powerful, and superstition dies hard. It is most
diilicult to free the negro from his bondage to

CANNIBAL SOCIETIES 205

superstition ; Christianity rarely does it, the
most ignorant convert being ever a pagan at
heart, and even the most educated revert readily
to fetish influence.

When I was stationed at Sierra Leone, on the
west coast of Africa, in 1912, two secret societies
called the " Leopard " and the " Crocodile " had
just been tracked down and destroyed. Among
the rites they practised were those of cannibalism ;
the victims being attacked by members of these
bands with weapons like claws, and jaws resembling
those of the leopard and crocodile. When these
horrible societies were at last unmasked and their
followers captured and tried, it was found that
the ringleader was an educated negro. Such
secret societies are rare in Angola. One was
formed of the young men of the Lunda people
when forbidden to smoke hemp by their elders.
This society became ultimately a political and
radical union directed against the more conser-
vative elders. It was never religious in character.

It is usually the witch doctor who makes love
philtres, much as the witch did in England years
ago. These philtres are often made in Angola
from the hair and nail parings of the beloved.
Such things are supposed to have a special personal
influence, as they are often taken from the bodies
of dead chiefs and distributed among his people
at the funeral. As totemism exists in an obscure
form in Angola and taboos arc recognized, the
witch doctor has still another method of main-
taining his hold on the people and augmenting his
practice and income : by the imposition of pro-

206 THROUGH ANGOLA

hibitions and penances. There is the prohibition
or taboo of the partaking of some kind of food or
drink, or of entering a certain house or district,
or crossing some river or lake. Apart from any
totemic reason such prohibitions are used to cure
illness, to protect unborn children, to prevent
calamity or to end it.

The witch doctor makes and breaks the taboo,
and thus can add another knot to the bonds in
which he holds his patients and clients. Some of
the penances are, however, self-inflicted, and bear
a close resemblance to penances imposed and
carried out by Christians.

As an instance of fetish taboo rules I may
mention the following incident.

On passing along the Longoe River in Angola
I came across a shady well-built village which had
been abandoned, and near it a miserable collec-
tion of huts without shade, where the Sova or
Chief, his family, and the villagers had temporarily
installed themselves. When the Chief was sent
for to come and see me in the old village where
I had taken up my quarters, he sent back a message
to say that he could not come then, as the fetish-
man had sent him away from the old village in
consequence of illness, and it was taboo to return.
I sympathized with the Chief's misfortune, and
was preparing to send him some venison as a
solace when, unable to resist the temptation, he
stole across the forbidden ground to look at my
meat supplies for himself. The Chief lost his
present of meat, as he had placer! the needs of his
stomach above his respect for a white man, and

TABOO AND PENANCE 207

further was much chaffed for having rendered
himself fetish again.

There are curses similar to those still uttered
by superstitious peoples in European countries ;
and as these curses can be carried out by the
wizards through the medium of charms or fetishes,
and can be broken in similar ways, the witch
doctor has yet another hold on the people.

Fetishism may on occasions help the European
traveller, for it is fetish for any native chief to
injure or steal from a person whose hospitality
he has accepted, and this is a most useful point
to remember when travelling through hostile
native territory. It is fetish also for a native to
break any of a white man's property ; and use
can be made of this if there is danger or im-
portunity, by letting a chief break an already
cracked glass, or plate.

CHAPTER XV

CHARACTER, HABITS, AND CUSTOMS OF THE
ANGOLA NATIVES

A" | AHE character of the native of Angola is
much what the climate of his country
has made him. In those parts of the
colony where there is an abundant rainfall, a
fertile soil, and plentiful game, life has been so
readily maintained at a minimum cost of labour
that the fortunate inhabitant has developed lazy
habits ; and the enervating climate which can so
diminish the energy of a European has made the
negro listless. With Nature herself helping him,
the negro does no more than cultivate a plot of
land equal to the needs of his family ; and even
this work is done by his women folk, except perhaps
for the initial tilling and sowing ; while the lord
and master, when not idling and smoking, sets
game traps, goes hunting or fishing, or collects
rubber, honey, palm oil, wine, salt, or gum, when
he feels inclined.

It is true that the hut is built by the husband,
but this is a simple affair, made of saplings and
grass taken from the surrounding forest.

The wives (for there are usually more than
one) do all the household work, as well as most

308

of the cultivation, and having little individuality,
less liberty, and no rights, are content if by the
result of their labour they can bring comfort to
their owner, and by their fecundity bear him a
large family ; for children will, in their turn, work
for the house and be a further source of wealth
to their father.

These poor women are compelled to rise before
daybreak to prepare the morning meal of infundi,
or pound grain or tobacco for to-morrow's use.
They must then go to till their fields of mandioc,
ground-nuts, or millet ; minding their babies, who
spend their little lives slung on their mother's
backs, as best they can.

My lord the husband, after lazily stretching
himself in the sun and eating his breakfast, has,
perchance, gone off to visit his game traps or
set new ones, and on his return to the village will
expect more food and attention from his hard-
worked harem. In the evening, if palm wine is
available or there is any excuse for merry-making
or excitement, such as a big hunting success, or a
death, much drink will be taken by the men, and
if it can be spared, a little by the women too.

This drink may be wine from the self-fermented
sap of the palm tree, or native beer prepared by
fermenting Elcusine coracana (Luco), or germinated
Indian corn mixed with mandioc root. " Garapa,"
as this beer is called, is not so heavy as the strongest
palm wine, but either of these beverages is potent
enough to help the dancing, singing, and drum-
beating which always accompany a drinking bout.

(n no other race c..in one I'md so many uncom-

14

210 THROUGH ANGOLA

fortable and even painful habits and customs as
among the negroes of Africa, and the Angola
native is no exception. Who but an African
would chip his splendid teeth with an axe-head
in order to sharpen them to his desire, or even
remove some of them, as do the Humbe, Ovambo,
and Ba Cubal tribes ; or enlarge a hole in his
ear till it will hold a small jam-pot ; or scar his
body writh innumerable cuts in order to make
tribal marks on his face, or fancy designs on his
body, as do some of the Congo and Lunda people
of Angola ?

The negro's wife is even more insensible to
discomfort than her mate ; for beside all these
painful mutilations that he will surfer, she will
also wear shells in her nostrils, ornaments in her
upper lip so large that it is difficult for her to
eat, and bangles on her legs and arms so heavy
that it must be an effort for her to move.

No one but an African could stand the rough-
and-ready methods of their medicine-men, with
the blunt and rusty knives or even sharp stones
that they use for all kinds of surgery ; and none
but African women could bear the barbarous
methods of dealing with abnormal childbirth. I
suppose it is because of the hard lives these people
lead, and their want of sensibility, that they
tolerate such things.

Nature's readiness to yield an easy living, and
the greed and tyranny of his stronger neighbour,
have combined to make the African the improvi-
dent creature he is. Even in the house, he rarely
st:or:-s r'-'x'i for fnhr;;- n<-cds, dvc«dimf its seizure :

NEGRO IMPROVIDENCE AND LAZINESS

nor is he ever properly provisioned for a long
journey ; yet the African is often cheerful when
fate or his improvidence have brought him mis-
fortune. When he does meet plenty, he takes
the gift with childlike joy. The happiest negro
is he who has ten pounds of meat before him,
and the saddest he who, having over- eaten, is too
ill to eat more next day.

The white leader of an expedition may have
to tighten his belt in days of privation and dis-
aster ; but he can face these with the fortitude
which comes from the hope of better times ahead,
and the resolution which is his birthright. The
native carrier, in similar circumstances, has no
such advantages. The future and the road ahead
are alike unknown and dreaded, yet his cheerful-
ness sometimes equals his master's resolution, and
his physical endurance the white man's fortitude.

More often, unfortunately, the African's in-
herent laziness conquers his virtues ; and then
all the energy of the white man is needed to
overcome the carrier's dislike of marching early
before the sun has warmed him, and his desire to
rest before it is too hot. He can show the utmost
craftiness in creating obstacles to any advance,
and will tell any lie to gain an interval of rest.
If there is little water or game in the country
passed through, he is sure there will be none at
all ahead : if the tribes have been difficult in the
rearward marches, he is certain tfiere will be worse
men in front.

The African lie is artless, readily detected,
but not purposeless. A native will often give ait

212 THROUGH ANGOLA

answer which he thinks will please, or one which suits
his purpose ; or he may simply dissemble to gain
time and a knowledge of his visitor. For instance,
if asked if game is in the neighbourhood, he will
answer yes if he thinks this will please you, or
keep you in the village for his profit ; or he will
answer no, or give a wrong direction for the game,
if he wants to get rid of you ; while most fre-
quently of all, he will look stupid and pretend not
to understand, in order to gain time, and find
out more about you.

The African's untruthfulness is equalled by
his lack of sentiment.

Of love and affection, such as we understand
them, there is little. A mother gives her child its
food and is not unkind to it ; but in many years
in Africa I have never seen open affection between
man and wife, and rarely a mother play with her
children. The people are below the animal, if
affection is a standard of mental development ;
and that the negro lacks the finer qualities is shown
in his utter lack of jealousy and self-respect with
regard to his women.

Though rarely deliberately cruel unless roused
by superstition or anger, the negro is absolutely
heartless ; he will ill-treat domestic animals and
will even be amused by their suffering. I have
seen natives amusing themselves by throwing their
axes at the head of a dying buck, and laughing
when the poor beast tried to ward off the missiles
with its horns. They were utterly astonished
when I beat them in my horror and anger. Bruce's
storv of the br.no net of a cent.nrv njvo in Abyssinia,

CRUELTY AND INSENSIBILITY TO PAIN 213

when the meat was cut from the living ox, was
probably true, as was the statement that a steak
would be cut from an ox, the skin stitched over
the wound, and the animal driven on for another's
day's dinner.

This want of feeling for animals is possibly
due to the negro's own extraordinary insensibility
to pain. I have seen a man who had badly injured
one hand in an accident, trying to cut off a portion
of the injured member amid the jeers of his mates,
and hurrying off soon after to grab a share of the
meat of a buck which had just been carried into
camp.

This insensibility to pain may make the negro
unsympathetic to others, yet these very carriers
who had laughed at the injured man wrould have
shared their last meal with him. On occasions
when ill myself I have found both kindness and
neglect from my men ; once when very ill on a
long journey I was much neglected and nearly
died in consequence ; on other occasions when
less ill I have been carefully looked after. Of
course fear and respect are much stronger motives
in the black than affection or gratitude, and it is
probable that I lost attention in the first instance
because I was too weak to enforce it.

It is certainly difficult and hardly fair to judge
an African's character from a European stand-
point or by such a standard. The nature of this
primitive man, brought up in ignorance and fear,
is as childlike in its unconscious cruelty as his
untruthfulness is transparent and his deceit
infantile.

214 THROUGH ANGOLA

The negro's virtues of honesty an regards
property, and fidelity towards his acknowledged
master, though they may be the result of centuries
of fear, do exist to-day, and contrast not unfavour-
ably with some traits in the character of those who
govern him.

The simplicity of character of the negro in the
interior when he is away from European influence
is reflected in the state of his dress and his habits.

The style of head-dress differed in the various
tribes I passed through, the men usually partly
shaving their heads while the women nearly always
wore elaborate coiffures. In some tribes like the
Ba Lundas and those near the Congo, however, the
hair of the head and beard is sometimes kept long.
Many of the native women in Angola fashion
their hair in short plaits, which hang down all
round their head, the plaits being ornamented
with beads or small shells, while strings of shells
or beads are worn as a band round the forehead.
Sometimes the plaits of hair are brought together
into a bunch at the top of the head.

In some tribes the hair is partly shaved, tufts
of wool being left which may be ornamented with
beads, shells, or feathers. In the Quimbande
tribe, the hair is done up in the fashion of a (ire-
man's helmet.

As might be expected, the women's heads,
which are never washed, but only oiled or stiffened
with clay, become the happy hunting-ground of a
numerous fauna. One of a mother's daily duties
is a hunt in her children's heads, and the adults
help each other in this pastime. There are pro-

DRESS AND DWELLINGS 215

fessional louse hunters paid at so much a head ;
and I have seen ingenious traps for lice, worn on
the head, not unlike a gardener's trap for earwigs.

It is the fashion in some parts of Angola to
produce flat and pendulous breasts by tying a
band round the upper part. With these long
breasts the mother can, whilst walking, suckle the
baby carried on her back.

The scantiness of clothing and bedding all
conduce to want of cleanliness in the person of
the Angolan native, as he considers that bathing
opens the pores of his skin and is thus harmful,
while by greasing his body he renders it less liable
to cold.

The African, even when cleanly in his habits,
lias a strong and peculiar odour, due to special
sebaceous glands under his armpits. This scent,
which a witty Frenchman once called " Bouquet
d'Afriquc," is so powerful that I have been able
to tell when my negro servants had been in my
tent ; and on a still day and in thick grass the
scent of the carriers has overpowered me when
following a path among them. Animals unused
to it, such as European dogs, dislike the negro's
odour unmistakably ; but it is stated with some
conviction that wild animals can scent a while
nnii much farther than a black, and the blacks
say the white man smells badly to them.

The tribes of the uplands, like the Bailundos
and Bihes living in a colder climate, scarcely wear
more clothes than those who live near the Congo
or the coast ; but their dress is warmer, as it
usually consist of skins. The Mushicongos, Mn-

216 THROUGH ANGOLA

sollos, and Loandas of the coast wear, if men, a
loin-cloth ; if women, two pieces of cloth sewn
together which they wind round the body and
waist, the upper end being tucked over the breasts.
In the remoter and poorer villages both men and
women wear just two small mats or skins suspended
one in front and the other behind the loins.
Completely naked tribes were never met with.
Of course " civilization " and the influence of the
European have greatly altered the dress of the
native, and not always for the better ; as any
one can realize who sees a native woman decked
out in ridiculous white stockings and high-heeled
shoes.

The hut architecture in most parts of Angola
is poor, a round hut of poles and mud surmounted
by a conical sloping roof of thatch. In the Congo
province the huts are better built and square.
Some huts are simply formed of sloping boughs
covered with leaves or grass, and the shelters of
the more nomadic tribes of the south, changed
from day to day, are more primitive still. The
houses of the river island dwellers are raised on
piles often several feet high. Most of the older
villages are surrounded with palisades, a relic of
former intertribal raids or a protection against
wild animals.

When Europeans or natives come in contact
with negro Kings or big Chiefs there is a good deal
of ceremony used in mutual salutations ; but
since the Portuguese have broken the power of
the Angolan Chiefs, and now that one only meets
head-men of villages or very petty Chiefs, much

MUSICAL IN'STRUMENTS AND HOl'SKHOLI) U'I'KN'SILS OF ANGOLAN NATIVKr

I

OF AXC.OI.AN TRH',l->

ETIQUETTE AND GOVERNMENT 217

of this ceremony of salutation has fallen into
disuse. I never met a big Angolan King or Chief
in my 1000 miles of wandering on foot through
the country ; but I understand that when one
does, the King and his counsellors dress up in
their best and assemble in front of the royal hut
or under the tree of audience. Here the King,
seated and surrounded by his counsellors (called
;c macotas ") and his people, receives the European,
who sits in front of his own servants and opposite
the King. The visitors clap their hands, and
the King responds by extending his left arm in
front of him, and placing the back of the right
hand in the palm of the left, the fingers of the
former being moved in the direction of the visitor.

If the visitor is a white man, which means
that he is the King's equal, both he and the King
clap hands ; then the King, through one of his
counsellors, welcomes the guest to the town, and
asks him his wishes. The white man replies
through an interpreter, and makes a suitable
present. The meeting breaks up after a hand-
shake, and the King then sends the white man a
present of food-stuffs.

When natives approach a King or big Chief,
they kneel on the ground and rub their foreheads
in the dust ; or rub their hands in the dust, and
place some of it on the forehead.

When the dress of a Chief consists of discarded
European clothing, it may be very ludicrous, as
when a top hat ornamented with wine labels is
worn on the head ; or a once brilliant uniform
only partly covers the body. Some Chiefs, how-

218 THROUGH ANGOLA

ever, are wise enough to dress in native costumes.
Only great Chiefs may use the royal cap made of
woven fibre, and the royal wand of office ; which
is not only the King's mark of kingship at all
ceremonials, but is sent by messenger with im-
portant messages.

The Kings of the Portuguese Congo still retain
the title of King, and the principal noblemen are
still Marquesses and Counts, though these titles,
granted by the Portuguese three hundred years
ago, are not of much importance to-day.

The Portuguese in Angola have a settled policy
of destroying native power and authority, and
have done away with all except purely nominal
native rulers. This policy of disuniting native
tribes, and dividing them up into small sections
under very minor Chiefs, has apparently resulted
in a decrease of native risings. Such small native
risings as have occurred in Angola have, in con-
sequence of this policy, been readily suppressed.

The native form of government is patriarchal
and communal : the small Chief or Sova rules
over a group of villages, or one village, which
may even consist of his family and relations
alone ; the village land is usually held in common.

Most Angolan natives smoke, and the tobacco
plant is found near many of their villages. The
tobacco is smoked in pipes, some of which are
large and wonderfully carved. In the north of
Angola snuff -taking is as prevalent as smoking,
the snuff being sniffed up from the palm of the
hand with deep breaths ; for the nose of the
negro seems to be as insensitive to vast amounts

SMOKING, FOOD. AND THE -LENT RAT" 219

of snuff as his palate and stomach are l:o strongly
spiced foods and potent drinks.

Another Angolan habit is the smoking of wild
hemp (Cannabis sativa), called " diamba," which
is taken in the same way as a native of India
smokes tobacco, in a hookah ; a gourd full of
water being placed between the pipeful of hemp
and mouth of the smoker. The smoke, even thus
cleaned, is so strong as to cause every one who
has inhaled a few puffs to cough violently and
pass on the pipe. The men say that this smoking
of hemp makes them feel warm in the early
morning, and one cannot but sympathize with
!he poor natives who come out of their huts on
a winter dawn in the Angolan highlands, almost
naked, and shivering in the sharp morning air ;
holding their hands on their shoulders or bringing
their elbows together and placing their hands on
each side of the head, which is bent clown into
the chest-— their way of showing how cold they feel.

The food of the Angolan natives is dealt with
in the chapter on produce as v-ell as in other
portions of this book, and only a very brief s m-
mary is given here. The mandioe root in various
preparations such as fuba (flour), infimdi, "!"d
pirao (porridge), and various Forms of cr>kes, is
possibly the commonest food-stuff in the country,
but maize and millet are also largely used, as are
yams, ground-nuts, pumpkins, and such fruits
as bananas and paw-paws. Meat and i\:-l\ are
eaten by all natives, except thoso prohibited
meats which arc taboo to the individual. Beef
and milk are rarely used as food- and butter is

220 THROUGH ANGOLA

only employed as an ointment. Almost every
living thing is game and food to the native ; even
such unsavoury animals as crocodiles, lizards,
frogs, caterpillars, white ants, and locusts, are
eagerly eaten. Field rats and mice are a special
delicacy.

A most curious custom in Angola is that of
the " lent rat," mentioned by Monteiro when he
travelled in Angola over sixty years ago : though
I was unable to conform the statement, it is
almost certainly true, as Monteiro was a most
careful and accurate observer. He states, speaking
of the natives in the district of Novo Redondo.
that " When a relative or other person visits them,
infundi or pirao is prepared, and should there not
be a bit of meat or fish in the larder they send
to a neighbour for the ' lent rat,' as it is called.
This is a field rat roasted on a skewer, and it is
presented to the guest, who, holding the skewer
in his left hand, dabs bits of the infundi on the
rat before he swallows them, as if to give them a
flavour, but he is very careful not to eat the rat
or even the smallest particle of it, as this would
be considered a great crime and offence, and would
be severely punished by their laws." Monteiro
comments on the unusual nature of such sham
politeness and snobbishness among savages.

Of musical instruments in Angola, the most
popular is the drum, because it makes the loudest
noise, and the African drum, perhaps for that
reason, is usually larger than our own. One form
of drum, made like a narrow wooden box (see
Plate), is used for signalling : there is a definite

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 221

drum language, and I have managed to have
messages sent long distances by means of such
drums.

A small instrument, very common in the country
and elsewhere in Africa, is called the " chis-
sangc " or "quissange" in Angola, and "sansa"
in many other parts of Africa. It consists of a flat
piece of wood or a flat box, on which are fixed
a number of thin slips of iron. One end of these
slips is attached to the extremity of the board,
while their free ends come half-way down the
board, parallel to and half an inch above it.
The native plays the quissange by alternately
pressing and releasing the thin metal slips, each
of which gives a different note, while the group
of them form a scale. I have heard this instrument
played in many parts of Africa, and though there
was never any tune, merely chords and variations
of notes, yet on many a night in the wilds, the
hard day's hunting over, one has been lulled to
sleep by the sweet soft tones of this little African
guitar, which is sometimes made even more
melodious and resonant by attaching a hollow
gourd beneath the keyboard.

There are two other instruments used by the
natives, called "marimbas," which are not unlike
those which music-hall performers employ. One
of these consists of a number of small pieces of
wood of various thicknesses and lengths, attached
by their ords to two parallel plantain stems.
These pieces of wood are beaten alternately by a
couple of drumsticks, and the notes being arranged
in a sor! of scale, rruisiv of a kind is produced.

Another instrument is somewhat similar, but
the parallel pieces of wood are curved, and below
them are placed a number of hollow gourds
increasing in size from one end of the instrument
to the other, as the size of the gourd influences
the depth of the note, and even a better scale of
notes can be produced on this instrument than
the other.

There is a curious and ancient musical instru-
ment, possibly peculiar to Angola, which is used
more for signalling than making tunes. It is
called the " engongui " by the natives, and is still in
use, though described and illustrated by Cavazzi
in his 250 years old history of Angola. The
engongui consists of two bells like long cattle
bells, lying parallel and attached to each other by
an iron or bronze bar. It can only be possessed by
a big Chief, and was carried in the old days by
slave caravans to announce their arrival, and any
news of war and peace along the road.

A musical instrument which could not be used
in polite society is one in which a small gourd is
attached to a bow. The rim of the gourd is held
on the player's stomach while he strikes the string
with the thumb and fingers of the free hand.
" Little Mary " acts as a resounding-board, and
the depth of the note depends on the portliness of
her owner.

The only kind of dance which I saw myself
in Angola, like most African dances, was neither
a chaste nor artistic movement. During one of
the drinking bouts a ring of spectators was formed,
drums aiu'l marimbas were brought into the circle,

DANCES, INITIATION RITES, MARRIAGE 223

and vigorously thumped and twanged ; torches
were lit, and the dancers, a man and woman, ran
into the ring and danced, while the spectators
clapped their hands in rhythm with the music.
The couple danced a sort of step dance, crossing
each other constantly, or advancing or retreating
till they suddenly collided, stopped, and then gave
way to the other dancers ; and so the merry round
went on till dawn.

A dance described by Montciro in the north
of Angola is called the " batuco," when, amid the
familiar surroundings of the ring of clapping
people and musicians, the dancers, both men and
women, jump into the ring and perform a swaying
dance like the Indian nautch, but more vigorous
and less decent and graceful.

The circumcision rites, which seem to be
similar to those I have come across in other parts
of Africa, take place at intervals when enough boys
and girls have been collected from neighbouring
villages for the purpose. In Angola the ceremonies
take place in June and July. Both the boys, who
apparently are dealt with some time before
puberty, and the girls, who are dealt with before
marriage, are secluded in separate places in the
forests near the villages. Here they are operated
on surgically, and instructed in marital, and, in the
case of girls, household duties as well. During the
period they are isolated, the initiates dust them-
selves over with chalky earth and ashes and paint
fancy patterns on their bodies. No one is allowed
to approach near the initiation huts, and the
boys vvill unmercifully beat nnv one they even

224 THROUGH ANGOLA

meet on the road. On one occasion two of my
men were chased by an initiation gang, and
only saved themselves by running to me for
protection.

The girls are not marriageable until they have
passed through their initiation ceremonies. I was
not able to ascertain whether some of the nude,
ash-dusted young women I saw in my journey
through southern Angola were initiates or brides
about to marry ; for I know south of the Cunene
River all brides are taken round to their friends
and painted up like this, and enjoy a large measure
of freedom before marriage.

The custom of keeping brides separated from
the ground occurs here as in other parts of Africa,
where the custom may equally apply to other
people temporarily rendered important, such as
girls during initiation, dancers, etc.

Scarcely anywhere in Angola is there any
ceremony on marriage, which is practically always
a matter of purchase, the women being bought
with cattle, merchandise, or money. She brings
neither dowry or trousseau beyond an apron of
fibre skin or cloth ; in some tribes the bride is
handed over naked to her husband, who must
provide her with all her clothing, a sleeping mat,
and the few pots and pans, which is all the furniture
there is in an Angolan household. He has also
to provide the wedding feast and as much beer
and palm wine as the village can drink.

In the south of Angola among the manlier
hunting tribes, a prospective bridegroom must
qualify himself for matrimony bv running down

GRINDING CORN AM) PREPARING " 1NFUNDI

/-"'

ICE, WHERE SLAVIC VICTIM

C.KAVK OF RICH XATIVE, WITH THOSK <>F

XEEHED IX THE OTIIKK

HIS LKLOXGIXC
\VORLI)

BIRTH AND DEATH 225

and spearing a giraffe or antelope, but I never
came across any similar custom in the part of
Angola traversed in 1920.

The African woman is spared the pain and
discomfort in childbirth which so affects her
white sister, for in Angola, as elsewhere among
primitive peoples, the expectant mother who has
gone out to work will sometimes return not only
with her baby but with her basketful of produce
as well.

In some tribes, expectant mothers leave their
husbands three or four weeks before their con-
finement and live in a separate hut ; and in others
a wife may not return to her husband till the baby
has been weaned. This is one of the causes of
polygamy, or an excuse for it, if such was ever
required by an African.

Some years ago in Angola, elderly people when
infirm and useless were quietly put out of the way
to save the trouble of a long final illness. This
does not happen now, but I did not find much
sentiment or ceremony expended on the very old,
especially if they were women.

The dead are disposed of in various ways.
Some of the south coastal tribes simply throw the
bodies into the bush ; others lay them in any
convenient hole, often doubled up (Bandombes,
Ba Cuandos, Quillenges), and even break the limbs
to effect this (Humbes) ; though most tribes bury
their dead horizontally.

There is no common burial-ground in Angola,
the dead being often buried under the floors uf
the houses. If buried in the open, the grave is
r.5

226 THROUGH ANGOLA

sometimes near a pathway, and one can tell who
is buried in it from a basket or pot being placed
over a woman's grave, a staff over that of a man,
while the skulls of the animals he had killed adorn
the grave of the hunter.

When a Chief dies there is considerable cere-
mony, much dancing or feasting, strangly mingled
with weeping, which goes on for days, while the
corpse is prepared for burial. Among some tribes
the body of a big Chief is smoke-dried over a slow
fire until it is mummified, then placed in a large
jar or coffin, or merely wrapped in cloth or skin
before being buried under the floor of the hut.
In other cases it is placed sitting in the hut till
decomposition sets in, and then buried.

Some years ago, when hunting towards the
bend of the River Niger, I came across several
subterranean mausoleums, from which radiated
passages in which had once been placed the bodies
of slaves murdered to form company for their
Chief, and food as provision for his future. I
understood from the natives that the older burial-
places of the Angola Chiefs conform to the same
idea, and probably these tombs had room for the
slaves who died with them.

Frequently the village where a Chief dies is
abandoned by his successor. I came across
several villages, especially in the country near
the Coanza, where a village well laid out on a
good site had been abandoned for this reason.
This is one of the causes of the constant transla-
tions of villages, which make map - making and
map-reading s:o hopeless in Angola.

SUCCESSION 227

A custom met with in some tribes is the putting
out of all fires on the death of a Chief ; all new
fires have then to be lighted by friction ignition,
effected by rubbing and twirling one dry stick in a
hole made in another, easily inflammable tinder
or grass being held in readiness to start a fire from
the sparks which the friction produces. A few
years ago, in certain tribes a Chief could not
succeed another until he had actually eaten a
portion of his dead relative, or a slave killed for
the purpose.

In most tribes, succession of chief ships passes
by the distaff side and to nephew or niece, as they
think it more certain that the sister of the King
is a daughter of the King's mother than that the
king's child is his own. But probably it is the
ancient custom of mother-right which rules in the
country, and not any frailty of the kimVT sex
which determines the procedure.

CHAPTER XVI

NATIVE HUNTERS AND THEIR WAYS — GAME
AREAS AND THE WAY THERE

IT takes a man a long time to know the jungle
and jungle ways, but a much shorter time
to forget what he has learned. Early
training and a keen desire made me a hunter,
but a studious life has destroyed much of the
craft built up since childhood, some of which
must perforce be learned again on every trip.

To go back to the forest and find how slow
the eye has become to see the track or sign of a
passing beast ; to trust to compass, watch, and
gun-boy, where sun and stars or landmarks should
guide one back to camp ; to rely on others doing
what had been a joy to do oneself, is to know that
town and book have done their work and spoiled
some precious sense which Nature taught. Keen
sight and observation, quick resolve and action,
have all been dulled again by life in cities and
laborious thought and work, and it will take days
of a man's life in the forest to become once more
the hunter.

To the fortunate person who is to know the
joy of the hunter's life for the first time, the help
of the native of the country will be needed for a
time -needed to take the white man to the game.

NATIVE WAYS OF HUNTING 220

bring him back to camp, and guide him in forest
ways and law, till he can guide himself. Then
take your gun-boy or guide, and deal with him
kindly ; in most things he is a good fellow, \vhether
he comes from the East or West, South or Central
Africa. A cheerful liar, mostly faithful, and quite
a man to deal with, if it is a man he serves. He
is much what you make him, and sometimes
better than his master, though often naked and
unarmed. Amongst his simple lies, and fantasies
of spooks and devils, you will learn much on
jungle law, and the ways and tales of jungle beasts,
traps and trapping, and much else.

He will show you the fetish obtained from the
witch doctor, which ensures success in hunting ;
perhaps the little horn of an antelope filled with
magic things, which he will rub on his spear or
arrow, or old tower musket. Then he may take
you to a famous hunter's grave, covered over with
the dead man's trophies, where he comes some-
times to make an offering to the hunter's spirit
for luck in hunting, and then, taking earth from
the ground, rubs his gun or spear to give it power.
If near some wanted elephant, your man may even
stop at some fetish tree to make a sacrifice, and
ask the spirit of the forest to help you both to kill
the tusker.

When the native knows you better, he may
lake you to see the pit in which he catches game,
dug in the only path left open to his garden, and
so craftily covered over that even the wary buck
may not see it ; or to the side of a river or pool
and show you the snares he has set for the birds

230 THROUGH ANGOLA

that come to water : or other traps, with schemes
of snares, or falling logs arranged upon the game
paths. If the grass is dry, you may see how
villagers will form a ring of fire to drive the smaller
beasts into the nets, or on to spears and arrows.

Later, when your guide has come to trust and
like you. and speaks more fully still, he will tell of
greater pits dug in days gone by, to capture herds
of driven beasts, when the land was full of them,
and of traps of great upright posts at either side,
and a cross -post upon them, from which hung a
broad log-hafted spear, so set on paths as to fall
upon the neck or back of the elephant or hippo
which walked along them. This gave deep wounds,
still further torn when the haft struck the trees
under which the terrified beast kept running
uruil he died. He might tell of other days when
hippos were hunted in the water from canoes,
with harpoon-like spears, and floats of ambatch
wood which showed where the wounded beast
was swimming.

When he has finished boasting of all this
hunting, he may tell you, with a grimace, how one
leg of any beast he kills goes to his Chief, and
another to the village. If you are passing by a
river, and sec a darn across it, with an opening
where a cone-shaped trap is fixed to lie in the
water, your guide will show you how it serves
to catch the fishes which can pass down the
narrowing trap, but not out of it ; and when he
talks of fishing you will hear how fish are speared
or choked by mud stirred up by paddling feet, or
poisoned with the herbs which every village uses.

TRACKING GAME 231

it will iiave to be the guide who does the
talking ; if asked leading questions, he answers
what he thinks will please you, or lies till he is
certain what you want, and between one and the
other you \vill learn little of what you wish to
know.

I like the savage, and if sometimes angry with
him, the anger passes quickly ; for you should
hear his laugh when telling other boys about
your temper, when all will laugh, and soon forget,
for they are just children, though sometimes very
trying.

Even if you like and trust your gun-boy, carry
your own weapon. This gun may have two
barrels, or a magazine and one : that you decide
yourself. After using every kind of gun and rifle,
from a muzzle-loading smooth bore through a
chain of Sniders, Martinis, eight and twelve bores,
old-fashioned Express rifles, to the latest cordite
Magnums., I prefer a small-bored magazine rifle
for all-round shooting, and my double live-hundred
cordite when expecting trouble.

The tracking of game is carried out by observ-
ing the track, droppings of animals, and signs
on grass, shrub, and tree, of pressure from their
bodies, or marks of reeding.

The tracks illustrated in these pages have
been made from actual spoor, over the course of
many years' hunting. They show the tracks of
animals when standing or walking on soft ground.
To spoor well, it is nccessaiy to have hunted
much, and these tra ings can crJy give a general
idea. The track itself is very rarely as complete

232 THROUGH ANGOLA

and distinct as even these tracings suggest, which
are printed faintly upon the type to express
difficulty and indistinctness. Only a portion of
a track is usually visible, generally the toe points,
and then only if the hoof can make an impression
on the soil. In the case of carnivora, where the
soft pads cannot indent the ground, there may be
practically no spoor on hard ground, but only a
slight displacement of surface earth.

Spoor of the hind feet of nearly all animals is
smaller and less distinctive than that of the fore
feet. The droppings of animals can give, like
the spoor tracings, but a useful indication and
nothing more. These droppings in the case of
antelope are generally hard and formed in the
dry season, but less so in the rains, or whenever
the feed is very moist and green.

The freshness of the dropping can be judged
by its warmth if very recent, its moisture, and
its freedom from maggots. The position of the
droppings, whether in the sun or shade, and the
effect of the dew and evaporation, would have,
of course, to be considered in judging the age of
any spoor.

Other signs useful when tracking are those of
pressure of animals' bodies on plants, such as
crushed or bent grass or stalk, and the age of the
track may be judged by the freshness of their
bruising or of the earth on them. Marks of
teeth, trunk, and horns on leaf and stem show,
by the freshness or dryness of the grass, leaves, or
branches lying near the track, when the animal
has passed.

GUI UK AND GUX-IJOY

-AM) KKSTINC

FOREST LAW 233

The degree of alarm of an animal may be
judged by the nature of his spoor. If running,
a good deal of earth is displaced by the hoofs,
which are then more widely splayed, and the
marks of the points more deeply cut in the earth.

As regards blood spoor, the amount of blood
is no certain indication of the severity of the
wound, but only of a blood vessel having been
injured. Air bubbles in the blood show that it is
coming from the lungs ; and blood in the droppings,
that there is an abdominal wound, and the in-
testines are injured. Blood should be looked for
on grass and bush as well as on the ground. The
nature and severity of a wound may be judged
from the position of the blood stains on the grass
or ground where he has been moving or lying
down.

If your guide is with you, and knows the
locality, you will rarely lose your way. The
sense of orientation has not been destroyed in the
Bushman of the plains, as it has in the white
man who has lived in cities, and the native of the
hills, neither of whom has had to study direction.
The native, however, is not so reliable at night
as in the day, and it is wiser then to march by
compass or stars.

If you find yourself alone, and think yourself
lost, keep your head, march by sun or compass
in the direction of your camp, but to that side of
it from which you last left it ; for thus you may
meet your tracks, or recognize ground you have
already passed over.

It is better to take your bearings by compass

i.'3-t THROUGH ANGOLA

or sun when leaving camp by road, and to note
landmarks, the direction of the prevailing wind
and its effect on grass or trees, and have a sense
of your general direction. Even when stalking
or following game, these precautions should be
adopted whenever possible. This advice is im-
portant, but the novice will probably not adopt
it till he has been lost at least once, and has learned
by bitter experience the value of observation.

As a help, it may be added that in the Southern
Hemisphere the sun points north at midday, the
Southern Cross south at night ; wrhile in the
Northern Hemisphere the reverse occurs as regards
the sun, and at night the north is towards the
Pole Star.

In the open forests and undulating country of
Angola the chances of being lost are small, but
if you cannot iind your way back to camp by any
of these aids, you can signal to your camp by
lighting a grass fire, or firing shots at intervals ;
you may even see your camp by climbing a high
tree, and if you are benighted, it is wiser to stay
there if in lion country.

If your local man is with you, he should take
you hunting from your camp at daybreak, and
again in the afternoon. In each case you must
travel upwind, if you wish to see game. If you
are near a village garden or a forest pool, the
imide should take you to look for any tracks at

«/ f

both of these places before he leads you to the
forest, for all kinds of beasts come to the garden
or water, from the elephant to the little duiker
antelopes : and it may be possible to find and

GAME HAUNTS AND HUNTING LORE 235

follow the fresh spoor of some such wanted animal
from near your own camp. When following the
spoor, keep to the forest edge, skirting the glades
where in the early morning and evening the bigger
antelope (eland, sable, roan, and kudu) may be
seen. If you are near a bush-fringed river, its
banks may be searched for spoor of buffalo,
bush buck, and impallah ; if the river is open
and marshy, you may see water buck or lechwe,
and if the sun has not risen, possibly a sitatunga.
If the country is open and dry, there may be
rhinoceros in the sparse thorn thickets, wilde-
beeste, hartebeeste, zebra, and reed buck in the
open ; and if the country is desert, oryx and spring
buck. The elephant and buffalo are generally
met with only after following their spoor ; lion
and leopard usually by accident.

In the early mornings or evenings the game
will be grazing, and will be easily approached if
carefully stalked upwind. In the daytime, when
in cover, they are more likely to hear and see
your approach before you see them yourself.
As long as the game continue grazing or lying-
down, you may be sure you are undiscovered ;
if they appear to see you, and you stand still,
you will usually be safe ; but should the game
snort, they are alarmed, and you must shoot
quickly or lose your chance. If the game gallop
away, they may be found again, if carefully
spoored after a small interval.

The senses of sight and hearing1 in antelopes
arc acute but not well reasoned : the hunter may
be seen and heard, and yet not recognized if he

236 THROUGH ANGOLA

immediately becomes still and silent. The sense
of smell is more acute and fully reasoned, for the
least scent, from a great distance, may determine
flight, unless the animals are in the open plains,
where they may recognize danger, but trust to
speed and their distance from the hunter to evade
it. Game can then be approached by appearing
to pass it by, while actually and steadily edging
nearer to it.

You may hear the animals before you see them
—the rumbling of an elephant's stomach, or the
flapping of his ears, the lowing of buffalo and
blowing of hippo, the snort of the rhino and
larger antelope, the grunt of lion or leopard, and
the bark of the kudu and bush buck ; you may
actually smell them if they are close, or have
recently passed by.

Always be silent of body and voice, observe
carefully and obtain the largest possible view by
constantly climbing ant-hills or trees, or getting
your guide to do so.

Stalk with infinite care, and when you have
come up with the animal, shoot to kill, for it is,
at the very least, the beast's due that he should
suffer as little as possible for your sport. The
shot behind the shoulder is the most usual, and
the safest with practically all big-game animals ;
for if you miss the heart, your bullet may smash
shoulder or lungs, and cripple the animal. The
brain shot, if you are sure of it, should be reserved
for elephant or rhino when broadside on, and
buffalo or lion when charging, and within a few
feet of you. The first shot is the most important

SOME MAXIMS OF SHIKAR 237

one, as it causes a shock which no others will
bring about. Fire a second shot or third, if
necessary, without moving from your conceal-
ment ; for if the animal has not discovered you,
and you have missed, he will probably stand still ;
if hit, move slowly away ; if on the ground, may still
be alive. If you or your guide rush out and betray
your position, the wounded animal will rush away
and perhaps escape, or charge unexpectedly.

Very many years ago I commenced to write
a book on hunting ; in one of the chapters was a
number of hunting axioms, which applied to game
law over many parts of the world. A few are
given here, for sometimes a short phrase will
stay in the memory when a longer one cannot,
and it is useful for the young hunter to re-
member-
No rifle is cheap which fails you when
needed, or heavy if light at the end of
the day.

Keep your gun clean, and always with you.
Let your cartridge be as cool as yourself,
for a hot cartridge means a high
bullet.

In the jungle to move is to be seen.
More golden than in the city is silence in

the jungle.
Never look over cover if you can see round

it.

A small hoof may carry a big head.
A good head is worth a careful crawl.
No one should work for the trophy harder
than the hunter himself.

2,38 THROUGH ANGOLA

Better a fair head gained with credit than

a record killed by chance.
No trophy is worth a beater's life.
Never risk a native where you would not

risk yourself.

The road is ever long to the laden carrier.
Though the buffalo's spoor leads forward,

he may yet be behind you.
No man knows what the rhino will do, nor

does the rhino.
A rhino snorts oftener than he charges,

and charges oftener than he tosses.
The degree of blood on the spoor is no

guide to the depth of the wound.
Treat no dangerous animal as dead, till

killed twice over, and then approach

him as if still alivre.
A vulture on a tree may mean a lion or

leopard beneath it.
Though the mane of the lion tempt you.

kill the lioness first, or beware her.
A miss to the head may fail altogether, n

miss to the heart smash lungs or

o

shoulder.

A brain shot, which cannot be made when

a rhino or elephant charges, alone will

stop the rush of lion or buffalo.

There are four ways of travelling in Angola :

by railway, motor-car, wagon, or with carriers.

The train will take you in the north from Luanda

to Mclanje, and along this line there is excellent

shooting, especially in the country round Casua-

lolla, or in that called N'dala N'tando, where

HUNTING-GROUNDS AND THEIR APPROACH 239

bush cow, eland, roan, water buck, kudu, reed
buck, impallah, sitatunga, hippopotamus, and
even an occasional elephant may be found. Along
the Central Railway, a similar fauna is met in the
lower plateaux near the Cubal and Catumbella
Rivers, except that buffalo takes the place of
the bush cow, and a few wildebeeste may be seen.
In the hinterland, between these two railways,
lies the country of the giant sable, the Luando-
Coanza watershed, and in this country and along
the great rivers to the south-east the " songwe "
or Angolan lechwe is found.

Along the southern railway line, a day's march
south of Mossamedes, there are oryx. The country
between this line and the River Cunene, which
forms the boundary to the south, between its
terminus in the Chella Mountains and the eastern
and south-eastern borders of the province, is the
best hunting-ground in Angola.

In this great tract of country, where areas of
scrub and desert near the coast and to the south
are succeeded by the high plateaux of the Chella
Mountains sloping south - eastward to the great
river valleys of the Cunene, Cubango, and Cuando,
most varieties of big game can still be found.
Oryx, in the desert near the coast, would be most
easily obtained by a motor trip from Mossamedes.
A hunting trip in the south-east of Angola should
obtain rhinoceros, giraffe, and kudu in the scrub ;
elephant, buffalo, water buck, cob, and sitatunga
near the great rivers, and wildebeeste, hartebeeste,
eland, roan, reed buck, and zebra in the plains
which border them. It could be made bv moto

240 THROUGH ANGOLA

from Lubango as far as Capilongo on the Cunene,
and possibly to Cassinga, and from here by carrier
or by wagon the whole way. Arrived at either
of the three rail-heads, the hunter must decide
whether he will travel by motor-car, ox wagon,
pack transport, porters, or by any combination
of them. The motor-car is an increasingly alluring
possibility, with the opening up of roads in the
colony, and has many advantages over wagon and
pack transport.

Motor hunting trips could be carried out from
several points on the Central Angolan Railway,
which is better served by connecting motor roads
than either of the others, and from rail-head or
Lubango on the southern railway, but with difficulty
from the northern line. A box Ford car with
trailer attachment would be an effective means of
transport. A box Ford can carry half a ton, and
the trailer a similar amount, and between them
could accommodate the hunter, mechanic, and
cook, spare tyres, petrol for 2000 miles, a light tent,
and equipment for a month's shoot. The lighten-
ing of the load by consumption of petrol and pro-
visions, wrould make possible the transport of a
reasonable amount of hunting trophies when re-
turning. The scheme has its difficulties, but could
be carried out if enough spare tyres and petrol
were brought from England.

When good hunting country is reached, a
small camp could be formed near a village, a
local guide and a few carriers engaged, and the
surrounding country hunted for a few days, before
motoring on to other ground. Between the hunt-

A HERD OF SAI'.LE — SOME LYING DfAYX

A REED HUCK

HUNTING-GROUNDS AND THEIR APPROACH 211

ing obtained on the road itself and at the frequent
camps, a great deal of country could be searched
under pleasant conditions.

Most of the game animals, except elephant,
buffalo, bush cow, and the giant sable, would
probably be met near the less-frequented roads.

The giant sable, that prize of all Angolan game,
cannot be reached directly by railway and car
from the south, but only after two days' marching
from the nearest motor - road points, which are
Gamba to the west of it, and Coanza post to its
south. From either of these posts, the journey
would have to be continued by wagon or carrier
transport.

If the sable hunter enters Angola by Loanda,
and travels along the north railway to Melanje,
he might use the road now under construction,
from Melanje south-westward to Mossolo and then
southward to the post of Chimbango in the Luando-
Coanza watershed country. This road may later
be continued south to the Coanza post, to meet the
motor road which runs from there westwards to
Bihe and the Central Angolan Railway ; but its con-
struction is so uncertain that careful inquiry should
be made at Loanda before attempting a motor
journey to the sable country from Melanje and
the north, which was impracticable in 1920. An
approach from the south, by train to rail-head and
motor through Bihe to either Gamba or Coanza
post, is by good roads, and easily made, and from
these posts the expedition could be continued by
carriers collected at them in advance, by arrange-
ment with their Commandants.
16

242 THROUGH ANGOLA

The second method of travelling and hunting in
Angola is to use a wagon drawn by oxen, for horses
and mules are difficult to obtain, and too liable to
horse sickness to be safely used in the hunting
country. Wagons can only be used in the plateaux
of the centre and south, and not near the tsetse-
fly belts, which border portions of some of the
rivers like the Coanza, Cubal, Catumbella, and
possibly the Cunene, Cubango, and Coando.

In spite of the danger of fly disease, wagon
transport could be used to approach the hunting
country, and form main camps outside the fly
belts ; pack transport by donkeys, which are
immune to horse sickness and very resistant to
fly ; or carriers being employed to form flying
camps in the fly-infested hunting-ground itself.

As the wagon with eight span of oxen can
carry 6000 lb., this method of transport can be
made luxurious. Servants may be taken, tents,
beds, and other furniture and crockery carried
to the hunting - ground, and large numbers of
trophies brought back from it. Wagon transport
is slow, but eight hours travelling, at the rate of
2 miles an hour, can be clone in a day and night.
A greater disadvantage is the liability to the loss
of one's oxen by disease, or lions ; and if disaster
to the expedition is to be avoided, spare oxen,
pack donkeys, or carriers should accompany
it.

A wagon and span, in 1920, could be bought
for £400, or hired with personnel, for £40 a month.
It is, however, not always possible to hire or buy
a wagon and team, for these are at present entirely

WAGON AND CARRIER TRANSPORT 243

in the hands of the Boer farmer, and no shooting
agent who might arrange transport has yet started
operations in Angola. The most likely place to
hire a wagon would be at Bihe or Huambo, and
the most likely person to give information on this
subject, the Director of the Central Angolan
Railway (Bcnguella-Katanga Railway), who re-
sides either at Huambo or Lobito Bay.

The last form of transport to be mentioned,
though the most employed, and probably the
best, if the expedition be small, is that by carriers.
The advantages of carriers are their mobility,
carrying power (50 Ib. a man), relative immunity
from disease, and ability to go away from roads
through jungles, over swamps, and into fly
country. A further advantage is their cheapness,
the carrier and his food costing less than Is. a
day and the twenty-five carriers of a small expedi-
tion about £30 a month. The disadvantage of
carrier transport is the uncertain temperament
of the carrier, who may bring the expedition into
difficulties by deserting when most needed, and
that of food, which cannot be provided, as with
oxen and donkeys, from the jungle itself. The
danger of desertion can be overcome by treating the
carriers kindly, but firmly ; recognizing that the
African is very much a child, and to be judged by
that standard. If a carrier recognizes that in his
white employer he has a master, if a kindly one ;
if he knows that this kindness is not based on
weakness or any sense of equality ; and if he
recognizes that his employer, through knowledge
of the country and of the native, is not going to

244 THROUGH ANGOLA

be bluffed, then the carrier will work well, and the
expedition will be a success.

Whatever happens, the white man should keep
his word, even if it is to his own detriment, and his
temper and good humour, however exasperating
the difficulties which have been created for him,
or how firm his reserve to overcome them. There
are certain tribes of natives, of course, that are
worse than others, and there are really bad natives
who will induce others to be bad. or to desert,
and in spite of all his knowledge and tact, the
hunter may be deserted; but much can be done
with a knowledge of the black and of human
nature. I have more than once saved a mutiny
with a joke or a couple of shillings' worth of beer,
when the men's temper was doubtful, marches
long, and the country ahead unknown.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WILD ANIMALS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION

IN a country like Angola, of great uninhabited
spaces, the domestic animals are necessarily
very limited in number and subordinate
in zoological importance to wild life and the
insect world. Stock is dealt with in the chapter
on farming, and insects in the chapter following
this ; which deals mainly with the larger wild
animals, whose description and distribution is
given briefly, along with their Latin and native
names. The Portuguese names are added where
they are distinctive, though few names are given
to wild African animals by the Portuguese, who
take little interest in them, and call most antelope
" cabras ': or goats, just as many untra veiled
English people speak of them as " deer."

The account of the game distribution is, I am
aware, imperfect. It has been worked out from
my own records, local information, and the narra-
tives of Cavazzi, Livingstone, Cameron, Capello
and Ivens, Serpa Pinto, Carvalho, and Joao de
Almeida. The description of game animals and
their distribution was so inaccurate in most of
these books that every effort was made to correct
it by information from Boers, Portuguese, English,

246 THROUGH ANGOLA

and natives in the country. The Boers I met,
who knew everything about the game, said nothing ;
the Portuguese, who knew nothing, often said
too much, and thus gave me wrong information ;
the natives answered what they thought would
please; and the knowledge of the two resident
English hunters, met on my trip, was very local.

Two game maps of Angola have been prepared
and discarded in turn, as likely to become in-
creasingly inaccurate with the rapidly diminishing
game population of the country. A useful and
approximate geographical distribution of the game
can, however, br ^i\*en within certain degrees of
latitude and longitude.

The bush cow is mainly found north of the
tenth degree of latitude, buffalo to the south of
it ; the rhino, zebra, impallah, and spring buck
to the south of the fourteenth degree ; the giraffe,
brown hysena, and oryx south of the sixteenth,
and the latter animal to the west of the four-
teenth degree of longitude — a distribution which
brings it into Mic desert triangle in the south-
west of Angola. The kudu is found in most

o

parts of Angola, but mainly to the west of the
fifteenth degree of longitude, and the Angolan
lech we, wildebeeste, tsessc" e, and hartebeeste to
the east of it. The giant sable is largely
localized in the Loaiido-Coanza watershed. The
following animals are widely distributed, but
more numerous in the south than the north :
elephant, hippo, wart-hog, eland, bush buck, roan,
reed buck, duiker, klipspringer, oribi, water buck,
and sitatunga : and the carnivora. The giant

THE ELEPHANT 247

hog and the yellow - backed duiker probably
occur in certain localities in the north and centre
of the country.

The ELEPHANT (Elephas africanus) (Onjamba
or N'jambe in practically all dialects), at one time
plentiful and widely distributed, is becoming very
scarce owing to continued destruction, and al-
though temporarily protected, its extermination
seems a melancholy certainty.

Elephant come together and form large herds
at the beginning of the rainy season, and roam
widely, but the dry season distribution of this
animal, as far as I can discover it, is as follows :
In places along the Congo River and district, and
the middle reaches of the Coanza ; along the
Coporollo River and its tributaries (where I met
a herd of 200), between the Cacoluvar and Cunene
Rivers ; in the valley of the Vibora, a tributary
of the lower Cunene ; at the source of the River
Bcro just to the north of this ; between the upper
reaches of the Cunene and Cubango, near the
Colui and Cubangue Rivers ; and along the lower
reaches of the Cubango and Cuando.

In 1920 elephants were royal game in Angola,
and could only be shot on a special permit, or if
proved to be destroying crop, or dangerous. The
protection of this increasingly rare animal is so
desirable, that it should be carefully respected
by any sportsman. I regret to say, however,
that an American deliberately shot three elephants
while I was in Angola, and was fortunate to
escape with a fine.

The Angolan elephant, like others of its kind

218 THROUGH ANGOLA

in Africa, feeds during the night, early morning,
and late evening, resting during the hotter hours
of the day under trees or in patches of elephant
grass, and it is usually at this time of day that
they are found by the hunter, who has probably
followed their spoor since early morning.

Contrary to the usual belief, the elephant
occasionally lies down (I have seen this happen
on two occasions). The idea that elephants are
very short of sight and hearing is possibly due
to the fact that they are often approached when
dozing at midday, feeding or self-absorbed in
other ways, and not on the look out for the sight
or sound of a human enemy ; and my own experi-
ence is, that when expecting danger, or wounded,
their sight and hearing are better than generally
supposed.

It is fortunate that the elephant's sight is
somewhat defective, for with their acute sense of
smell, and remarkable intelligence, these animals
are dangerous to hunt, and have become exception-
ally so since the institution of Game Laws, which,
by limiting the hunter in the size and number
of his elephants, compels him to approach close
to or among a herd, to select his animal. In such
circumstances, the hunter may find himself within
a few feet of one or more elephants, and have
some difficulty in escaping from cows or young
bulls, even when the selected bull has been killed.

Should a young hunter find himself surrounded
by alarmed elephants, and have killed the bull
by a brain shot in that area of the skull which
would be represented by a football placed with

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS 240

one end at the ear-hole and the other in the line
of the eye ; his second shot, if taken at a selected
seeond animal, or made in defence, should prefer-
ably be at the elephant's body. The sight of an
elephant advancing with ears spread out to 15 feet
across, and the pandemonium of sound caused by
great rushing bodies and breaking trees, is so
unnerving to the inexperienced, that the difficult
brain shot, practically impossible except from the
side, would probably be missed, and one fired at
the shoulder, the root of the spine, or the joint of a
limb, be easier and quite effective.

No female elephants, or males with tusks less
than 12 lb., may be shot in Angola. These
limits, which are too low as regards the male,
obtain, however, in all Portuguese, Belgian, and
French possessions. Big elephant tusks are rarely
obtained in Angola, the largest I heard of weighing
170 lb. the pair. As a general rule, a big elephant
carries good tusks, and the size of the spoor (the
circumference of which is a little less than half
the elephant's height of 10 to 11 feet at the
shoulder) is a useful guide if an elephant's track
should be followed. A spoor which measures
over 19 inches in diameter would be considered as
big, and anything below 15 inches usually not
worth following.

The HIPPOPOTAMUS (Hippopotamus amphibius)
(Ongeve in Umbundu and Quillenge, Nguvu in
Cokue and Luimbe), at one time very numerous
throughout Angola, is still widely distributed,
though disappearing even more rapidly than the
other OYUTIC, owin to its size and defencclessness,

250 THROUGH ANGOLA

I saw but few on my trip, though in some of the
rivers, especially in the east of Angola, they are
still fairly numerous.

The hippo is fond of using certain paths which,
on soft ground, acquire a characteristic shape,
two deep furrows stamped down by the feet, being
separated by a ridge often worn smooth by the
friction of the hippo's deep body. These paths
lead to tunnels in the undergrowth bordering the
river. The hippo feeds at night, and sleeps by
day either in the shallows or on grass-covered
islands in the stream. When much disturbed,
he floats in deep water with just eyes and nose
showing above it. Shooting a hippo in the water
from a river bank is unsportsmanlike, and should
only be attempted if this quaint beast is needed
for food. The only sporting wTay to tackle one,
when he has some chance of defending himself,
is to stalk him when feeding ashore on a moon-
light night, or shoot him in the water from a canoe.
A brain shot, to be effective, must be placed low
down between the eyes if the animal's head is
facing the hunter, and behind the ear if broadside
on. A fatal shot causes the animal to sink at
once, but the body floats again within a few hours.
Normal tusks measure up to 30 inches. When not
feeding, the hippo will live on the best of terms
with the crocodile, and I have often found them
sleeping on the same rock ; but when the females
have young, they drive away crocodiles, and if
they must pass near them, carry the young on
their backs.

The WART Hoc (PJiacochwrux ctfricanus) (Ongu-

WART HOG AND BUSH PIG 251

luve in Umbundu and Cokuc) is widely distributed
throughout the more open country of Angola, and
near the rivers, but is nowhere very numerous.
Tliis pig, with big warts and tushes in his head,
short legs, and habit of holding his tufted tail
vertical, is one of the most grotesque- looking
animals in Africa. T-keir-feod consists mainly of
roots of plants, fcfiough I fhave found grass in their
stomachs in tKe springllimc. I ^ame across the
spoor of thegfe animals jjjrequently,\ but saw them

only three or four timeis during the trip, and lost

* 1 5 V»

one chance/of a rare photo, when a family of wart

hogs, father, mother, apid four young, ran right
into me before there wartime to photograph them.
The alarmiof the parent! was cvident/and quaintly
expressed, \ and the sight in the ijhirror of my
" Reflex " Camera of six piggies running off with
their upright, tufted tails fluttering like the stern
flags of a sqiiadron. of ships, rrimle me laugh so
heartily that the xphoto_was-«|3oilt from " shake ':
effect.

The GIANT HOG (Ilylochccnis meinertzhageni)
has the warts and big tushes of the wart hog, but
a coat more like a boar's ; and exceeds both these
pigs in size. The animal is stated by the natives
to be present in the wooded ravines of the Bailundo
province.

The BUSH PIG or RIVER HOG (Potamochcerus
cheer opotamus) (Combo in Cokue) is widely distri-
buted in forest country, especially near rivers.
I saw its spoor near the Loando and Coanza Rivers
in the north, on the Coporollo, and once or twice
ncnr some of the smaller streams in the forest

252 THROUGH ANGOLA

country between that river and Lubango ; but
never saw the animal itself.

With a shoulder height of some 26 inches,
the bush pig has a coat of reddish brown, the ears
are tufted with hair, and the tushes measure
6 to 7 inches.

Nocturnal in its Jiabits and rarely seen, this
pig lives by day in the densest bush, where his food
of roots and wild fruit is to be found. S[ have seen
them in families of half a tiozen or more,, and from
the large -area of ground rooted up at\ night, it
is probable that herds may occasionally contain

more thaji this number.
i

They? have considerate courage, anfl I was
once knocked down by a§n anxious mol/hcr who
had come to a wrong conclusion about my admira-
tion of her offspring.

The BUFFALO (Bos caffeir) (Onyani in XJmbundu,
Onyati in . Quillenge, Njaiidi in Luinjbe), as far
as I can ascertain, are foujid only to the south of
the Coanza River, and by destruction from rinder-
pest and the hunter, arc becoming everywhere
rare. They are found on the Coporollo River
and some of its tributaries, and in the adjoining
country to the north-east along the upper Cubal
and Catumbella Rivers. All but the last few
buffalo of the great herds that existed along the
Cunene between Capelongo and Humbe have
been shot by Boers, and these wary old bulls
cannot escape their fate much longer. There are
a few on the Cunene, south of Humbe, and on the
lower reaches of the Cubango and Cuando Rivers
and their tributaries. Either buffalo or bush cow

BUFFALO AND BUSH COW '253

are present between the left bank of the Coanza
and the Congo and Cunhinga tributaries of this
stream.

These black and almost hairless, powerful
animals may weigh 1200 Ib. without measuring
more than 5 feet at the shoulder. The massive
spreading horns which meet over the forehead
in old bulls rarely measure 40 inches across
in Angola, though the East African record is
53 inches. Buffaloes like a close, well-watered
country, as they drink often, graze at night, and
lie up in neighbouring thick covering during the
day. Their spoor resembles that of cattle, both
track and dung, and the freshness of the latter
may be told from the absence of maggots, which
can develop in it within twenty-four hours. In
disturbed country buffaloes circle on their tracks
before lying down for the day ; by this manoeuvre
they ensure scenting their pursuer, and when
alarmed will run down wind till they lose his
scent. These tactics can only be defeated by
studying the country, guessing the next water
the buffaloes will make for, and circling oneself.
Stupid and slow normally, they are obstinate
when wounded, and their charge is only stopped
by death. It is difficult to kill a charging buffalo,
as it keeps its nose up and horns flat, thus covering
the brain, while the stumpiness of the animal
makes it difficult to place a shot below the head
and on to the chest. It is only when he is within
a few feet that the buffalo, in lowering his head
to toss the hunter, momentarily exposes skull
and spine to a fatal shot ; and on his action at

254 THROUGH ANGOLA

this moment depends the hunter's life. Though
they hunt their enemy with persistence, a buffalo
can be dodged by an active man, and I once
kept an ant-hill between myself and a determined
buffalo till I won. Old and solitary bulls are
amazingly cunning, and hard to track, but afford,
for this very reason, the best of sport.

The Busn Cow (Bos coffer nanus) (Pacassa in
Umbundu) is found in the Cabinda, Congo, and
North Coanza provinces, and in places to the south
of the Coanza River, especially in the west, wrhere
it is said to be found as far south as Novo Redondo.
The. equatorial type of bush cow, which is a
miniature rufous buffalo with a smaller upward
pointing horn, develops a darker colour and more
splayed horns towards central Angola ; but I saw
none of the intermediate type of head between
bush cow and buffalo, which I have met in Sene-
gambia. Bush cow spoor is similar to, but smaller
than, that of the buffalo ; and the habits and
temperament of both animals very alike.

The RHINOCEROS (Rhinoceros bicornis) (Oci-
manda in Umbundu, Kcvukevu or Kaloko in
Cokuc) is found in the south of the colony in
open scrub or savannah forest. It is reported
in the country towards the source of the Bero
River, in the upper reaches of the Ocingau, and
between this river and the Cacoluvar, in the upper
course of the Cubango, Colui, and its branches near
Dongo, in the Cuchi in the neighbourhood of the
post of that name, and in the extreme south-east
portion of the colony in the thorny bush along
the Cuando and its tributaries.

RHINOCEROS, GIRAFFE, AND ZEBRA 255

Keeping by choice to a restricted area, the
rhinoceros is a browser, though when eating small
ground shrubs he has the appearance of grazing.
He feeds at night, drinks at pools rather than
rivers, and lies up in light (often thorny) scrub
during the day. The spoor is about the size of
the hippo's, but has a three-toed impress. The
dung, often dropped in the same spot, may be
kicked and scattered by the rhino. Poor of
sight and hearing, he lias a keen sense of smell,
and this fact, with his stupidity and uncertain
temper, makes him appear to attack people some-
what frequently, though most of his charges are
attempts to get away. On one occasion in South-
East Africa when a rhinoceros ran over me, I am
convinced, from the circumstances, that it was
attempting to escape and not to charge. When
wounded they will undoubtedly charge, and some-
times in a most determined manner ; I have been
charged both in the open and in thick bush by
these animals.

The brain of the charging rhino is covered
by his horn, and even a neck or body shot is only
possible if the hunter can get to one side. Fatal
shots are those striking him near the ear-hole
(for the brain) and low down behind the shoulder
(for the heart).

The GIRAFFE (Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis)
(Onduli of the Umbundu, and Njamba nduli
of the Cokue) is found only in the desert scrub
or savannah forest of the south of Angola. It
has a more reticulated coat than the G. c.
capensis, with larger chocolate patches on a

256 THROUGH ANGOLA

whitish ground, and changing to small spots on
the legs.

The ZEBRA (Equus zebra) (Ongolo of the
Umbundu and Quillenge, Ngolo of the Cokue and
Luimbe) are found mainly in the south and
south-east of the colony and towards the coast.

*i~ --—*'* — ~f^r

There are two varieties in Angola, Penrice's or
Hartman's zebra, in which the pale bands are
ochre-coloured, and wider than the dark bands ;
and Chapman's zebra, where there are many
shadow bands and few leg stripes. Both are
races of Equus burchellii.

My friend Captain Blaine, who shot a few
zebra when hunting oryx at Elephant Bay some
60 miles south of Benguella, thought at first that
he had discovered a new race, but the handsome
skins when brought to England proved on in-
vestigation to belong to the race known as Penrice's
or Hartman's. The zebra is a grazer, living in
herds, often in close community with other animals.
The curious and striking colour marks of this
animal, so conspicuous in the open, are really
protective when mingled with the bands of light
and shadow in open forest. The track and dung
are characteristic, resembling those of a donkey
or horse and not an antelope. That the zebra was
once widely distributed in Angola is evident
from older histories and descriptions. Its ex-
termination from the north and centre of the
colony was probably due to the demand for
zebra tails, once the insignia of chicfship amongst
many native tribes, and for which precious wares
and even slaves were offered in exchange.

THE GIANT SABLE AND ROAN 257

The GIANT SABLE (Hippotragus niger varianii)
(Kolwah in Songho, Sambakalogo in Luimbe) has its
habitat in the watershed of the Loando-Coanza
Rivers, though it is possible they may have crossed
these rivers — the Loando where it is fordable in
the south, and the Coanza at one of its shallower
points during the dry season. A Boer informed
me that he had seen this animal well to the east
of the Loando, but I had reason to suspect the
accuracy of this information ; and though there
were rumours that the giant sable was present
to the west of the Coanza, this was not the opinion
of any of the natives living within the Loando-
Coanza watersheds. The adult bulls measure
from 4 feet 6 inches to 4 feet 9 inches at the
shoulder, and their body markings are similar to
those of the common sable, except that the face
stripes are shorter and cream-coloured instead of
white. The cows, slightly larger than those of
the common sable, have a brighter chestnut
coat. The horns of both sexes are much longer
and more massive than in Hippotragus niger,
the records being 63 inches for the male and about
40 inches for the female.

Their food consists mainly of young grass
and leaves of the quinsolle bush and chinbimburee
plant. They are found in herds of ten to twenty
animals, usually containing one big bull and one
or more younger males ; solitary bulls are fre-
quently met with. The track and dung are similar
to those of the common sable, but slightly larger ;
the hind portion of the hoof is possibly more
angular. The front end of the hoofs, rounded
17

258 THROUGH ANGOLA

and close together in the walking track of the
sable, are pointed and spread out in the running
spoor.

The ROAN (Hyppotragus equinus) (Malanka or
Palanka in various dialects) is widely distri-
buted throughout Angola, except in the areas of
close forest which occur Jn the north or in the desert
or scrub- covered regiotis along t\je south-west

coast and /southern border of the Ncolonv. The

f .
shoulder height may be £s much as 4 feet 9 inches ;

the colour is roan ; the massive, curvec\, and short
horns rarely measure more than 30 . inches in
length. The roan lives in herds of a dozen or
more animals, or one or! more bulls may fae found
together, generally in ve^y open forest or bn grass
plains, and they graze ! more than sable .though
browsing as well. The roan is divided by Lydek-
ker into numerous races, and the West African race
is usually distinguished by the deep red colour of
the coat in the younger animals. The colour of
the roan I saw in Angola approximated more to
that of the Central and South African type tfean
to the red of the West African race. The spoor is
somewhat similar to the sable, but larger, and the
hind end of the hoof is somewhat angular instead
of rounded. Only constant practice will help one
to decide off-hand between the spoor of the giant
sable and roan, but the slightly larger dung and
track with its angular tracing will help to distin-
guish between them. Both sable and roan are
dangerous to approach wrhcn wounded ; they have
been known to kill hunting dogs and even lions
with their sharp horns, and more than one hunter

ORYX, SPRING BUCK, PALLAH, WILDEBEESTE 259

has lost his life through approaching them in-
cautiously when they were wounded.

The ORYX (Oryx gazella) (Gallengue of the
natives) is found in the coastal zone of scrub and
desert country which starts some 50 miles south of
Benguclla and extends to the southern border of the
colony in an ever-widening belt. It is also found
near the Chitanda (Coluhi) Cuneue junction and
other points south of the sixteenth degree of latitude.

The SPRING BUCK (Antidorcas euchore) (Gazelle
n'latia de Legue of the Portuguese, and Omenyc of
the natives) is found in most of the scrub country
where the oryx is present, and for 50 miles to the
north of its area to within a few miles of Benguella ;
on the other hand, it is rarely present in the true
desert country in the south-west and south of
Angola, where the oryx is found.

The ANGOLAN PALLAII (/Epyccros petersi)
differs from the common pallah (/E. melampus)
in having a smaller body (shoulder height,
31 inches) and horns (record, 23|- inches), and in
being marked with three vertical black stripes, one
above and below each eye, and the other down the
centre of the face. It is found in several Angolan
rivers, on the Coporollo, Cunene, Cubango, and
probably the Cuando and several others. The
pallah, known by its foxy red coat, lyre-shaped
horns, and its habit of leaping when in flight, is
one of the most attractive animals to watch in
Africa. It lives in fairly close brush in herds of
ten to thirty or more, and is usually a grazer.
Though easy to stalk owing to the covert country
in which they live, pallah are among the hardest of

260 THROUGH ANGOLA

animals to bag, owing to their vitality and the
readily available cover into which they can escape
when wounded. The longest horns I saw in
Angola measured 22 inches.

The BLUE WILDEBEESTE or BRINDLED GNU
(Connochcetcf; taurinus) (Gallengue in Umbundu)
is found sparsely along certain reaches of the
Cacoluvar, C'.nene, Cubango, Cnandb\ and Cuchi,
and possibly in the comntry Between tltese rivers.
I heard that they had previously existed in the
lower plateau country of Caconda and in the south
of Bailundo, but were barely seen now.

This curious animal, with his dark brindled
coat, black mane and tail, and laterally spreading
horns, resembles the small buffalo rather than an
antelope, though his grotesque antics when dis-
turbed and excited seem to separate him char-
acteristically from either family. The height ipf the
adult bull is about 4 feet 4 inches, and the weight
nearly 500 Ib. Wildebeeste arc grazers, living in
large herds (I sawr nearly a thousand together on
one occasion in Portuguese East Africa), and prefer
open forest country.

Though he possesses a somewhat terrifying
appearance, the blue wildebeeste is, I should say,
a friendly beast from the way he associates with
other animals, and unless continually hunted is
far too confiding and stupid to afford good stalking.
I take a persistent delight in stalking these animals
to photograph them, always living in hope that a
bright enough light or a moment of unusual luck
may grant me a photograph of the cavorting wilde-
beeste, though in agility, speed, and grotesqueness

HARTEBEESTE, ELAND, AND KUDU 261

of movements his South African brother the
white- tailed gnu is immeasurably his superior.
The wildebeeste possesses great endurance and
vitality, and unless mortally hit will often escape
with wounds which should incapacitate any animal.

A HARTEBEESTE (Bubalis spp.) and the TSESSEBE
(Damaliscus lunatus) are fpund sparsely between
the Cunene and Cubango, and possibly elsewhere
in south-east Angola, though I never came across
them or their spoor. Tl^e hartebeeste may be
Bubalis major, though its known southern limit is
north of the Equator. It may be the Cape harte-
beeste, whose knowrn northern limit is Lake Nganai,
OH' it may be some other species or a new one.

The ELAND (Taurotragus oryx) (Onuima ih
Umbundu, Ongunga in Quillenge), once common
all over central and south Angola and now scarc^
Owing to persistent destruction, is still widely
distributed. I have seen spoor in the Coanza-i
Loando watershed, on the Coporollo and north of
Lubango, and its presence, though scarce, i^
reported in the Loanda province, parts of the
plateau region of Benguella, Caconda, and HuilLa
(along the Cunene, Cubango, and Cuando Riveys,
and many of their tributaries). Eland are foimd
in small herds or as solitary bulls in open forest,
and often near village gardens, which they are
fond of raiding at nights. They arc able to do
without water for long periods, and in waterless
tracks of country can live on the wild melon and
succulent roots, which they dig up from the ground.
This splendid, gentle beast, standing 17 hands at
the shoulder and weighing well over half a ton,

262 THROUGH ANGOLA

would be so suitable and valuable for stock that
its coming extermination in Angola is deplorable.
Its chief enemy at present is the Boer, who destroys
large numbers, riding them down and shooting
them when they are exhausted — a singularly easy
performance, for the pace of the eland being a
trot rather than a gallop, he invariably becomes
winded and exhausted if kept for over a mile at
the faster pace. In the eastern portion of the
colony, the Livingstone or striped race of the
eland is found, but there may be more than one
race in Angola. The heavy twisted horn of the
eland, surmounting a handsome tufted head, and
the massive neck, with its curious dewlap, form
unfortunately for the animal an unusually attrac-
tive trophy. The track is cattle-like, but smaller,
with more splay and sharper toe-points, and the
eland's legs being longer than those of cattle,
the tracks are much wider apart. The dung is
characteristic.

The KUDU (Strepsiceros capensis) (Onjili in
Umbundu) has a wide but more definite distri-
bution than the eland, being found throughout
Angola to the west of the fifteenth degree of
longitude, but while present in these parts of
north Angola, and even on the Congo, they are
probably more numerous in the coast land from
Loanda southwards. This antelope, which many
consider, owing to the glorious spiral twist of
horns, measuring up to 5 feet or more in length,
the finest trophy in Africa, has only a peer in
the giant sable of Angola. The grey kudu loves
the bare grey -brown hills of the Angolan coast

BUSH BUCK, SITATUNGA, AND WATER BUCK 263

which blend so well with the colour of his coat,
and lives in herds of six to a dozen animals (some-
times two or more bulls may be seen together),
which browse on the bushes and are ever wary and
shy, keeping near their cover. The track is remark-
ably small and neat for so big an animal, and it is
particularly true of the kudu that a small track
and animal may be associated with a big head.
A herd of kudu is difficult to stalk owing to the
watchfulness of the females, .solitary bulls being
easier to approach. The natives of the Coporollo
consider that the kudu on that river differs from
those near the coast, but I found no evidence to
confirm this statement. Wary, shy, and keeping
near cover, the kudu is a browser like all bush
bucks, and barks Hke them.

The BUSH BUCK (Tragelawius sylvaticus)
(Ongulungu of the Umbundu and the Quillenge) is
widely distributed. There are probably two races :
T. s. typicus in the west and centre, and T. s. ornatus
in the south-east area. I saw it on the Coporollo
River, and know it exists in many other districts
of central and southern Angola. The biggest
horns measured were 12 inches in length. Like
the kudu, a browser of the forest, it lives in pairs,
or a male with two females. The West African
race has a rufous coat with conspicuous spots.
The bush buck has a characteristic bark and
equally distinctive track and dung.

The SITATUNGA (Tragelaphus spekei) (Sowe of
the Umbundu) is found in marshes and swampy
rivers, especially where there is much papyrus.
There are probably two races in Angola : T. s.

264 THROUGH ANGOLA

grains in the west and centre, and T. s. selousii
in the south-east. It was in Angola that Serpa
Pinto first saw and described it, as actually able
to live under water and breathe through the tips
of its horns ! I have seen them in the* Cokue,
Loando, and Luxcashi Rivers, and neat Chuso
village on< the Coanza River, and know jit is to
be found in a number of papyrus mgtrsh^s in the
Bailundu province and near Melanje. Tfiey are
said to fee found in the Kasai and its tributaries,
in the district of Lunda, but are more numerous
among ilhe marshes of the Cuando, tiubango,
Cuchi, arid Cucuti Rivers, in the ? east and south-
east of Angola.

Persistently hunted by burning the / papyrus
cover and spearing mem from canoes, the jfcitatunga
is becoming rarer irt inhabited countr^. I shot
a 29-inch head, and \saw an old one on a grave
measuring B3 inches. A type of sitattmga with
horns no bigger than those, of a bush buck was
described to me as living in the Andulo district
of Bailundu. At, least .-' two of these heads were
supposed to be in the possession of a Mr. Gordon,
a chemist, once resident in Angola and now in
South Africa.

PENRICE'S WATER BUCK (Cobus penricei)
(Chisema of the Umbundu, and occasionally
called Moket) is widely distributed. I found its
spoor near the following rivers : Loando, Coanza,
and Coporollo. It is reported along portions of
the Cunene, Cubango, Cuito, and Cuando Rivers
and some of their tributaries, and on the eastward-
flowing tributaries of the Zambezi. It stands

ANGOLAN LECHWE AND REED BUCK 265

nearly 4 feet high at the shoulder, weighs from 400
to 450 lb., has a coat of long dark hair, the carriage
of a stag, and belongs to the dcjassa group of these
animals, which usually have a white patch on
the rump instead of the white/elliptical ring of the
type water buck. (Cobus elipsiprymnus). It differs
from the other Mefassa water bucks by its darker
coat, which in an old buck looks almost black, and
the absence of the white rurap patch. 'The beauti-
ful lyrate hqtrns measure up to 29 inches. The
water buck /is a grazer, living in herds of ten to
twenty, usually near water, in open grass plains and
forests. TJie dung, when formed, resembles that
of the elattid, but is smaller in size; when soft
(rainy season or spring) it looks like that of cattle.
They are wary animals, bmt more readily tracked
than m0st antelopes, as they seem to keep to
localize^ feeding - grounds and lying -up i places.
I once/ had the unusual experience of sitting on
what l| thought was a dead water buck, and being
suddenly knocked over' by the animal, wjflich had
been concussed by a bullet which grazed the spine.
I am glad to say that I persuaded myself to let
the buck escape.

The ANGOLAN LECHWE. — One of these animals,
called by the natives " songue," was wounded
on the Loando River and the head recovered two
days later. Fired at from a great distance, I
thought at first that the aninal was a Buff on' s cob.
These "songue" were met with in herds of from
twenty to fifty, grazing by the banks of the Loando,
Coanza, and Longoe Rivers, and the natives in-
formed me that these animals were to be found

266 THROUGH ANGOLA

to the east of the Loando and .along some of its
tributaries. This antelope is also reported by
Serpa Pinto, CapelU), and lyens to be present
on the Cuando, Cuito, and Cubango Rivers, and
some of their tributaries ; so that ite distribution
is very widespread in Angola* The animals when
seen at a distance of some 300 yards Appeared to
be about the size of the Black Lechwe (Cobus
lechwe smithimani), but the horns sefemed to be
distinctly smaller (the specimen I obtained, one
of the biggest heads observed, measured only 20
inches, a length below the average of tlie ordinary
black lechwei The colour of the coa,t was con-
siderably lighter than that of any of the black
lechwe I have shot in north - eastern Rhodesia.
These two differences of colour and size of horns,
together with slight differences in the facial bones,
tempt me to believe that the Angolan lechwe is a
new variety closely allied to the black lechwe of
north-eastern Rhodesia,.; and the distance (several
hundred miles) which /separates these two groups
of lechwe is, I think, an additional reason support-
ing this claim. Tlae track and dung resemble
those of other varieties of lechwe.

The REED BUCK (C&rvicapra arundincum)
(Onusi of the Umbundu, Sogo of the Coanza
people).— As far as I am aware theie is only one
variety of this animal, which is one of the most
widely distributed of all the antelopes in Angola,
being found in all but the most forested and desert
country. The heads I shot or saw were not very
big, the largest horns measuring just over 13 inches
in length. Standing some 3 feet high at the

THE DUIKERS, KLIPSPRINGER, AND ORIBI 267

shoulder, the reed buck in Angola has a coat which
is more rufous and less grey than in some other
parts of Africa. This attractive antelope seerns
to prefer grass land and abandoned fields for its
haunts, lies close, escapes with speed, and whistles
shrilly when alarmed, generally to the misfortune
of the hunter who has thus had his whereabouts
betrayed, probably when pursuing a nobler quarry.
As the reed buck yields about the best venison in
Africa, this pretty animai provides more than his
share of food for the needs of the hungry hunter.

The DUIKER (Cephalvphus grimmi) (Ombambi
in Umbundu) is probably the commonest and most
widely distributed of the antelopes in Angola. I
met it frequently throughout the trip. My best
head measured nearly 5 inches in length.

The BLUE DUIKER (Ccphalophus monti-
colal) (Okambele). — This tiny blue-grey antelope
is fairly plentiful in the arid and open forest
country south of Bcnguella. I met this duiker
and its spoor along most of my journey from
Catangue to Lubango, and on one occasion one
actually ran on to my legs when pursued by a
leopard or serval.

Cephalophus leucochilus, a southern and bigger
race of C. dor sails, has a black dorsal stripe on a
uniform rufous coat, with light underparts.

The YELLOW -BACKED DUIKER (Ccphalophus
silviculior) (Okahuhu, possibly Ocikuma, in Um-
bundu).—This rare animal is present, I believe,
in the forest of the Portuguese Congo d strict,
and a missionary friend said that an animal whose
skin closely resembled that of this duiker was shot

268 THROUGH ANGOLA

in a wooded ravine of one of the Bailundu hills
(south of the railway), and he had heard that these
duiker, though rare, were to be met with in that
country.

The KLIPSPRINGER (Oreotmgus saltator)
(Ohoha in Umbuncitr^B/nti Quillenge) is found
on most of the hills in/ the centre and south of
Angola. Its curious grey-col6ured coat of bristly
hair, the tiny pig-lifee*'tracJt7 and the remarkable
powers this pretty little animal possesses of jumping
from rock to rock, are characteristic and unique.

The ORIBI (Oribia ficopqria) (Omunya in Um-
bundu) is distributed all (^ver Angola, living in
the savannah forestj anjd scanty vegetation. I
think that more than* onei race'' of the graceful fawn-
coloured antelope will be fouled in Angola, as I
saw one skin that |was npt 0. scoparia. The oribi
prefers open country, trusting to its keen eyes,
wariness, and speed.

The STEINBOK (Oribia campestris) (Kapu in Um-
bundu). — I believe I once saw one of these little
antelopes near the Loanda River ; they are found
in South Angola in the Cubango and Cuito valleys.

CARNIVORA. — The LION (Felis leo), Ohosi,
Onganga, Ondumba (Umbundu), N'dumba (Coque
and Luimbc), Onko-i, Onkenyama (Quillenge) ;
once numerous in Angola, these animals have
diminished with the destruction of the game,
and are now rarely met with except in the south
and south-east of the colony. Larsen, a well-
known hunter, killed seven lions in one day, many
years ago, on the Sinde River. Though four
of them were cubs, it would be hard to find such a

THE LION 269

troop to-day. This skilful hunter came to an
unhappy end, being poisoned, it is believed, by a
jealous native wife, who, though she had previ-
ously helped him to track and even shoot elephants,
could not tolerate a younger rival.

Capello and Ivens tell the story of one lion
which (sixty years ago) actually entered the
house near Providencia of a Portuguese settler
who had already killed twenty-six of thege animals.
The Portuguese, who beat off the lion with a heavy
candlestick, and wounded it with a Bullet, forced
it to take refuge in the kitchen, where it was killed
with his head jammed between the 'legs of a heavy
table.

Lions are eighteen months of age before they
cut their permanent canines and can kill for
themselves. Probably for this reason a similar
interval separates the ages of succeeding litters.
Spotted on the legs at birth, lion cubs lose these
markings, possibly a protective colouring, when
they grow older and do not need them for their
work at night. The colour of the lion's mane
depends on that of his parent, as does the colouring
of hair in human beings, though, contrary to what
occurs with us, it is the fair mane that predominates
among lions.

The education of young lions in killing their
prey is a costly business where stock is concerned,
as their parents will sometimes encourage them
to kill half a dozen animals in one night for
practice.

Lions hunt by silent stalks up wind or by
driving. In the latter case one animal of the troop

270 THROUGH ANGOLA

will frighten the game or stock by giving them its
scent and roaring loudly ; and in this way try to
drive the animals on to the other members of the
troop, who are silently lying in wait for them.
The lioness is more dangerous than the lion,
especially if she has cubs ; a friend of mine was
attacked not long ago by a lioness whose cubs
were quite 100 yards away in some reeds, and
my path has been disputed in similar circumstances,
but the males, though present in each instance,
made no demonstration.

Lions, however, vary in courage ; I have met
fearless animals, and one so timid that he refused
to charge, though wounded and followed in thick
bush all day. All lions are more dangerous at
night, especially when hungry, and when benighted
in a lion country the safest course is to roost in a
tree. A lion kills every second or third day, but
may go without food for several, and would then
eat anything he finds, including porcupines, though
the latter often cause him great suffering and even
death by leaving their quills in his pads or jaw.
I once killed a lioness crippled by quills which
had burrowed into both her fore paws.

The lion may be met at dawn, feeding on his
" kill," or in the late evening when returning to
it ; and only by accident during the day. On
the night he kills, the lion drinks the animal's
blood, disembowels it, separates the offals, and
eats from the hind quarters. If watched for,
a platform is safer, though harder to shoot from
than a pit or thorn fence, as the lion does not
appear to be able to scent or see a hunter placed

LEOPARDS AND HYAENAS 271

above him, and if the " kill " is moved it should
be handled as little as possible. A wounded lion,
when followed and at bay, is probably the most
dangerous animal in the world ; a powerful
double-barrelled rifle is a help, but even more
important is the need of keeping your nerve and
your fire till the lion is near enough to hit with
certainty.

The LEOPARD (Fclis leopardus) (Ongue in
Umbundu and Quillenge, Ingui in Cokue, Ingue
in Luimbe) fa distributed all over Angola.

Though1 I never saw a leopard during my trip,
their tracks were met with throughout, and every
forest-girt, village appeared to have its " ingue,"
taking toll of dogs and goats by night, and lying
up near forest stream or pool by day. The track
and dung are smaller but similar to those of the
lion, as are its life-history and many of its habits ;
and the leopard is equally dangerous when wounded.

The length of an adult male from nose to tip
of tail may be as much as 7 feet 6 inches, that of
the female 7 feet, and their weight 100 Ib. and 80 Ib.
respectively. The African leopard is lighter in
body than the Indian variety, and its spots are
smaller in comparison.

Unlike the majestic cadence of the lion's roar,
the grunt of the leopard has little musical sound,
and is a rasping note like an unoiled saw cutting
hard wood. The growls of both animals, however,
are more alike, differing in volume rather than
note. A leopard's "kill" differs from a lion's,
in the face and tongue, lungs or heart, being
eaten before the hindquarters.

272 THROUGH ANGOLA

The HUNTING LEOPARD (Cynoslurus jubatus)
(Emalanga in Umbundu)>fs-£ound sparsely in the
centre stnd south of Angola. Hre hunting leopard
has a shorter head and smaller, mor^e solid-looking
spots than the leopard ; but the mo&t important
difference is its dog-like JDads, which Vhow in a
track the points of the /nails, which Cannot be
entirely retracted as with the cat. Shorter and
lighter but taller than the leopard, the hunting
leopard is built for speed and trusts tji^it to get
its prey.

The HYAENAS include the Spotted Hyaena
(Hycena crocuta) (Ocimbungu and Munguli), found
sparsely all over Angola, but chiefly in the south,
and the Brown Hyaena (Hycena brunnea), foumd
only in the south.

I heard the weird cry of the hyaena at several
of my camps, but never saw one of these animals
while crossing Angola. This quaint, ungainly
beast, with his dirty yellow coat and indistinct
spots, high forequarters, and sloping back, is
perhaps normally a carrion eater, content to
dine off the leavings of a swifter and more skilful
hunter like the lion or leopard, for his heavy jaws
can help him to make a dinner on bones and skin
alone. He sometimes hunts wild animals for his
food, or tries to steal a dog or goat from a neigh-
bouring village, and any meat or trophy from a
hunter's camp; and I suffered on one occasion
from the effects of his remarkable cunning and
persistence in this direction in one of my camps
in Angola.

Occasionally the hyaena will attack human

MINOR CARNIVORA AND PRIMATES 273

beings, especially when asleep at night. They
have killed many a child, and mangled some
adults, for with his immensely powerful jaws a
hyaena can and lias removed most of a man's face.
One night when lying very ill under a tree in
north-eastern Rhodesia, a hyaena approached me
cautiously from behind the tree, and I feel con-
vinced that had I not been awake and able to
drive him off, the animal would have attacked me.
The CAPE HUNTING DOG (Laonpictus), Ombinji,
is widely distributed, but rare. A little smaller
than a hyaena, it has its sloping build, but a buff
coat with black and russet patches. I have thrice
seen the dogs hunting, in a crescent formation,
whose tireless members take up the running
alternately after their bewildered quarry.

Of lesser carnivora are the JACKALS (Ombulu),
Black-backed (Canis mesomelas) and Side-striped
(C. adustus) ; AARD-WOLF (Proteles cristatus) ;
SERVAL (Felis served), WILD CAT (F. orcreata),
and CARACAL (F. caracal) ; a CIVET (Viverra
civetta), Cambumba, and two GENETS, Genetta
setabce and G. India.

There is more than one variety of MUNGOOSE.

Of the PRIMATES, the GORILLA (Gorilla savagei)

and CHIMPANZEE (Anthropithecus) are found in the

Cabinda province ; GUEREZA MONKEYS in the

north and east ; GUENONS, including the Vervet

Monkey, the YELLOW BABOON (Papio cynocephalus),

and a MANDRILL ; there are two LEMURS, Galaga

monleiri (Bobo, Chicafo) and G. senegalensis (Nono).

Among minor animals are the RATEL (Mellivora

ratel), Onganba, ANT-BEAR (Orycteropus capensis),

18

274 THROUGH ANGOLA

Ongimbo, SCALY ANT-EATER (Pangolin manis),
Chaca, HARE (Lepra), Cadimba, ROCK RABBIT
(Dasyprocta), Ohuti, and PORCUPINE (Hystrix),
Chissaca.

BIRDS. — Bocage described 700 species of An-
golan birds : 200 found in the coastal zone,
257 in the lower plateaux, and 386 in the open
and inner highlands. Of the total, 332 were
Passeres, 137 Picariae, 89 Grallae, 59 Accipitres,
20 Gallinae, 12 Columbae, 15 Gaviae, 14 Anseres.
The following were personally met or are named
by the natives :

Among Game Birds are the Ostrich (Struthio
australis), Ombo, Greater Bustard (Otis kori), and
Lesser, O. ruficristata, 0. cafra, O. melanogaster
(all Tua) ; the Guinea-fowl, Numidia coronata,
N. papillosa, and Gutter a cristata (all Hanga) ; the
African (Bare-necked) Pheasants, Pternistes rubri-
collis (Unguari) and P. Lucani ; the Francolins,
F. Hartlaubi (Muhele), F. pileatus (Kalangue),
F. schellgeli (Cambambo), F. adspersus (Muelle) ;
the Quail (Coturnix africana, C. delagorguei), Din-
guian Guia, and a Turnix ; the Sand Grouse,
Pterocles bicmctus (Kambanjo) and P. namaqua.

Among Pigeons and Doves are Columba calva
and C. guineensis, Turtur semitorquatus (Ecuti),
T. damarensis (Bango), T. ambiguus (Dindie),
T. senegalensis (Kalungumbo), Chalcopelia afra
(Bobo), CEna capensis (Kagolulu). In Snipe, Gal-
linago major and G. nigripennis . Among Geese are
the Spur- Wing (Plectropterus gambensis), Janda :
Egyptian Goose (Chenalopex cegyptiacus], and
Dwarf Goose (Nettapus auritus). Among Duck, the

BIRDS 275

Knob-bill (Sarcidiornis melanotus), Violo ; the
Shovellers (Spatula capensis and S. clypeata), the
Whistler and White Face (Dendrocygna fulva and
D. viduata), Imbanteque ; the Diver Pochard (Ni/-
roca capensis} ; the Whiteback (Thalassornis leu-
conota) ; and Yellowback (A. undulata). Of Wid-
geon and Teal, the Cape Widgeon, Anas capensis,
A. hottentota, and the Yellow Bill, A. xanthorhyncha.
Among Waders (the Storks) arc the Marabou
(Leptoptilos crumenifer), White Belly, Ciconia Ab-
dimii (Humbi) and C. episcopus (Hombo); Hammer-
Head (Scopus umbretta), Kahumba. Of Cranes, the
Crowned (Balearica regulorum) and Wattled (Grus
canmculata), Panda ; of Herons, the Giant (Ardea
goliath) and A. rufiventris (Bondo). The White
Egret, A. garzetta (Dila nanhe), A. cinerea (Londera
Angundo), and A. alba (Xhane). Of Ibis, the
Green Ibis, Ibis hagedash, and /. cvthiopeca (Deleca).
There are several Pelicans (Kamakundi).

Among Birds of Prey are the Tawny Eagle,
Aquila rapax (Lucoi); the Crowned Eagles, Spizaetus
bellicosus (Gonga), and S. coronatus (Ingo) ; the
African Hawk Eagle (Hieratus spilogaster), Brown
Eagle (H. Walbergi), Crested Hawk Eagle
(Lophoaetus occipitalis), the Bateleur (Helotarsus
ecaudatus], Kombi, and the Sea Eagle (Haliaetus
rotifer), Qualucua. Of Harrier Eagles, the Black-
breasted (Circaetus thoracicus), the Banded (C.
fasciolatus), and C. cinereus (Ankubi). Among
Kites are the Yellow Bill (Milvus cegyptius),
Kikuambe, and M. mi grans ; the Black-shouldered
Kite (Elanus cccruleus), Kahahula. There is a
Harrier Hawk (Polyboroides typicus), Lucoi ; the

276 THROUGH ANGOLA

Hobbies, Falco subbuteo (Cabemba), and F. buteo
(Gonga) ; the Buzzards, Buteo auguralis, B. augur,
and B. desertorum (Lucoi). Of Falcons and Lesser
Hawks are Falco biarmicus (Lucoi), Cerchneis
rupicola (Banvo), and C. vespertina (Katebi). The
Secretary Bird (Serpentarius secretarius), Mukende,
is rare. Of Vultures are the Griffon (Gyps Kolbei
and G. Euppeli), the White-backed (Pseudogyps
africanus), Icungo, the Black (P. auricularis), the
White-headed (Dophogyps occipitalis), and the
Egyptian (Neophron percnopterus). Among Owls
are the Giant (Bubo lacteus), Spotted (B. maculosus),
Cimbi ; Barn (Strixflammea), Coco, and S. capensis ;
Scops leucotis and S. capensis (Casseia), and S. perlata
(Cahombo).

Among other noticeable birds are the Crows
and Ravens, Corvus scapulatus and C. capensis
(Kiquamanga) ; the Hornbills include Bucorvus
cafer (Kgungoashito), like a long-billed turkey,
with a booming call ; Tockus melanoleucus ; the
Yellow-billed (T. flavirostris), which interns the
nesting female in a tree trunk ; the Red-billed
(T. rufirostris)—a.Te all called Sunguiandondo ;
the Indicators, Major and Minor and Sparmanii
(Sequi), which lead the hunter and ratel to hives ;
the Grey Lory, or " Go away ! " Bird (Chizcerhis
concolor), Gucre, and Rhinoceros Bird (Buphaga
africana), which annoy the hunter and alarm
game ; the Cuckoo family, Cucuhis canorus (Kin-
kanga), Chrysococcyx cupreus (Kachibo), and C.
Klaasi (Katcndi) ; Coccj/stes glandarius (Talo), and
C. jacobinus (Kampurulla) ; and Centropus super -
ciliosus ("Mucuco), C. monachus (Canunzo) ; and the

BIRDS 277

Goat-suckers or Night-jars, Caprimulgus Fossei
(Ximbamba), C. shelleyi (Huicumbamba), and Cos-
metornis vexillarius (Lambamba).

The Swallows include Hirundo angolensis, PI.
Monteiri, H. puella, If. Jilifcra — all called Piapia.
The Flycatchers, Terpsiphone cristata (Catani-
buixe), T. nielanogastra (Engundobeoli anlinda),
Batis molitor (Catita Angolo), B. minulla (Kalo-
queio), Muscicapa cinercola (Katiete), and
M. lugens ; Parisoma subcccruleum (Tubike),
Campephaga nigra (Bimbe), and Brady ornis ater
(Mungando).

Among Shrikes, the Red-backed, Lanius col-
lurio (Kitiapi), Nilaus brubru (Kandilanakiuna)
and N. affinis (Kitikenene) ; Fiscus ccqwlli
(Quimbambe), F. Snzcc (Ninbotan), Eurocephalus
anguitimcns (Kitccuria) ; Prionops talacoma (Kam-
bimba), P. Relzii (Kanguele) ; Telephonus ery-
thropterus (Quioco), T. Irivirgatus (Himba), T.
minutus (Gundo) ; Laniarius otrococcineus (Etun-
gula) ; Dryoscopus cubla (Kiriamahuco), D. major
(Sequi), D. neglectus (Gorototo), D. angolensis
(Entuecula).

Of smaller birds, the Titmice (Par us afer and
P. rujiventris), both Caxito ; Zostcropa senegalensis
(Hoio) ; and especially the Weavers, Texior erijthro-
rhynchus (Quicengue), Plocepasser makali (Quico-
^oria) ; Hyphantornis velata, If. intermedia, H.
xanthops, II. ocularia- — all called Janja; Sycobius
rubriceps (Ulojanja), Euplectes oryx (Quisengo),
E. minor (Saco), E. taha (Changornbi), Penthetria
albonotata (Dunguequilele), P. Bocagei (Lele) ; the
Widow Birds, Vidua principalis (Cahengua) and V -

278 THROUGH ANGOLA

paradisea; Spermestes cucullata (Canguijambala),
Amadina erythrocephala (Xiquere), Urcvginthus
phcenicotis (Kaxcxe), Pytelia melba (Kangungo),
Estrelda Quartinia ; and the Finches, Passer
arcuatus and P. diffusus (Kimbolio), Xanthodira
flavifulga (Sue-sue), Crithagra chrysopyga (Kabilo),
Fringillaria tahapisi (Gungo), and F. flaviventris
(Kianja).

Among specially beautiful birds are the Plan-
tain Eaters, Coryihaix Livingstonii and C. cry-
throlopha (both Andua), Turacus giganteus (Baro-
coco), and some of the Parrots, Hoopoes, and
Orioles ; the Bee Eaters, Merops apiaster and
M. bullockoides (both Combua-combo), M. super-
ciliosus (Lengue), J/. eryihropterus (Caguerre-a-
fele) ; the Rollers, Coracias caudata and C. ncevia
(Ambeta), and Hapaloderma narina (Kissai) ; the
Kingfishers, Alccdo semitorquata, Corythornis cyano-
stigma, Ceryle rudis, C. maxima, Halcyon cyanoleuca,
H. senegalensis, H. chelicutensis, H. semicwrulea
(all called Sumbo), and //. malimbica (Telam-
puica) ; the Honeysuckers, Nectarinia gutturalis
(Kanzole), N. superba, N. bifasciata (Kanjonjo),
A7, ludovicensis (Kangoi), N. talatala (Mariapindo) ;
the Orioles, O. natatus and 0. larvatus (both
Cupio) ; and Lamprotornis purpurea (Melombe-
anganza), Lamprocolius splendidus and L. sycobius
(Quire), L. acuticaudatus (Eiabairo), L. bispecularis
(Janja), and Pholidauges Verreauxii (Donga).

Of Singing Birds, Thrushes and allied birds,
including Cossypha natalensis and C. Bocagei
(Maxoxolo), C. Heuglini (Quitone), C. barbata
(Quiepele) ; Turdus strepitans (Kukenekene), Saxi-

REPTILES 279

cola monticola (Kaniamalango), S. Galtoni and
S. pileata (both Kissandombungi) ; Crateropus
melanops (Numbela), C. Hartlaubi (Musosa), Cich-
ladusa ruficauda (Kitole), Cheeks pycnopygius
(Kakiria) ; the Pipits, Anthus erythronotus (Kara-
pala), A. pallescens (Canunzo), Macronyx croceus
(Dibaquela) ; many of the Finches, mentioned
elsewhere ; and the Larks, Calandritis cinerea
(Tioco), Mirafra africana (Kipembe), M. apiata
(Kitianonhe), and M. nigricans (Kenibange).

Of REPTILES, there are two Crocodiles,
C. vulgaris (Ongandu) and C. cataphractus, and
a Ghavial, C. frontatus ; water and land Iguanas,
Varanus niloticus (Sangoe) and V. albigularis
(Tatu) ; several Geckos and Lizards and Chame-
leons ; Pachydactylus Bibronii (Camungluquira),
P. oceltatus (Canomba), Agama planiceps (Calango),
A. armata (Canomba), A. atricollis (Ubango),
Eremias lugubris (Cangala), E. serripes (Cocolo),
Gerrhosaurus nigrolineatus (Cangalanjamba), G.
validus (Combe), G. trivittatus (Humbo), Mabuia
striata (Buio), M. varia (Icacenene), M. punctulata
(Cocola), M. acutilabris (Cocola), M. binotata
(Bandahulo) ; Lygosoma Ivensii (Muntalandonga),
L. Sundevallii (Humbo), L. anchietce (Sonjolo) ;
Sepsina Copei (Humbo) ; Chamceleon dilepis, C.
quilensis, and C. gracilis (all Longairo).

Of over a hundred species of Snakes in Africa
less than half are poisonous. Of these, the most
dangerous are the Mambas, which can kill a man
in a few minutes, travel half-erect as fast as a
horse, and bite higher than a gaiter ; the Angolan
Mambas are Dendraspis neglectus and D. angusticeps

280 THROUGH ANGOLA

(Andala). The Cobras include Naia haje (Cuiba),
N. anchietce, N. nigricollis (which can eject its
venom to some distance and blind its enemy), and
A7, annulata. The Vipers include the Puff Adder,
V . arietans (Buta), V. rhinoceros, V. caudalis, and
V . heraldica ; the Night Adder, Causus rhombeatus
(Bandargila) and C. resimus (Banda emfila). Non-
poisonous snakes include the Pythons, P. natalensis,
P. sebce, and P. anchietce ; Helicops bicolor (Muzuzu),
Boodon lineatus (On jo), Philothamnus irregularis*
P. heterolepidotus (Chilembe), and P. dorsalis
(Lubio) ; Prosymna frontalis (Golongo), Rhagerhis
tritceniata (Uconjolo), R. acuta (Colombolo), Psam-
mophis sibilans (Uanga), Dryiophis Kirtlandii
(N'hoca-menha), Bucephalus capensis (Turulan-
gila), and Crotaphopeltis rufescens (Bandangila).

FISHES. — Of the numerous Sea fishes, the
Pongo has the curious habit of making a drumming
noise against the hulls of fishing vessels ; while
the liver of a Dog-fish (Cassao) yields oil. Of
River fish, there are the curious snouted fish,
Genyomyrus donnyi, and Gnathomemus numenius ;
and the Mud Fish (Protoptcrus anectans), which
which can bury itself in mud.

Of sporting fish, the Barbers, Clarias silurus
(Bagre) and C. gariepinus, are ground feeders; the
big Yellow Fish (Varicorhinus brucei) occasionally
takes fly ; the Tiger Fish (Hydrocyon lineatus) is
the finest fighter of the fly-taking fish, but can
bite through ordinary tackle with his strong
teeth.

ANIMAL NAMES IN FOUR DIALECTS 281

English.

Umbundu.

Cokue.

I.uimbe.

Ouillcnge.

Buffalo .

Onyani

Pacassu

Njandi

Onyati

Bush buck

Ongulungu

Ongulungu

Bush cow

Pacassa

Pacassa ?

I'acassa

Bush pig

Combo

Cob, lechwe .

Osonge

Songue

...

,, water buck

Ocisema (or

Moket

Ocisema

Chiserna)

Duiker, common

Ombambi (or

Bambi

Bambi)

,, blue .

Okambele

Okambele

,, yellow-back

Okahuhu

» >»

Ocikuma (?)

...

Eland .

Onuima

Ongunga

Elephant

Onjamba

Njamba

Njamba

Onjamba

Giraffe .

Onduli

N jamba nduli

Hartebeeste .

'.'.'.

...

Hippopotamus

Ongeve

Nguvu

Nguvu

Ongeve

Hunting dog .

Ombinji

Hyrena .

Onguli

Cimbungu

Munguli

Ocimbungu

,, . . .

Ocimbungu

Munguli

, , . i P

Okanyani

(spotted?)

Jackal .

Ombulu

...

Klipspringer .

Ohoha

Ohoha"

Kudu

Onjili

Lion

Ohosi

M'dumba

N'dumba

Onkenyama

,, . . .

Ondumbn.

Onkosi

Onganga (?)

Leopard

Ongue

Ingui

ingue

Ongue

,, hunting

Emalanga

Oribi .

Omunya

Oryx .

Galengue

Reed buck

Onusi

Sogo

Onusi

Rhinoceros

OciniiMida.

Kevukevu

» • •

Kaloko(?)

Roan antelope

Omalanga (or

Palanka (or

Malanka)

Ompalanga)

Sable antelope

Sumbakalogo

(Kolwali iii

Melanje

district)

Situtunga

Ocisovio

»

( )ci.sowe

Spring buck .

Ouu'iiye (?)

Sieinbok

Kapu (?)

Wart hog

Onguluve

Onguluve

,, .

Ongala

Ocihengo

...

Wildebeeste, blue .

( Iclangiie

Zebra .

Ongolo

Ngolo

Ngolo

Ongolo

282

English.

Umbundu.

Cokue.

Luimbe.

Quillenge.

Animal .
Baboon .
Bird

Crocodile
Fish

Ocinyama

Epundu
Onjila
Ongandu
Olusi

Kasitu
Mahunju
Kanjila
Ngandu
Ishi

Situ

(Nshima)
Kazila
Ngandu
Inshi

Ocifitu
Epundu
Ocinjila
Ongandu
Onosi

juinea-fowl

'I are

Ohanga
Candimba

Kanga

Kanga

Ohanga

Monkey
,'arrol .

Osima
Ocikcnge

Cima

Cikenge

Ishiina
Inka

Ocindindi
Ocisui

Porcupine
\ock rabbit

Chissaca
Chuti

Snake .
Tortoise

Onyoha
Ombeu

Lunoka

Onyoka

GAME LICENCE

The following animals may be killed on an
ordinary licence, which costs the resident 30 escudos
and a visitor 15 :

Animal.

5 NO.;

!

Animal. Nu.

Animal.

Bush cow
Roan .

• 15

Buffalo . .10
Rhinoceros . . 10

Hippopotamus
Sable .

Wildebceste
Hartebeeste

• 15
10

Water buck . . 10
Oryx . . . > 10

1

Kudu .
Eland .

No.

Elephant, zebra, and ostrich may only be
killed on a special licence, which costs the resident
25 escudos and a visitor 50.

Female and the young of animals are not per-
mitted (oilicially) to be killed. In theory there is
a close season from October to April.

Although this licence allows 118 large animals
to be killed for a few shillings, it is rarely taken out
or any game laws enforced.

CHAPTER XVIII

SOME INSECTS MET BY THE WAY

INSECTS play a large part in the economic
life of Angola, and their influence unfortu-
nately is for evil rather than good.

Though innumerable bees are a source of
wealth to the colony, the mosquito and tsetse fly
bring much sickness to man and beast in certain
districts, and the destructive white ant is ubiquitous.

These termites, which are not ants at all
except in habits, arc amazingly abundant in the
country, where their mushroom-shaped and pil-
lared ant-hills sometimes appear in such numbers
as to resemble vast graveyards. Some of the ant-
hills are of great height and age, and may be
inhabited by other kinds of ants, or by reptiles,
rats, and even snakes ; all of which are probably
unwelcome, and lodgers. It is truly astonishing
that these minute, soft-bodied insects can build
such large houses with iron hard walls, but the very
fragility of the insect compels such protection, and
their roads to work and working galleries are alike
covered in with earth cemented with a juice
which they secrete.

Like ants and bees, these termites have males,

females, and neuters in the nest ; soldiers, queens,

283

284 THROUGH ANGOLA

and workers. In his work the soldier is provided
with a formidable pair of jaws, the worker with a
knobbed head to build or mend his house with.

I spent many hours while in the country open-
ing up ant-hills and watching ants at work, but
never met the elaborate designs of royal apart-
ments for queens and nurseries for larvae, so often
described by older writers as the work of termites.
The ant-hills in Angola consisted of large numbers
of irregularly shaped cells and connecting galleries,
while the queen ants had comparatively small cells.

The termites seemed to work ceaselessly ;
building, storing food, tending the cell gardens of
fungi grown for food, or looking after the queen
and the larvae which are their special charge.

All white ants are blind and dread the sunlight,
and appear to favour the night for their hardest
work. When building their tunnels or houses,
they may actually be heard, if the night be still
and they are working on any resounding surface,
such as a wooden board or matting.

When the time of mating comes, the winged
males and females emerge from the ant-hill and
fly off to form new colonies. Both soon lose their
wings -- -but in the period of flight millions find a
sudden end in the crop and maw of bird and
reptile, while even the Angolan native is not above
adding " salalcv' as the Portuguese call the white
ant, to his " infundi,'' as a chutney or caviare.

The destructiveness of white ants is proverbial.
While on my trip in Angola, a pair of boots were
damaged in one day. a wooden box destroyed in
two ; and this little insect, which, for good or ill.

ANTS 285

is the scavenger of all timber, does immense
damage to furniture, wooden railway sleepers,
pit props, and any structure where untreated wood
is employed.

Fortunately the white ant has many enemies ;
for besides the birds which destroy them in their
period of flight, the ant bear and armadillo take
nightly toll by tearing down the ant-hills with
their strong claws, and licking up the white ants
in hundreds with their whip-like tongues.

The most feared of all Angolan ants is the

o

"Driver"— so called because, fierce and strong-
jawed, he moves in columns of such countless
thousands as to drive every living thing from his
path. All animals and wise men avoid him, and
woe betide anything which lingers in his way, for
first death and then annihilation are certain if
escape is impossible. And the drivers cannot
always be avoided ; for like most ants they are
sensitive to sunlight, and forage usually in the
evening or at night, when their columns, inches
wide but furlongs deep, may attack a village or a
hunting camp if these come in their road, or offer a
prospect of food.

The driver will occasionally start his foraging
on a cloudy day, or, if in a shady forest, in sunshine.
Should they be caught by sunlight, the soldiers
form a living vault to protect the workers from the
sun.

One night in Angola I was driven off my camp-
ing-ground by the invasion of a column of driver
ants, and the native carriers, lying practically
naked on the ground, were badly bitten ; and

286 THROUGH ANGOLA

though they shrieked with laughter at each other's
bites and troubles at the time, had painful bodies
and rueful faces the morning after.

I have suffered a similar experience a good many
times in other parts of Africa, and in almost every
instance have been bitten before I could get away.
As the soldier class of the driver ant has very
powerful mandibles, their bites are very painful,
and so deep that the ant's head has to be pulled
out carefully to free the jaw from the wound.

There are many other kinds of ants in Angola,—
red, brown, and black ; building below or above the
ground, in ant-hill, tree trunk, or tree leaf, — but
though I opened up several nests I never once
found any " ant slaves."

It is well known that certain ant tribes (usually
red ants) capture and carry off captives from their
weaker neighbours (usually black) to work as slaves.
Of course whenever a nest was opened up the
worker could be seen carrying off eggs and cocoon-
covered larvae, while the soldiers of the colony
would come out to give battle to the disturber,
but all the ants were of the same species.

Though searching often, I found none of the
" agricultural ants '' which are stated to collect

o

certain grass seeds and even sow some of them

c?

round their home, so as to procure their food
supplies more readily.

One reddish and rather large tree ant in Angola
made a home in a nest of leaves sown together with
silken thread, probably provided by its larvae,
which possess this material for the manufacture
of cocoons. The parents bring out their babies

FLIES AND WASPS 287

and coax or squeeze them into parting with some
of this larvae thread, to unite the ends of the leaves
together.

In two of the nests I found a few wood aphis,
but was not sure if these were accidentally included
or were serving as " milch cows " for the ants,
who sometimes keep and feed the aphis, stroking
and " milking " them to gather the honey they
secrete.

Plentiful in Angola is the tiny ant, which one
finds in food-stuffs in so many tropical and sub-
tropical countries. It has come to Madeira from
South America, and is causing havoc in this island,
and with the multiplication of ships and shipping
routes the distribution of this little ant promises to
become world-wide. The only way to keep food
free from them is to place it in the sunlight, which
they dread, or in dishes surrounded by water ;
and it is advisable in houses or permanent camps
to place the legs of dining-tables, food cupboards,
and meat safes in small dishes filled with paraffin,
for water under such circumstances may breed
mosquitoes or evaporate.

Besides the house fly, which was numerous at
the coast towns, and the " Stomoxys," a biting fly
which resembles it, there was an old friend met
years ago elsewhere in Africa and christened the
:c suicide fly," though he really belongs to the bee
family.

Very small and with no active offensive pro-
perties, this fly does not bite or sting, and his odour
when you crush him is aromatic rather than dis-
agreeable, but of all the obstinate little insects,

288 THROUGH ANGOLA

the suicide fly is the worst. If one stands for a
moment in the shade, he hovers round your face
in scores, crawling up your nose, into your eyes,
up your ears, and all over your face. His object
seems to be moisture or a home, and the need must
be very great ; because no fear of death deters
him, and his persistence being profound and his
powers of flight very small, he dies easily, leaving
one with an ever-shortening temper and a curious
aromatic smell from his crushed body.

When one tried to take aim after perhaps a
long, hot, and painful stalk, the suicide fly, by
crawling up the eyes and nose, would almost
prevent one from firing and often cause one to
miss. Rest or sleep was only possible with one's
face under the hot and suffocating shelter of a
handkerchief, for otherwise eyes, throat, and
nostrils would rapidly be invaded and rest become
impossible.

There were some large flies and wasps in Angola,
looked on as friends, because they left one alone ;
and among them were the beautiful dragon-flies,
which usually live near water. I always cheered
these dragon-flies on their way, wishing them good
hunting-— especially of the suicide flies.

There were the mantis insects (Mantidae), with
curious -looking heads and big eyes, and their
great arms with toothed edges. I am an admirer
of the mantis, because it is a good hunter, patient
but sure in its stalk ; and a friend, because it lives
largely on insect pests.

When in Sierra Leone before the war, I had a
mantis which almost answered to the name of

TELEPHOTOGRAPH OK DUIKER HIDING IN GRASS

DRIVER ANTS ON THE MARCH

A MIXKD LODGING — AN ANT-BEAR I'.UKROW IN AN ANT-HILI

THE PRAYING MANTIS 289

Christopher, till it was found to be a lady, and the
name was hurriedly changed to Emily.

Emily would attack anything up to her own
size and weight — spiders, wasps, and even scor-
pions ; but she especially loved flies, and I have
seen her hold a fly in either arm, eating from each
one in turn.

She always liked her food alive, and while I
discouraged this habit with moths and other harm-
less insects, she was allowed her way with flies.
Though she murdered three husbands, ate them
in moments of passionate affection, yet she died
doing her duty to the insect world, leaving to
posterity, and a natural history museum, a
gossamer nest and a family of many hundred
eggs.

The egg nest which Emily made was of oval
form, closely woven from silky material, and may
be seen in most parts of Africa attached to the stem
of a bush, a grass stalk, or a stone. The mantis
insects, sometimes called "stick" insects from
their resemblance to the twigs on which they rest,
are of various sizes, shapes, and colours. Emily
was about 3 inches long and of a bright green
colour, but I have seen mantis insects over 6 inches
long, and often so coloured as closely to resemble the
bushes they lived on.

The mantis, though generally a pursuer, is
sometimes itself pursued. A wasp called the
Tachyles, one of that large group of insects possess-
ing stings which paralyse without killing, defeat
the mantis by circling round its slower-moving
victim, till it can dart on to its back, sting it to
19

2UO THRU UGH ANGOLA

helplessness, and then drag it away as food for its
larvas.

Among other flies of this group which use a
paralysing sting are those master builders, the
mason wasp and the mud dauber.

The mud daubers (Scaliphron spirifex), called
Marimbondo by the natives, may be recognized
by their very narrow waists and long legs, which
drop and hang down when they fly, and by
a curious jumping way of propulsion when
walking.

Having made its earth nest, which consists of
one or more tubes of clay, in some sheltered corner
of a house, rock, or tree, the Marimbondo goes off
to collect its young grub or larva, and drops it
into the nest along with the spiders or caterpillars
which it has stung and paralysed for its grub.
Having provided suflicient live meat, the father
dauber seals up the nest and buzzes off to new
flirtations.

The young dauber larva, after feeding and
growing for some weeks on its paralysed but living
food, emerges one day in all the glory of the
winged insect, with coat of black and gold, to
love and sting and kill in its turn.

But neither the dauber nor the mason wasp, a
fellow-murderer, have it all their own way, for the
ruby-tailed wasp acts the cuckoo to their nests,
and large flies like the Dasylus kill the mason wasp
and dauber.

And in this way the scheme of nature is ful-
filled— this nature which is sometimes called the
kindly, bub which is 'ernbiy eiucl, and whose

BEES, BUTTERFLIES, AND CATERPILLARS 201

ruthless way is needful to hold the balance of
warring animal and plant life.

It is difficult for a naturalist to hold views of
orthodox Christianity on the benevolence, pity,
and loving-kindness, the recognised attributes of
tiic Creator of all life.

To watch, as I love watching, hour after hour,
the life of such insects as ants and ant-lions, wasps
;i:id mantis, is to know that, whatever the pur-
pose, the method of control of life and death in the
animal and insect world seems one long horror of
cruelty, beside which man's cruelty is trivial.

Primitive men and women are occasionally as
cruel and perhaps as unintentionally cruel as
animals and insects. Possibly the mantis likes
its food alive because it is tender ; this was ccr-
t;ui>]y the reason which induced the Abyssinians
to lu;.vc their banquets of living ox llesh, and the
Fan cannibal to cripple his prisoners by breaking
their arms and legs, yet leaving them alive, to
;/ecoine tender by soaking in a running stream.

I only came across one variety of bee in Angola,
and this to my cost had a painful sting. I hap-
pcncd to be stalking an animal through some
sli- ub where these busy little insects, resenting my
piXoencc, stung me just as I was firing at a sable.

The delightful type of bee that has no sting,
which I have seen in Northern Rhodesia, has not
extended its gentle sway as far south as Angola.

Has any one thought of breeding stinglcss bees
by selection, 1 wonder; and have they succeeded?
One might go even further, as far in fact as the
harassed Nik official, wlu\ when asked if he had

292 THROUGH ANGOLA

any biting Hies existing in his district, answered
that they all bit, and if the authorities would but
send him a loving pair of non-biting flies, he would
strive to encourage their breeding.

Hives made of cylinders of bark are placed by
the natives in trees near every village, and it is
wonderful how well the naked African, who
collects the honey, protects himself from being
stung by such a simple expedient as a wisp of
smoking grass.

Though a keen collector, I saw few butterflies
during the trip, and little that had not already been
seen or collected in other parts of the West African
coast.

Among fly caterpillars, I came across one thai-
made a travelling house like that of the Psyche
moth at home, but with far more artistic shape.

The house of this Angola caterpillar was made
of line twigs stuck together longitudinally into a
tubular nest, in the middle of which he lived safe
from his bird and insect enemies. As the cater-
pillar could protrude his head and front legs, he
was able to move his house along with a series of
jerks, and it was a curious experience to see a little
bundle of sticks jerking along without visible
motive-power.

Of disease-producing insects in Angola, by far
the most important are the mosquitoes, which
arc more numerous in the wet than in the dry
season, and in the lowlands than the higher
plateaux.

All of the better-known species arc present :
the anophelene, or carrier of malaria, the stegomyin.

MOSQUITOES 293

or transmitter of yellow fever, and the culex,
which is accused of carrying the germ of dengue
fever and the filaria of elephantiasis.

The anophelene, or malarial mosquito, which
is small and neat in appearance, looks very like a
fine nail or spiked seed when sitting on a wall, and
in fact, though well acquainted with these insects,
I on one occasion mistook some two hundred
anophelenes, which had clustered in the ridge of
my tent, for the dark spiked grass seed which
sticks to clothing in Africa. This happened in the
Loando-Coanza watershed, on the Longue River
and in sable country ; and any sable hunter who
goes as far north as this river must take every
anti-malarial precaution or be prepared to suffer
from fever.

The neat-shaped anophelene breeds usually
in clean and natural water sources, while the hunch-
backed stegomyia and culex are content with any
kind of domestic water deposit, hoAvever dirty or
small.

The stegomyia and culex are almost universal
in Angola, the anophelene is also widespread below
4500 feet ; I personally found it at various points
in the northern plateau, very numerous in parts
on the Loando-Coanz.a watershed, and present in
the lower plateaux between the central and
southern Angolan railways. It was not found on
the higher plateaux of Benguella and Lubango,
but, though probably rare here, I would not be
surprised if it was present in small numbers in the
rains.

In this open undulating country it should be

294 THROUGH ANGOLA

comparatively easy to channel the watercourses
and prevent the breeding of malarial mosquitoes.

Of the tsetse flies, two varieties at least are
found in Angola ; the Glossina palpalis, or fly
which conveys a trypanosome germ, the cause
of sleeping sickness to human beings, and the
Glossina morsitans, which carries an allied trypano-
some and the dreaded fly disease to animals. In
Rhodesia the Glossina morsitans has now' been
found to carry the sleeping sickness germs as well,
and several of the varieties of Glossina flies which
may yet be found in Angola can convey trypano-
some disease to animals.

The whole tsetse or Glossina family are thus
dangerous or suspect, and it is advisable to recog-
nize and avoid them.

The tsetse fly is nearly twice the size of a house
fly, has a short thick proboscis, wings which
project beyond the body and when folded overlap
like the blades of a pair of scissors. The Glossina
palpalis is dark in colour ; the 'Morsitans lighter,
with indistinct grey and black bands on IN
abdomen.

All tsetse flies have a darting flight, appear ard
disappear quickly, and preferably at hick movi no-
objects, They are viviparous, depositing iVlv
formed lavvre which turn into pupre within nn hour.
though the pupa itself takes three weeks or more
to become a fly.

The Palpalis lives near streams and lays eggs
under shady trees and bushes close to the water :
while the nest of I he ^lorsiianx is in dry forest
country, usuallv at the foot of n Jarp-e tree,

TSETSE FLIES, TUMBU FLY 295

a baobab. The Palpalis feed largely on the
crocodile, the Morsitans on animals.

The distribution of tsetse flics in the colony
is imperfectly known, as they were not recognized
as the cause of sleeping sickness when the Portu-
guese scientific mission in 1902 found the disease
at Cabinda, Mussera, Ambriz, Loanda, Novo
Redondo, and Benguella. The Glossina palpalis
fly was subsequently found at some of these
ports and along those rivers which empty into
them.

The Congo River, which forms the northern
boundary of a large part of Angola, is infected with
the fly and sleeping sickness, and the disease is
spreading up certain of its fly-haunted southern
tributaries. Farther to the south there is fly and
sleeping sickness along the Coanza River and some
of its southern tributaries. So that it can be said
that the disease is present in a great part of north
Angola.

To the south the tsetse distribution is almost
unknown. Glossina morsitans has been found
near Caconda, and G. palpalis along the Cuba!
and Catumbella Rivers, and doubtfully reported
as present between Benguella and Mossnmedes
find on the Cunenc. Baum saw no tsetse on the
Cubango. Cuito, or Cuando, but Boers and natives
report them as present at a few points near these
rivers. (The rinderpest which destroyed so much
game some years ago everywhere diminished the
numbers of tsetse fly.)

The central highlands of Angola, including
millions of acres of bracing open country, are free

206 THROUGH ANGOLA

from tsetse Hies and should be safe from the
diseases they carry.

There are two varieties of fly which painfully
interest the dwellers of the lowlands of Angola;
one of these I met near the Coanza River, the other
I believe I saw in its upper reaches.

The Auchmeromyia lutcola, or Congo floor
maggot fly, a stout, buff -coloured vegetarian insect
with a blackish abdomen, is less harmful than its
dreadful name suggests ; but it cannot be acquitted
of guilt, because it produces, from eggs laid under
native huts, a larva about half an inch long, which
is a ruthless cannibal. This maggot emerges at
night from crevices in the hut floor to suck the
blood of any one lying upon it. The robber is
sometimes caught by daylight, red-bodied from
stolen blood, before he can get back to his lair
below.

The Tumbu fly (Cordylobia anthropophaga)
resembles the Auchmeromyia in appearance, and
in being the parent of an equally offensive larva,
the Tumbu maggot, which finds its way beneath
the skin of the human body, where it produces
a nasty boil, cured only by extracting the
maggot.

I found ticks of many varieties in Angola, and
know of others occurring there, which were not met
in my journeys. Most of the wild animals arc
infected with ticks, and often with more than one
variety. Some of them convey disease to domestic
animals ; the red water fever of cattle being caused
by Rhiphicephalus appcndiculatus, and biliary fever
of dogs by H (Emaphyllis Icachi.

TICKS. CHIGOE, AND SCORPIONS 297

The tick transmits these diseases while sucking
the animal's blood, as the mosquito and tsetse
transmit malaria and sleeping sickness to man. The
microbes in all these diseases, being of the more
highly organized and animal variety, require two
hosts for their development, and pass one phase
of existence in each.

In the case of the tick, it is the larval or six-
legged stage of the insect which, climbing on to
stalk of grass or herb, reaches its animal host,
and there develops maturity and two more legs
by feeding on the animal's blood.

Sometimes these ticks attack man. I was
bitten in Angola, and even now, a year after, the
wound gives trouble, for its beak was left in, when
the tick was pulled off my finger. If I had
adopted the precaution of putting turpentine or
even vaseline on the tick, it would have loosened its
hold and itself removed its poisonous beak.

While the ordinary tick causes man no more
than such occasional discomfort, there is one
variety, the Ornithodorus moubata, which carries
a spirillum, the cause of relapsing fever, a most
distressing disease. I never suffered from this
complaint in Angola, where it is rare, but was
infected in 1907, by the shores of Lake Banguelo,
and suffered from five short but sharp attacks of a
fever that caused me to be carried from the lake
for hundreds of miles through Northern Rhodesia
to the rail-head at Broken Hill; and twice left as
dying on the road by my terrified retinue.

The Chigoe, or burrowing flea (Sarcophylla
penetrans), is found chiefly on the Angolan coast,

29« THROUGH ANGOLA

but occasionally in the interior. The female of
this flea, about a pin's head in size, burrows into
the skin, especially of the fingers and toes, to
develop her eggs. She rapidly increases in size
to form an irritable swelling the size of a pea.

Natives are very skilful in extracting the dis-
tended mother flea without scattering its eggs in
the wound, and they should be consulted if any
suspicious lumps are noticed on the toes and fingers.

There are two kinds of scorpion in Angola, one
yellow and the other black ; the latter is the bigger
and more deadly. One black scorpion caught
measured 7 inches in length, and looked like a
young lobster as lie walked slowly down a path.

I have been twice stung by scorpions, once very
lightly on the neck and the second time deeply in
the pulp of a finger. On the latter occasion, the
pain, which was intense, continued for several hours,
and was followed by a numbness in the whole of
the arm, lasting a fortnight. Adults stung by the
bigger of the black scorpions may suffer temporary
but complete paralysis of their legs, and children
have even died from the effects of stints.

It is well to shake out boots, slippers, and even
clothes before putting them on. and if stung, lo
cut into the wound and rub in strong permanganate
or ammonia solution as for snake biir\ and place
a ligature above the wound if this can be done.

Few centipedes are met, but the harmless
brown millipedes, 6 to 8 inches long, were common,
and their still more numerous bleached and curled-
up shells showed how many hnd f nil en victims to
the annual forest fires.

CHAPTER XIX

PHYSIOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, AND CLIMATE-
HEALTH AND DISEASE

IT is not universally recognized that the
greater part of Africa is well above sea-
level, and usually rises from a narrow
low-lying coastal belt by terraces to plateaux
2000 to 4000 feet above the sea.

Angola shares this conformation, and its
plateaux, 3000 to over 5000 feet high, form in
the east the Congo-Zambezi watershed, and to
the west that between the Coanza River in the
north and the Cubango and Cunene in the south.
From these watersheds flow many great rivers
which, while within a few miles of each other at
their source, are hundreds of miles apart at their
estuaries, and even enter different oceans. As
Mir slope of the land is abrupt to the west, and
gradual to north-east, the east to west flowing
rivers are usually small and rapid ; the excep-
tions are the Coanza, which is navigable for
steamers for only the last hundred miles of its
course, and the Cunene, which disappears in the
sand of the coastal desert before entering the sea.

If the economic value of the rivers seems to
be HnyHerl, flint oi' some of the harbours is

300 THROUGH ANGOLA

undoubtedly great. The protection of Loanda
harbour and Lobito Bay is derived from the silt
of the Coanza and Catumbella Rivers, which
has been swept many miles northwards by an
Antarctic current to form the sea walls of these
harbours. The very force of the current of the
smaller river, which prevents navigability, provides
excellent opportunity for generating electric power.

When thinking and writing in terms of its
physical features and climate, it is necessary to
remember that Angola covers 480,000 square miles
of country, is more than five times larger than
Great Britain, and ranges between thirteen de-
grees of latitude, from the fifth to the eighteenth
south.

Geologically, Angola has a narrow belt of
limestone hills parallel to the coast, succeeded by
a hilly zone of the Primary rocks lying in a west
to east direction, i.e. at right angles to the coast,
rising to sandstone plateaux in the east and a
sandy plain in the south-east which merges into
the Kalahari desert.

Though wholly within the tropics, there are
two great factors that keep portions of it sub-
tropical : these are a cold current from the
Antarctic Ocean, and the altitude of its great
central plateau, 4000 to 6000 feet high. On the
coast the cold sea current causes a sea mist and
chilliness at Mossamedes which make the older
inhabitant wear a thick coat on an October
morning, what time his Portuguese cousin on the
same latitude at Mozambique, on the opposite
coast, may go about in his shirt. Even at Lobito

RAINFALL MAI-.

Coastal zone, 0-20 in three sections : 0-5, 5-10, and 10-20.
Coastal plateau and South Angola, 20-40.
Rest of Angola, 40-60.

Colonizahle area r :

DIVISION INTO ZONES 301

Bay and Loanda the temperature is lower than
at corresponding points of latitude on the east
coast of Africa.

Angola, in fact, might be described from the
point of view of climate, if not of geography, as
subtropical rather than tropical, and a northerly
extension of South Africa rather than the
southern limit of the West African coast.

Some seventy years ago the great botanist
Welwitsch, who had studied and catalogued the
plant life of Angola, divided this colony for botani-
cal descriptions into three zones. This division,
which is used when speaking of the vegetation of
Angola, is also a convenient one to make when
describing the climate and geological features of
the country.

The first of these zones or regions is the coastal '
belt, from 20 to 120 miles wide, and from sea-level
to 1000 feet in height, which is largely formed of
limestone hills parallel to the coast, and with a
limy soil except where covered with alluvium,
which has a mean temperature of 70° to 80° F.,1
varying from 69° at Mossamedes to 85° at Cabinda,
and a rainfall average of 10 inches (from 30 inches
north of the Congo to 1 inch or less below Mossa-
medes in the south).

The second is that of the lower western wood-
land plateaux, with an altitude of 1000 to 2500
feet, where the crystalline rocks are a prominent
feature, and the soil is richer, and has a mean
temperature of 65° to 85°, and rainfall which

302 THROUGH ANGOLA

averages 40 inches (60 inches in the north to 20
inches in the south).

The third zone is that of the high plateau of
2500 to over 5000 feet, largely consisting of grassy
hills and uplands with outcropping rocks and soils
varying greatly in quality. The mean tem-
perature is from 60° to 80° F. (the higher tem-
peratures, curiously enough, occur in the southern
portion of the highlands, due to hot winds from
the Kalahari desert), and the average rainfall
about 40 inches (50 in the north to 30 inches in
the south).

To these three zones may also be added a
fourth, which Welwitsch had not seen, the zone
of the plateau of the far interior, with a tem-
perature and rainfall somewhat similar to those
of the second zone.

The climate, rainfall, geology, and vegetation
of Angola naturally vary not only in these four
zones, but also in different latitudes of each one
of them. Speaking generally, it may be said
that the climate is temperate to subtropical in
parts of the southern coast of Angola and in the
higher central and south plateaux, and that it is
subtropical to tropical in the central and northern
coast-lands, and in the plateaux of lower altitude,
both near the coast and in the far interior.

The rainfall of the colony is lowest in the southern
coastal lands — in fact, is practically absent south
of Mossamedcs ; it is of moderate amount in the
northern coast-lands and in the open higher plateau,
while it is heaviest in those western plateaux of
moderate altitude which lie in north and middle

THE CLIMATE IN GENERAL 303

Angola. The low rainfall of the southern coastal
lands is due to the effect of cold ocean currents,
which, by keeping the sea breezes cool and dry,
prevent rainfall from the sea ; whilst the coastal
mountain chain prevents any moisture-laden clouds
from the south-east and east passing on their rain
to tiie coast.

It is only on the northern coast, where the
current has lost its low temperature by mixing
with warm ocean waters, or when the ocean
wind has been warmed by contact with the western
walls of the highlands, that the now warmed sea
breezes can hold suiiicient moisture to bring rain.
For this reason the north coast-lands and the
western slopes of the highlands have a compara-
tively heavy rainfall.

The rainfall which occurs from September to
March is accompanied in Angola, as almost every-
where else in Africa, by much thunder and
lightning, and is short in duration, with heavy
showera. In my experience of the wet season,
the rain usually came in the afternoon, the morn-
ings being fine ; the prevailing rain-bringing wind
behif>- from the east rather than the west, due
partly to the fact that strong, moisture -laden
winds from East Africa appear to reach even to
Angola.

Important factors in the climate of Angola,
to its disadvantage, are the extreme contrast
between vhe dry and wet season, and variation
of temperature between day and night ; a day
temperature, which would suit a tropical plant
or permit Lhc scantiest clothing on a human body,

304 THROUGH ANGOLA

may be changed at night to low temperatures or
even frost, which require protection for both
plant and person.

The four altitude zones of Angola, which are
longitudinally placed, have been dealt with gener-
ally ; the nine provinces into which the colony
is divided will now be described individually from
coast to interior.

North of the Congo River is the coastal dis-
trict of Cabinda, which, though politically a part
of Angola, is from its climate and geographical
position really a portion of the lower Belgian
Congo, which separates it from the rest of Angola.
The geological formation on the coast, according
to Marquardscn, is laterite overlying hard and
chalky clays and clay-marls. Beyond this are
low hills of limestone, sandstone, and Tertiary
conglomerates. The zone of crystalline rocks
found in other parts of Angola, if it exists, has
not yet been described.

The temperature (mean of maxima and minima)
ranges from 70° F. to 85° F., the yearly rainfall
from 30 to 50 inches, factors which produce a
moist, hot, and unhealthy climate. Even in June
(winter), when I was in Cabinda, the temperature
was unhealthily high ; from October to April it
is very trying to a European, and in the interior,
deprived of the coastal sea breezes, conditions are
still worse.

To the south of the Congo River is the district
of that name, which extends from the coast to
the Coanza River, and includes coastal, lower,
and higher plateau zones. As the land rises by

THE CONGO AND COANZA DISTRICTS 305

terraces of moderate elevation, there are not
the sharp differences in climate and vegetation
which occur in similar zones in central and southern
Angola.

The coast hills of limestone overlie the Primary
rocks, which occasionally outcrop, as in the
famous pillar of Mussera. These Primary rocks
become more frequent as one journeys over the
first 100 miles inland, and some of the hills
(1500 feet or more high) show a good deal of such
formations.

Beyond this zone come the higher plateaux,
like San Salvador (1700 feet, temperature 65° to
83° F., rainfall 40 inches), and Bembe (1800 feet),
where there is much sandstone, a formation which
continues to Zombo (3000 feet, temperature 63°
to 81°, rainfall 50 inches). Mineral deposits of
copper (malachite) are found in the province in
the neighbourhood of Bembe.

In the North Coanza district, south of that
of the Congo, the coastal geological forma-
tion at Luanda town (temperature 70° to 79°,
rainfall 12 inches, where Europeans can live
throughout the year) is limestone, sandstone,
and, farther inland, conglomerates. This zone is
succeeded by that of the crystalline rocks.

The lower plateau (such as at Casengo and
Galungo Alto), 1500 feet high, has a formation
of gneiss, granite, and quartzite schists, though
farther inland on the plateau at N'dala N'tando
(2000 feet, temperature 03° to 80°, rainfall 40
inches), and especially along the basin of the
Upper Zenza, the Lucalla below Duque de Bra-

20

306 THROUGH ANGOLA

ganca, and the Coanza between Pungo Andongo
and Dondo, are found sandstone conglomerates
and clay-slates, which, from the frequent occur-
rence of coal, appear to be related to the well-
known South-African Karoo formation. Striking
examples of conglomerate " massifs " are the
steep rocky hills of Pungo Andongo, the scene of
many a tribal fight, and the last stand of the
Kings of Angola.

Eastward of Melanje, where the plateau rises
to 3000 feet (temperature 52° to 81°, rainfall
35 inches, and a white man's country except for
malaria), there begins a sandstone formation like
that at Zumbo in the Congo province. The so-
called hills of Tala Magongo and Muenga are
probably the walls of a rift through which flows
the Lui River, and the valleys of the Cuango
itself may be such another rift.

The minerals occurring in North Coanza district
are petroleum near the coast and the Dande
River, coal, copper, and iron at Zenza de Itombi,
and gypsum just north of Luanda.

In the next district, that of South Coanza,
the conditions are similar to those of North
Coanza, but the average temperature and rainfall
slightly less. The temperature of the coastal belt,
of which Novo Rcdondo is the main port, has an
average of 70° to 80° F., and a rainfall of some
10 inches ; the hinterlands of low plateaux have
somewhat similar temperatures, with a drier atmo-
sphere during the cold season, though the higher
rainfall with its average of 40 inches renders the
climate equally humid and more trying in the rains.

8f 8

-o f>

•5 8

\O ^

M O

LUNDA AND MOXICO DISTRICTS 307

The district of Lunda, which lies to the east
of the provinces of North and South Coanza,
consists geologically of a sandstone formation
overlying Primary rocks which outcrop occasion-
ally in tor and monolith. The Lunda plateau,
some 3000 to 2500 feet high, slopes generally
from south to north towards the Zambezi, and is
intersected by its numerous tributaries which
flow from north to south in somewhat parallel
courses and thickly wooded valleys through a
country which is mainly savannah and open
forest. The climate is hot and unhealthy, the
rainfall varies from 40 to 60 inches, and the country
is unsuited for European settlement. The mineral
resources of the Lunda province are copper, and
diamonds which have been recently found in
large numbers towards the Belgian border.

The district of Moxico to the south of Lunda
and east of Benguella has a similar climate to
that of Lunda, but slightly drier and cooler. I
have no knowlege of its geological formation.

South of the Lower Coanza district is that of
Benguella, the most important in the colony, as
it contains the highest and healthiest plateaux
and the railway which leads across them to
Katanga. For the geological portion of its de-
scription I am indebted to the famous African
geologist, Gregory.

The coast consists of an alluvial plain, suc-
ceeded by a narrow belt of Cretaceous hills, with
occurrences of marls and conglomerates. These
form the first of the terraces which rise to the
high inland plateau. The temperature, 70° to

808 THROUGH ANGOLA

80° (extremes 50° to 90°), at the ports of Ben-
guella, Lobito, and Catumbella, and the low rain-
fall (under 10 inches), is such as to render all
habitable by Europeans, and one of them (Lobito),
which is free of mosquitoes, even healthy.

The land rapidly rises, and at Bimbe and the
Lengue Gorge (my lion camp) the Primary
rocks (mainly gneiss, biotite, and hornblende)
appear, and a coarse conglomerate occurs, in-
cluding gneiss and granite elements.

The second plateau, about 30 miles along the
railway, which here reaches a height of nearly
3000 feet, is an arid country with numerous
granite outcrops, forming picturesque tors ; and
this waterless belt of granite, gneiss, and biotite
schists continues to Catengue, 70 miles from the
sea, and 1700 feet above it, with temperatures of
61° to 90° (extreme of 40° to 105°), and a rainfall
of 11 inches.

Before reaching Cubal station (height 2800
feet, temperature 63° to 88°), the country becomes
more wooded (rainfall 40 inches), and is suitable
for agriculture, being more level and less rocky.
About the 160th milestone, 12 miles beyond Ganda
station (elevation 3500 feet, temperature 64° to
82°, rainfall 50 inches), a geological change occurs,
and a ferruginous sandstone is met with near the
Oendolongo hills, which consist of stratified rocks
including sandstone, rhyolite tufts, and quartzite,
overlying what are probably volcanic rocks.

The granite formation, with its picturesque
outcrops, still continues till past Cuma (4500 feet,
temperature 57° to 84°, rainfall 50 inches). An-

BENGUELLA, MOSSAMEDES, AND HUILLA 309

other geological change occurs near Lepi (5300
feet), where there is a choco' ate- coloured soil
(olivine dolerite), and a formation of quartzite
and especially cherty greywackes.

The similarity of the geological picture
along the line of the railway is due to the fact
that from Lengue to near Chinguar the traveller
follows the grain of the country. The plateau is
a granite bed hidden by the overlying Oendolongo
and Lepi formations, but which outcrops con-
stantly, rendering the landscape picturesque with
boulder and monolith.

The altitude of the plateau at Huambo
(5000 feet, temperature 54° to 80°, rainfall 40
inches) and Bella Vista (5500 feet, temperature
52° to 77°) have produced a climate suitable for
European settlement, and its healthiness is re-
flected in the complexions and physique of the
numerous Boer and Portuguese settlers in these
districts.

In the high central plateau there may be frost
near the streams but rarely on dry ground, and
the screen temperature never falls to freezing-
point.

The next and most southerly districts are those
of Mossamedes and Huilla, of which the former
portion lies along the coast and the latter stretches
east and south-east to the interior.

The coastal geological formation is marine
cretaceous : sand-dunes, and occasional clay and
sandstone deposits. The ports of Mossamedes and
Port Alexander are cool (mean annual tempera-
ture 70°), owing to the effect of the cold Antarctic

310 THROUGH ANGOLA

current already mentioned. The rainfall of this
belt is less than an inch annually. The cool, dry
climate, and an absence of malarial mosquitoes,
makes this portion of Angola remarkably healthy
considering its latitude in Africa.

Ten to thirty miles from the coast commences
a zone of gneiss, granite, black quartzite, and
mica schists ; while here and there are low hills of
these formations, or even monoliths, bare, smooth,
sombre ; in the desert, waste. This arid country
is as rainless as the coast, and lacks its cool sea
breezes.

A few miles farther inland rises the steep
Chella range, a "massif" of gneiss, granite, and
crystalline schists with occasional basalt, and
with the high plateau (5000 feet) which sur-
mounts this mountain wall commences the
district of Huilla, and its chief towns, Lubango,
Huilla, and Chibia, have a rainfall of some
35 inches), and temperatures of 50° to 78° at
Lubango, and 54° to 82° at Huilla and Chibia ;
which render these climates suitable for a white
colony.

The geological formation of the country is
largely sandstone, red schist with some talc,
dolomite limestones, clay-slates and mylaphry, all
overlying the older rocks.

To the cast and south of the Huilla plateau
the land slopes steadily downwards, and the
climate, as at Quihita and Gambos, becomes
hotter. The geological formation consists of a
wide band of gabbro on both sides of the Cacoluvar
valley ; in this gabbro are veins of granulite,

HEALTH AND DISEASE 311

pegmatite, and aplite. The plateau continues to
slope to the east towards the Zambezi in a
formation of sandstone and limestone inter-
sected by numerous alluvial river belts.

To the south the plateau stretches through
arid sandy dunes and flats intersected by dry
watercourses (mulolas) and hollows (marembas)
till it merges into the deserts of south-west
Africa and the Kalahari.

The climate in these eastern and south-
eastern plateaux is hot and enervating, especially
in the more wind-sheltered valleys, and owing to
malarial mosquitoes is unhealthy except in the
dry and cold months of the year from June to
September. The mean annual temperature in
the south of the colony is 75° with variations of
nearly 20°, the rainfall 20 to 25 inches. In the
east and south-east a somewhat similar tem-
perature is accompanied by a heavier rainfall of
40 inches or more.

The minerals found in these provinces are
sulphide of copper near Dombe, gold at Cassinga,
and petroleum along the coast.

HeaHh and Disease. — Angola may be divided
from this point of view into areas which are
tropical and subtropical, by latitude and climate,
and others in the highlands which are temperate
in spite of their latitude. There are indeed vast
areas in the plateaux which have a sunny yet
cool and bracing climate, more disease-free than
Europe itself, if care is taken to guard against the
rapid fall of temperature at night, and avoid chills.

The white man should keep at least as fit in

312 THROUGH ANGOLA

the highlands of Benguella and Huilla as in
any temperate zone, for such diseases as colds,
sore throats, lung trouble, rheumatism, and most
specific fevers prevalent in Europe, are con-
spicuous by their absence in the pure bracing air
and bacteria-destroying sunshine of the Angolan
highlands.

There are certain tropical diseases, however,
which, everywhere present in the lowlands, may be
met with in the plateaux except at the highest
elevations. These are mainly due to biting
insects and bad water, and both causes can
usually be avoided. The chapter on insects has
shown that the malarial mosquito, more
numerous in the rainy season than the dry, is
prevalent in Angola below 4000 feet, and occa-
sionally above that altitude; so that only the
highest portions of the central and southern
plateau can be considered as malaria-free. Even
in those portions of the highlands where ano-
phelene mosquitoes can breed, it should be pos-
sible to destroy them and render the country
suitable for European colonization.

The malaria of the West Coast, in contra-
distinction to that of East Africa and India, may
usually be prevented by taking 5 grains of quinine
every afternoon, using mosquito nets or mosquito-
proofed rooms, and wearing mosquito boots in the
evening. Personally, I use a mosquito room,
which fixes into my tent, where it is possible to
bathe, feed, work, and sleep in comfort and safety,
after return to camp in the evening.

Attacks of fever should be treated with 10-

HEALTH AND DISEASE 313

grain doses of quinine, up to 30 grains in the day,
and 5 - grain doses of phenacetin or aspirin to
bring down temperature and relieve headache.

Of other insect-borne diseases, sleeping sick-
ness may be contracted in the areas where 670.?-
sina palpalis is found. Up to the present there
has unfortunately been no reliable cure for the
disease, though hope is raised anew by a new
drug, "205," and a new serum treatment. In-
fection may be prevented by moving quickly
through fly areas, and protecting the body, hands,
and face while doing so.

Relapsing fever due to the tick (Ornithodorus
moubata) exists, but is uncommon. It can be
avoided by sleeping away from villages or old
camping-grounds, where the tick takes up its
quarters ; and the same precautions will save one
from the chigoe, or burrowing flea.

Of other diseases, diarrhoea and dysentery,
present in the lowlands but rare in the highlands,
can be prevented by boiling drinking water,
which usually conveys it. Epidemics of small-
pox have swept the country from time to time,
and I found the right bank of the Coanza, once a
populous district, deserted from this cause.

To the hunter an important minor ailment is
sore feet, which can be avoided by hardening
them by practice before going on the trip, by
exercise, salt or permanganate baths, and by
regulating the earlier marches of the expedi-
tion and wearing well-fitting socks and boots.
Blisters should be treated by soaking in per-
manganate solution to harden the new skin ; they

314 THROUGH ANGOLA

are best left unpricked, but if so large as likely
to burst, should be drained through sound skin
with a small needle — a painless process.

The nature of the layman's medicine-chest is
a difficulty, but a Burroughs & Welcome or Park
Davies traveller's medicine case is useful, and
some drugs are invaluable. Take enough quinine
(the hydrochloride salt is the best) to give every
white man one 5 - grain tabloid a day (for pre-
vention) ; thrice this quantity as a reserve for
treatment ; and an equal amount for every twenty
of your men who, though much more immume
to malaria than Europeans, suffer from it also.
Take a bottle of fifty aspirin tablets for every two
months of the trip, a bottle of astringent pills,
and a suitable amount of your favourite pur-
gative.

I do not encourage my carriers to like drugs.
The African has a vicious taste in these matters ;
they delight in any medicinal concoction, and
your medicine chest need not be normally raided,
as there are many suitable drugs which the natives
know and use. The most concentrated pur-
gative is croton oil, an urgent stimulus even to
the African's interior, in drop doses. There are
times when the white man must indeed be the
physician and saver of his black brother — in snake
bite, wounds, injuries, and drowning.

The venom of mambas and cobras acts quickly
on the nervous system, causing drowsiness, vomit-
ing, paralysis, and death ; that of the adder acts
more slowly, clotting the blood and damaging
the blood vessels, but recovery is equally slow.

THE MEDICINE CHEST 315

The remedy for snake bite is first a ligature above
the bite, then incision and rubbing of the wound
with permanganate powder, with venine injections,
finally coffee or brandy as heart stimulants.

A native will recover from the most terrible
wounds unless they have been rendered septic
(poisoned) by the claws of a lion or leopard,
when their thorough washing out -with antiseptics
like perchloride of mercury (1 in 2000 or one
tablet in 2 pints of water) or permanganate solu-
tion—may cure the condition. A few compressed
bandages and dressings are absolutely necessary
in the equipment. To treat broken bones, dis-
locations, or save an apparently drowned man,
means knowledge which can and should be
acquired by a man who deliberately isolates
himself. Morphia in tabloids and a hypodermic
syringe every man should carry and know how to
use. After having been twice mauled (fortunately
lightly), I know the blessing of this enemy of pain.
There is one drug I always carry also — quick in
its wrork, and kindly withal with its deadly power.
I have often discussed with my parson friends the
justification of its use; most of the humane ones
agree that when suffering has become unbearable,
and there is absolutely no hope, one may dare
to take it and yet be forgiven. It is said of the
big-game hunter that if he persists in hunting
dangerous game and takes full risks, there can be
but one end ; but why should it entail needless
suffering ?

Lubango f Mm. average ! 54*3

RAINFALL BY DISTRICTS AND STATIONS IN MILLI-
METRES, WITH TOTAL ALSO IN INCHES.

j

! 0

c

«

j

•-' ' >,

.3

i 2 rt
Stations. rt >

r*\ 3

3 ' if

"s

= 1

^3

a ' n

1-j ^ ^

"

~s

o

3-^

• S2

£** u

>— , ^

cL

U

r; *~

*— • <^ »<

1—1

H

-^ C

p

JD

^

k

.— .

"~> ! fe

" i

^ *

o i

in

A a

Chinchoxo . 2

o 6

8

24 222

57

189 120

185 | 70 54

o

930

37

£ c Chiloango .

O I

16

9 86

136

224 i 166

250 ' 125 34

o

'047

42

: d ' Noqui • • * 1 <* i O | 75

13 40

3°

90 74

2/7 5O 222

0

871

35

c • S. Salvador. • 510,2 2

» ! *>3

Uio

96 ' 98

108 24; 60

4

1075

( £ I Cjuil.ocolo . 2 o • 18 16 1 i

_,2 | 182

: 1.2

I')2 Ij3

126 296 138

o

i3£5

55

Loanda . . 26 o o i

5 i;J

18

28 : 37

51 , 120 10

o : 296

12

N

l!.,m )e--us . i

O 0

o '

0 1

3°

208 ' 83

86 33

0 747 ^9

a

Cazeneo . . 2

O • X

8 i

76 CO

278

732 131

•-.i . 17

i, 1400

56

' £ I N'dalaN'tando a

O 0

5 I

:>3 137

' 160

96 98

140 2.;. > , 7

o 997

40

*'

Melanje . . 2

0 12

C-)

52 yt

1 J°7

71 • 117

I?! 171 j 2

f i8'.o 1
°\j MOO } 44

/•] Lobito . . ' 4

0 0

2

4 I0

43

27 , 7

^4 oo i ! o 233 9

Henguella . 3

0 0

O

I 12

84 M 37

96 , 40 o

0 333 13

Corotava . i

o o

o v 51

: 217 ; ri ; o

8 IO : O

61 j 3 : o

o 310

12

rt

Cubal . . 5

O 0

o 04 : 246

' 255

96 ,48

158 169 89

o ) 1275

59

w

158 41 9

T T C ' ~ A 7

tV

Htiainbo. .201

33 205 ! 117

365

229 ! 263

191 66 o

o .< :^3 (. 52

( ; ii'2

PS

Bella Vista . 2 o 10

51 2

j

3i | 464

45 T

2JI j 126

144 57 i o

J

1805 } 62
(.914) l(av.

1335 | of 2

(1018) lyrs.)

V

Caconda. . , 2

o o j 45 i

18 192

24 [

204 ; 236

275 210 12 o 1533 61

II

Mossamedes

0 0

o

3 o

5 0,0

o , 14 '. o

O 22

I

• (\ Lubango. . o ' o

12

\?> 138

151 i 95 i 105

163 151 ' 13

o £80 35

|J

Ompanda

O O | II

5 43

141

121 ! 1 60

So i 56 6

i

624

29

3 j Kuring-Kuru

I O ! O

4 29

55 1 60 121

75 ; 29 o

i

481 10

55, v|(near Cuangai)

1

] 1

i

RELATIVE

HUMIDITY

Stations. Jan. : Feb. Mar. April.

: May. June. July. Av.g

Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year.'

Ch nchoxo . . ! 86 1-5 83

84

So 85 86

83 83 S-;

84

Chi oango . . 83 83 • Si

83

87

S7 85 | 84

84 83 84

^7

S. Salvador .76 I 76 75

S-2 I

78

74 i 70

/o 74 79

80

76

Loanda . . . o2'5 8o'2 &2'o

84'4

85-1 ,

84-5 84-2 85-3

83-8 82-7 82-8

83-9

,3 . •-

X'c nla N'tando So 73 So

84

74

63 77 78

79 79 '• o

84

73

Meanje. . . So 83 84

s;

74

;- '. 6 64

83

77

Ca. onda . . j 86 '84 84

75

66

65 71 ' 6:'

74 76 Si 84

76

Ln i.inco . . ' 48 56 62

60

40

32 34 i 28

46

Kwrin^-Kuru \ 54 66 70

62

45

47 5° : 43

; 27 36 50 ' 56

RAINY

DAYS.

Chi ichoxo . . 7 ' 7 10 , 3

9

.. i ..

.. ' 0-5 ! 8

3

= 2

S. Salvador . !•> , i .> E 13

i?

..|T

2,8 14

II ! 96

fi-2

-j* ,

o'< 0-7 ' 2-3

Vdali N'tando : \ 3

f, 6

(} ,)?

Meanje. . . 17 if, Ji

,

• •• ! 3'

14 19 17

9 134

Caomda . . .-

12

i i

3 o 12 10

66

Ompanda . . 13 n i ii

4

0 5

0-5 0-3

4 : 7 14 67

CHAPTER XX

LAND AND SOILS — STOCK AND PRODUCE OF NATIVE
FARM AND EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

IF the reader remembers what was said in
the last chapter, — of the conformation of
Angola, of its plateaux rising by terraces
from the sea, and of its division into zones,— he
will realize that the coastal zone and that of the
lower plateaux have neither a climate, soil, or
rainfall suitable for European produce, while the
presence of tsetse in the second zone prevents the
raising of stock. Beyond these zones, however,
there are great areas of highlands which are emin-
ently suitable, yet empty ; for if the three million
natives of Angola cultivate but one-hundredth of
its surface, in the 12,000,000 acres of the high-
lands, the percentage under the plough is even
less. This immense highland area, over 4000 feet
above the sea, with a mean temperature of 70° F.,
ranging from 85° to 55°, and an average rainfall of
40 to 50 inches, comprises — (1) The highlands of
Bailundo and Bihe, including Bailundo, Qiaka,
Huambo, and Sambo, 6,000,000 acres. (2) The
Caconda highlands, comprising Quitata, Upper
Hanha, Quingola, Caconda, Que, and Quepongo
(of Hanha), 3,500,000 acres. (3) The highlands
of Lubango, Huilla, and Chibia, 2,500,000 acres.

LAND AND SOIL 319

Of these regions (1) and (3) are accessible by
railways, (2) by car and wagon in certain places,
by carriers in others ; but railways are being-
extended and roads rapidly constructed, so that
this inaccessibility should get steadily less.

The roads are usually not good, and transport
by motor is best made with light box- cars and
lorries with a good clearance. The wagon in
Angola is of the South African type : a heavy
four-wheeled vehicle drawn by eight or ten span
of oxen, which carries a weight of 1J to 2 tons
even on bad roads. When carriers are used, this
amount would be transported by sixty to eighty
men, who move faster than the wagons and are a
somewhat cheaper form of transport.

Of the vast tracks of arable land, perhaps two-
fifths is capable of irrigation, but the country is
less suitable for large irrigation schemes than
those of medium and smaller extent.

In the Benguella highlands especially, of
which more is known than elsewhere owing to
the reports of Gregory and Tarufli, there are a
great number of clear springs, due to the per-
meability of the soil, which acts like a sponge
during the rains, and yields its stored water in
the dry season.

The land surface of the Benguella plateau
varies from deep soils to thin patchy ones with
outcropping rock, while here and there the
Brachystcgia tamarindoides (N'goti), a small herb
with thick, interlacing roots, stops all ploughing,
and on the Bulu Vulu grasslands the soil is black,
poor, and easily exhausted.

320 THROUGH ANGOLA

Gregory finds that many of the soils of the
plateau are derived from granite, which gives
rise to a light, easily-worked soil, often rich in
potash, but generally poor in lime ; others, due
to sandstone, which is a granite debris without
plant food, he finds are still poorer ; while the
quartzite gives barren silicious soils, unless they
contain felspathic layers which enrich them.

The soils of the gneiss rocks, rich in lime and
basic minerals, are found in the north and north-
west of Bailundo, while the fertile red or chocolate-
brown soils, produced from the igneous basic rocks,
are to the north and north-east of that town, at
Ochilesa, Chieuca, etc. With these richer soils
of the northern slopes of the plateau are associated
better prospects of irrigation from the deeper and
faster - flowing northern rivers than irom the
shallow sluggish streams in the southern slopes of
the plateau. It was the northern slope of the
Benguella plateau which Gregory recommended
for European colonization.

The gentle slopes of these highlands, with
their deep soils where the rock outcrops but
rarely, and is generally covered to a depth of
6 to 10 feet, make ploughing easy and renders
tractor tillage specially suitable, except where the
N'goti vine is present.

While Gregory does not regard the soil of
the Benguella highlands as of extreme fertility,
most of those examined by him and others, from
the Bai:Uiido and Caconda districts, have a good
reserve of plant food, and would improve with
competent cultivation. Lime is deficient from

BRITISH SKTTLERS

LAND AND SOIL 321

some of the soil, but could be readily added. The
soils are also at present unfavourably affected by
the annual burning of grass, which drives off the
nitrogenous constituents and disproportionately
increases the mineral.

Professor Taruffi came to the conclusion, from
his analysis of fifteen soils from different parts of
the Benguella and Caconda highlands, that these
were deficient in limestone but fairly well sup-
plied with phosphoric anhydride, rich in potash,
and containing a varying but generally high pro-
portion of organic matter and nitrogen. He
comes to the conclusion that the soil of the up-
lands is fit for cereals and vegetables, especially
tuber plants and potatoes.

The opinion seems on the whole favourable to
the agricultural value of the soils of large areas
of the Angolan highlands, if these are protected
from repeated grass burnings and enriched in
some places with readily obtained limestone and
other manure.

This critical account of the soils of the plateaux,
based on the report of two independent observers
of great repute, should encourage a prospective
European settler, who is prepared to take up a
holding of at least 12,000 acres, and to use
mechanical methods. At present, small isolated
holdings are not suitable for the English settler in
Angola.

By the Portuguese colonial land laws the
native is decreed a usufmctor, and the Govern-
ment as possessor of all lands in Angola can dis-
pose of them as it will,

21

322 THROUGH ANGOLA

In early days in Angola settlers took possession!
of any land they pleased without troubling to
secure titles, which were more difficult to regu-

7 c5

larize then than to-day, when an attempt is being
made to help the settler.

But the Government has not even yet thor-
oughly surveyed the land. Concessions granted
before the land laws of 1911 were given frequently
on wrong descriptive titles, and this fact, together
with the large amount of unoccupied land border-
ing on estates, has led to a surreptitious annexa-
tion of rich unallotted land. Since 1911 intend-
ing settlers are compelled to peg out, roughly
survey, and describe the land before preferring a
claim ; and no concession is ratified until a com-
plete survey has been carried out by a Govern-
ment surveyor.

The detailed conditions of land tenure, for
which I am indebted to the Zambezia Exploring
Company, are as follows :

1. All applications must be made to the
Governor-General.

2. No one person can obtain more than a
total of 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) on one or
more blocks, but two or more tenants can associ-
ate themselves and join up with their blocks.

3. The yearly lease payable for any quantity
of land taken up is $0*03 per hectare (2-i acres),
or less than halfpenny per acre per annum.

4. Immediately the intending settler taks
up his land a conditional title is granted to him
for a maximum period of ten years.

LAND TENURE 323

5. During these ten years the tenant is
obliged —

(a) To spend on his area of land a

sum equivalent to 200 times the
yearly lease, namely, for 12,500
acres an amount of 30,000 dollars
would have to be expended.1
This amount can be spent in
cattle stock, agricultural mach-
inery, implements, houses, seed,
etc., in fact, anything connected
with the development of the land.

(b) To have a complete survey made of

the land the settler wishes to
take up and for which conditional
title has already been obtained,
and lodge these survey plans with
the Government.

6. As soon as these two conditions are com-
plied with, the tenant has a right to definite title
at once and will receive it.

7. Should the tenant fail to fulfil the last two
mentioned conditions the conditional title he
has received will be annulled, but as certain
expenditure will have been incurred during the
ten years mentioned above, a proportionate
part of the grant of land will be maintained and
a definite title will be given in respect of it, pro-
viding, of course, that the survey plans referred
to above are lodged with the Government.

8. When the definite title lias been obtained

1 As the value of the escudo changes ^o constantly, English
equivalents will not be given

324 THROUGH ANGOLA

to his land the tenant may obtain freehold pos-
session of it on payment of a lump sum equal to
twenty times the yearly lease, namely, for an
area of 5000 hectares freehold possession may be
obtained on payment of $0*03x5000x20, or
$3000.

9. Transfer of conditional title may be had,
with the consent of the Governor-General.

10. The first transfer of land may be made
without any fee, but on any subsequent transfer
the ordinary fees in force in the colony must be
paid. The value of the land concession on which
land tax operates is fixed at twenty times the
yearly lease. There are no ordinary land taxes
in force in Angola at the present moment, but
the following special tax has to be paid :

11. During the first year of the conditional
concession no land tax has to be paid. In the
second year, if an amount less than two hundred
times the yearly lease has been expended in con-
nection with the land, 5 per cent, of the value of
the land concession will be paid as land tax. In
the third year, if the above-mentioned amount
has not been expended on the land, 10 per cent,
of the value of the land concession has to be paid
as land tax, and each successive year up to the
tenth year that the stipulated amount has not
been expended, the amount to be paid as land tax
will increase automatically by 10 per cent, until
the amount referred to above has been expended
on the land. For instance, for a concession of
5000 hectares, if the tenant has not expended the
stipulated sum during the first six years of the

LAND TENURE 325

ten years' conditional title, he will be liable to the
following land tax :

First year ...... Nil.

Second year, 5 % of $,'>000 value of $150 land concession.
Third " „ 10 % „ „ $SOO „

Fourth „ 20% „ „ $600 „

Fifth „ 30% „ „ $900 „

Sixth „ 40 % „ „ $1200 „

If, on the other hand, the stipulated amount
of $3000 is expended on the tenant's land by the
end of the second year, no tax is paid.

12. During the first ten years after the above
stipulated amount has been expended on the
land concession no land tax will be paid. After
ten years of non-payment of land tax the ordinary
land tax in force in the colony must be paid
yearly.

The above-mentioned terms show that it is
to the tenant's interest to complete as quickly
as possible the expenditure on the land of the
amount of 200 times the yearly lease.

13. The application made to the Governor-
General to obtain one or more blocks of land must
be accompanied by the following documents :

(a) Certificates of a bank or banks, by

which it is shown that the in-
tending tenant has sufficient money
or credit to meet the necessary
expenditure on the land.

(b) Certificate of the Treasurer of the

Colony, by which it is shown
the intending tenant has paid
into the Treasury the sum of

326 THROUGH ANGOLA

8200 for each area of 5000 hec-
tares of land he wishes to take
up. A larger or smaller sum will
have to be deposited according
to the number of acres the pros-
pective tenant wishes to take up.

(c) If the intending tenant is a foreigner,

he must make a declaration sub-
mitting himself to the Land
Tenure Laws in force in the
Colony.

(d) The intending tenant must make a

simple descriptive sketch of the
areas of land he wishes to take up,
giving approximately their posi-
tion and boundaries.

14. The deposit of 8200 for each 5000-hectare
block of land will be taken into account in the
payment of the yearly lease, and if the land con-
cession is not granted will be refunded.

The houses of the Portuguese farmers and
traders I saw consisted usually of but three or
four rooms, and were built of a framework of
forest poles filled in with plastered mud, called
" pau-a-pique " by the Portuguese. These houses
have roofs of thatch or corrugated iron.

A better though less common method of build-
ing is by using " adobos," or blocks of clay which
have been moulded and then dried in the sun.
Good material for bricks can be obtained from
ant-hills, as the secretion of the ants gives this
earth a remarkable consistency, and kilned bricks

LABOUR AND STOCK 327

of excellent quality can be easily obtained from
ant-hill earth. — ,

g£.J The want of a reliable and plentiful source of J
labour is the main difficulty of the Portuguese in
central and south Angola ; as with a population of
only three millions in 480,000 square miles, the
country is much under-populated ; and there are
probably not more than 100,000 people on the
Benguella highlands, and about the same number
on the uplands of Caconda and Huilla. Even the
local system of compulsory labour cannot supply
requirements, and the recruitment of labour for
San Thome and Principe, and for railroad con-
struction, have decreased available numbers and
increased wages. In 1920 a native labourer
could command 15 escudos a month, an amount
which means the equivalent of £3 to a Portuguese ^
farmer, though it represents only a few shillings^,
in British currency and should be readily afforded' "
by the British settler. Even at this wage, labour
was difficult to obtain, especially near the big
towns and the southern districts, like Benguella
and Mossamedes.

A company which has taken up large tracks
of land in Angola and is prepared to help others
with information, advises British settlers to join
and take farms in a large block, when they could
be more prosperous by forming a co-operative
society, and more contented from the benefit of
their own.

STOCK. — Though Angola has so many of the
characteristics of a cattle country, the number of
its stock is not commensurate with these advan-

328 THROUGH ANGOLA

tages, or its area. One reason for this, now happily
past, was the destruction of cattle in intertribal
wars and at the death ceremonies of Chiefs, when
domestic animals as well as human beings were
sacrificed for the burial feast, and as food for the
spirit of the dead Chief. The other reason, which
may equally be banished also, if the remarkable
new treatment by a German drug called " 205 " and
new English methods of serum treatment prove a
success, is the distribution of tsetse fly disease.
This scourge, which infects north Angola along
the Congo and Coanza Rivers and their tribu-
taries, and parts of eastern and south-eastern
Angola, limits the best cattle country to well-
watered portions of central and southern angola.

Cattle. — In the districts of Cabinda, Congo,
and Lunda there are few cattle ; in North Coanza
district, except near Luanda itself, I did not
see many cattle in my journey to Melanje, as the
route followed the Coanza valley where the tsetse
fly is present. More cattle were met in my
journey through the interior of South Coanza
province, to the east of the river and to the west of
it as far as Bihe, but the fly along the Coanza
limits their distribution and numbers.

On the Benguella plateau from Bihe west-
wards, more cattle were seen, and there was stock
in the farms along the Benguella Railway till
another fly belt near the Cubal and Catumbella
Rivers wa , reached. In the well-watered high-
lands to the north of this railway there are several
cattle farms ; among them one with a large stock
of splendid cattle belonging to the Zambezia

STOCK 329

Exploring Company, where winter fodder is em-
pJoyed in feeding, and crops for fodder had been
grown. The greatest number of cattle was met
with in Benguella on my journey south from
Catengue to Lubango, in the Quillenges district
of Benguella district, or in the plateau round
Lubango (Huilla district), and from this town
westwards along the Southern Angola Railway
(Mossamedes district) till the desert country was
reached. There are two breeds of cattle, the
'' Quillenges ': and " Selles," which- come from
their respective districts. A third race, the
" Yenges " cattle, which came originally from
Barotseland, have longer horns and are used as
riding oxen.

The cattle arc small but well-shaped, weigh-
ing from 300 to 400 Ib. Their usual colour is a
patchy black and white, or red and white, more
rarely pure black, red, or white. The native
cattle graze and are corralled in the open, arid
no winter forage is ever prepared. One of the
diiJiculties in Angola has been the mixture of
poisonous plants with grass in some grazing lands,
bul the growing of forage should get rid of the
diQicuity. Cattle suffer from few diseases in
Angola, one of them is an infectious peri-pneu-
inonia (" Caonha " of the Portuguese), which is
more prevalent on the coast than in the plateau
region; another is a skin disease called " Sarha."
These diseases, once started, spread rapidly in
native herds, owing to lack of precaution. Vac-
cination has been used as a remedy with some
measure of success. The natives breed cattle

330 THROUGH ANGOLA

apparently to gain not only money but prestige ;
the ownership of a large herd carrying the same
social weight as a brougham would once have
done, or a Rolls-Royce car does to-day. Little
milking and no butter-making is done by the
natives, nor do they eat much beef themselves.
Cattle fetch from 50 escudos a head in the interior,
and three times this price at the ports. In the
European farms, cattle breeding is carried out by
crossing selected European bulls with the local
cows, and the cattle are bred for milk and butter
as well as for beef.

Horses. — There are few horses in Angola, and
these are owned chiefly by the Boers, who use
them as shooting ponies. Tsetse fly and horse
sickness are the chief difficulties to horse-breeding
in the colony.

Goats are to be seen in nearly every village,
even in the fly zone, and these animals appear
more resistant than most others to the tsetse.
They are very prolific, a virtue which they appar-
ently have possessed for centuries, from the
accounts of Cavazzi, Dapper, Hakluyt, and other
older historians.

Sheep. — The Angolan sheep have no wool, but
a coat of bristly hair instead. They are very
leggy and generally thin. The fat-tailed variety
of sheep is represented in the colony.

Pigs. — The biggest pig I ever saw in my life
was in a farm near the sable country. It was a
cross between a Portuguese black pig and the
local race, which is itself big. Pigs, which breed
well in Angola, appear to be immune to most of

FARM PRODUCE 331

the local animal diseases, and there should be a
future for pig-breeding in this colony.

Foivls of a small, skinny local breed, and
Muscovy ducks are to be seen in most villages.
They are kept for food, as African natives practi-
cally never cat eggs. ~

FARM PRODUCE. — Near the village are fields
of mandioc, ground-nuts, sweet potatoes, maize,
millet, and beans, and in the hot northern coastal
lands, rice and sugar-cane. Each family cultivates
a few acres, the ground being lirst cleared by
burning and then manured with the ashes of the
burnt trees and grass. The tilling and hoeing
is very superficially done with a heart-shaped
mattock on. a V-shaped handle, and after two or
three sowings the land is considered exhausted,
and abandoned for a new plot.

In order to get a continuity of crops, uplands
are chosen for cultivation just before the rainy
weather, and valleys near streams during the dry
season ; while, to save labour and still obtain a
variety of produce, two kinds of crops arc often
mixed, one being sown in the furrows, the
other in the ridges or mounds between them.
Thus maize and beans are usually sown together,
and mandioc with sweet potatoes or ground-
nuts.

Except mealies, few of the above plants are
cultivated by the European settlers, who appear
unfortunately to favour wheat, butter beans,
peas, flax, and hemp, to the exclusion of the hardier,
easily-raised, indigenous produce. The economic
plants are mentioned in the order in which I met

332 THROUGH ANGOLA

them in 1920 when travelling through the
country.

The mandioc (Manihot utilissima), originating
from Brazil, but widely distributed in Africa, is
a bush 5 to 8 feet high, with knotty brittle
branches and dark green palmated leaves ; which
grows readily in a dry soil from cuttings placed
in ridges or mounds of earth. The root, from
6 inches to 2 feet long, covered with a dark, easily
detachable skin, but white inside, attains maturity
in eighteen months, but can be eaten earlier or
later, and I have more than once solved an urgent
supply question by meeting abandoned fields of
this plant. Indigestible when eaten fresh, it is
better tolerated by Europeans in preparations
made from the flour (fuba), which makes indifferent
bread and a poor substitute for mashed potatoes
with milk and butter, but a tolerable sauce when
mixed with lime juice. The natives ferment this
root both for beer and preparatory to drying it
and before grinding it into flour, which is either
eaten as porridge (infundi) or cakes (guinguanga).

An economic product of value for oil and
making margarine, but just now little utilized in
Angola, is the ground-nut (Arachis hypogcea)
(Ginguba of the natives), a foot or more high, with
yellow, pea-like flowers, which are pulled to the
ground by the weight of the growing pod which
develops just below the soil. This delicious nut
has provided me with soup, pudding, dessert, and
lamp oil on many a trip and on many a day. The
natives make a paste of it (quitata) with chillies
from a bush which grows half wild round nearly

FARM PRODUCE 333

every village, and use the oil for cooking. A plant
of similar habit, the earth-pea (Voandzeia subler-
ranea), is also cultivated.

Of other leguminous foods, beans are the most
important, and are grown chiefly by natives.
They include a number of varieties of the common
kidney bean, Phaseolus vulgaris (Fcijao), the
small kidney bean, P. lunatus. The common bean,
(Vicia Faba). and pea, Pis-urn saiiviim, are rarely
cultivated; but the chick pea, Cic.er arietinum, is
mainly grown in the south. The Vignn- Catjang,
cow pea or catyang (Macundi), La blab (Dolichos
J.ablab], and Indian Dhal (Cajanus indicus) are
all cultivated in small quantities. Some of the
bean-fields have yielded 40 to 50 bushels to the
acre.

Of tubers, potatoes yield an average of 200
bushels an acre, and sweet potatoes up to nearly
double this amount, in good land.

Most of the cereals do well in Angola, especially
in the plateaux. Maize or Indian corn is the
most important economic product in the colony
at present ; 60,000 tons were raised in 1920, and
sold at from £8 to £10 a ton at the ports. There
are two varieties, the white (Guinbundo), and the
yellow and early (Cateta). They are sown during
the rainy season on the hillsides, and in the dry
season at the bottoms of the valleys near streams.
The average yield per acre is 22 to 27 bushels.

Millet. — The variety grown in Angola is the
spiked or bulrush millet (Pennisetum ty-phoidenm),
which grows to 5 or 6 feet. It bears cylindrical
spikes of grain, 12 inches long.

334 THROUGH ANGOLA

Kaffir Corn. — In parts this plant (Andropogon
Sorghum, var. vulgaris) is extensively grown.

Wheat.— Wheat can be grown twice in the
year, in February and in September ; the average
yield is from 18 to 22 bushels per acre, though on
the Cuito farm, wrhich is in a particularly ferlile
region, nearly 40 bushels were taken recently from
some acres.

Barley and Oats are occasionally grown, but
I was unable to get any figures showing this yield.

Rice grows well in the north of Angola, where
the moisture and temperature are more suitable
for its cultivation than in the east or south.

Fodder Plants. — According to Professor Tar-
uffi, plants used for cattle fodder are Usilla, a
small grass, which makes excellent forage, and
grows mostly along the banks of the rivulets ;
Senne, a tall grass with a sweet root, an ex-
cellent pasture grass when still young ; Soka, a
slender and tall grass, also used for basket-
making ; Soke (Eleusine indica), which, when
young, makes excellent forage; Senje and Tiombe,
tall grasses, used for roofing cabins when dry, and
for forage when green.

Farm and Plantation Fruits. — Most of the
Angolan fruits have been introduced by mis-
sionaries, from Europe. They include the orange,
lime (which now grows wild), as well as apples,
pears, figs, plums, mulberries, and grapes. The
mango was probably introduced from India.

Of indigenous fruit trees, the paw-paw (Carica
Papaya) is commonly cultivated ; its large fruit,
delicious and digestive, grows in clusters on the

PLANTATION PRODUCE 335

stem of the tree and below its crown of large
palmated leaves, which have sufficient digestive
power to render tough meat tender when
wrapped in it. Bananas are plentiful, as are
Anona Cherimolia, the custard apple or sweet-sop,
and A. muricata, sour-sop. Pine-apples are largely
cultivated and grow wild in many parts of the
country, as do guava trees (Psidium Guajava). — •"

PLANTATION PRODUCTS. — Coffee. — Various )
kinds of coffee plants are cultivated or grow wild
in northern Angola, especially near Cazcngo and
Galungo Alto, where their beautiful yet ephemeral
flowers gladden the landscape. These plants
include the imported species, Coffea arabica (the
world- wide plant), C. liberica (the best-known
West African species), and C. hypoglauca ; and two
smaller plants, C. melanocarpa, with black berries,
and C. jasminoides, which may be indigenous, but
are not economically important. C. arabica is
somewhat less resistant to disease and has smaller
berries than C. liberica, but their better flavour,
greater sugar content, and softer skin render
machinery unnecessary in preparation. The soil,
climate, and elevation of north Angola are very
suitable for coffee culture, though the rainfall
(50 inches) is somewhat low. Most of the
" plantations " consist of the wild plants of the
hillside, which are pruned and picked as required,
but cultivation is also carried out, wild coffee
seedlings being transplanted from the forest for
the purpose.

Cocoa. --This well-known tree (Theobroma
Cacao), 10 to 20 feet high, with its curious little

336 THROUGH ANGOLA

flowers which blossom on the trunk, and are out
of all proportion to the huge fruit that succeeds
them, is doing well in northern Angola, where
climate, altitude, and soil are alike suitable.

Rubber. --There are many rubber-yielding
plants of the Apocynacese in Angola, such as the
creepers of the genus Pacouria or Landolphia,
including L. owariensis (Lecongue), L. florid a
(Mututi), which may be L. Kirkii, L. crassifolia
(Rututi), and L. parvifolia (Mahungo), but
none are suitable for plantation, nor are L.
Henriquesiana, Carpodinus chylorrhiza (Otalemba),
C. gracilis (Vivungo), or Raphionacme utilis
(Bitinga), which provide rubber from their tuber-
like root alone ; but a tree indigenous to Angola,
Funtumia elastica, with a characteristic plumed
seed and a good rubber-yielder, might be so
employed. Of strictly plantation rubbers, numer-
ous varieties have been tried, the most popu-
lar for some reason being Manihot Glaziovii,
though yielding less than many other varieties
and being fragile, both to storms and rough and
careless tapping. Herea brasiliensis, Castilloa
elastica (the South American plants), and Ficus
elastica, the Indian plant, all do well. The rubber
is extracted by scientific tapping in the plantations,
but by crude destructive methods from the wild
plants. Root rubber is obtained by pounding
the whole root and separating the rubber in the
shape of a mat. Natives often coagulate rubber
latex on their bodies before shaping it to per-
manent form.

Cotton is only grown on a small scale, though

AN ANdOI.AN OX

PLANTATION PRODUCE 337

climate and soil are suitable. The following-
varieties are found growing wild, though probably
imported from America : Gossypium barbadense
(var. hirsutum), the upland cotton, G. peruvianum,
Sea Island cotton (Algodao di panacho of the
Portuguese), and G. acuminatum (Muxinha). A
smaller shrub, 2 to 3 feet high, G. maritimum,
grows a yellow cotton called Algodao cor de
ganga by the Portuguese.

Tobacco is extensively cultivated by the
natives for their own use, but mainly experiment-
ally by European settlers.

Fibre. — Hemp is obtained from Agave sisalana
and other varieties, which have been introduced
and are doing well, and the bow-string hemp
from the Sansevierias, S. longiflora and S. ango-
lensis (vcl. cylindrica) (In), are being experi-
mented with. As pine-apples grow wild in great
profusion in Angola, and yield a fibre that is made
into cloth in the Philippines, experiments might
be carried out to advantage for their employ-
ment.

Sugar-Cane . — Large areas of Angola are suit-
able for this plant, which was grown extensively
up to 1911 mainly to produce alcohol ; when the
sale of liquor to natives was prohibited, the local
government granted generous compensation and
further stimulated production to such an extent
that 24,600 tons were available for export in 1913.
For some unexplained reason, in spite of every
encouragement and protective tariffs, the cultiva-
tion of the plant has lately decreased.

Palms. —There five few plantations of (he epon -

'2,2,

338 THROUGH ANGOLA

omically valuable cocoa-nut palm (Cocos nucifera)
near the coast, and none of the equally important
oil palm (Elciis guineensis), which grows mainly
north of the Coanza River, but in places (Novo
Redondo and Egito) more to the south of it, the
Portuguese and natives merely collecting from
the numerous wild trees.

Gums. — None of the resin-producing trees are
planted ; gum is collected from Acacia Kirkii,
Canarium edule (Xinbato), and C. Shweinfurtii,
and Almeidina, from the coagulated latex of
Euphorbia rhipsaloides and possibly Fockea multi-
flora. There is a certain amount of fossil gum
or copal also in the country.

Drugs.- — The Cola (Cola acuminaia), grown on a
small scale for its nut, and quinine (Cinchona sp.)
are being experimented with.

Due and Tanning Products. — Though not
planted, it may be useful to mention here the
dye-producing plants used by the natives ; such
as Pterocarpus crinaceus (Mutete, Ndirassonde),
Copaifcra coleosperma (Muchibi), Bcrlinia Baumii
(Mumue), Pelargonium bengueUense (On Jim Sam-
brilo), Eriospermum flexuosum (Otojo), while some
of the Indigo plants are probably similarly used.
Most of these dyes are red in colour. The bark of
Berlinia Baumii and Copaifera Jlopane are used
/ for the tanning of leather.

CHAPTER XXI

OTHER FLORA OF THE COLONY, ITS DISTRIBUTION
AND NATURE

THE vegetation of tropical West Africa ap-
pears to be more luxuriant north than
south of the Equator at similar latitudes.

The dense forest met with along the Cameroons
and Muni coasts, from 6° north of the Equator,
ceases 100 miles or so south of it, near Cape
Lopez ; at Sierra Leone, Konakry, Bathurst,
and Dakar, north of the Equator, the vegetation
is more luxuriant than at points of corresponding
latitude like Loanda, Novo Redondo, Benguella,
and Mossamedes in the south — in fact, while at
Dakar the vegetation is still fairly vigorous, at
Mossamedes there is desert.

If the Angolan coast is arid, the interior is
beautiful, with a landscape of hill, plateau, and
valley ; grass, savannah, and open forest ; with
areas of richer forest and belts of denser bush
where the fertility of the soil or the moisture
of the river valley have produced their floral
wealth.

The vegetation is naturally more luxuriant in
the rainy anu no Her north and north- west oi' II. <•

340 THROUGH ANGOLA

colony than in the colder highlands of the south
and centre and the rainless south-west coast. Wel-
witsch described three botanical zones in Angola :
a somewhat arid coastal zone from the sea-level
to 1000 feet above it; the woodland lower plateaux
of 1000 to 2500 feet altitude; and the savannah
zone of the high plateau, where there are grass
lands — woo> ed only in the valleys.

The varying character of the Ampelideae and
Euphorbiaceas orders of plants admirably demon-
strates these three zones, the former growing as
fleshy, light green, smooth plants in the dry littoral,
as dark green hairy creepers in the denser forests
of the middle highlands, and as shrubs in the
drier open forests of the interior ; while the
coastal euphorbias are high and cactus-like, the
woodland plateaux have shrubs and climbing
species, and on the highlands the cactus-like
form reappears. Anonacese and Sapindacese and
most of the Lcguminosse and Rubiacese, Com-
bretaccse, and Lythracese seldom descend to the
coast, being chiefly found in the denser forests of
the well-watered middle highland zones, as are
the climbing Menispcrmaceas. The Ranuncu-
laceaj, Capparidacece, Convolvulaccoa, Myrtacese,
and Apoeynacese are widely distributed, but tiie
Violacese and Polygalacete are found only in the
north and centre of Angola. The shrubs of
Malvaceae are abundant between 1500 and 4000
feet, decreasing towards the south of Angola, and
Sterculiaeese, Tiliacese, and Mcliacea;, which pro-
vide so inany of the larger fores I. hves, have a
somewhnt similar distribution. The Draseruv-'-j'

are only found over 5000 feet, and this applies
to most of the Labiatse and Loranthacese. The
Zygophyllacea1 occur only on the coast, the
Celastraceas and Dichapetalacese in the south
of the country, where the Composite arc also
more numerous. The flora will now be described
as I met it (1) in the Cabinda and Congo districts ;
(2) along the northern railway line and in the
North and South Coanza districts ; (3) in Lunda
as described by Marques ; (4) as I met it along
the Central Railway and in the Benguella district ;
and (5) in my southern journeys in the districts
of Mossamedes and Huilla ; while the description
of the districts of the Cubango and Coando are
taken entirely from the accounts of Almeida.

It was surprising to find a park-like country
(savannah forest) and even a certain degree of
aridity at Cabinda, the most northerly Angolan
port, and which increased as one went south
along the coast, the savannah merging into scrub
and then becoming desert at Mossamedes.

At CABINDA vegetation included the oil palms
(Elcris guineensis) (Mateva), with their beautiful
fronds and bunches of brown palm nuts, yielding
valuable oil for commerce and local use ; fan
palms (Ryphane guineensis), wild date palms
(Phoenix reclinata}, the true wine palm (Raphia
vinifera), with its huge and beautiful fronds
(Bordao) used for machilla poles and building ; the
baobab (Adansonia digitata) (Bondeiro), writh its
immensely thick trunk (circumference up to 60
feet), which provides fibre and paper, and its
white waxy flowers and o'ourd-like fruit : the

342 THROUGH ANGOLA

cotton tree (Eriodendron anfractiiosum), providing
" Kapok " ; plants like cotton (Gossypium), and
pine-apples at the edge of the bush, which grew
by lagoon or stream. In the interior of this little
" enclave " the vegetation was mainly savannah,
open forest, and sometimes bush, and the trees
met here and in the Congo district were similar to
those to be described as occurring in North and
South Coanza.

In the CONGO DISTRICT the landscape of the
coast-lands from San Antonio to Ambrizette is a
little more arid than that of Cabinda; the oil
palm is slowly disappearing, and the euphorbia
(E. Candelabrum), a cactus-like tree with candel-
abra-like flowering stem, and acacias were added
to the floral picture, on a background of withering
yellow grass. Southwards to Loanda the aridity
increases, and there is reason for this, for the
rainfall of 30 inches at Cabinda has fallen to 20
at Ambrizette, 15 at Ambriz, and 12 at Loanda.
There is little to remind one of tropical Africa in
this landscape of somewhat barren cliff, with
baobab, euphorbia, and acacia as the more pro-
minent trees. In the interior of the Congo
district the vegetation is mainly of the savannah,
open and small forest type, though belts of bush
(" muchito " of the natives) border the streams ;
and where the rainfall is heavier in the western
parts of the inland plateau the forest becomes
closer.

In the district of North Coanza which I tra-
versed in my journey from Loanda to Melanje,
and the district of South Coanza which was crossed

FLORA OF NORTH COANZA 343

later, an arid coastal belt of some 50 miles is
succeeded by open forest and savannah, broken
by belts of dense vegetation along the river valleys,
and a large area round Golungo Alto where the
heavy rainfall of CO inches provides a rich flora,
which was exhaustively studied by Welwitsch.
The annual burning of the long grass of the
savannahs is a boon to the insect-eating birds at
the time, and to the hunter after it, who can only
then see the game, but is very destructive to
plant life.

Among the plants in this region were the
various palms already mentioned, Monodora
Myristica, and J/. angolensis (Gipepe of the
natives), splendid fruit-bearing trees with aro-
matic medicinally - used seeds ; climbing plants
like Tiliacora chrysobotrya (Abutia), the herb
Gynandropsis pentaphylla (Mozambue), eaten as
spinach ; and a shrub, Capparis erythrocarpos,
with bark used as a caustic. Other plants were
Rinorea dentata (Tesse), Bixa Orellana, Oncoba
spinosa, 0. Welwitschii (Chichi), and O. dentata
(Chichi), bushes with prickly edible fruits ; Psoro-
spermum febrifugum and allied species called
Mutune, and the small resinous trees Harungana
paniculata and Symphonia globulifera (Mun-
gondo), all used medicinally in itch ; splendid forest
trees of the orders Sterculiacese and Tiliacese, in-
cluding among the former Sterculia pubescens
(Quibondo), S. tomentosa (Chixe), Edwardia lurida,
the famous Cola tree, E. hcterophylla (Mabuin-
guiri), and Assonia cuanzensis, a small tree called
iNIututu. Among Tiliaceoe, the shrub Grewia

344 THROUGH ANGOLA

caffra (Mutamba) provides ropes and bow-strings ;
G. pilosa, snare loops ; others like Triumfetta
semitriloba, T. rhomboidea, and T. orthacantha are
recognized by the natives, who call them Quibosa ;
while the leaves of the Cor chorus tridens (Quis-
sanana) are eaten with palm oil. Of the Meliacea^
were a number of big trees, including Melia dubia
(Bombolo), with cinnamon-coloured wood, used
in making native boxes ; M. Azedarach, also called
Bombolo (Sycamoro by the Portuguese) ; oil-
yielding Trichilia (Mafura) of several species ; the
palm-shaped Carapa procera (Mucaca ncumbi) ;
and Khaya anthotheca (Quibaba), a beautiful tree
with drug-yielding bark. Among lowlier plants,
the Balsams, Balsamea longebracteata (Calusange),
B. MuUlame (Mulelame), and Canarium edule
(Mubafo) are all used medicinally, while the
Sensitive Plants (Biophytums and Impatiens), car-
peting the ground, spring into movement at one's
feet, and Hippocratea indica (Xgongo), a creeper
30 to 40 feet long, climbs the big trees of the forest.
Of the Ampelideag there are Ampelocissus urence-
folia (Quixibua), with purple edible fruit, and the
species of Cissus, which tempt with their scarlet
fruits and then sting with the hairs that cover
them. Phialodiscus plurijugatus (Cachique) and
P. Welwitschii are prominent trees, while Ana-
cardium occidentale (Musuque) gives an edible
fruit (Capueiro of the Portuguese), as does
Spondias Mombin (Mugunga), and the huge
Pseudospondias microcarpa (Musondo), one of the
fingest Angolan trees, which grows to 120 feet and
bears a fruit like a black grape. A medium-

FLORA OF NORTH AND SOUTH COANZA 345

sized tree, Calesiam antiscorbutica (or Odina acida)
(Mucumbi) provides in its bark a remedy for
scurvy ; and another well - known tree is the
tteeria insignis (Quintondo).

The Leguminosse are represented by Erythrina
suberifera (Molongo), medicinally anti-syphilitic,
with scarlet flowers ; and Pterocarpus erinaccus,
producing tacula dye. Of useful shrubs are
Cracca Vogelii (Cafoto), whose pounded leaves can
poison fish in the water. Of the numerous Indigo-
fera is 7. Anil, the indigo bush, and of the Casal-
pinias, C. pulcherrima (Malosa), with bright scarlet
flowers. Among the Millettias are small trees and
bushes like M. drastica (Ditenda), which yield a
purgative from their pods ; M. versicolor (Mus-
sumbe), yielding hard timber ; and M. rhodantha
(Quiseco), providing a drug for rheumatism and
nervous complaints. Herminiera Elaphroxylon
(Bimba), growing near marshes, furnishes a light
wood for furniture and unsinkable rafts ; Uraria
picta (Caiala, Camoxe), which means always a boy,
provides a popular aphrodisiac. The shrub Abrus
precatorius (Fingogifingo), Stizolobium prurient
(Quincuta), a climbing shrub with stinging hairs,
and Physostigma cylindrospermum (Maxima ia
Muxito), also occur. Among herbs, Dolichos Don-
galuta (Dongaluta) provides a drug for quinsy ;
and D. Lablab and Botor palustris (Mabala) have
edible seeds, while the shrub Eriosema Muxiria
(Muxiri) provides a root from which beer can be
brewed. Pterocarpus mellifer (Mulumba) is a bee-
frequented tree on which the natives place their
hives ; P. tinctorius, a handsome tree with blood-

346 THROUGH ANGOLA

red wood and roots, providing the well-known
tacula dye, drugs, and charms ; and P. erinaceus
(Mutete) yields resin. Lonchocarpus macro-
phyllus (Mutala Muenha) is an immense tree with
handsome violet flowers, Mezoneurun angolense
(Sascha) bears red and yellow flowers, Cassia
Sieberiana (Mossambe) produces fruit (Mosua)
used in divination, and C. occidentalis (Munhanoca,
Fedegoso of the Portuguese), yields a febrifuge.
Among Bauhinias of many kinds, B. reticulata
(Mulolo), a small flowering tree, provides fibre for
making aprons and a decoction for ulcers. The
Berlinias include B. paniculata (Panda), B. Baumii
(Omue), and B. glabrior (Mutoe). Other trees met
with are Cynometra laxifiora (Hula), providing a
good timber ; Gigalobiums including G. scandens
(Fugi), and G. abyssinicum (Musoso), also Pipta-
denia africana (Muzango) ; among acacias, A. Wel-
witschii (Mubange), A. Sieberiana (Mussongue) ;
among Albizzias, A. versicolor, A. coriaria, and
A. angolensis., all called Mufufutu and used for
tanning leather, and A. Welwitschii (Muanze).

Other trees include Chrysobalanus Icaco, with
an apple - shaped fruit (N'gimo) ; Parinarium
excelsum (Nichia), a tree with edible fruit ; Rubiit
pinnatus (Musano), a shrub yielding a medicine
against quinsy ; and Kalanchoe Welwitschii (Tuta
riambula), used in witchcraft. Of the Com-
bretacea?, Terminalia sericea is widely distributed
and provides good timber (Mueia) ; Combretum
constrictum (Muhondongolo), a shrub, yields a
remedy against thread- worm in children ; an-
other, C. flammeum, with carmine flowers, looks

FLORA OF COANZA DISTRICTS 347

as if on fire ; C. lepidotum (called Mucage in north
Angola and Munhangue in tlic south, Carvalhao by
the Portuguese) provides good timber ; C. dip-
terum is a huge, almost leafless, flowering tree ;
and C. tinctorum (Lunga-lasoge) provides a dye from
its roots and branches. Of fruit-bearing shrubs
and trees, among the Myrtacese there is Eugenia
Jambos, the Indian jamum ; among the Passi-
florea3, Adenia lobata (Mobiro), a slirub with
yellow edible fruit ; and among the Cucurbitacese,
Adenopus breviflorus (Ditanga-sese), providing a
fruit called Coloquinta. Of the Umbelliferse, the
medicinal plant Pimpinella platyphylla (Dongo-
lundo) is used in diarrhoea, while Peucedanum
fraxinifolium (Calusange), a tree 20 feet high,
yields a drug for chest complaints.

Among the Rubiaceao, Mamboga stipulosa
(Mungo) is a big tree prized for its timber ; Cory-
nanthe paniculata (Mangue), another splendid
tree, forms extensive forests in north Angola ;
Crossopteryx Kotschyana (Musesse) is a small tree
with a hard yellow wood ; Musscenda erythro-
phylla (Diluia), a climbing shrub with large
red and yellow flowers ; Gardenia Jovis-tonantis
(N'dai), a small tree used by the natives to pro-
tect their huts against lightning, and bearing
large yellow flowers ; and Fadogia Cienkowskii
(Muningi), a herb bearing an edible fruit. Of the
Composite, Vernonia senegalensis (Molulu), a shrub
with purple flowers of several varieties, is used
medicinally ; V ' . confcrta (Quipuculo), a tree with
very large leaves ; and V . auriculifera (N'clolo), also
occur. Of the Ebenacene are Mabn Mnalala, a

348 THROUGH ANGOLA

beautiful laurel-like tree with a hard dark timber ;
Diospyros mespiliformis, a large fr 't tree (Mulende
(N.), Menianti (S,), and Silviera of Portuguese) ; D.
Dendo (N'Dendo), an evergreen tree furnishing some
of the best timber in Angola. Of the Apocynaceae
(which are also dealt with under Plantation Pro-
duce), Pacouria (Landolphia) owariensis, an ever-
green shrub, yields rubber, and P. florida (Matuti
or Rututi), and P. parvifolia (Mahungo) yield
edible fruit, as does Car and as cdulis (Jingongona
in the north and Munhiangolo in the south), while
Strophanthus intermedius (Bella or Musua) pro-
vides wood for pipes.

Of the Asclepiadea?, Chlorocodon WJnteii
(Alcacuz of the Portuguese, Mundondo of the
natives) is a climbing shrub with a liquorice-like
root. Among Loganaceas are Nuxia dentata, with
good timber ; Anthocleista macrantha (Quipucolo-
pucolo), resembling a palm : Stri/chnos Volkensii
and S. Wehmischii (called Maboea or Mabolle),
having an edible orange-like fruit with a hard
rind : while S. pungens has a similar inedible
fruit. Of the Boraginea?. Cordia aurantiaca is an
evergreen tree with yellow flowers, and a bark
useful for fibre. Of the Convolvulacere is Ipomcea
Batatas, whose leaves are eaten by the natives as
spinach. Among the Solanacea:, Solannm albi-
folium (saponaccum) produces seeds which are
used as soap ; Capsicum cordifonne (Molungo)
yields a pungent fruit, and Datura Stramonium
(Jila-andundo), yielding the well-known drug, is
used like Casca in trials by ordeal. Of the Big-
Spathodea campanulata (Mutenandua)

FLORA OF COANZA DISTRICTS 349

is a large tree, with strikingly big scarlet flowers ;
Kigelkeia pinnata (Cambumbi), a tree with yellow
flowers and huge cylindrical fruit which I re-
member meeting in Mozambique in East Africa,
where it is called Kigilkeia. Of the Pedaliaceae
are Sesamum orientale (N'guilla), and the beautiful
flowering S. angolense. Of the Verbenaceae are
Preinna angolensis (Mungongo), a tree with
beautiful white flowers, and Vitex Cienkowskii
(Muxillo - xillo) ; and of the Labiate, Genio-
sporum Mutamba (Mutamba), like a potato, is
cultivated and edible.

Of the Amaranthacese are Amaranthus tri-
color (Jimboa), eaten like a beet sprout, and A.
viridis ; of the Piperaceae, Piper guineense ( Jihefo
or Gihefo), the chilli plant. Of Euphorbiacese
are Euphorbia Candelabrum and E. Tirucalli ; the
shrub Jalropha Curcas (Mupuluca), the seeds of
which arc used as a purgative ; Croton Mubango
(Mubango), of which the root and gum are used
for similar purposes, as is Ricinus africanus,
which grows to 20 feet in height. The Manihot
uiilissima (Mandioc) is dealt with under Pro-
duce ; Alchornea cor data (Bunce), a shrub with
immense leaves, is used as a black dye. Of the
Moracese, I\Iyrianthus arborcus (Musibiri), Ficus
n.iilopoga, F. Welwitschii, and F. Mucuso form large
iiiid striking trees ; Bosqueia angolensis (Mun-
g-icaga) and Treculia africana (Di'zanha) are
both medium-sized trees, the latter providing
ivi'ivslihu;' beverages : while Chlorophora excelsa
( Alij . h)ibn • c-a no . is a fruit-bearing tree. Of the

b'0 \vhic'h has

350 THROUGH ANGOLA

a handsome crown of leaves, occurs in the Lupollo
forests of south Angola.

In LUNDA, a district of open forest and grass-
covered hilly plateau, traversed by the denser-
. ooded valleys of its numerous rivers, Marques
mentions meeting, among individual plants in the
valley of the Coango, Acacia Farnesiana, Gossypium
herbaccum, and Symphonia globulifera, and among
large trees Nauclea stipulosa (Mungo), and
Canarium edule (Mubafo).

On the Camau River, palms, Cocos nucij'era and
Phoenix dactylifera, were numerous, and some
of the tree ferns over 10 feet high. In the valley
of the Cuengo, he describes an occasional rich
flora as alternating with arid plains. The forests
consisted largely of i4 Pandas," Berlinia ango-
lensis (Weiw.). Other trees included the Muzuco,
allied to Cassia Fistula, Parinarium capense
(Gighia), Slrychnos Welwitschii, S. pungens
(Mabolle, Cabolle), Haronga madagascariemis
(Mutune, Muzoe), and Raphia vinifera.

In the valleys of the Cuillo and Luangue
were Erythrina suberifera, Bonibax pentandru?n,
Acacia albida, Euphorbia Tirucalli, Chenopodium
ambrosioides (Herva Santa Maria of the Por-
tuguese), Nicotiana rustica, Solanum edule, and
Hibiscus esculentus (Lupossa), Gardenia Jovis-ton-
antis (the N'dai), Gomphia reticulata (Icun-cassa-
dil), and a fern similar to Polypodium Filix-Mas.
In the valley of the Luela, where in places vege-
tation was luxuriant, were met Ficus pseudo-
elastica, F. psttopoga, Odina acida, Erythrina
Jalrapiid Curcax. Ricinus africanus,

FLORA OF LUNDA DISTRICT 351

Canna iridiflora, and the Gindondolo or Solanum
saponaceum (Wclw.). In the valleys of the Rivers
Chicapa and Luachimo was a rich vegetation which
included Sterculia acwminata, an Artocarpea,
probably M/jriopeltis edulis (Welw.) ; trees like
the Parinarium capense (Gighias), Bauhinia
reticulata (Mulolo), Mupcpes, Strychnos pungens
(Mabolles and Cabolles), Vitex Cienkowskii
(Muxillos-xillo), and others which have already
been described ; Piper guineense (Gihefo), the
Ampelidese, Quichibua and Mucuta- Voada ; three
Malvaceae, Cabodi, N'zonzo, and N'bunze ; the
Solanaceae, Datura Stramonium and D. fastuosa,
Clematis grata (Lumbozo) ; and in the swamps,
ferns, a Colocasia, with pretty heart-shaped leaves,
Nymphcea stellata, the Mat'chu, Dioscorea sp., the
Catanta, a climbing shrub of the genus Vitis.

The forest trees were very similar to those
already described in the other parts of Lunda, the
Bauhinia reticulata (Mulolo) being common. The
Muage or Mitondc, the handsome fetish tree (prob-
ably Erythrophleum guineense), which provides the
Casca or bark for trial by ordeal, is a handsome
tree and better known under the title of Muave.
Among smaller plants was the Cangululo, allied
to Solanum nigrum ; the Mullenbuege, of the
family Ampelideae, and the Cat'gilongo, Oxyanthus
macrophyllus of the Rubiaccae.

In the valley of the Chiumbe the plants which
Marques specially mentions included the Ficus
pseudoelastica, F. psilopoga, Ricinus africanus,
Jatropha Cnrcas. Euphorbia rhipsaloides, Croton
If.ubangn. Or] inn ncida. Bnmhar pcntandrum.

352 THROUGH ANGOLA

Acacia Farnesiana, Erythrina suberifera, Tephrosia
Vogelii, and splendid specimens of the Brazilian
Urucu or Bixa Orellana (Quisafu), met for the first
time since leaving Melanje.

Among useful trees met in this region were the
Canarium edule (Mubafo) and the Casalla tree,
the leaves and branches of which are used in
various mystic rites, to foretell the success or
failure of a coming hunt. Pretty local plants were
the Catoli, a species of Hibiscus with yellow
flowers ; a flowering bush, the N'dongo-a-m'joi,
possibly Dolichos urens ; and the Cabodi, a
species of Heinsia, a bush with a pretty white
tubular flower. Among creepers were Catan-
ganhe, a species of Ipomcea; and the Luquello,
allied to Vitis vinifera (Linn.).

The country round Cahungula in the valley of
the Luana was arid, and little vegetation grew on
the poor soil, which was clay with supervening
sand and stone. The trees met with on the richer
soil near water were species of Ficus, including
F. Mucus o and F. psilopoga, the Erythrina suberi-
fera, Odina acida, Bombax pentandrum, and Can-
arium edule. Beyond the Luana was the great
Kasai River flowing north to the Congo, which
forms the north-eastern boundary of Angola, and
separates it from Belgian Congo.

BENGUELLA. — In central Angola, from Ben-
guella along the railway line to the interior, the
general type of vegetation, owing to the high
altitude and cold climate, is scantier but somewhat
similar to that in the north ; there are no oil
palms, and the coastal zone of vegetation of the

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FLORA OF BENGUELLA DISTRICT 353

baobab, euphorbia, and acacia type is wider.
Chrysobalanus Icaco occurs near Benguella.

Among the more valuable trees of the central
Angola plateaux described by Professor Taruffi
are Parinarium Mobola (Noxa), with a hard
timber resembling oak, suitable for shipbuilding ;
Burkea africana (Mako), or iron-wood, resistant to
white ants ; the Kaperengalo (another Burkea),
with similar timber ; Cleistanthus angolensis
(Nganja), a tall tree with a splendid, hard, ant-
proof, and heavy timber, resembling ebony ;
Brachystegia spicceformis (Omanda), a medium-
sized tall tree, yielding moderately hard timber,
and fibre from its bark, abundant in the Huambo
forests ; Anisophyllea fruticulosa (Luhongo), a
medium-sized tree yielding as products good
timber, a tanniferous bark, and an edible fruit ;
the Umbula (sp. of Uapaca) ; Cassia Sieberiana
(Sui), with timber suitable for shipbuilding ; Ber-
linia Baumii (Omue), one of the biggest and
commonest trees, with good timber, a bark rich in
tannin, and an inner bark useful for textile fibre ;
the Jungue (Faurea sp.), a tall tree with timber
resembling beech, useful for shipbuilding and
furniture ; Pterocarpus erinaceus (Ndirassonde),
called " blood- weeper," owing to its bark giving
a liquid the colour of blood, a tall tree, yielding
a fine hard-grained and ant-proof timber.

Many of the trees described as occurring in the
north of Angola are found in the centre of the
province as well, though the vegetation is gener-
ally less luxuriant and tropical than in the north.
Ficus Sycomorus (Mulemba) reaches very large
23

354 THROUGH ANGOLA

dimensions in the central plateau, where it is the
favourite shady tree found near the villages, and
is used by the natives to make palisades for pro-
tecting their habitations and crops. In the in-
terior of Benguella, as in the north and south
of Angola, are numerous tree creepers ; among
them are the rubber vines (Landolphias), with mag-
nolia-like leaves and jasmine-like flowers. In the
forests of more luxuriant growth the tree-creepers
sometimes form a regular roof garden of colour,
by flowering on the summits of the forest trees ;
but some of the creepers are very disagreeable
neighbours. There is one, Mucuna pruriens, with
maroon-coloured flowers, and pods covered with
fine hairs, which cause a most horrible itching if
they get on to the hands or body.

In the swamps and near marshy rivers there
grow Herminiera Elaphroxylon (Bimba) and vast
quantities of the Papyrus (Cyperus papyrus), which
served the Egpytians and other ancient people for
paper, and now serves the Angolan native for
making his mats or loangoas.

MOSSAMEDES DISTRICT. — The coastal zone of
this province, from Cape Martha to the Cunene
River, forms a gradually widening stretch of desert
land and subterranean rivers which extends for a
varying distance between the seashore and the
rampart of the Chellas and the high plateau.

Growing in the desert country to the south of
Mossamedes is the sometimes century-old Wel-
witschia mirabilis, with a trunk only a few inches
long, ending in a brown flat top nearly 2 feet in
diameter, divided into two lobes, from each of

FLORA OF MOSSAMEDES DISTRICT 355

which protrudes a leaf 5 to 6 feet long and of
leathery consistence, split into ribbons in the older
plants. From the black-lobed and flattened
centre, close to the insertion of the strap-like
leaves, arise a number of cymes a few inches high,
bearing cones which are the true flowers of this
plant. In the same region is found also the
strange-looking Nara (Acanthosicyos horrida), a
shrub 3 or 4 feet high which, through the multitude
of its branches, intercepts the shifting sand of the
desert till a mound is formed, above which a few
of the uppermost branches project, carrying no
leaves but a yellowish green flower.

Between Mossamedes and the high plateau
above the Chellas, and along the third and most
southerly of the Angolan railways on which I
travelled, there is desert for the the first 30 to
40 miles, then a belt of scrub to the base of the
Chellas, where Mcerua angolensis, M. crassifolia,
the fruit-bearing bushes Oncoba spinosa, 0. Wel-
witschii (Chichi), Gymnosporia senegalensis, and
Heeria insignis occur.

Farther inland there are baobabs, euphorbias
like the Cassoneira (E. Tirucalli) the leafless
Pachypodium Lealii, Sansevieria angolensis,
acacias, false cedars (Tamarix orientalis) (Cedro),
Copaifera Mopane (Mopane, Mutiati) ; still farther
inland, Erythrina huillensis (Mucandis), emerald-
green trees with vermilion flowers ; Cissus
pruriens, with its luscious red grapes covered with
stinging hairs, brightening the landscape ; Ximenia
americana (Ampegue), bearing an oily seed ; and
Peltophorum africanum, often taken for a mimosa.

356 THROUGH ANGOLA

There are mimosas ; Munhampalas with long
thorns ; a very thorny acacia, Acacia reficiens
(Mugondo), the " cat's claw " of the Portuguese,
forming curious copses running in a north and
south direction and flourishing especially on the
Montes Negro ; and among others A. pennata
(Muanu), A. albida, and Euphorbia Candelabrum.
Along the motor road to Lubango and the plateau
one passed a varied flora, ferns of many kinds
nestling by the waterfalls with the monster
baobabs near by, ugly euphorbias (E. Candel-
abrum) and twisted Bauhinia reticulata (Mulolo),
and the sweet-scented jasmine (Landolphia parti-
folia) (Mahungo), creeping up the great Mulembas
(fig trees). As one climbed higher, the baobab
and Mutiati disappeared, and Phoenix palms, San-
sevierias, and fibre-giving Liliacese took their
place. At last the plateau is reached, and at the
edge of these wind-swept heights the vegetation is
more stunted than in the valleys we have climbed.
THE SOUTH PLATEAU : HUILLA DISTRICT.—
Marquardsen, who gives little detail, describes the
vegetation of the Huilla plateaux from the Chellas
to the Cuando River, its eastern border, as a tree
steppe where the somewhat stunted forests en-
close or alternate with grass lands and savannah,
while near the rivers and lagoons grows a denser
and richer flora. In the north of this region and
as far south as an imaginary line drawn from
Humpata to the junction of the Coluhi and
Cunene, and from here eastwards to the Coando,
the dominant forest tree is the Berlinia Baumii,
which forms entire forests mixed with Burkea

FLORA OF HUILLA DISTRICT 357

africana, and Copaifera coleosperma. South of
this zone and as far as the sixteenth degree of
longitude (50 miles east of the Cunene) the forest
consists largely of Copaifera Mopane (Mutiati), and
the acacias (A. Kirkii, A. albida, and A. hebeclada)
towards the south ; but with a greater variety of
trees towards the north-east. Both baobabs and
Ilyphwnes are found in this zone. To the east
of the sixteenth degree of longitude and south
of the Berlinia zone the baobab disappears and
the forest consists of Copaifera coleosperma
(Muchibi), Burkea africana (Mukalati), Baikicea
plurifuga (Umpapa), and Hyphcenes, chiefly H.
Ventricosa, the dum palm.

Welwitsch, whose observations on Angola are
incomparably the most valuable even now (seventy
years after they were made), did not devote the
same attention to the south as to the north of the
country. The plants he describes are nearly all
round Huilla, Humpata, and Tripollo and Bombo
—that is, on the western edge of the vast plateau
which stretches to the Zambezi. Herminiera Ela-
phroxylon grows in marshy parts of the Huilla
plateau, as does Pterocarpus erinaceus, called Mira-
hondi in the north but Munhaneca near Humpata.
Many varieties of Ficus, for example, F. psilopoga,
and F. trachyphylla, occur. Among the Rubiaceae,
Adina micro cephala, var. Galpini (Mohanbo), is a
huge tree with oily, hard timber. The huge
Lonchocarpus macropliyllus (Mutula mena), Pelto-
phorum africanum (a tree 20 to 30 feet high, look-
ing like a mimosa), Berlinia paniculaia (Prnda),
and B. Baumii (Mumue) form forests towards the

358 THROUGH ANGOLA

north of south Angola, as do the Brachystegia spicce-
formis (Omanda, Mupanda) and Copaifera Mopane
towards the south. Among acacias scattered
throughout this area are A. albida, A. Sieberiana,
A. reficiens with curved thorns (the " cat's claw "
of the Portuguese), while Parinarium Mobola
(Noxa), a fine timber tree with an oil-yielding
fruit, forms forests along with species of Protect,
Leucadendron angolense, L. Welwitschii, and L.
leucoblepharum. There also occurs Tarchonanthus
camphor atus (Pau Quicongo) and Philippia ben-
guelensis (Cedro pequeno). Other trees met are
Combretum lepidotum (Munhangue), C. constric-
tum (Mahungolo), Viteoc Cienkowskii (Muxillo-
xillo), and Strychnos Welwitschii and S. pungens
(Maboques).

A long and detailed description of the vegeta-
tion of the eastern portion of south Angola is
given by Almeida in his book on that country.
This author mentions a great many localities and
many native names of plants, but few of their
scientific titles. I have endeavoured to remedy
this to a certain extent, but many of the trees
are difficult to recognize by their native names
alone. Almeida remarks that in the valley of the
Cacoluvar and Lupollo are met the Mohilo (false
oak), Ficus sp. (Mulembas), red-coloured Mangais,
Burkea africana, and Omula (with a refreshing
fruit) ; Muncondo, the fruit kernel of which con-
tains strychnine ; Mubendi, with an edible fruit ;
the Huilla cedar (Tarchonanthus camphor atus),
camphor - wood, called Pau Quicongo by the
colonists and natives; and sandal-wood, On the

FLORA OF HUILLA DISTRICT 359

higher ground between the Cacoluvar and Sinde
Rivers and to the south are denser forests of
Copaifera Mopane (Mutiati), Bauhinias, B. re-
clinata (Mulolo), B. Macrantha (Wutit), Erythrina
huillensis (Mucandis), and tall Wulfhorstia eke-
bergoides (M'tuka). The Combretum constrictum
(Muhangola) is limited to the higher plateaux
and the tablelands of Quipongo. Along the
hills bordering the Cacoluvar from Quihita to
Cahaina there is found the Mohilo, with its
great crown of leaves, Ficus of many varieties
(Mulembas), including Apodytes dimidiata, Biriam-
bundo tree (Figueira Brava of the Portuguese) ;
and baobabs ; while acacias grow in the black clay
soils in the valleys of the Cacoluvar, Tunda, and
Sinde Rivers. Near Gambos one finds Bauhinias,
Ficus Sycomorus, and euphorbias.

In the lower courses of the Sinde and Cacoluvar,
and from Chicusse to Dongoena, and from Cahama
to the Cunene at Lufinda, there are belts of thorn
scrub running north and south in the great forest
that fringes Mucopa ; near Binguari there is a
great deal of Carpodinus chylorrhiza (Otalemba), a
rubber plant, and at places on the Cacoluvar and
near Gambos are rubber vines as well. Beyond
Chicusse to Tchipelongo on the Cacoluvar River,
and along the Cunene River, from Mulondo to the
junction with Cacoluvar, are great baobabs and
Hyphcene guineensis.

The vegetation of the banks of the Cunene can
be divided into three zones : as far as Mulondo
there are good timber trees, especially near Cape-
longo, with a little thorn scrub ; in the river

360 THROUGH ANGOLA

islands of Quissuco and Pandera there is a luxuri-
ant vegetation of palms, bamboos, tree ferns, and
a kind of mango which sends roots to the river ;
south of Mulondo, on the right bank, are found
Copaifera Mopane (Mutiati), Bauhinias, acacias,
Mulembas (Ficus sp.), and baobabs ; while on the
left bank these trees are not met with and the
thorn scrub, largely Acacia Kirkii, is denser.

At Cafu on both banks for a long distance
towards the east there are splendid trees ; Ma-
tebas, Adansonia digitata, Borasms flabellifer,
Hyphaene, and Bauhinias ; while on the left bank
near Cuamato, to the east of it, north towards
the valley of the Cuvelay, and near Evale and
Can ma, there are baobabs.

As one approaches Dongoena there are large
belts of thorn scrub, prolonged along the Cunene
and mixed with occasional Matcba palms (Hyphcene
guineensis), and Quichuanga (? Mimusops Wel-
witschii) ; while the wild cotton tree is found from
12 to 20 miles from its banks.

In the watershed between the Cunene and
Cubango one meets forests of fine trees from
Capelongo to Cassinga, and from Cuvelay to
Umbal. To the south, near Handa, there are
almost impenetrable thorn forests, interspersed
with grassy glades. In the clearings between the
thorn belts of the forest of Bindana, between Handa,
Cuamato, Cunene, and Cuanhama, are clumps of
acacias, Bauhinias (Mulolos), Copaifera Mopane
(Mutiati), Baikicea (Umpapas), Brachystegia spicce-
formis (Mupandas), and Berlinias (Mumue).

The baobab is found near the rivers, and rubber

FLORA OF CUBANGO DISTRICT 361

plants are common in the woods of this region, and
on higher ground are open forests of Mupandas.

FLORA OF THE CUBANGO DISTRICT. — In the
valley of the Cubango itself the vegetation is in
some places of tropical luxuriance. Thorn forests
are found south of Massaca near the Cubango, and
in the watersheds and valleys of this river, the
Cuito, Luiana, and Cuando ; being especially
dense near the last-named river.

Brachystegias (Mupandas) and Berlinias alter-
nate with the thorn scrub in the hills between
the Cubango and its tributaries, giving place to
the tall and twisted Mucaratis in the valley of the
upper and middle Cuito. In the Cubango valley
besides the other trees are the Mulembas (Ficus) ;
the Nucibe, with its bulky trunk, reminding one of
a huge olive, but with a fat-yielding fruit like a
large red bean ; and a la roe tree, Vungo-Vungo,
used for making canoes.

The vegetation of the country to the east of
the Cubango River presents a monotonous ap-
pearance, and only in the valley of the Cuchibe
and Ninda does it alter to a more tropical form ;
in the latter valley are woods of the scented Ocos.

In the watersheds of the Cubango and Cuando
north of 17° latitude, belts of rubber plants, Ota-
lemba and Vivungo (Carpodinus chylorrhiza and C.
gracilis) and Landolphia Henriquesiana, are being1
destroyed by natives. Many of the clearings are
carpeted with a great variety of grasses, while
occasional tree clumps rise like islands in the
glades. The banks of most rivers and lagoons are
covered with reeds — sometimes so dense and

362 THROUGH ANGOLA

interlaced as to give the appearance of solid
ground. In the water float Nymphcea stellata
and N. cerulia.

FLOWERS. — Many flowering plants have al-
ready been alluded to in the description of the
flora of the various districts of Angola, but some
have been omitted which arrest attention with
their beauty. It is impossible to give more than
a few names, and pay a small tribute to the joy
they brought me on many a weary day.

Perhaps the most beautiful, in their massed
effect of white flower and green fruit, are the
many varieties of clematis, while the Angolan
Abutilons and Hibiscus are worthy of their
reputation for beauty — though their general
colour scheme was yellow, as was that of most
flowering species of Ochnacese. Most of the
flowering Ampelideae (genera Leea and Cissus),
and Combretacese seemed to have adopted a red
colour scheme for their flowers, and in C . flammeum
had run riot in the brightness of this colour.

Many of the Cassalpiniese sub-order of the
Leguminosse had pretty flowers, especially C. pul-
cherrima ; and the mimosa flowers, though small,
were delightfully scented— a remark which applies
equally to the many jasmines of the Oleacese.

The Gardenias of the Rubiaceae are as beautiful
here as elsewhere. The numerous flowering Com-
posite remind one of flowers nearer home with their
modest prettiness, and of how much more generous
Nature has been in her gift of flowers to those
whom she has also given the discomfort and
disease of the hotter lands. Some of the

FLOWERS OF THE COLONY 363

Bignonias have beautiful flowers, especially
Kigelkeia pinnnta. Many of the Pcdaliacese (especi-
ally Sesamum angolense and S. pentaphyllum)
and the Selagos (S. alopecuroides and S. Wel-
witschii) have a purple and white colour scheme,
the latter flowers even appealing to the rather
prosaic African women, who wear them in their
hair. Beautiful convolvuluses cover trees, bushes,
and even the ground ; while with the first rains,
even in the most arid country, all sorts of ugly
ground bulbs and roots blossom suddenly with
beautiful flowers ; in the fertile uplands there is
a floral display of lily, iris, and amaryllis which
fills one with wonderment, and aloft in the northern
forest trees a flower richness of tree blossom,
creeper, and orchid, which is only equalled by the
water-lilies which cover lagoon, pool, and stream.

POISONOUS PLANTS. — There are dangers as
well as delights in the floral kingdom of Angola.
Man has suffered for centuries by accident or
intention from the various species of Strophanthus
strychnos and the dreaded ordeal plant Muave
(Erythrophleum guineense), while he uses the
poisonous juices of Focea multiflora to tip his
arrows, and those of Euphorbia Candelabrum and
Cracca Vogelii to poison the water supplies of
zebra and fish.

Animals, especially cattle, suffer themselves
from the poisonous effects of Dichapetalum Ven-
inatum (Machau of the Boers) when it is young
and hidden amid the grass.

THE RELATION OF ANGOLAN TO OTHER FLORA

A WORK by Baum (Kimenc-Samben Expedition; Berlin, 1903), which gives an
exhaustive account of the flora of southern Angola, was not received till the book
was in print. I would like to pay a tribute to this standard work, which would
have saved me weeks of reference from unscientific Portuguese sources. Of over
400 plants described by Baum, 276 were actually new species. Of the 400, 214 were
found only in tropical Africa, 132 common to both tropical and South Africa, and
only 58 purely South African forms — which facts show the affinity of the Angolan
l!»ra to that of tropical Africa ; 132 of the species were also common to Asia (and 41
of them only there), >>.\ to America (and n there only), and 12 to Europe and
Australia.

XATIVE OR

COMMON XAME. PAGE
. iMiig.jginngo . 3<5

• 350, 357, 353

• 350, 351
357

- 338,357,365
. Muano . .356
. Mugondo 356, 35 i,

359, 360

Mussongue 346, 358

. Mr.bange . . 346

. Xara . . . 355

Da- 'bab, Bondeiro,

3;i.. 353, 3'5,356,

357, 359,
. "-T ibiro . . 347

LAT.-: NX :E.

Munguenga

Mabala
Omanda .
Mupanda 358, 360
X'.:oti

Mukalati, Mako,
Mupaca 357,
Kaperen-;alo t.

360,
361
362
3-44
352
35^
300
349
345
353

,361
319

353
353

. . . . 362
Malpsa . 345, 362
Indian Dhal . 333
Mucumbi . . 3 (5
338

Xinbato . . 338
Mubafo 344,350,352

• • • • 338
Cangulalo . . 351

3 16
Mossambe. 346,353

- 33"

Ouibaba . . 349

- 350

Mudondo . . 34-5
i 3 19

X'gimo . 3 ,(),
Chick Pea .

INDEX TO THE FLORA

365

LATIN NAME.

C.ojfca arabica .
,, hypoglaitca
,, jas:n>i:oidcs
,, libcrica
,, mclanocarpa

Cola acuminala .

Colocasia

CoinbrctaceaB

Cumbrctum cnnstric/uin

NATIVE OK
COMMON- NA-IE.
. Codec Plant

LATIN NAME.

Curynanlhc panicttlala

< racca

Kotschyana . . Musesso

Crolun Mubangi) . . . Mubango . 319

Cynonietra laxiflora . . . Hula .

Cyperus Papyrus . . . 1'apynw .

NATIVE OR

iMMox NAME. PAGE
Musoso . . 346
i . . . 346
Icun-cassadil . 350
Muxinha . . 337
Cotton . . 337

350

337

Sea Island Cotton 337
Mutaniba . . 344

344
Gums . . 344

355
Mozambue . 343

• 343

Quintondo 345, 355
Cabo.li . . 352
Hemp . . 337
Biinba 3 (.5, 354, 357
. 33<3

Cat,.li . .352
. 350, 362
. . 344
Barley . . 334
Fan Palm, Mateba

3fi,359,36o
Dum Palm . 357

M'ltunc, Mnzoo 350

Datura faslitosa

,, Stramonium . . . ."[iln-aiHUniil

I'cnr.ialiaii . Machau .

Divscorca sp Matchu

Diospyros Dcndu . . . N'Den

mespilifarmis . . Mulende,Meniant

is Dongaluta . . . Uongaluta
Lablab

urtin . . . N'clongo-a-in'ioi

Sensitive Plant 344

Calanganhe (N.),
Cara (S.), Sweet
Potato . 348,352

M LI leva
Soke
Luco .
Ott<>u

Mufuma
Muxiri

Muoandis . 35 T,
Mol mgo . 345.

lens Rututi . . 336

Mututi . . 336

. . . . 361

. 336

Lecongue . 336, 348

Mahungo . 336, 356

. . . . 358

• 35*

. • • • 358
356

Muta'.a.Muenha 346,
357

Lcui adcn-dron an^olaisc .

G irJitiia J'l-i^lnnan:.^ .

Geniosporum Mutamba -

366

THROUGH ANGOLA

LATIN NAME.

Monodora angoknsis .
,, Myristica .
Morus nigra

NATI\ E OR
COMMON NAME. PAGE
. Gipcpc . .3(3
3)3

Mulberries . 334
Mubendi . . 358
354

LATIN NAME.

Kapliia rinifera .
Raplnonacmc iitilii, .
Ricinus africanus
Rinorca dentata .
Rubiaceae ....

NATIVE OR
COMMON NAME. PAGE
Wine Palm 341, 350
. Bitinga . . 336
• 349, 351
. Tesse. . . 343
362
Mu^ato 346

Musa sapicnium
Mussaenda erythrophylla .
Myrianthus arborcits
Myriopeltis cdulis

MucutaVoada . 351

Mullenbuege . 351
Munbampala . 356
Munhando . 360
. Bananas . . 335
Diluia . . 347
Musibiri . . 349
351

Sansetieria angolcnsis

,, longi flora.
Santalwn ?p.

Bowstring
Hemp, Ifi . 337
337

Sandal-Wood . 3-58
-if,-.

,, 11 elxitschii .

.... . .363
Senje . . -334
Senne . . 334

Xautka stipulosa
Nicotiana rustica

. Mungo . . 350

35°

„ orientals.
,, penfaphyllum .

Solatium albifolium (^aponicc
,, cditlc .

• :, • • 349, 363

. N guilla . . 349

• • 363
Soka . . . 334
tint) . . . 348, 351
350

,, iabacum

Nttxia dentata
Nymphata stellata
„ cfiulia

Odina acida

Oncoba dentata .
„ spinosa .
„ Welu-itschii .
Oryza saliva

. Tobacco . . 337
Nucibe . . 361
348
N'zonzo . 351, 362
. N zonzo . . 362

Mucumbi . 345, 350,
35i, 352
Oinula . . 358
. Chichi . . 343
• 343, 355
. Chichi . 343, 355
. Rice . . .334
351

Spathodca campanulatti
Spondias Mombin
Stercuiia acuminata .
„ pubescens .
,, toiiientnsa .
Stizolobium prurun* .
StrophantfiKS intermedius .
Strychnos pungcns
,, Volkcnsii .

Mulenandua . 348
. Mugunga . . 344
351
Quibondo . . 343
Chixe . . 343
Quincuta . . 345
Bella or Musua. 348
• 348, 350, 35i, 358
348

355

„ WelKitschii
Symplwnia globulifcra

Tamarix oriental-is
Tarchonanthits camphoratus

. Maboca, Mabolle 348,
350, 358
. Mungondo. 343, 350

. Cedro (Port.) . 355
Pan Quicongo
(Port.) . . 358

Papyrus anliquorum .
Parinarium capcnsc .
,, excc'lsiim.
Mob la .

. Papyrus . .354
. Gighias . 350, 351
Nicbia . . 346
. Xoxa,Mobola353,358
. 363

• 355, 357

Pittnisetum typhoidcum .
Peucedanum fraxinifolhim
Phaseolus lunatus

„ vulgar is
Phialodiscus plurijugatus .
„ Wtl^'itscliii .
Philippia benguelensis

Millet, Massanza 333
Calusancre . 3/7
Small Kidney
Bean . ' . 333
. Feijao iPort.) . 333
Cachique . . 344
3)4
Cedro pequeno(P.)358
35°

Tcrir.inalia sericca
Thcobroma Cacao
Tiliacora chrysobotrya

Trcculia africana
Tricliilia ....
Triticwn --'ulgarc
Tnumfetta orthacantha
,, rhombnidea
,, semitriloba

I' apaca '.•••;.le;;J.":!>:'s.
Uraria picta

I'crnonia auriculifira
,, confcrta
,, scncgalcnsii

Mucia . . 346
Cocoa . . 335
Abutia . . 343
Tinmbe . . 334
Di'zauha . . 349
Mafura . . 344
Wheat . . 334
. Quibosa . . 344
• 344
• 344

Uinbula, N'bu'a 353
Cai.'iU camoxe . 345
Usilla. . . 334

. N'doto . . 347
. Quipuculo . 347
. Molulu . . 347

,, rcclinata
Physostigma cylindnspcrmwn

Pimpindla platyphylla,
Piper guinefns: .

Piptadcnia africana .
Pisum satirton .
Polypodium Filix-Mas
Premna angolcnsis

. Wild Date Palm 341
Maxima ia
Muxito . . 345
Dongo-hindo . 3)7
. Jihefo (Chilli
Plant) . 3f9,35i
Muzango . . 34^
Common Pea . 333
Mai • Fern . . 350
. Mungnugo. . 3 19

Vitcx Cienkoii'skii

I'i'i sp
,, vinifera
VocMtlzeia iJib'ii^m.-a

Wchi'itscliia mirabilis
tt'ulfhorsiia ckebergoid* - .

''•'imcnia amcricand .
7.fa Ma- ....

Muxillo-xillo . 340,

351, 358
Catanta . . 351
. Luquello . . 352
333
Vungo-Vuugo . 361

354

. M'tuka . . 359

. Amp.^ue . . 355

Mai/.e, Guinbundo,
Cateta . . 333

Pseudospondias microi. arpu
Psidiwn Guajara
Psorospcrtnwn Ji'nrifugum.
Pttrocarpus cnnaccus

mclHfcr '.
,, tinctorius
Pyrus communis
„ mains

Musondo . . 3)4
. Guava . . 335
3)3
. Ndirassonde (S.) 353,

3? 7
. Mutete (N.) 345, 34^
Mulumba . -3)5
345
. Pears . . 331
. Apple . . 33)

OinVhibnn . 351
Quichuanga . 360

CHAPTER XXII

THE ECONOMIC AND GAME FUTURE OF THE
COLONY

MY long journey had come to an end, and
shipping was so uncertain that when
the chance of a homeward passage came
it was taken at once, and I sailed in the Beira.
Besides, it was time to leave Angola, for the
rainy and unhealthy season had commenced, my
health had broken down through hard marching
and the difficulties caused by want of carriers,
and I was in no condition to stand more
fever.

We sailed from Mossamedes, nfter friendly fare-
wells, past Benguella and Lobito Bay, Loanda,
and the Angolan coast.

The Beira was larger and faster than the
Mossamedes, and though we put in at San Thome,
Principe, and Dekar, she reached the Tagus and
Lisbon at the end of a voyage of only twenty-
four days, whereas the passage out had taken
thirty-seven.

As the ship sailed north along the Angolan
coast, it was curious to watch the landscape

change from desert sand near Mossamedes, to

36?

368 THROUGH ANGOLA

straggling grass and open scrub near Benguella,
and in its turn, farther north, into savannah.

It was interesting to contrast the old towns
that had served as seaward gates for centuries,
Benguella and Loanda and Ambriz, with the
growing, upstart town of Lobito, restless and
commercial. The old towns stood for a great
historic past of European venture and influence,
itself grafted on to a civilization which, though
African, might still be called great ; the kingdom
of the Congo with its long lines of kings and
courts and ancient customs.

They were a brave-hearted race these Por-
tuguese sailors that manned the little high-pooped
caravels, little larger than our trawlers, and sailed
them past uncharted shores, through unknown
seas ever onward, searching first the mysterious
Prester John, and then new worlds to conquer for
the Faith and Portugal, and from which to bring
slaves and gold and ivory. It must have been a
stirring sight to see these sea captains, and their
sailors in doublet and hose and jerkin, with sword
and spike and arquebus, fighting at great odds,
first the natives whose weapons were near the
equal of their own, then Dutch and French, to
hold what they had found with such dauntless
hardihood.

They built well, these old adventurers, as
stone fort and church, house and palace, still can
show ; and if those who came after them had
sought and fought and built with half their zeal,
this country of Angola would now have been a
great colony of Portugal.

\\IIKA1 VIKI.DINi; 40 KUSIIKI.S AN ACRF.

PORTUGAL'S GREAT PAST 369

It is not for an Englishman to say aught
against modern Portugal ; every race has its day
of greatness — Babylon and Byzantium, Crete
and Carthage, Greece and Rome. Portugal was
our leader then in adventure, in commerce, and
in letters. We are a great Empire to-day, great
especially in our daughter States, but who knows,
perhaps the writing is already on the wall, and
hundreds of years hence some other race may have
risen to equal greatness while our memory is but
history. Perhaps it is so ordained that one nation
shall rise after another, wave succeeding wave of
power and culture.

Small Portugal has certainly done her share,
and our respect goes out to all her past, as our
sympathy and friendship should go with her
every effort for the future of this ancient people
and their colonies.

There are many reasons why Angola, the
oldest of the African colonies, has not prospered ;
and some of these are good reasons. Portugal's
discovery of Angola was followed by those of
India and the New World, and neglect of her
African possessions was forced on Portugal by
the distribution of her exploring and colonizing
energy ; later, she had with waning power to
struggle with Holland, France, and Spain for her
oversea trade and possessions. I am glad that
England was never against her and often with
her, even to an alliance, the oldest in the world.

Of late years, there have been many mistakes
made by Portugal in regard to Angola. One of

these was her failure to colonize the country with

24

370 THROUGH ANGOLA

Portuguese. A small country with a compara-
tively large population, she possessed here a great
colony with millions of acres of land especially
suited for her thrifty and hardy peasants and
farmers, yet it was peopled at first only with
convicts ; though in these very years her good
settlers were pouring into the Americas to enrich
them with their thrift and labour. It is probable
that a quarter of a million good workers, who
could have made of Angola another Brazil, were
lost to Portugal. Madeira has indeed sent a few
colonists ; she could have sent the thousands which
go every year to the New World.

It is not too late : the land is there ; great
areas are still unappropriated by speculators, and
could be utilized by the settler in a number of
ways. The 12,000,000 acres of the healthy up-
lands could support a large farming population,
and the commerce spreading along the line of
railway, and at the ports and towns, would provide
work and wealth for many thousands more.

Another mistake has been her commercial policy,
which includes a high tariff.

Though protective tariffs have their value in
certain circumstances, such circumstances did not
apply to Angola. The encouragement to trade
was essential, cheapness of the means of living
were necessary to encourage immigration, and
should not have been antagonistic to the pro-
tection of a growing colonial industry. Trade
with Portugal would have been none the worse if
the discriminating tariff against foreign goods
had been moderated. Imports were instituted

MISJUDGMENT 371

which not only varied at the different ports, but
were so high at most of them as to prevent foreign
trade. The tariff at Luanda, Benguella, Lobito,
and Mossamedes, the principal ports, is 25 per
cent, ad valorem on unspecified goods, and higher
than this on certain specified articles. The dues
at Ambriz remain moderate (10 to 12 per cent, ad
valorem), largely owing to the initiative of Monteiro,
an Englishman with a Portuguese name, and the
duties in the Congo district of Angola are only
as moderate as 6 per cent, because they are
regulated by international agreement.

Inordinate preference is also given to goods
carried in Portuguese vessels, a fact which dis-
courages the free shipping which the colony needs.
Owing to this somewhat short-sighted policy,
trade has remained almost stationary for the
last twenty years, the imports being from
$6,000,000 to $10,000,000, while exports, in-
fluenced by other strangling ordnances, have been
equally stationary. The shipping returns, a re-
flection of the trade of the country, have remained
less than a million tons during the last dozen
years.

Angola's budget returns show that her ad-
ministrative methods are as open to criticism as
her commercial policy.

The revenue of $2,000,000 to 83,000,000
never seems to balance the expenditure, which is
often twice as great ; and Portugal pays for
Angola instead of profiting from its greatest
colony. The colony suffers also, I think, from
bureaucracy, too many poorly-paid adminis-

372 THROUGH ANGOLA

trators, and too much red tape. The Governors
of Districts and Chiefs of civil and military
" circunscripsions," or subdistricts, sit in their
offices and write about the work instead of going
round the district and seeing it done. My experi-
ence was that most of the really charming and
hospitable gentlemen I met, rarely got into per-
sonal touch with their native subjects or practical
questions ; they did not even know the geography
of their districts.

While realizing to the full the great spaces
of Angola, and the difficulty of travel, I have no
hesitation in saying that the diary of travel of the
Portuguese Administrators would compare very
unfavourably with that of a District Official of
a British African Colony. The native soldiers
and police, who are organized in companies on
a district basis, often appear to represent the
authority of the Administrator under whom they
serve ; and every one who knows Africa will
realize what delegation of authority means to
such people, and what a tyrant a black in tem-
porary authority can prove if given the chance.
The money required for opening up roads and
encouraging local native production is partly
spent in paying the large Portuguese admini-
strative staffs, especially in the big towns.

Some of the labour, already so scarce, and
which should be fully utilized for the urgent
needs of the colony, is lost to San Thome and
Principe to the obvious advantage of those islands,
but to the undoubted detriment of Angola.

If I have spoken frankly, I speak as a friend

THE FUTURE OF ANGOLA 373

who wishes to see Portugal hold all the colonies
bequeathed her by the gallantry of her earlier
discoverers ; but methods must be changed.
Foreign capital and trade should be encouraged,
for in the increased wealth and prosperity which
they would bring to the colony, Portugal would
gain far more than any small temporary advantage
that protective colonial legislation might appear
to bestow. Angola should be dealt with on great
and statesman-like lines, for she is a great colony.

There is probably no other single colony in
Africa that has so much land colonizable by
Europeans and suitable for the extensive cultiva-
tion of cereals, which all grow well in the Angolan
highlands, and maize especially so. In the lower
plateaux and coast land, cotton, sugar-cane, and
rice can flourish, while coffee, oil palms, and pine-
apples grow wild and in profusion in the north.

There is no African colony with a better
access for these products to the markets of Europe,
or better harbours to sail her ships from. In few
colonies runs a railway with greater potentialities
than that from Benguella to Katanga (which I
have called for convenience in this book the
Central Angolan Line), for Katanga is one of the
richest mine lands in the world, a country of
immense reefs of copper, zinc, gold, coal, and
iron.

To the north of Angola there are also the great
diamond fields of the Kasai, worked by Belgians
and Americans, and the resources of these mines
are reputed fabulous in their richness. By the
coast is oil, I believe in good quantity. A vast

374 THROUGH ANGOLA

concession to the north of the central railway
has been granted to an American company, and
from the energy and apparent optimism of her
very alert oil engineers, it is possible that America
has found yet another good investment.

She is losing no time in exploiting Angola, and
American companies have secured vast concessions
covering possibly one-third of the area of the
colony.

In the south of Angola an English company
has obtained an oil concession, and is very opti-
mistic of its possibilities.

In regard to colonization, Angola is better
suited to Portuguese and Italian settlers of small
holdings than to the British, for the country has
already a considerable Portuguese colony, some
20,000 people, and an Englishman would find
social life and the Portuguese language obstacles
to his progress and comfort. It is to the settler
with means and the investor that this country
should appeal, for the land and climate are good,
and values, owing to the low rate of exchange, very
favourable to the Englishman. Signor Norton de
Mattos, Portugal's High Commissioner for Angola,
is one of the greatest of her colonial admini-
strators, and if one man can make a difference to
a colony, Norton de Mattos will achieve it. He
is also a friend of Great Britain and the British.

One of the assets of Angola is its big game. It
is difficult to make the Portuguese realize how
much game preservation has helped the British
colonies economically by attracting to them those
who, coming to shoot big game in the first instance,

THE FUTURE OF ITS ANIMAL LIFE 375

remain to develop the country which its game has
made attractive.

The income of Angola would be largely in-
creased if game licences, limiting the number and
sex of the animals to be killed, were enforced ; for
the game protection ensured by such licences
would itself ensure continued and increasing
income as the game increased.

There are game licences even in Angola, but
the fees charged are so small and the number of
animals it is permitted to kill so large, that trading
in skins, horns, and meat of the greater game
animals is an active and thriving business. I have
watched with melancholy interest wagon-loads of
such consignments unloaded at Mossamedes.

With a licence costing £6 to a Portuguese, and
at the present rate of exchange less than £l to an
Englishman, between 100 and 150 of the greater
game animals can be shot, and apparently more
than one licence can be obtained by the same
hunter within the year.

Big game must have been very abundant in
Angola in the last three or four centuries, from
the old Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian histories
I have read. Eighty years ago, when Livingstone
crossed the country, there were still great herds
of game, and thirty or more years later, when
Cameron, Capello, Ivens, Serpa Pinto, Moiitciro,
and others travelled in Angola, they found game
still numerous. In the earlier years it was the
native who destroyed these splendid beasts con-
tinually as regards season, and indiscriminately as
regards sex, by snare and pitfall, and weapons of

376 THROUGH ANGOLA

every description ; but he is not mainly responsible
for their destruction to-day.

The slaughter of game became intensified
when the Boer entered Angola from South Africa,
forty years ago. Trekking to virgin lands where
they thought to live their own life, these
hardy travellers, expert but merciless hunters,
moved ever north-westwards through the Kalahari
desert, past Lake N'gami, and up the rivers that
feed this drying desert lake till they arrived in the
uplands of south Angola, where they settled.

Along the path of the trek they left not only
their own skeletons, and those of their oxen, but
thousands upon thousands of bones of the game
they killed for meat and skin ; they were to the
game of the land as the locusts were to the grass.

The Boer quickly destroyed the game round
Huilla, where he had settled, and then went back
to south-east Angola or westward to the coastal
belt to carry on the hunting which seemed needful
to his mentality and necessary for his physical
wants.

I have no right to criticize these people, loving
the hunting life, and living it myself whenever
possible. There is, of course, no excuse for any
one like myself, who has riot the Boer's need, to
slaughter game like a Boer, for no man should kill
more than he needs for a collection or food ; but
it is necessary to restrict the slaughter of game in
Angola for the sake of the Boer as well as the
country. As long as licences are unlimited and
easily obtainable, the Boer will neglect his farm-
ing to make money more readily from skins, meat,

A ROYAL BEAST MUST BE ROYAL GAME 377

and trophies, and by his very zeal will destroy his
future and better profit, and one of the real resources
of the country. The small Portuguese merchant
has now learnt the value of this trade in skins,
native hunters are everywhere collecting them,
and unless the Government steps in, the exter-
mination of Angolan game is assured.

By forming game preserves or even giving it
protection through proper licences, animal life
would increase again, and the Boer will always
have his sport and a far greater profit from hiring
his transport wagons to the rich man who comes
shooting to Angola, than he could have obtained
by hunting himself. The country will gain
greatly, for this type of hunter, who has come
to shoot, may invest or settle and develop the
colony. There is one animal that I hope will be
saved by new game laws : the wonderful giant
sable of Angola.

For many years the origin of a single sable
horn, 61 inches long, which hangs in the Florence
Museum, has been a puzzle to big-game hunters.
It is now probable that it was brought to Europe
in those far-off days when the Italian Missions
travelled and taught the way of the Cross in the
country.

Easy to shoot, a prize to the needy hunter,
and largely if not entirely confined to a narrow
watershed between two deep rivers, a few herds of
the giant sable await certain extermination unless
shielded. Only such protection as is afforded to
royal game can, and should, save a beast which is
so truly royal.

GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION OF ANGOLA

WITH TABLES OF POPULATION, FINANCE, AND

COMMERCE.

ANGOLA (CAPITAL, LOAXDA) ; AREA, 480,000 sq. miles ; POPULATION,
3,500,000 (approx.); DENSITY, 7 per sq. mile.

Government. — HIGH COMMISSIONER (appointed temporarily fur the economic
development of the Colony), GOVERNOR-GENERAL AND COUNCIL,
CHIEF OF ARMY AND MARINE, DIRECTORS OF FINANCE,
PL:J;LIC WORKS, HEALTH, NATIVE AFFAIRS, CUSTOMS, etc.

I

CIVIL DISTRICTS, UNDER CIVIL GOVERNORS, AND DIVIDED

INTO Dl>'l KICTS CALLED CoNCILHOS AND ClKCUNSCKII'SIONS.

!

MILITARY DISTRICTS, UNDU
MILITARY GOVERNORS, DIVIDEI
INTO SUBDISTRICTS CALLED CAP!
TANIAS MOR.

Name .

Congo A". Coanza .9. Coanza, Bcnguella Mofsa-

Huilla

tncdcs

Capital .

Muxela XY:?.!a Amboiin 'Benguella Mossa-

Lubango

do Zombo N'tando ,

medes

Area

35,000 51,000

48,000

74,000 20,400

68,000

Popula-

tion

300,000

500,000

600,000 800,000 10,000

500,000

Density

i

to sq.

mile .

10

10

12 it 0-5

7'5

Lunda

Moxica

r- ,
L uva ngo

Saurimo
66,000

Mexico
78,500

Cuita
Cuanavale
69,000

500,000

200,000

200,000

7'5

2 '5

3

FINANCE.

EXPORTS AND IMPORTS.

Exports.

Year.

Revenue
(Escudos).

Expenditure Deficit
(Escudos). (Escudos).

Year.

Imports.

!

8

S 8

3

1900-1

1,656,000

2,486,000 830,000

1900

6,792 ooo

1 90 1 - 2

1,844,000

1.994,000 i 150,000

1901

3,965 coo

1902-3

1.743,000

2,026,000 283,000

1902

3,460 oco

1903-4

1,683,000

2,331,000 646,000

1903

5-777 coo

1904-5

1904

7,665 O'-O

1905-6

1,351,000

2,337,000 986,000

1905

6,775 "oo

1906-7

1,384,000

2,777>'^JO '• i,393,">°

1906

6,541 ooo

1907-8

1,469,000

2,647,000 1,178.000

1907

6,919 oco

1908-9

1,497,000

3,494,ooo 1,93,7,000

1908

5,4^5 ("Of.

igOg-IO

2,528,000

3,678,000 1,150,000

1909

5,970 oo-

19IO-I1

2,321,000

3, 1 7 1,0 jo 850,000

1910

0,809 rr-

191 I-I2

2.321 .oco

7,171,000 850,000

1911

5,8^7 •<--'

"1912-13

2,912,000

3,6 i 2.C oo i .' 2,000

1972

5,341 ooo

13,73-14

3.428,000

,;,ooo 1,664,000

1913

5,723,000

19'4-iS

1014

5,214,000

1915-1/5

1915

6,835,000

6,3;V000 ' '

8,799,000

1917-18

«3)435,°°o

I' / '-i,OOO 3,:: 3 :,,'J JO

DETAILS OF EXPORTS.

("OnaiititR'- in T(jn.-..)

Produi is

Suyar
Rubber .
Mealies .
Colfee
Copra .
i'eans
Wax .
Dried fruit
White oil .
Palm oil .
Cotton
Coiros

1 |IO. IGII.

i ., /.

1913.

1914.

i^t;. 7916.

7977.

i,7'7

','57

',,262

4,561 2,976

5,265

4,43'

2-737

2, 002 T.I t

2,077 i,' -7

1,044

477

2.II4 4,052

930

6,056

4,446

4.051

4,833 4,453

4,000

3,203 4,089

2.317

3.360

2.046

.3,760 3, i7«

2,407

2,476

2,497

i 80

847

267

1,709 1,636

7,6

7 I2

791

£13

1,132

832

":777

5,539

3,687

3,562

..

4,211

4,426

5,!76

j , i ' -

17.622

9,736

3.230

391

659

1,254

144

123

165

64

153

109

561

863

905

3"

378

BIBLIOGRAPHY FROM AUTHOR'S
LIBRARY

ALVARES, FRANCISCO. — Vcrdadeira Informacao das terras de Prest e

Joao des India?,. (Lisbon, 1540.)
ALMEIDA. — Sul d' Angola. (Lisbon, 1912.)
Annaes maritimos e coloniaes, 1842 to 1846.
Annuario Colonial de igiS. (Lisbon, 1919.)
BAUM. — Kunene-Sambczi Expedition. (Kolonial Wirtschaftlichcs

Komitee.) (Berlin, 1903.)
BOCAGE. — Ornithologie d' Angola. (Lisbon, 1877 and 1881.)

Hcrpetologie d' Angola et du Congo. (Lisbon, 1895.)

BOSMAN. — Voyage de Guines. (Utrecht, 1705.)

BRUCE. — Travels to discover the Source of the Nile. (Edinburgh,

1790-)

CAMERON. — Across Africa. (London, 1876.)
CAPELLO, H., and IVENS, R. — De Banguella as Terras de lacca.

• De Angola d Contra Costa. (Lisbon, 1886.)
CARVALHO, HENRIQUE. — Expidicdo Portiigueza a Muaia a onvera.

(Lisbon, 1892.)
Catalogo dos Governadores do Rcino de Angola, contained in Col-

leccao dc Noticias para a Historia e GeograpJiia das Nacoes

itltra-inarinhas. (Lisbon, 1812.)
CAVAZZI. — Istorica descrizione di trc regni, Congo, Matamba e Angola,

accuramcnte compilata dal P. Gio. Antonio Cavazzi da Monte-

cucolo. (Bologna, 1687.)
DAri'KK.' — '\Tmii;'k; urige f^ scJirijving d-~r Ajrikaanschv g< iveslfii

vm: Olj Dii fiber. (Amsterdam, 1008.)
DOUYILLE. — Voyage an Congo et dans I'iiilcrieur di I'Afrujiic

equinoxidle. (Paris, 1832.)
Efrsains Sobye a Siatislica Das Possessors Portiignczas, etc. Livro

III., Part I., Angola c Bcnguella. (Lisbon, 1846.)
FKOBENIUS. — The Voice oj Africa. Translated by l\udolf Blind.

(llutchinson : London, 1913.)
GKLGORY, J. W. — Report of the Work of Commission, etc., Jc^isJi

Settlement in Angola. (London, 1913.)
Contribution to the Geology of Ecnguclla. (Royal Society of

Edinburgh, 1918.)

HAKLUYT. — Principal Navigations and Voyages.

379

380 THROUGH ANGOLA

HEYLIN, PETER. — Cosmography (of Africa). Book IV. (London,

1682.)
JOHNSTON, Sir H. H. — The River Congo. (Sampson Low & Co. :

London, 1884.)

- British Central Africa. (Methuen & Co. : London, 1897.)
LABAT, JEAN. — Nouvelle relation de L'Afrique occidentale. (Paris,

1728.)
LACERDA. — Exame das viagens do Doutor Livingstone. (Lisbon,

1867.)
LEWIS, Rev. THOMAS. — The Ancient Kingdom of Congo. Journal

of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xix., 1902.
LEYDEN. — Discoveries and Travels in Africa. Enlarged and com-

pleted by H. Murray. (Edinburgh, 1817.)

LIVINGSTONE. — Missionary Travels. (Murray : London, 1857.)
LYDEKKER. — The Game Animals of Africa. (Rowland Ward :

London, 1908.)

MARQUARDSEN. — Angola. (Dietrich Reimer : Berlin, 1920.)
MARQUES, AUGUSTINO. — Os climas e as produccoes des terras de

Melanje a Lunda. (Lisbon, 1889.)
MONTEIRO, JOACHIM. — Angola and the River Congo. (London,

1875.)

MURRAY. — Discoveries and Travels in Africa. (Edinburgh, 1818.)
Noticias para a Historia e Geographia das Nacoes ultramarinas.

(Lisbon, 1812.)

As Navigacions da Luiz de Cadamosto (from Ramusio's Voyages],
Navegacdo de Lisbon a ilha de S. Thome, 1445, escreta por hum Piloto

Portuguez (from Ramusio's Voyages}.
REVENSTEIN, E. G. — Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell. (Re-

printed from Purchas his Pilgrimes by the Hakluyt Society.)

(London, 1901.)
SANSON, D'ABBEVILLE. — L'Afrique en plusieurs cartes et en Divers

Traittez. (Circa 1650.)
SERPA PINTO. — Como en Atravessei Africa. (Sampson Low & Co. :

London, 1881.)
STEVENSON-HAMILTON. — Animal Life in Africa. (W. Heinemann :

London, 1912.)
STIGAND AND LYELL. — Central African Game and its Spoor.

(Horace Cox, Field Office : London, 1006.)
TARUFFI, DINO. — L'Alti piano di Benguclla ed il sito avvenire agricolo.

(Florence, 1916.)
WEEKS. — Among Congo Cannibals. (Sceley, Service : London,

WELWITSCH AND HIERN. — Catalogue of Angolan Plants collected by
Welwitsch and arranged by W . P. Hiern. (British Museum
Series. 1896.)

GENERAL INDEX

Aard-wolf (Proteles cristatiis), 273.

Aboriginal, 192, 193.

Acacias, 31, 160.

Administration, 372.

Africa, crossing of , 188.

Aged, disposal of, 225.

Agricultural areas, 318.

Allen, Mrs., 137.

Almeida, Joao (Governor), 185.

Altitudes, 300.

Ambaca, 42, 180.

Amboim, 191.

Ambriz, 36.

,, Customs duties at, 36.
Ambuilla, Chief of, 188.
Americans, 39.
Angola, area of, 300.

(" Dongo "), King of, 176-

178.

provinces of, 304 et seq.
,, boundaries of, 189.
Anna Zinga (Queen), 182, 183.
Anophelene, mosquitoes, 293.
Ant bear (Orycteropus capensis},

273-

Antarctic current, 300.
Ant-eater, scaly (Pangolin mams),

274.

Ant-hills, 283.
Ants (ssp.), 285 et seq.
Aragao, Balthazar de (Governor),

1 80.

Arrows, poisoned, 103.
Atlantis, 169.
Atrocities, Belgian, 116.

Ba Chimba tribe, 160.

, Coroca tribe, 161.

, Cuando tribe, 160, 192, 225.

, Cubal tribe, 210.

, Cuisso tribe, 160, 192.

, Nano, 191.

, Tchemo tribe, 192.

, Twa tribe, 192.
Bibaroussa, 4.
Baboon, yellow (Papio cynocepha-

lus), 273.
Bailundus, 35, 108, 191, 215.

Bakoy River (Sencgambia), 4.
Bangalas, 191.
Banguelo, Lake, 4, 7.
Bantu, 171, 190, 193.
language, 193.
Banza (native town), 172.
Barber (Clarias gariepinus), 280.
Barley, 334.
Barue, 4.

Battel, Andrew, 180 et seq.
Batuco (dance), 223.
Beans, 333.
Bee eaters (ssp.), 278.
Bees, 291.

Beira steamship, 367.
Belgian atrocities, 116.

,, Congo, 116 et seq.
Belgium, 116.

Benevides, Salvador de Sa (Gov-
ernor), 184.
Benguella district, 31.

,, Customs duties at, 36.
„ province of, 307.
town, 123.
Velha, 178, 180.

Benguella-Katanga (Central An-
golan) Railway, 104, 106, 115
et seq.

Benin, kingdom of, 29.
Big game, destruction of, 375 et seq.
Bihe, country, 35, 104 et seq.
,, town (Belmonte), 105, 106.
,, (the hunter), 109, 115, 191.
Biheno tribe, 108 et seq.
Bimbas, 124, 129 et seq.
Birds, beautiful, 278.
,, game, 274, 275.
,, miscellaneous, 276, 277.

of prey, 275.
,, song, 278, 279.
,, wading, 275.
Biting fly (" Stromoxys "), 287.
Elaine, Captain, 53, 89, 256.
Boers' farms, 157.

,, hunting by, 157 et seq , 376.
Bondos. 191.
Bonji village, 80.
Botanical zones, 301, 340 et seq.

382

THROUGH ANGOLA

Botanical Index, 364 et seq.

Boundaries (Angola), 189.

" Bouquet d'Afriqne," 215.

Brazil, 113, 176, 184.

Brides, preparation of, 223, 224.

Bringes, Mr., 34.

BritishEasteruTelegraphCo.,33,T65.

Broken Hill, 7, nS.

Brontosaurus, 4.

Buffalo (Bos caffer), 74, 143 et seq.,

239, 252.

,, hunting, 144 et seq.
,, photographing, 147.
Bull, Mr., 144.
Bundu or M'Bundu language, 35,

191.

Bunga Callunga village, 71.
Bungo River, 61, 70, 71.
Burial customs, 225 et seq.
Bush buck (Tragelaphus), 144, 263.
,, cow (Bos caffer nanits), 239,

254-

,, craft, 231 et seq.
,, pig (Potamochcents chcevopota-

mus), 251.
Bustards, 274.
Butterflies, 292.
Byzantium, 170, 194.

Cabinda, 29, 304, 341.

Cacoluvar River, 153.

Caconda Post, 126.

Cadamosto, Luis de, 21.

Cafuxe, Chief or, 179.

Cahanda, 109.

Caluando River, 94, 95.

Calunga River, 151.

Camacupas township, 105.

Cambambe (silver mines), 178, 179.

Camera, telephoto, 10, 147.

Cameron (explorer), 113, 123.

Cameroons, colony, 4, 23, 34.

Camp furniture, 48.

Canada, 4.

Cangandalla post, 50 ct seq.

Cannibals, 112.

Cao, Diego, 171 et seq.

Capata (beer), 113.

Cape to Cairo Railway, 115.

Cape Verde Islands, 21.

Capello, 113, 245.

Capitanias Mor (Captain-in-Chief ) ,

31-

Capuchin order, 186.
Caracal (Felis caracal), 273.
Caravan, 49.
Caravels, 172.

Cardoso. Bento (Governor), 180.
Carli (priest and historian), 187.

Carriers, loads, 46.

,, native, 243.
Carthaginians, 169.
Casement, Roger, 117.
Cassembe, 188.
Casualolla, 41, 238.
Catabella township, 105.
Catambue River, 158.
Catengue, 124, 125, 129, 140.
Caterpillars, 292.
Cattle, diseases of, 329.

,, local varieties of, 329.
Catumbella River, 122, 123, 239,

300.

„ town, 123.

Cavaco River, 123, 129 et seq.
Cazar, Pedro (Governor), 184.
Centavos, Portuguese currency, 44.
Centipedes, 298.
Central Railway (Benguella-

Katanga), 239.
Cereals, 333.

Chameleon " Jimmy," 134 et seq.
Chameleons, poisonous nature of,

135-

Charms (Mokceshoo), 202 et seq.

Chella Mountains, 156 et seq., 163.

Chibia township, 157.

Chiefships, succession, 227.

Chigoe (Sarcophylla penetrans), 297.

Childbirth, 225.

Chilli peppers, 35.

Chimbango Post, 86 et seq.

Chimbangue, 57.

Chimpanzee (Anthropithecus), 273.

Chingaloi River, 149, 150.

Chinguar town, 32, 105 ct seq., 127.

Chisongo village, 94.

Chissange ("sansa"), musical in-
strument, 221.

Chobe River, 5.

Chuso village, 88, 104.

Circumcision rites, 223.

Civet, African (Viverra civetta], 273.

Clark, Mr., 121, 132 et seq.

Climate, 6, 301 et seq.

Clothing, personal, 48.

Coal, 306.

Coango River, 350.

Coanza districts, 31, 306.

River, 5, 41, 51, 60 et seq.,
127, 176, 299.

Coastal belt, animal life of, 160.
,, ,, tribes of, 160, 161.

,, ,, vegetation of , 31, 160,
301.

Cob (Buffon'sj, 59.

Cobras (Xaia), 280.

Cocoa, 23, 335.

GENERAL INDEX

383

Coffee, 335.

Commercial policy, 368 et seq.
Concessions, various, 34, 374.
Congo, Angolan district of, 29 et

seq., 3°5, 342-
,, Belgian province of, 30.

floor in aggot (A actinic ro my in

Ittteola), 296.
,, people, 191, 2To.

.River, 30, 107.

Congo-Zambezi watershed, 290.
Convicts, Portuguese, 33.
Cooper, Mr., 153.
Coporollo River, 141 et seq.
Copper, 117, 128, 306.
Coptic beliefs, 194.
Co q ue River, 54.
Coquema River, 106.
Coretava River, 124.
Cossart, Captain, 10, 13.
Cotton, planting of, 125.

varieties of, 125, 337.
Continho, Joao ^ Governor), 179.

Francisco (Governor), 1 88.
Cranes (ssp.), 275.
Crocodiles, 279.
Cruelty, native, 212.
Crvstalline rocks, 301.
Cuando River, 156, 239, 252, 259,

2(>o, 295, 351'), 3')i.
Cubal, 125, 126, 239, 308.
Cubango River, 31, io(>, 107, 156,

157, 252, 266, 295, 299, 356, 301.
Cubo River, 107.
Cuchi River, 106.
Cuckoos, 276.
Cuinje River, 51.
Cuito River, 266, 361.
Culcx, mosquito, 293.
Cultivation, native, 331.
Cum a railway station, 119, 126, 127.
Cummunga stream, 85, 87.
Cunde Cunde village, 82, 85.
Cuncne River, 107, 127, 157, 252,

259, 261, 209, 35r>, 359-
Cunhia, Senhor, 144, 150.
Cunhinga River and tribe, TO?, 103.

107.

Customs duties, 36.
Cutato River, 106, 107.
Cuvo River, 107, 127, 180.

D' Almeida, Francisco, 178.
Jeronymo, 179.
Dances, 222, 223.
Dande River, 41.
Dead, disposal of, 225.
Death ceremonies, looetscq., 112,
226,

Departure from Angola, 367.
Desertas (Deserted Islands), 10 et

seq.

,, Lords of, 10 et seq.
Desiccation of Africa, 143, 159.
"Diamba" (wildhemp)smoking,2i9.
Diamonds, 307.
Diarrhoea, 313.
Diaz, Paulo, 176 et seq.
Direction, precautions against los-
ing, 233.

Divining, 198, 199.
Dombe, Chiefs of, 180.

,, tribe, 191.

Don Alfonso (native prince), 174.
Dragon-flies, 288.
Dress, native, 35, 214, 215.
Drinking habits, native, 209.
Driver ant, 285.
Droppings (game), 232.
Drug plants, 338, 344.
Drugs, etc., 314, 315, 344.
Drummond, Mr., 144.
Drums, native, 220.
Duarthe, Senhor, 141.
Ducks (ssp.), teal, etc., 274, 275.
Duiker, " Bambe " (Cefihalophus

grimnii], 75, 144, 267.
,, blue, " Okambele " (C.

monticola), 267.
,, yellow - backed (C. silvi-

cultoy], 267.

Dutch in Africa, 29, 179, 183, 184.
Duthie, Mr. (Vice-Consul, Lobito),

121.

Dye and tanning products, 338.
Dysentery, 313.

Eagles, sea, 275.

hawk (ssp.), 275.

Egret, white (Ardea garzctta], 275.
Egypt, influence of, 109.
Eland antelope (Taurotragus

oryx], 94, 143, 239, 261.
Elephant (Elephas africanus), 247.

dwarf, 4.

Elephants, 142, 150, 239.
Elepi township, 127.
Emprcza Xacional (Portuguese

Slapping Company), 122.

Engongui," 222.

Equipment of expedition, 46, 47.
Escudo, Portuguese dollar, 44.
Etruria, 169.
Etruscans, 169, 193, 194.

Falcons (ssp.), 276.
Family (native) customs, 208 <>l
sen.

384

THROUGH ANGOLA

Farm (Cuito), 126.

„ of Gondombes, 141.

,, produce, 331 et seq.
Fazenda, 38.

Fernando Po (missionary), 175.
Fetish, 197 et seq.

,, houses, 200, 202, 204.
Fibre plants, 337.
Film packs, 49.
Fishes, 280.
Flax, 331.

Flies (ssp.), 287 et seq.
Flora, Index to the, 364 et seq.
Flowers, 362.
Flycatchers (ssp.), 277.
Fodder plants, 334.
Food (native), 219.
Forest, destruction of, 141, 143.

,, tropical, 30, 31.
Forjaz, Manuel, 179.
Fortunate Islands, 20.
Fossils, 159.
Fowls (domestic), 331.
Francolins, 274.
French in Africa, 29, 170.
Fruits (cultivated), 334.
Funeral rites, 100 et seq., 112.

Galangoes, tribe, 191.
Gama, Antoni de, 188.
Gambas tribe, 109.
Game distribution, 245.

licence, 38, 282, 375.
Ganda railway station, 119, 126.
Ganguella or Kangella, 108.
" Garapa" (native beer), 35, 209.
Geese (ssp.), 274.
Genets (Genetta ssp.), 75, 273.
German intrigue, 116 et seq.
Giant hog (Hylochcerns meinert-

zhageni], 76, 77, 251.
Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis

anvolcnsis), 239, 255.
Glossina morsitaiis, 294, 295, 313.

,, palpalis, 23, 294, 295, 313.
Gneiss rocks, 159, 305, 308, 310.
Gnu, brindled, 2OO.
Goats, domestic, 330.
,, wild, ii et seq.
Gonsalvez, Jean, 9.
Gorilla (G. savagei], 273.
Granite rocks, 158, 159, 305, 308,

310.

Gregory (geologist), 307.
Grey, George, 116.
Ground-nut, 35, 331, 332.
Guenons, 273.
Guereza monkeys, 273.
Guinea-fowls (Numidea), 274.

Guisanga (potent liquor), 113.
Guissunges (feasts), 112.
Gum, 338.
Gun licence, 37.
Guns, 48, 49, 231.
Gypsum, 338.

Hamites, 190, 193.

Hammer-head (Scopus umbretta),

27.5-

Hanja River, 150, 151.
Hanno, 169.
Hare (Lepra), 274.
Hartebeeste (Bubalis], 239, 261.
Head-dress, native, 214.
Health and disease, 311 et seq.
Hemp, 331.

,, smoking, 219.
Henry (Prince), " the Navigator,"

170.

Herons, 275.
Hinton, Mr., 8, 10, 18.
Hippopotamus (H. amphibius), 239,

249.

pygmy, 4.
Htppotragus niger, 4.

,, ,, varianii, 5.

Hog, giant, 76, 77, 251.
Hollis, Mr., 38.
Honey collecting, 292.

,, guide (Indicatoridae), 276.
Honeysuckers, 278.
Hornbills, 276.
Horses, 330.

Houses, Portuguese, 326.
Huambo township, 119.
Huilla district, 31, 154, 309, 356.
Humbe tribe, 109, 210.
Humbia railway station, 162.
Hunting axioms, 237, 238.

,, dog, Cape (Laon pictus),

273-

,, hints, 234 et seq.
Husbands ^native), status, 209.
Hut (native), 208.
,, architecture, 216.
,, tax, 45.
Hyasna (H. crocuta), 272.

Ibis (ssp.), 275.
Iguana (ssp.), 279.
Impallah (pallah), 239.
Improvidence (native), 210, 211.
Initiation rites, 223, 224.
Insects, 283 et seq.
Iron, 306.
Irrigation, 319.
Ivens, 113, 245.

GENERAL INDEX

385

Jackals (C finis mesomelas and

adustus], 273.

Jaggas, tribe of, 180 et seq.
Jameson, Dr., 115.
Jesuits, 179, 183.
Jingas, IQI.

Joao (native King of Congo), 173.
I. and n. (Kings of Portugal),

170, i -i.

Johnson, Sir Marry, 190, 191.
Johnson (Vice-Consul, San Thome),

25-

Johnston, Mr., 121, 144.
Ju-ju, 197.

Kadiac Islands, 4.

Katanga, province of, 115 et seq.

Kingfisher, little (Corythornis

cyanostigma), 278.
Kings, native, 218.
Kishi Congo language, 191.
Kites (ssp.), 275.
Klipspringer antelope (Oreotragus

saltator], 268.
" Kohvah " or giant sable (also

Sambakalogo), 53, 54, 58.
Kudu (Strepticeros capensis), 143,

239, 262.

Labour, difficulties. 327, 372.

forced, 327.

Lacerda, Francisco, 188.
Lake Tchad, 190.
Land tenure, 322.
Lechwe, Angolan, 59, 80, 265.
,, antelope, red, 59.

black, 59.
Lemurs, 273.
Lengue Gorge, 308.
River, 123.

" Lent rat " custom, 220.
Leopard (Felis leopardus), 97, 98,

' 271.
,, hunting (Cyncelurus jula-

tus), 272.

Leopold, King of Belgians, 116, 118.
Libolle tribe, 191.
Limestone formations, 121 , 301, 305.
Lion (Felis leo}. 73 et seq., 80, 93,

129 et seq., 268 et seq.
Lisbon, 8.
Liverpool, 8.
Livingstone, 8, 113, 189.
Lizards and geckos, 279.
Loanda, 7, 31, 32, 60 et seq., 176,

184, 300.
climate of, 305.
-Melanje (Northern An-
golan) railway, 39 et seq.

25

Loanda tribe, 216.
Loanga, papyrus mat, 35.
Lobito, 7, 32, uGetseq., 300.
Longoe River, northern, 80 et seq.

,, ,, southern, 86 et seq.

Lorenz, Senhor Eduardo, 40.
Lory, grey (Chizcerltis cnncolor), 276.
Luando-Coanza watershed, tra-
verses of, 87, 89.

,, River, Go, 71 et seq., 94.
Lubango, 125, 162.
Lucala River, 41, 178.
Luce River, Go, 90, 94.
Luimbe tribe, 100, 191.
Lunda district, 31, 307.

language, 192.
Lusengo River, Go, 88, 94.

Machado, Mr. S. \V., 121.

Mr. William, 1 2 1, 1 2get seq.
" Macham," the sailor, 9.
Macotas (courtiers^, nr, 177, 217.
Macunde (town), 178.
Madeira, 7.
Maize, 128, 331.
Mala stream, 68, 69.
Malanka (roan antelope). 53.
Malaria, 312.

Mambas (Dandraspis), 279.
Mandioc root, 331. 332.
Mandrill, 273.
Mangroves, 30.
Mani Congo (King of Congo), 171

et seq.

Mantis insects, 288.
Marabou stork (Leptoptilus cru-

miniferus), 275.
" Marimbas," 221.
" Marimbondo " (Scaliphron spiri-

fcx], 290.
Markets, European, 371, 373.

native, 35.
Marquardsen, 304.
Marriage rites, 224.
Massanga village, 96, 105.
Massangano, 41, 178, 180, 184.
Matamba (kingdom of), 182.
Mattos, Signor Norton de, 374.
Mazi River, 98.
Mealies, 331.
Medicine chest, 314.
Medicine-man, 198.
Melanje, 32, 43, 53, 238.
Mendez, Senhor, 141, 142.
Mendonca, Joao (Governor), 179.
Merolla (priest and historian), 186.
Millet, 333.
Minerals, 306 et ?eq.
Miranda, Senhor, 163.

886

THROUGH ANGOLA

Mondombe tribe, 137 et seq.
Monteiro, Mr. Vergilio, 34, 39.
Mosambique, 52, 84.
Mosquito, curtain for, 48.

" Anophelene " (malarial),

84.

Mosquitoes, 292 et seq.
Mossamedes, Chartered Company of

of, 162.

Customs duties at, 36.
district, 31, 309, 354.
railway, 163, 164.
,, town, 7, 137, 164, 165,

300.
Mossamedes steamship (old s.s.

Sumatra), 18, 29.
Mossi, 194.
Motor equipment, 240.

(hunting) trips, 240.
Moxico district, 31, 307.
Muata Yamvo (Chief), 192.
Mucano (fine), in.
Muchicongo, 192, 215.
Mud daubers (Scaliphron spirifex),

290.
Mud fish, African (Protopterus

anectans), 280.
Mujambo River, 150.
Mulattoes, 18.
Mulemba tree (Ficus psilopoga),

96.

Mulundu village, 96.
Mungoose, 273.
Muni (Spanish colony), 31.
Musical instruments, 220 et seq.
Mussorongo tribe, 191.
Mussulu tribe, 191.
Mutilation, personal, 210.
Muxima (town), 179.

Nagana (cattle disease), 126.
Necho, King of Egypt, 169.
Negrillo (Bushman), 192.
Negro laziness, 45.
N'dala N'tando town, 42, 238.
N'ganga (witch doctors), 195.
N'gola Cafuxe, 41.
Night-jars and goat-suckers, 277.
Novo Redondo, town of, 188.
Nubia, influence of, 170.
Nupe, ancient kingdom of, 194.
Nursing habits (native), 215.

Oats, 334.
Odium, Major, 5.
Oendolongo hills, 308.
Ogane, Prince, 175.
Oil, 306, 373.
Onions, 128.

Oribi (Oribia scopana), 268.
Orientation, 233.
Oryx (Oryx gazella), 239, 259.
Ostrich (Slruthio australis), 274.
Otter (Lutra vulgaris), 55.
Outcropping rocks, 302.
Ovambo tribe, 210.
Owls (ssp.), 276.
Ox-wagons, 242 et seq.

Pain, native insensibility to, 2 10,21 3.

Pallah, Angolan (/Epyceros petersi),
259-

Palms, 337.

Pareisha (guide), 12 et seq.

Peas, 331.

Pedra Grande, 158.
Pequena, 158.

Pedras d'Enconge, 188.

Pereira, Luiz (Governor), 178.

Manuel(Governor) , 1 79,1 80.

Persia, influence of, 170, 190.

Personal adornment, 210.

Peter sen, Mr., 121.

Petroleum, 306.

Phoenicians, 169.

Photograph materials, 49.

Photographs, difficulties in de-
velopment of, 67, 68.

Phylloxera, 25.

Pigeons, 274.

Pigs, domestic, 330.

Pillar of Mussera, 305.

Pit-falls (native), 230.

Plantain ea.tcrs(Corythe?ola sp.),278.

Plantation products, 334, 335.

Plants species, 364 et seq.

Plateau, Angolan, 299.

Poisonous plants, 363.

Pole, Mr. Tudor, 121, 122.

Polyandry, 183.

Polygamy, 174, 187.

"Pombeiro" (carrier head-man),

I 10, III.

Porcupine (Hystrix), 274.
Portuguese colonization, 368 et seq.
Potato, sweet, 35, 331, 333.
Potatoes, 128, 333.
Preservation of game, 375.
Prester John, 175, 368.
Primary rocks, 159, 300.
Principe Island, 22.
Protective coloration, 16.

tariffs, 370.
Provisions, 47.

Puff adder (Vipera urietans), 280.
Pungo Andongo, 178, 185.
Pygmy tribes, 192, 193.
Pythons, 280.

GENERAL INDEX

387

Quail (ssp.), 274.

Cjuillenges, 125, I40,i5oetseq., 191.

,j manners and customs,

152.

,, tribes, 152.

Quimbande (tribe), 214.
Quingombe village, 96, 97, 98.
Quinsolle bush, 89.
Quioco, 192.
Quissama (tribe and district of),

178. 191.
Quissange (" sansa "), 221.

Rabbit, rock (Dasyprocta), 274.
Railway journeys, 40.

,, traffic, 128.
Rainfall, 126, 140, 301 et seq.
Rain-maker, 200.
Ratel (Mellivora ratel), 273.
Reed buck (Cervicapra arundineum]
j£- (Sogo), 55, 143, 239, 266.
Relapsing fever, 297, 313.
Reptiles, 279, 280.
Revenue, 371, 378.
Rhinoceros (R. bicornis}, 7 4,239,2 54.

birds (Buphaga), 276.
Rhodes, Cecil, 115.
Rice, 334.
Rinderpest, 107.
Ritual (Christian), influence of, 173,

174.
River hog (Potamochcerus chcero-

potamus), 251.
Roads, 241, 319.
Roan antelope (Hippotragus

equinus) (Malanka), 53, 143,

239, 258.
Roller birds, 278.
Rubber, 336.

,, atrocities, 28.
Rumelia stream, 60 et seq.
Russell, Mr., 121.

Sable antelope, common (Hippotra-
gus niger), 4, 257.
giant (Hippotragus
niger varianii), 5,
Chaps. IV.-VII.,
239, 257.

" Salale," 284.

Salt, extraction of, etc., 94, 179.

Salutation ceremony (native), 216
et seq.

Sambakalogo or giant sable, 53, 257.

San Antonio, 20, 30.

San Pedro, 124.

San Salvador, 172, 173, T82.

San Thiago, 21.

San Thome, 7.

San Vincent, 7, 20,

Sand grouse, 274.

Sandstone conglomerates, 306.

Sansa (musical instrument), 221.

Sarannah forest, 341.

Sardinia, 4.

Scorpions, 298.

Secret societies, 205.

Secretary bird (Serpcntarius secve-

tarius], 276.

Sedimentary formations, 159.
Selle tribe, 19.
Sequeira, Luiz de, 185.
Serpa Pinto, 113, 199, 245.
Serrao, Luiz (Governor), 178.
Serval (Felis served}, 273.
Shamanism, 193.
Sheep, 330.

,, wild, 14.
Shooting advice^ 236.
Shrikes, 277.
Sitatunga (Tragelaphus spekei)

(Sowe), 54, 55, 56, 58, 239, 263.
" Slave labour," 25, 26, 27, 28.
Sleeping sickness, 23, 295, 313.
Small-pox, 85, 313.
Smoking, 218, 219.
Snake bite, treatment of, 314.
Snakes, 279.
Snipe, 273.
Sogo (reed buck), 55.
Soil, nature of, 125.
Soils, 301 et. seq., 318 et seq.
Song birds (ssp. var.), 278.
Songho tribe, 100, 191.
" Songwe " (Angolan lechwe), 239.
Sonho (tribe and territory), 186.
Sore feet, 313.
Sottomaior, Francisco (Governor),

184.
Sova (native chief or head-man),

53, 69, 70, 96, 112.
Speculation in land, 141.
Spies, 138.
Spiritualism, 197.
Spirit- worship, 194 et seq.
Spoor, 231 et seq.
Spring buck (Antidorcas' euchorc),

259-

Stegomyia, mosquito, 293.
Steinbok (Qribia campestris), 268.
Stock, 327 et seq.
Stockades, 113.

Subterranean mausoleums, 226.
Sudanese (Negro) group, 190.
Sugar-cane, 337.
Suicide fly, 287.
Suku, 194.
Sumbe tribe, 191.

388

THROUGH ANGOLA

Taboo, 205 et scq.

Tachyles wasp, 289.

Tamarisks, 160.

Telephoto lenses, 49.

Telephotography, animal, 81.

Temperature, range of, 303 et seq.

Termites, 283.

Tetua, 86.

Ticks, 296.

Tiger fish (Hydrocyon lineatus), 280.

Tobacco, 337.

Totemism, 205.

Tracking, 78, 79, 231 et seq.

Transport, means of, 319.

"Transports" Maritimus, 122.

Traps (native), 230.

Travel, methods of, in hunting,

238 et seq.
Tree ant, 286.

Trees, vide Index to the Flora.
Trial by ordeal, 201.
Trypanosomiasis, 126.
Tsessebe (Damaliscits lunatus), 261.
Tsetse (Glossina ssp.), 294 et seq.
Tumbu fly (Cordylobia anthropo-

phaga), 296.
Tunda village, 95.
Turaco, giant (Turacus giganteus),

278.

Turtle dove, 274.
Tuscano, Senhor, 144 et seq.
Tyre, 169, 193.

Ultra Marino Hank, 45.

Umbundu language and people, 192,

193-

Untruthfulness (native), 2iietseq.

Vaez, Tristan, 9.
Van der Byl, Captain, 89.
Varian, Captain, 4, 5, 53, 121.
Vasconcellos, Luiz (Governor), 182,

Vegetation, 339 et seq., etc.
Vermin (native), personal, 215.
Vipers, 280.
Vultures (ssp.), 276.

Wagon-ox (transport), 242.

Wart hog (Phacochoerus africanus),

250.
Water buck (Cobus penricei), 143,

239. 264.
Wax, 128.
Weaver birds, 277.
Wheat, 331, 334.
White ants (termites), 283.

,, ,, destructiveness of, 284.
Widow birds (Vidua ssp.), 277.
Widows, customs regarding, 103.
Wild cat (Felis orcreata), 273.
Wildebeeste, blue (Connochcetes

tauriims], 239, 260.
Williams, Mr. Robert, 115 et seq.
Witchdoctor, looetseq., 195 et seq.
Wives (native), status and duties

of, 208, 209.

Yellow fish (Varicorhinns brucei),

280.

Yorubaland, 169.
Yule, Mr., 7.

Zabrugar (Pareisha), vide Pareisha.
Zaire River (Congo), 171.
Zambezia Exploring Company, 126,

322 et seq.

Zambezi-Congo watershed, 119.
Zambi or N'Zambi (beneficent

Dcitv), 194.
Zarco, Joao, 9.
Zebra (Equus zebra), 239, 256.

(Penrice'sor Hartman's), 256.
(Chapman's), 256.
Zombo, 192.

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