[219] Battell is named in the margin as authority for this paragraph, but it is not likely that he would have mentioned a lake Aquelunda, which we now know does not exist. It rather seems that Purchas got this bit of information out of Pigafetta. The Quizama here referred must not be confounded with the country of the same name, to the south of the Coanza. It was the district of the Quiluangi quia Sama (or quia Samba, according to Lopez de Lima, p. 60), the ancestor of a chief of the same name now living near the Portuguese fort of Duque de Bragança. The “commonwealth” is an evident reference to the country of the Dembos (ndembu, plural jindembu, ruler, chief), who recognise no superior chief or king.
[220] It need scarcely be stated that the horse was first introduced into Angola by the Portuguese. The tails seen by the early Portuguese, and sometimes described as horse-tails, were in truth the tails of the Zebra.
[221] See another version of the same story, p. [69.]
[222] The nsanda is the banyan, or wild fig-tree (ficus umbelata, Vahl).
[223] Battell has been misunderstood by Purchas, for the manga tree is the Mangrove (Rhyzophora mangle) called Mangue in Kimbundu, which rejoices in adventitious roots, as also does the nsanda.
[224] See p. [24], for note on the Nkondo or Baobab.
[225] For an account of this mode of climbing a tree, see Pechuel-Lösche, Loango Expedition, vol. iii, p. 179.
[226] On honey, see note, p. 68.
[227] Nsanda, the banyan-tree.