None of these gentlemen had Portuguese wives. They usually come to Africa in order to make a little money, and return to Lisbon. Hence they seldom bring their wives with them, and never can be successful colonists in consequence. It is common for them to have families by native women. It was particularly gratifying to me, who had been familiar with the stupid prejudice against color, entertained only by those who are themselves becoming tawny, to view the liberality with which people of color were treated by the Portuguese. Instances, so common in the South, in which half-caste children are abandoned, are here extremely rare. They are acknowledged at table, and provided for by their fathers as if European. The colored clerks of the merchants sit at the same table with their employers without any embarrassment. The civil manners of superiors to inferiors is probably the result of the position they occupy—a few whites among thousands of blacks; but nowhere else in Africa is there so much good-will between Europeans and natives as here. If some border colonists had the absolute certainty of our government declining to bear them out in their arrogance, we should probably hear less of Caffre insolence. It is insolence which begets insolence.
From the village of Cassange we have a good view of the surrounding country: it is a gently undulating plain, covered with grass and patches of forest. The western edge of the Quango valley appears, about twenty miles off, as if it were a range of lofty mountains, and passes by the name of Tala Mungongo, "Behold the Range". In the old Portuguese map, to which I had been trusting in planning my route, it is indicated as Talla Mugongo, or "Castle of Rocks!" and the Coanza is put down as rising therefrom; but here I was assured that the Coanza had its source near Bihe, far to the southwest of this, and we should not see that river till we came near Pungo Andonga. It is somewhat remarkable that more accurate information about this country has not been published. Captain Neves and others had a correct idea of the courses of the rivers, and communicated their knowledge freely; yet about this time maps were sent to Europe from Angola representing the Quango and Coanza as the same river, and Cassange placed about one hundred miles from its true position. The frequent recurrence of the same name has probably helped to increase the confusion. I have crossed several Quangos, but all insignificant, except that which drains this valley. The repetition of the favorite names of chiefs, as Catende, is also perplexing, as one Catende may be mistaken for another. To avoid this confusion as much as possible, I have refrained from introducing many names. Numerous villages are studded all over the valley; but these possess no permanence, and many more existed previous to the Portuguese expedition of 1850 to punish the Bangala.
This valley, as I have before remarked, is all fertile in the extreme. My men could never cease admiring its capability for raising their corn ('Holcus sorghum'), and despising the comparatively limited cultivation of the inhabitants. The Portuguese informed me that no manure is ever needed, but that, the more the ground is tilled, the better it yields. Virgin soil does not give such a heavy crop as an old garden, and, judging from the size of the maize and manioc in the latter, I can readily believe the statement. Cattle do well, too. Viewing the valley as a whole, it may be said that its agricultural and pastoral riches are lying waste. Both the Portuguese and their descendants turn their attention almost exclusively to trade in wax and ivory, and though the country would yield any amount of corn and dairy produce, the native Portuguese live chiefly on manioc, and the Europeans purchase their flour, bread, butter, and cheese from the Americans.
As the traders of Cassange were the first white men we had come to, we sold the tusks belonging to Sekeletu, which had been brought to test the difference of prices in the Makololo and white men's country. The result was highly satisfactory to my companions, as the Portuguese give much larger prices for ivory than traders from the Cape can possibly give, who labor under the disadvantage of considerable overland expenses and ruinous restrictions. Two muskets, three small barrels of gunpowder, and English calico and baize sufficient to clothe my whole party, with large bunches of beads, all for one tusk, were quite delightful for those who had been accustomed to give two tusks for one gun. With another tusk we procured calico, which here is the chief currency, to pay our way down to the coast. The remaining two were sold for money to purchase a horse for Sekeletu at Loanda.
The superiority of this new market was quite astounding to the Makololo, and they began to abuse the traders by whom they had, while in their own country, been visited, and, as they now declared, "cheated". They had no idea of the value of time and carriage, and it was somewhat difficult for me to convince them that the reason of the difference of prices lay entirely in what they themselves had done in coming here, and that, if the Portuguese should carry goods to their country, they would by no means be so liberal in their prices. They imagined that, if the Cassange traders came to Linyanti, they would continue to vend their goods at Cassange prices. I believe I gave them at last a clear idea of the manner in which prices were regulated by the expenses incurred; and when we went to Loanda, and saw goods delivered at a still cheaper rate, they concluded that it would be better for them to come to that city, than to turn homeward at Cassange.
It was interesting for me to observe the effects of the restrictive policy pursued by the Cape government toward the Bechuanas. Like all other restrictions on trade, the law of preventing friendly tribes from purchasing arms and ammunition only injures the men who enforce it. The Cape government, as already observed, in order to gratify a company of independent Boers, whose well-known predilection for the practice of slavery caused them to stipulate that a number of peaceable, honest tribes should be kept defenseless, agreed to allow free trade in arms and ammunition to the Boers, and prevent the same trade to the Bechuanas. The Cape government thereby unintentionally aided, and continues to aid, the Boers to enslave the natives. But arms and ammunition flow in on all sides by new channels, and where formerly the price of a large tusk procured but one musket, one tusk of the same size now brings ten. The profits are reaped by other nations, and the only persons really the losers, in the long run, are our own Cape merchants, and a few defenseless tribes of Bechuanas on our immediate frontier.
Mr. Rego, the commandant, very handsomely offered me a soldier as a guard to Ambaca. My men told me that they had been thinking it would be better to turn back here, as they had been informed by the people of color at Cassange that I was leading them down to the sea-coast only to sell them, and they would be taken on board ship, fattened, and eaten, as the white men were cannibals. I asked if they had ever heard of an Englishman buying or selling people; if I had not refused to take a slave when she was offered to me by Shinte; but, as I had always behaved as an English teacher, if they now doubted my intentions, they had better not go to the coast; I, however, who expected to meet some of my countrymen there, was determined to go on. They replied that they only thought it right to tell me what had been told to them, but they did not intend to leave me, and would follow wherever I should lead the way. This affair being disposed of for the time, the commandant gave them an ox, and me a friendly dinner before parting. All the merchants of Cassange accompanied us, in their hammocks carried by slaves, to the edge of the plateau on which their village stands, and we parted with the feeling in my mind that I should never forget their disinterested kindness. They not only did every thing they could to make my men and me comfortable during our stay; but, there being no hotels in Loanda, they furnished me with letters of recommendation to their friends in that city, requesting them to receive me into their houses, for without these a stranger might find himself a lodger in the streets. May God remember them in their day of need!
The latitude and longitude of Cassange, the most easterly station of the Portuguese in Western Africa, is lat. 9d 37' 30" S., and long. 17d 49' E.; consequently we had still about 300 miles to traverse before we could reach the coast. We had a black militia corporal as a guide. He was a native of Ambaca, and, like nearly all the inhabitants of that district, known by the name of Ambakistas, could both read and write. He had three slaves with him, and was carried by them in a "tipoia", or hammock slung to a pole. His slaves were young, and unable to convey him far at a time, but he was considerate enough to walk except when we came near to a village. He then mounted his tipoia and entered the village in state; his departure was made in the same manner, and he continued in the hammock till the village was out of sight. It was interesting to observe the manners of our soldier-guide. Two slaves were always employed in carrying his tipoia, and the third carried a wooden box, about three feet long, containing his writing materials, dishes, and clothing. He was cleanly in all his ways, and, though quite black himself, when he scolded any one of his own color, abused him as a "negro". When he wanted to purchase any article from a village, he would sit down, mix a little gunpowder as ink, and write a note in a neat hand to ask the price, addressing it to the shopkeeper with the rather pompous title, "Illustrissimo Senhor" (Most Illustrious Sir). This is the invariable mode of address throughout Angola. The answer returned would be in the same style, and, if satisfactory, another note followed to conclude the bargain. There is so much of this note correspondence carried on in Angola, that a very large quantity of paper is annually consumed. Some other peculiarities of our guide were not so pleasing. A land of slaves is a bad school for even the free; and I was sorry to find less truthfulness and honesty in him than in my own people. We were often cheated through his connivance with the sellers of food, and could perceive that he got a share of the plunder from them. The food is very cheap, but it was generally made dear enough, until I refused to allow him to come near the place where we were bargaining. But he took us safely down to Ambaca, and I was glad to see, on my return to Cassange, that he was promoted to be sergeant-major of a company of militia.
Having left Cassange on the 21st, we passed across the remaining portion of this excessively fertile valley to the foot of Tala Mungongo. We crossed a fine little stream called the Lui on the 22d, and another named the Luare on the 24th, then slept at the bottom of the height, which is from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet. The clouds came floating along the valley, and broke against the sides of the ascent, and the dripping rain on the tall grass made the slaps in the face it gave, when the hand or a stick was not held up before it, any thing but agreeable. This edge of the valley is exactly like the other; jutting spurs and defiles give the red ascent the same serrated appearance as that which we descended from the highlands of Londa. The whole of this vast valley has been removed by denudation, for pieces of the plateau which once filled the now vacant space stand in it, and present the same structure of red horizontal strata of equal altitudes with those of the acclivity which we are now about to ascend. One of these insulated masses, named Kasala, bore E.S.E. from the place where we made our exit from the valley, and about ten miles W.S.W. from the village of Cassange. It is remarkable for its perpendicular sides; even the natives find it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to reach its summit, though there is the temptation of marabou-nests and feathers, which are highly prized. There is a small lake reported to exist on its southern end, and, during the rainy season, a sort of natural moat is formed around the bottom. What an acquisition this would have been in feudal times in England! There is land sufficient for considerable cultivation on the top, with almost perpendicular sides more than a thousand feet in height.
We had not yet got a clear idea of the nature of Tala Mungongo. A gentleman of Cassange described it as a range of very high mountains, which it would take four hours to climb; so, though the rain and grass had wetted us miserably, and I was suffering from an attack of fever got while observing by night for the position of Cassange, I eagerly commenced the ascent. The path was steep and slippery; deep gorges appear on each side of it, leaving but a narrow path along certain spurs of the sierra for the traveler; but we accomplished the ascent in an hour, and when there, found we had just got on to a table-land similar to that we had left before we entered the great Quango valley. We had come among lofty trees again. One of these, bearing a fruit about the size of a thirty-two pounder, is named Mononga-zambi.