Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

by David Livingstone

We were most kindly received by the commandant of Ambaca, Arsenio de Carpo, who spoke a little English. He recommended wine for my debility, and here I took the first glass of that beverage I had taken in Africa. I felt much refreshed, and could then realize and meditate on the weakening effects of the fever. They were curious even to myself; for, though I had tried several times since we left Ngio to take lunar observations, I could not avoid confusion of time and distance, neither could I hold the instrument steady, nor perform a simple calculation; hence many of the positions of this part of the route were left till my return from Loanda. Often, on getting up in the mornings, I found my clothing as wet from perspiration as if it had been dipped in water. In vain had I tried to learn or collect words of the Bunda, or dialect spoken in Angola. I forgot the days of the week and the names of my companions, and, had I been asked, I probably could not have told my own. The complaint itself occupied many of my thoughts. One day I supposed that I had got the true theory of it, and would certainly cure the next attack, whether in myself or companions; but some new symptoms would appear, and scatter all the fine speculations which had sprung up, with extraordinary fertility, in one department of my brain.

This district is said to contain upward of 40,000 souls. Some ten or twelve miles to the north of the village of Ambaca there once stood the missionary station of Cahenda, and it is now quite astonishing to observe the great numbers who can read and write in this district. This is the fruit of the labors of the Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries, for they taught the people of Ambaca; and ever since the expulsion of the teachers by the Marquis of Pombal, the natives have continued to teach each other. These devoted men are still held in high estimation throughout the country to this day. All speak well of them (os padres Jesuitas); and, now that they are gone from this lower sphere, I could not help wishing that these our Roman Catholic fellow-Christians had felt it to be their duty to give the people the Bible, to be a light to their feet when the good men themselves were gone.

When sleeping in the house of the commandant, an insect, well known in the southern country by the name Tampan, bit my foot. It is a kind of tick, and chooses by preference the parts between the fingers or toes for inflicting its bite. It is seen from the size of a pin's head to that of a pea, and is common in all the native huts in this country. It sucks the blood until quite full, and is then of a dark blue color, and its skin so tough and yielding that it is impossible to burst it by any amount of squeezing with the fingers. I had felt the effects of its bite in former years, and eschewed all native huts ever after; but as I was here again assailed in a European house, I shall detail the effects of the bite. These are a tingling sensation of mingled pain and itching, which commences ascending the limb until the poison imbibed reaches the abdomen, where it soon causes violent vomiting and purging. Where these effects do not follow, as we found afterward at Tete, fever sets in; and I was assured by intelligent Portuguese there that death has sometimes been the result of this fever. The anxiety my friends at Tete manifested to keep my men out of the reach of the tampans of the village made it evident that they had seen cause to dread this insignificant insect. The only inconvenience I afterward suffered from this bite was the continuance of the tingling sensation in the point bitten for about a week.

MAY 12TH. As we were about to start this morning, the commandant, Senhor Arsenio, provided bread and meat most bountifully for my use on the way to the next station, and sent two militia soldiers as guides, instead of our Cassange corporal, who left us here. About midday we asked for shelter from the sun in the house of Senhor Mellot, at Zangu, and, though I was unable to sit and engage in conversation, I found, on rising from his couch, that he had at once proceeded to cook a fowl for my use; and at parting he gave me a glass of wine, which prevented the violent fit of shivering I expected that afternoon. The universal hospitality of the Portuguese was most gratifying, as it was quite unexpected; and even now, as I copy my journal, I remember it all with a glow of gratitude.

We spent Sunday, the 14th of May, at Cabinda, which is one of the stations of the sub-commandants, who are placed at different points in each district of Angola as assistants of the head-commandant, or chefe. It is situated in a beautiful glen, and surrounded by plantations of bananas and manioc. The country was gradually becoming more picturesque the farther we proceeded west. The ranges of lofty blue mountains of Libollo, which, in coming toward Ambaca, we had seen thirty or forty miles to our south, were now shut from our view by others nearer at hand, and the gray ranges of Cahenda and Kiwe, which, while we were in Ambaca, stood clearly defined eight or ten miles off to the north, were now close upon our right. As we looked back toward the open pastoral country of Ambaca, the broad green gently undulating plains seemed in a hollow surrounded on all sides by rugged mountains, and as we went westward we were entering upon quite a wild-looking mountainous district, called Golungo Alto.

We met numbers of Mambari on their way back to Bihe. Some of them had belonged to the parties which had penetrated as far as Linyanti, and foolishly showed their displeasure at the prospect of the Makololo preferring to go to the coast markets themselves to intrusting them with their ivory. The Mambari repeated the tale of the mode in which the white men are said to trade. "The ivory is left on the shore in the evening, and next morning the seller finds a quantity of goods placed there in its stead by the white men who live in the sea." "Now," added they to my men, "how can you Makololo trade with these 'Mermen'? Can you enter into the sea, and tell them to come ashore?" It was remarkable to hear this idea repeated so near the sea as we now were. My men replied that they only wanted to see for themselves; and, as they were now getting some light on the nature of the trade carried on by the Mambari, they were highly amused on perceiving the reasons why the Mambari would rather have met them on the Zambesi than so near the sea-coast.

There is something so exhilarating to one of Highland blood in being near or on high mountains, that I forgot my fever as we wended our way among the lofty tree-covered masses of mica schist which form the highlands around the romantic residence of the chefe of Golungo Alto. (Lat. 9d 8' 30" S., long. 15d 2' E.) The whole district is extremely beautiful. The hills are all bedecked with trees of various hues of foliage, and among them towers the graceful palm, which yields the oil of commerce for making our soaps, and the intoxicating toddy. Some clusters of hills look like the waves of the sea driven into a narrow open bay, and have assumed the same form as if, when all were chopping up perpendicularly, they had suddenly been congealed. The cottages of the natives, perched on the tops of many of the hillocks, looked as if the owners possessed an eye for the romantic, but they were probably influenced more by the desire to overlook their gardens, and keep their families out of the reach of the malaria, which is supposed to prevail most on the banks of the numerous little streams which run among the hills.

We were most kindly received by the commandant, Lieutenant Antonio Canto e Castro, a young gentleman whose whole subsequent conduct will ever make me regard him with great affection. Like every other person of intelligence whom I had met, he lamented deeply the neglect with which this fine country has been treated. This district contained by the last census 26,000 hearths or fires; and if to each hearth we reckon four souls, we have a population of 104,000. The number of carregadores (carriers) who may be ordered out at the pleasure of government to convey merchandise to the coast is in this district alone about 6000, yet there is no good road in existence. This system of compulsory carriage of merchandise was adopted in consequence of the increase in numbers and activity of our cruisers, which took place in 1845. Each trader who went, previous to that year, into the interior, in the pursuit of his calling, proceeded on the plan of purchasing ivory and beeswax, and a sufficient number of slaves to carry these commodities. The whole were intended for exportation as soon as the trader reached the coast. But when the more stringent measures of 1845 came into operation, and rendered the exportation of slaves almost impossible, there being no roads proper for the employment of wheel conveyances, this new system of compulsory carriage of ivory and beeswax to the coast was resorted to by the government of Loanda. A trader who requires two or three hundred carriers to convey his merchandise to the coast now applies to the general government for aid. An order is sent to the commandant of a district to furnish the number required. Each head man of the villages to whom the order is transmitted must furnish from five to twenty or thirty men, according to the proportion that his people bear to the entire population of the district. For this accommodation the trader must pay a tax to the government of 1000 reis, or about three shillings per load carried. The trader is obliged to pay the carrier also the sum of 50 reis, or about twopence a day, for his sustenance. And as a day's journey is never more than from eight to ten miles, the expense which must be incurred for this compulsory labor is felt to be heavy by those who were accustomed to employ slave labor alone. Yet no effort has been made to form a great line of road for wheel carriages. The first great want of a country has not been attended to, and no development of its vast resources has taken place. The fact, however, of a change from one system of carriage to another, taken in connection with the great depreciation in the price of slaves near this coast, proves the effectiveness of our efforts at repressing the slave-trade on the ocean.

The latitude of Golungo Alto, as observed at the residence of the commandant, was 9d 8' 30" S., longitude 15d 2' E. A few days' rest with this excellent young man enabled me to regain much of my strength, and I could look with pleasure on the luxuriant scenery before his door. We were quite shut in among green hills, many of which were cultivated up to their tops with manioc, coffee, cotton, ground-nuts, bananas, pine-apples, guavas, papaws, custard-apples, pitangas, and jambos, fruits brought from South America by the former missionaries. The high hills all around, with towering palms on many points, made this spot appear more like the Bay of Rio de Janeiro in miniature than any scene I ever saw; and all who have seen that confess it to be unequaled in the world beside. The fertility evident in every spot of this district was quite marvelous to behold, but I shall reserve further notices of this region till our return from Loanda.

We left Golungo Alto on the 24th of May, the winter in these parts. Every evening clouds come rolling in great masses over the mountains in the west, and pealing thunder accompanies the fall of rain during the night or early in the morning. The clouds generally remain on the hills till the morning is well spent, so that we become familiar with morning mists, a thing we never once saw at Kolobeng. The thermometer stands at 80 Degrees by day, but sinks as low as 76 Degrees by night.