MARCH FROM DONDO TO NHANGUEPEPO.
“Nhanguepepo, Monday, June 3, 1889.
“I left Dondo last Thursday morning. Brother Withey walked with me about a mile. Four carriers—who brought cargoes from Nhanguepepo, arriving in Dondo on Tuesday, and taking a day for rest—were ready to start on their return trip on Thursday. I employed two of them, one to carry my bed and the other my food, and half a cargo for Brother Withey. We spent the first night at Mutamba, thirteen miles out, stopping about eight miles out for lunch, and four hours of rest.
“Four years ago, after waiting four or five days in Dondo trying in vain to get carriers, we depended on half-a-dozen Kabindas, whom we hired in Loanda, on good recommendations, as a standby in case we should fail. We were repeatedly told by men of long experience in Angola, that ‘it would be impossible for us, as strangers, especially as we would neither drink nor sell, nor give
rum, gin nor wine, to get any carriers for the interior.’ ‘The traders, with their long and widely extended experience, facilities and free rations of grog, can’t get more than half the carriers required at this time.’ ‘One gentleman of my acquaintance,’ said, ‘I had 5,000 bags of coffee at Kazengo, thirty-six miles from Dondo, and could not put it into the market for want of carriers.’
“So, a part of our pioneer party, viz: myself, Willie Mead, W. P. Dodson, Joseph Wilks, Henry Kelley, the Vey boy from Liberia, determined to make a start on Friday night (about June 1, 1885,) even if we should have to do our own carrying, for the Kabindas whom he had hired refused to carry for us; and they had a lot of their own luggage, twice as much as regular carriers take with them.
“I learned from an old trader, who had thirty years of observation along our contemplated line of work in Angola, that Nhanguepepo was the best site for a mission between Dondo and Pungo Andongo. So we aimed to reach this first and best place. About 9 o’clock, on that night, we succeeded in getting six Kabindas to shoulder each a load of our luggage and food for the trip, leaving one Kabinda with Dr. Summers and C. M. McLean, in care of a large amount of our stuff at Dondo, stored in our tents, inside of a stone wall enclosure, said to have been a slave pen in the dark days of old. I and my little party of missionaries each took a load of stuff, and struggled up the mountain range four miles to Pambos, arriving about midnight. We spread our bed on the ground and got a little sleep. Before sunrise I had carried wood and made a fire, and had on the tea-kettle. The Kabindas looked grimly on, but declined to help with the camp work. Breakfast over, we made a move for our march, but the K.’s refused to pick up their loads. All my kind talk, and Brother M.’s scolding, failed to move them, so we ‘were stuck in the mud.’ We got the men through the English house in Loanda, and about 9 P.M. I saw Mr. N., the head of the English house, coming in his ‘tipoia,’ carried by men from his farm at Kazengo. So I went a little way from our camp, and met him, and explained to him the situation.
“He said: ‘The trouble is the Kabindas are not carriers. They are sailors and porters and gentlemen’s servants. They were represented
to you as good for any service to which you might want to put them, but they have not been trained to work of this sort.’
“I replied: ‘Well, Mr. N., if you can prevail on the fellows to carry till we can reach an interior village we can pick up all the carriers we need.’