“The fifty-one miles of travel from Dondo to Nhanguepepo is mainly through a region of rugged mountains and precipitous cliffs of solid rock, opening out into the long and widening grassy plateaus of Nhanguepepo. The thirty-eight miles from Nhangue to Pungo extend through and mainly across a series of ridges and hollows sparsely covered with scrubby timber. The soil not so rich, hence grass not so heavy and grass fires not so hot; therefore there is half a chance for trees to grow, with no chance at all from Dondo to Nhangue, except some very sappy varieties of but little value.
“From Pungo on for twenty miles the ridges are much broader and not so high as those described; there is more sand, less grass and heavier, but still scrub-timber. Then for eight or ten miles we cross low, beautifully rounded grassy ridges, with a little streams of water near the surface, about half a mile apart between the ridges. Then, for most of the way to Malange we cross ridges less fertile, much higher, with an ascent of from two to four miles. The whole line of march bears southeasterly. All appears to be a good grazing country, with many herds of cattle, but not a tithe of the number required to keep the grass down, and thus keep up
good short grass pasturage the year round, and preclude the great ‘prairie fires,’ which destroy the young timber and prevent the growth of forests. For many miles around Malange, there is a fair supply of good hard-wood timber in variety.
“Sam Mead, Ardella his wife, and Bertha his niece, and I came together to Malange, nearly four years ago. Sr. J. Preitas was then in charge of the long established business house of Sanza Laurie & Co., in Malange, and gave us the temporary use of a house for our missionaries. After a day or two here, he informed me that Sanza Laurie & Co. intended soon to close out their business in Malange, and that I had better buy their house and town lot on which it stood, containing an acre of land and some banana trees. The house was an extension of house added to house joined into solid walls, about one-third of wattle and earth, and the rest of adobe brick. The last one added, forty feet in length, was new, consisting simply of walls with no roof. The frontage of the whole was about 165 feet, by a width of 18 feet. I inquired: ‘What is the price of the whole property, house and land?’
“He replied: ‘You can have it for two hundred milreis, $214.’
“I said: ‘I’ll give that amount,’ and the bargain was closed in about as few words as I have written. It is worth four times that amount now. The plates, girders and timbers are nearly all of ant-proof, and almost everlasting hard-wood, most of which are as solid to-day apparently as when new. One of them has a fire-proof covering by means of a double roof. On the lower is a heavy layer of cement of adobe clay, precluding rats, rain and fire. Over this is a thatch roof of long native grass. On the sunny side it has kept dry and sound, but on the north side our brethren have put on new thatch, cleaned and whitewashed the rooms, and finished the new forty-foot room, and fitted it up for a school-room and chapel, which is the seventh room in the building.
“In the few days I was here, four years ago, Brother Sam and I selected and stept off a mission-farm adjoining our mission-house. He and Brother Gordon fenced, cleared and planted several acres in corn, beans, manioc, sweet potatoes, etc., and everything grew beautifully, but the brethren were kept indoors by illness for a few days, and just what an old Portuguese settler predicted came to
pass, their fencing was all stolen for firewood, and the cattle and hogs devoured every green thing from the premises. Bad outlook for self-support. It was in the midst of a ‘three years’ drought,’ which precluded the growth of supplies at our other Angola stations, but our farm was not far from the ‘laguna,’ a lake, a few hundred yards wide, and perhaps a mile long, occasioned by the spread of the Malange River over a plain, which gave moisture to the soil for a considerable distance from its shore. We did not seek to get nearer to the lake for fear of malaria, being warned of that peril by old residents.
“A fair share of the supplies for the first year of food, tools, and a little money, came to Malange for six missionaries, including Bertha, in her thirteenth year, with fresh supplies for the second year, and seven new missionaries to help to use them up, but all that was but to keep the wolf away, and afford means for the development of self-support. Sister Ardella’s health was so far gone, for months, that it was believed her life depended on her having apartments in a second story. But there were none in town, so a two-story house must be built. In the changes that were one way and another rapidly occurring, for the most part by attacks of home-sickness, that carried them off and clear out of the country, most of the work devolved on Brother Sam Mead, till two years ago his cousin, Brother Willie H. Mead and family moved hither from Nhangue, preceded by Brother Robert Shields, sent out by our Committee from Ireland. These have all stuck to the work here to which God called them, except that Edna Mead, a ripe Christian of about 12 years of age, at the call of God went up to join her sister, Nellie, in their heavenly home.
“The results of this unpromising attempt at self-support I will sketch in my next letter. Wm. Taylor.”