Angola and the River Congo, vol. 1

by Joachim John Monteiro

I have seen the surface of a large pool of water thickly covered with a layer of purple pea-shaped flowers, fallen from the large Wistaria-like bunches of blossom of a creeper overgrowing a mass of trees standing at the edge: it seemed as if Nature, loth that so much beauty should fade quickly, had kept for some time longer the fallen flowers fresh and lovely on the cool still water of the shady lake. This abundance of creeping plants is more or less preserved till at about sixty miles farther inland we arrive at Bembe and the comparatively level country stretching away to the interior; the oil-palm (Elæis Guineensis) then becomes again abundant, these trees being only found on the coast in any number in the vicinity of the rivers; the beautiful feathery papyrus also again covers the lagoons and wet places.

The comparatively short and spare thin-leaved and delicate tufted grasses of the first or littoral region are succeeded in the second, as I have already said, by much stronger kinds, attaining an extraordinary development in the highest or third region. Gigantic grasses from five to as much as sixteen feet high, growing luxuriantly, cover densely the vast plains and tracts of country in these two regions where tree vegetation is scarce. The edges of the blades of most of these tall grasses are so stiff and finely and strongly serrated as to be quite sharp, and if passed quickly over the skin will cause a deep cut, as clean as if done with a knife; one species is called by the natives “Capim de faca” in Portuguese, or “knife grass,” from the manner in which it cuts if handled, or in going through it.

I have often had my hands bleeding from cuts inflicted by this grass when in going down steep, dry, slippery places I have clutched at the high grass on each side of me to prevent falling. To any one accustomed to grass only a few inches high, the dimensions that these species attain are simply incredible. Like snow and ice in northern latitudes, grasses in interior tropical Africa for some six months in the year take undisputed possession of the country and actually interrupt all communication in many places.

It is a very strange feeling when travelling in a hammock, to be forced through grass so dense and so high that nothing but the sky above can be seen,—a wall of dry rustling leaves on each side shutting out all view sometimes for mile after mile, and so intensely hot and breathless as to be almost unbearable, causing the perspiration to run in drops off the wet, shining, varnished skins of the almost naked blacks. In going through places where the grass has nearly choked up all signs of a path, it is necessary to send in advance all the blacks of the party, so as to open aside and widen it sufficiently to allow the traveller in his hammock to be carried and pushed through the dense high mass: even if there be a moderate breeze blowing it is, of course, completely shut out; the perspiration from the negroes is wiped on the grass as they push through it, now shoving it aside with their hands and arms, now forcing their way through it backwards, and it is most disagreeable to have the wetted leaves constantly slapping one’s face and hands, to say nothing of the horrible stink from their steaming bodies. It is a powerful odour, and the quiet hot air becomes so impregnated with it as to be nearly overpowering. It is difficult to compare it with any other disagreeable animal smell; it is different from that of the white race, and the nearest comparison I can give is a mixture of putrid onions and rancid butter well rubbed on an old billy-goat. In some it is a great deal worse than in others, but none, men or women, are free from it, even when their bodies are at rest or not sensibly perspiring; and it being a natural secretion of the skin, of course no amount of washing or cleanliness will remove it. The mulattoes, again, have it, but different, and not generally so strong as the pure black, and with a more acid odour, reminding one strongly of the caprylic and similar acids known to chemists. The natives themselves naturally do not notice it, and after some time of residence in the country, except in very powerful cases, strangers become comparatively accustomed to it, and, as showing how a person may in time become used to nastiness, I have even partaken of a dish in which were some forcemeat balls that I had previously watched the negro cook roll with the palm of his hand on his naked stomach, to make them of a proper round shape, without spoiling my appetite or preventing me from joining in the deserved praise of the stew that contained them.

The Portuguese and Brazilians call the smell that exhales from the bodies of the blacks “Catinga,” and I witnessed an amusing instance of its effect on a dog, when it smelt it for the first time. On my second voyage to Angola, I took with me a beautiful “perdigueiro,” or Portuguese pointer, from Lisbon; this animal had evidently never smelt a negro before our arrival at Ilha do Principe (Prince’s Island); for, on two of the blacks from the custom-house boat coming on the poop, it began sniffing the air at some distance from where they were standing, and carefully and slowly approached them with its neck and nose at full stretch, with a look on its intelligent face of the greatest curiosity and surprise. On approaching within three or four yards, the smell of the blacks, who kept quite still, being afraid it might bite them, seemed too much for its sensitive nose, and it sneezed and looked perfectly disgusted. It continued to approach them and sneeze and retreat repeatedly for some little time, evidently unable to get used to the powerful perfume. The poor dog’s unmistakeable expression of thorough dislike to the odour of the black race was most comical.

An old Brazilian mule that I had at Benguella could not bear the blacks to saddle her or put her bridle and head-gear on; she would throw back her ears, and suddenly make a snap with her teeth at the black who attempted it. She was a very tame animal, and would be perfectly quiet to a white man. She had been seventeen years in Benguella before she came into my possession, but never became used to negroes; whether she disliked them from their disagreeable odour, or from some other reason, I could not discover; but, judging from the dog’s decided antipathy, I presume their smell was her principal objection, and yet it is very singular that wild animals in Africa will scent a white sooner than a black hunter. I have heard this from many persons in Angola, both blacks and whites. It would be interesting to know if our hunters at the Cape have noticed the same thing. The fact that, notwithstanding the “Catinga,” black hunters can lie in ambush, and antelope and other game come so close to them that they can fire the whole charge of their flint muskets, wadding and all, into them, is well known in Angola.

Whilst exploring for minerals in Cambambe, I was prevented for a long time from visiting several localities, from the paths to them being choked up with grass. It is difficult to imagine how exhausting it is to push through thick, high grass; in a very short time one becomes completely out of breath, and the arms hang powerless with the exertion: the heat and suffocating stillness of the air may have as much to do with this as the amount of force exerted to push aside the yielding, rustling mass.

Shortly after the rains cease in May, the grass, having flowered and attained its full growth, rapidly dries up under the hot sun, and is then set on fire by the blacks, forming the wonderful “Queimadas,” literally “burnings,” of the Portuguese, and “smokes” of the English in the Bights. If only the leaves are sufficiently dry to catch fire, the stems are left green, with a black ring at every joint or base of the leaf, and the mass of whip-like stems then looks like a forest of long porcupine quills. This is very disagreeable to travel through, as the half-burnt stems spring back and cross in every direction behind the front bearer of the hammock, and poke into the traveller’s face, and thrash the hands when held up to save the eyes from injury, and after a day’s journey one gets quite black, with eyes and throat sore and parched from the charcoal dust and fine alkaline ash.

When the grass has become thoroughly dry, the effect of the “Queimada” is indescribably grand and striking. In the daytime the line of fire is marked by a long cloud of beautiful white steam-like smoke curling slowly up, dense and high in the breathless air, in the most fantastic forms against the clear blue sky. This cloud of smoke is closely accompanied by a perfect flock of rapacious birds of every size and description, from the magnificent eagle to the smallest hawk, circling and sailing high and grandly in the air, and now and then swooping down upon the unfortunate rats, mice, and small animals, snakes, and other reptiles, burnt and left exposed by the conflagration. Near the blazing grass the scene is very fine, a deafening noise is heard as of thousands of pistol shots, caused by the imprisoned air bursting every joint of the long stems, and the loud rush and crackling of the high sheet of flame, as it catches and consumes the dry upright straw. One is inspired with awe and a feeling of puny insignificance before the irresistible march of the flames that are rapidly destroying the enormous extent of the dense, nearly impenetrable mass of vegetation covering the surface of the country, leaving it perfectly bare with the exception of a few charred root stumps of grass, and a few stunted, scorched shrubs and trees. At night the effect is wonderfully fine: the vast wall of fire is seen over hill and valley, as far as the eye can reach; above the brilliant leaping flames, so bright in the clear atmosphere of the tropical night, vast bodies of red sparks are shot up high into the cloud of smoke, which is of the most magnificent lurid hue from the reflection of the grand blaze below.

No trees or shrubs are consumed by the burning of the grasses, everything of a larger growth being too green to take fire; a whitening or drying of the leaves is generally the only effect even where the light annual creepers growing on them have been consumed. Forest or jungle in Angola, unlike other countries, never burns, and is consequently the refuge of all the larger animals and birds from the “Queimadas,” which are undoubtedly the cause in many parts of Angola of the great scarcity of animal and insect life which strikes a traveller expecting to meet everywhere the great abundance known to exist in the interior.