Loanda was discovered in the year 1492, and since 1576 the white race has never abandoned it. The Jesuits and other missionaries did wonders in their time, and the results of their great work can be still noticed to this day: thousands of the natives, for 200 miles to the interior, can read and write very fairly, though there has hardly been a mission or school, except in a very small way, at Loanda itself, for many many years; but those accomplishments are all that civilization or example has done amongst them. They all believe firmly in their fetishes and charms, and though generally treated with the utmost kindness and equality by the Portuguese, the negro race, and even the mulattoes, have never advanced further than to hold secondary appointments, as writers or clerks, in the public offices and shops, and to appear (in public) in the most starched and dandyfied condition. I can only recollect one black man who had at all distinguished himself in trade; keeping low and filthy grog-shops being about the extent of their business capacity. Another honourable exception is a Captain Dias, who is the captain or governor of the district of the “Barra do Bengo,” near Loanda, a very intelligent man, and from whom I several times experienced great kindness and hospitality.
Plate II.
PORTO DA LENHA.
To face page 81.
CHAPTER IV.
THE RIVER CONGO—BANANA—PORTO DA LENHA—BOMA—MUSSURONGO TRIBE—PIRATES—MUSHICONGO TRIBE—FISH—PALM CHOP—PALM WINE.
At the mouth of the River Congo and on its north bank a long spit of sand separates the sea from a small creek or branch of the river. On this narrow strip, called Banana, are established several factories, belonging to Dutch, French, and English houses, and serving principally as depôts for their other factories higher up the river and on the coast. The Dutch house especially is a large establishment, and it was in one of their small steamers that my wife and myself ascended the river in February 1873.
The first place we touched at was Porto da Lenha, about forty or forty-five miles from Banana. The river banks up to this point are sheer walls of large mangrove trees rising out of the water; at high water, particularly, hardly a dry place can be seen where one could land from a boat or canoe. The natives have, of course, openings known to themselves, under and through the mangrove, where their little canoes dart in and out.
Porto da Lenha ([Plate II.]) consists of half-a-dozen trading factories, built on ground enclosed from the river by piles, forming quays in front, where large vessels can discharge and load close alongside. The wharves are continually sinking, and have to be replaced by constant addition of new piles and layers of thick fresh-water bivalve shells, very abundant in the river. We here found growing in the mud, and with the roots covered by the river at high water, the lovely orchid “Lissochilus giganteus” in full bloom; we collected some of its roots, which reached England safely, and are now growing in Kew Gardens. Several fine creepers were also in flower, and we observed numerous butterflies, which were not easy to capture from the difficulty of getting at them, as at the back of the houses the dense bush grows out of swamp, and only those specimens crossing the small dry space on which the houses are built could be collected. Little creeks divide one house from another; in some cases a plank bridge affords communication, but it is mostly effected by boats. A few days before our arrival a flood had covered the whole of the ground with several inches of water. Considering the conditions of the place, it does not seem to be so unhealthy to Europeans as might be expected. Next day we proceeded to Boma, also situated on the north bank of the river, about ninety-five miles from Banana.
The scenery completely changes after leaving Porto da Lenha, the mangrove totally disappears, and several kinds of bright green bushes, interspersed with different palms and trees, cover the banks for many miles. Near Boma, however, the banks are higher, and become bare of trees and shrubs, the whole country being comparatively free of any other vegetation but high grass; we have arrived, in fact, at the grass-covered high country before mentioned as beginning at the third elevation from the coast over the whole of Angola.
We were most hospitably received by a young Portuguese, Senhor Chaves, in charge of an English factory there, picturesquely situated, overlooking the banks of the river. A high hill opposite Boma and across the river is covered from the top right down to the water’s edge with an impenetrable forest, and it is not easy to explain this vegetation, as it stands in such singular relief to the comparative barrenness of the surrounding country, gigantic Baobabs being the great tree-feature of the place. We crossed the river several times to this thickly-wooded hill, and were only able to find just sufficient shore to land under the branches of the trees, one of which (Lonchocarpus sericeus) was in beautiful bloom. The current of the river is so strong, and the stream so broad, that it took us half-an-hour to get across in a good boat with ten strong Kroomen paddling.
The view from a high hill on the north bank is magnificent: a succession of bends of the river, and as far as the sight could reach, the flat country to the south and west cut into innumerable islands and creeks, of the brightest green of the water-grass and papyrus reed, divided by the sunlit and quicksilver-like streams of the vast rapidly-flowing river.