Angola and the River Congo, vol. 1

by Joachim John Monteiro

About four or five miles inland of Musserra, on a ridge of low hills, stands the remarkable granite pillar marked on the charts, and forming a capital landmark to ships at sea ([Plate V.]).

Plate V.
Granite Pillar of Musserra.—1. Wooden Trumpet.—2. Hoe.—3. Pipe.—4. Knives.—5 and 6. Clapping Hands, and Answer.
To face page 145.

The country at that distance from the coast is singularly wild in appearance, from the whole being broken up into what can only be compared to a vast granite quarry:—huge blocks of this rock, of every imaginable size and shape, are scattered over the hilly ground, thickly interspersed with gigantic baobabs and creepers. Some of the masses of rock imitate grotesquely all manner of objects: a very curious one is exactly like a huge cottage-loaf stuck on the top of a tall slender pillar. Others are generally rounded masses, large and small, piled one on top of another, and poised and balanced in the most fantastic manner. This extraordinary appearance is due to softer horizontal layers or beds in the granite weathering unequally, and to strongly-marked cleavage planes running N.N.E. and S.S.W.

The granite pillar itself stands on the top of one of the last of the low hills forming the rocky ridge that comes down to within a few miles of the coast. It consists of a huge slice or flat piece of granite, facing the sea, standing upright on another block that serves it for a pedestal. The top piece is about forty-five feet high, and twenty-seven broad at the base, and eight to ten feet thick. Its faces correspond to the cleavage plane of the granite of the country, and from large masses that lie around on the same hill, it is clear that these have fallen away from each side, and left it alone standing on the top. The square pedestal on which it stands is about forty feet long, and twenty high, by twenty-seven wide. I climbed once to the top of this square block by the help of a small tree growing against it, and found that the top piece rested on three points that I could just crawl under. Under some lichen growing there I found numbers of a beetle (Pentalobus barbatus, Fabr.), which I presented to the British Museum.

A considerable quantity of salt is made by the natives of this part of the coast, from Quissembo to Ambrizzette, particularly at the latter place, in the small salt marshes near the sea, and with which they carry on a trade with the natives from the interior.

At the end of the dry season the women and children divide the surface of these marshes into little square portions or pans, by raising mud walls a few inches high, so as to enclose in each about two or three gallons of the water, saturated with salt from the already nearly evaporated marsh. As the salt crystallizes in the bottom of these little pans, it is taken out, and more water added, and so the process is continued until the marsh is quite dry. In many cases a small channel is cut from the marsh to the sea (generally very close to it) to admit fresh sea-water at high tide.

It is an amusing sight to see numbers of women and children, all stark naked, standing sometimes above their knees in the water, baling it into the “pans” with small open baskets or “quindas,” and all singing loudly a monotonous song;—others are engaged in filling large “quindas” with dirty salt from the muddy pans, whilst others again are busily washing the crystallized salt by pouring sea-water over it till all the mud is washed away, and the basketfuls of salt shine in the sun like driven snow.

Towards evening long lines of women and children will be seen carrying to their towns, on their heads, the harvest of salt, and great is the fun and chaff from them if they meet a white man travelling in a hammock,—all laughing and shouting, and wanting to shake hands, and running to keep pace with the hammock-bearers.

The proprietress of each set of little evaporating pans marks them as her property by placing a stick in each corner, to which is attached some “fetish” to keep others from pilfering. This “fetish” is generally a small bundle of strips of cloth or rags, or a small gourd or baobab fruit containing feathers, fowl-dung, “tacula” (red wood), or very often some little clay or wooden figure, grotesquely carved, and coloured red and white.