At last, at seven in the evening, we arrived at Quincollo to find that the river had overflowed the banks, and that, with the exception of a house and cane-mill, there was not a foot of dry ground to encamp upon, except a great heap of cane refuse from the mill. This and the house belonged to a convict, who had been a swineherd in Portugal, but in consequence of the abolition of capital punishment in that country, had escaped hanging, after committing a cruel murder. He is now a large slaveholder, agent to the line of steamers from Lisbon owned by an English firm at Hull, and much protected by the Portuguese authorities at Loanda!
Not caring to sleep on his premises, we encamped on the heap of refuse, on which we found it impossible to put up our tent, contenting ourselves with hanging up the mosquito-bar alone. We had reached our last biscuit and tin of preserved provision, and had just finished our tea and supper when the white man in charge of the convict’s premises, with his servants, came out with torches and armed, to find out who we were, fearing it might be an attack of the natives of Quingombe. He was most kind and pressing in his offers of shelter, in the absence of the owner, but we declined. He made us promise, however, that we would accept a canoe of his in the morning, which took us down the river about six miles to the bar, from whence we rode in our hammocks along the beach to Ambriz, thus happily ending our last excursion in Africa.
We had been absent just one month, in the worst part of the rainy season, without the slightest illness, and returned laden with a very interesting collection of insects and plants.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHARACTER OF THE NEGRO—FETISH—CUSTOMS—ARMS AND WAR—DRESS—ZOMBO TRIBE—BURIAL—INSANITY.
The language, customs, and habits of the Mussurongo, Ambriz, and Mushicongo tribes are very similar, and are distinguished in many particulars from those of the natives of the district of Loanda, who speak the Bunda language. This is not astonishing, when we consider that Loanda has been constantly occupied by the white race since its discovery, and that this intercourse has necessarily modified their character to a certain extent. The former tribes are, however, still almost in their primitive or natural condition, and should be studied or described apart and before continuing the description of the country south of about 8°, their limit in latitude.
I believe that it is very difficult to understand correctly the character of the negro race in Africa, and that it requires long intercourse with, and living amongst them, to get behind the scenes, as it were, and learn their manner of thought or reasoning, and in what way it influences their life and actions.
In the first instance, it is not easy to dispossess oneself of the prejudices both against and in favour of the negro. It is so natural to judge him by our own standard, and as we should wish him to be;—so easy to think of him as agreeing with the preconceived idea that he is just like one of ourselves, but simply in a state of innocent darkness, and that we have only to show him the way for him to become civilized at once.
It is very disagreeable to find in the negro an entirely new and different state of things to that we had fondly imagined, and to have to throw overboard our cherished theories and confess our ignorance and that we have been entirely mistaken; but the truth must be told, and we shall have to run counter to the self-satisfied wisdom of the great number of people who judge from not always wilfully false reports, but from hasty or superficial descriptions or tales that agree with their foregone conclusions, and whose benevolent feelings and sympathy for the negro are therefore established upon baseless grounds.
It is not my intention to deprecate any efforts for the benefit of the negro race, but simply to show that the good seed in Africa will fall on bare and barren ground, and where weeds will rise and choke it; and I must warn philanthropy that its bounty is less productive of good results on the negro of tropical Africa than perhaps on any other race.
It is heartrending to see money, lives, and efforts squandered and wasted under the misguided idea of raising the negro to a position which, from his mental constitution, he cannot possibly attain, whilst so many of our own race are doomed from innocent infancy to grow up among us to a future of misery and vice, and when we know that the charity so lavishly shown to the negro and almost completely wasted would enable many of these poor children to become good and useful members of society. Let us, by all means, bring in the frozen vipers, and feed the famished wolves and the hungry vultures, but do not let us expect that because we have done so they will change into harmless snakes, noble dogs, or innocent doves, or neglect to succour the lambs and sheep of our own flock.