Angola and the River Congo, vol. 2

by Joachim John Monteiro

The road, for a couple of days’ journey or more, is on and near the south bank of the River Bengo, and passes through some of the most fertile land imaginable, but, with the exception of small mandioca and other food-plantations, producing but little beyond the requirements of the few inhabitants of the country owing to the absence of cultivation.

We passed many places where towns had formerly existed, but the inhabitants had been obliged to remove farther into the interior, or to the country about the River Dande, to escape the wholesale robbery and exactions of the Portuguese “chefes.”

The second night after leaving Loanda we dined and slept at the house of the “chefe” of the district of Icollo e Bengo, a very intelligent young man, newly appointed to that place, and he gave us a painful description of the wretched condition in which he had found his district.

We were unable to obtain carriers here at any price, those that had brought us from Loanda having been hired for that distance only, as they would not trust themselves farther inland, fearing they might be forced to carry back heavy loads, for which they would be paid only a miserable pittance, or perhaps nothing at all.

We had, consequently, to rely only on the six Ambriz men we had with us, but subsequently we were fortunate enough to pick up a few more on the road. In six days we arrived at Porto Domingos, on the River Lucala, a tributary of the Quanza. In these six days we passed through very varied scenery, due not only to the gradual elevation of the country from the coast, as noticed on the road from Ambriz to Bembe, but also to the variety of geological formations. On leaving Loanda horizontal beds of limestone, and then fine sandstones, occur. Near the junction, at a place called Tantanbondo, there are curious lines of nodules embedded in the limestone, and numbers loose on the surface from the weathering of the latter. These nodules are generally fractured, and re-cemented with crystalline calcspar; those not fractured are mostly of a singular, rounded shape, like an ordinary cottage-loaf. At Icollo e Bengo, finely micaceous iron ore is found; and at Calunguembe trap-rock occurs, which gives a most picturesque peaky appearance to the country.

Porto Domingos is one of the most lovely places I have seen in Africa; the vegetation of palm-trees, baobabs, cottonwood-trees, and creepers of many kinds on the banks of the river is wonderfully luxuriant. We found traces everywhere of a former very much larger population, and the same true tale of the inhabitants having been driven farther inland by the rapine of their Portuguese rulers.

After leaving Porto Domingos we arrived next day at the dry bed of the River Mucozo, a small stream running only in the rainy season and joining the River Quanza at Dondo. We passed through a thick wood, the road being the dry bed of a small stream running through it, and the ground a sandy dust of a bright red colour from oxide of iron. We and our carriers presented a comical appearance after walking an hour and a half through the wood.

The rock of the country is a kind of conglomerate, with a matrix containing much oxide of iron. At the River Mucozo this formation is succeeded by a very hard white quartzose rock, containing but little mica or feldspar, and the scenery is very beautiful, the country being very hilly and broken.

Three days’ journey over a wild and rocky country brought us to the “Soba” Dumbo, formerly a very powerful king, and from whom the Portuguese have always derived great assistance in their wars, but only a handful of natives remain at the present day in the country, to mark the place of the once populous kingdom of the “Soba” Dumbo.

In the next two or three succeeding days I visited the places where, from the heaps of stones lying close to holes and excavations, it was likely that the natives had formerly worked for minerals; and that copper was what they had extracted or searched for was evident from the indications of blue and green carbonate of copper in these heaps. I saw enough to convince me that an exploration of the country was desirable, and likely to result in meeting with important deposits of copper. Of silver or other metals I saw no indications whatever.