Cattle thrive excellently in this district, and might be reared in any number, as also goats, sheep, and poultry. Game is comparatively scarce. Wild animals are principally the spotted and striped hyena and the black-backed jackal. Leopards I only heard of as infesting the country about half-way between Nhangui-a-pepi and Dondo, where, during the time I was in Cambambe, they had carried away cattle and attacked several blacks. The hyenas used to visit us almost every night in Cambambe, and at one place, where my cook slept by himself in a small hut, which was also the kitchen, they frightened him so by snorting under the door and trying to force their way in, attracted no doubt by the smell of the pots and pans, that he refused to pass another night in it, and I had to let him sleep in my hut. One night we heard a noise of smashing of crockery and falling of pots, &c., from the kitchen, and in the morning we found that a hyena had forced his way into the hut (built of sticks and grass), and had taken away a sheepskin from a wooden frame that served as a table, on which my cook had carefully placed my stock of plates and cooking utensils to dry, bringing the whole to the ground, and considerably reducing my limited stock of china and glass.
Nothing comes amiss to these voracious creatures, their powerful jaws and teeth enabling them to crunch up any bones, skin, &c. The hides of the oxen that were killed for food used to be thrown on the roofs of the huts to dry, and the hyenas would sometimes get at them, and if not taken away bodily we would find them almost entirely eaten up, their sharp teeth having cut through the tough raw hide as perfectly, and seemingly as easily, as a pair of shears; the ox skull and other bones of course always disappeared completely during the night.
When driven by hunger they become very bold, but rarely attack man. At Benguella, where they are very abundant, such a thing as an attack on a native was unknown, although at night many blacks sleep out of doors, and often in a drunken and helpless state; but at Golungo Alto, after an epidemic of small-pox, when the hyenas preyed upon the bodies of natives who had died of the disease, I was told that they had got into a habit of attacking the live blacks at night, but no fatal case occurred.
Hyenas always hunt in couples, a male and female according to the natives, and very often several couples together.
That they seek their prey in pairs I believe to be the case, from an instance that occurred to myself in Cambambe. I had built a long hut of sticks and grass for two white men (Portuguese soldiers and military convicts) from Loanda, who had been sent me on the death of the miner I had brought with me from Portugal. The two men occupied one end of the hut, the other being taken up with the mining tools, stores, &c., and one night two sheep had been placed there also, for safety. One was tied to a bundle of shovels, and the other to a wheelbarrow, to prevent them from straying about in the hut. Opposite to where they were secured was a door made of green sticks and withes.
Whilst the men were asleep a hyena forced his way under the door, and carried off one of the sheep; its cries and the noise awoke the men, who jumped out of bed and rushed out to try and save the poor sheep, but in the darkness of the night nothing could be seen, and all that was heard was the rush of the animals and shovels down the rocky and stony ground—the hut being built on a small steep rise or hill. Whilst the men were thinking what they should do, and standing only a few yards from the hut, another hyena got into it through the now open door and carried off the second sheep and the wheelbarrow, which went banging down the hill over the loose stones. In the morning the shovels and wheelbarrow were found at some little distance at the foot of the hill, but not a trace of the poor sheep.
The hyenas are remarkably wary and cautious, only coming near habitations in the darkest nights, and generally near daybreak. I was never able to shoot one in the ordinary way, though I often watched with gun ready through an opening in the walls of my hut. I once, however, killed a fine spotted hyena by tying my gun to a couple of stakes in the ground, and putting an ox’s gullet on the muzzle as a bait, so arranged with a string to the trigger as to fire off the gun on the animal attempting to pull it away.
The next time I arranged this infernal-machine it nearly killed a fine pig that had set its heart on the bait, but as he luckily did not approach it in the right direction, I lost the charge of powder and ball, and the pig found his anticipated titbit suddenly vanish in smoke.
CHAPTER IV.
PROVINCE OF CAZENGO—GOLUNGO ALTO—GOLD—WILD COFFEE—IRON SMELTING—FORMER MISSIONARIES—CUSTOMS—NATIVES—PRODUCTIONS.
The farthest inland district in Angola under the rule of the Portuguese was that of Cassange, but a successful revolt of the natives against the oppression of the Portuguese “chefes” led to its being abandoned a few years ago.