Plate XIV.
1. Native-smelted Copper.—2. Powder-flask.—3. Mundombe Axe.—4. Manner of securing Fish for drying.—5. Hunters’ Fetish (Benguella).—6. Manner of carrying in the hand (Native Jug).—7. Gourd Pipe for smoking Diamba.—8. Wooden Dish.—9. Double-handled Hoe.
To face page 190.
The first hills seen from the sea behind the town of Benguella are composed of layers of fine sandstone of all thicknesses, from a foot or two to an eighth of an inch, and separated by layers of the finest dust, so that slabs of any desired thickness can be obtained without difficulty; a good deal of massive gypsum or sulphate of lime is also found in these hills. Immediately behind these recent sedimentary deposits (in which I never found the least trace of fossil remains) comes the gneiss rock of the country.
At a place called Quileba, about six miles due inland from Benguella, I explored a deposit of copper ore at the junction of the gneiss with the sedimentary beds. This deposit yielded about 2000 tons of very good ore, mostly earthy green carbonate containing some sulphide, and was found adhering to the gneiss in an irregular-shaped mass, from the surface of the ground to a depth of about three or four fathoms. Not an ounce more could be found either deeper, or in the vicinity, when this mass was exhausted. The whole of the ore was raised and sent to Benguella for shipment in less than two years, and was all carried by blacks, men and women, who came from Benguella for that purpose. These were partly Mundombes, and partly slaves of the inhabitants of Benguella. I also had about fifty miserably small donkeys from the Cape de Verde Islands, but they were more troublesome than useful.
One of the principal plants around Benguella is the shrubby jasmine, and it grows in such quantities as to present a very pretty appearance when in flower, the clumps in which it grows being covered with white blossoms; and in the still, early mornings the air is so strongly loaded with the scent of these flowers as to give people a headache who pass through the bush for any distance.
Jackals and hyenas are very abundant at Benguella, and were much more so in the slave-trade times, when the blacks who died were simply taken out a little distance and thrown into the bush. Graves have to be dug deep and covered over with a heap of heavy stones to prevent the hyenas from digging out the corpses and crunching them up. A great fat Cabinda in my service at Cuio Bay fell down dead one afternoon whilst dancing with some others of his countrymen, and I had to defer burying him till notice of his sudden death had been given to the “chefe” at Dombe Grande, that he might send to ascertain that the man had not died from any foul play. This took some days, during which his body smelt anything but nice to us, but was evidently most appetizing to the hyenas, who every night flocked, howled, and laughed round the hut where it lay, watched over by his countrymen. He was at last buried, and covered over with the usual heap of stones, but the ground was dry and soft, and the smell of the body strong, and next morning we found that a number of hyenas must have been at work, and had actually burrowed into the grave from the edge of the heap of stones, had pulled the body out, and eaten it on the spot! Not a particle of bone even could be seen, and besides the scratched and trodden ground, a few shreds and scraps of rags of the cloths the Cabinda had been wrapped in, were all the evidence of the grand supper of negro flesh the hyenas had had.
On dark nights especially the hyenas perambulate all over the town in search of bones and offal of every description, and I have often heard them fighting and making a terrific noise in the open squares at Benguella.
Zebras are abundant in the rocky country about Benguella and Mossamedes, and their bray is very peculiar, being like that of the donkey without the long drawn notes made during inspiration.
A large dog-faced monkey (Cynocephalus sp.) is very abundant in the rocky and arid littoral zone of Benguella, going about in troops of from twelve to twenty. When feeding, they always have two or more of their number perched on the high rocks as sentinels, and on the least sign of danger they utter a hoarse grunt and all take to flight, the young ones tightly clasping their mothers’ backs. It is said by the natives that if a monkey sentinel does not perform his duty properly, the others set upon him and worry him well as a punishment, and a Portuguese assured me that such was the fact, and that he had witnessed one being punished in this manner.
It seems at first sight almost incredible how these large creatures can find sufficient food on the desert rocks where they are found, but I ascertained that their principal food is the thick fleshy root and stem of a low bush, and several species of large onion-looking bulbs. There are also a number of trees and bushes that yield them food in the shape of berries and fruits, especially one called “Umpequi” (Ximenia Americana), bearing plentifully an astringent plum-like fruit, from the large kernel of which the natives of Mossamedes manufacture a fine oil.
On this part of the coast the natives use the wood of the “Bimba” tree (Herminiera Elaphroxylon) to construct a kind of boat or raft, which is perfectly unsinkable in the heavy surf at the mouths of the rivers. This tree principally grows in the stagnant water of marshes, and is about twenty feet high; its trunk attains to as much as a foot in diameter. It is covered with spines, and bears very large and beautiful pea-like flowers of a golden orange colour; the wood is soft, and as light as pith. The peeled stems are skewered together in two or three layers, with sides about a foot and a half to two feet high, and the ends finished off in a point, the whole looking like a punt built of thin logs. The water, of course, is free to rush in and out everywhere, and the “bimba,” as the boat is also called, floats like a dry cork on the sea. People in it may get washed over and wetted through by the surf, but the “bimba” never upsets or sinks.