Angola and the River Congo, vol. 2

by Joachim John Monteiro

Loanda contains about 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants, of whom about one-third are whites. The houses are generally large and commodious, built of stone, and roofed with red tiles; blue is a favourite colour for painting window-sills, door-posts, &c., and gives a very pretty appearance to the city. The greater part of the houses consist only of a ground floor,—the better class have a first, but rarely a second floor. Verandahs more or less open are the rule, in which it is customary to take meals.

Not many houses have been built within the last few years; they mostly date from the time when Loanda was a wealthy city, and the chief shipping port for slaves to the Brazils, when as many as twelve or fifteen vessels were to be seen at a time taking in their cargoes of blacks. The slavers on their way out to Loanda used to bring timber from Rio de Janeiro for the rafters and flooring of the houses, and so hard and durable was it that it can be seen at the present day in the old buildings, as perfect and sound as when first put down, resisting perfectly the white ant, beetle larvæ, dry rot, and mildew that soon attack and destroy native woods.

Loanda has improved immensely since I first landed there in February 1858. It was then in a very dilapidated and abandoned condition. No line of steamers communicating with Europe then existed; four and six months elapsed without a vessel arriving, except perhaps one from Rio de Janeiro with sugar and rum; the slave-trade had ceased there for some years, and hardly any trade in produce had been started, a little wax, ivory, and orchilla-weed, being almost the only exports.

There was no trade or navigation whatever on the River Quanza, and hardly any shops in the town, so that provisions and other necessaries were constantly exhausted and at famine prices. A large subsidy was granted to the colony by Portugal, to defray its expenses, always far in excess of its receipts. Now there is a monthly line of large steamers from Lisbon, another from Liverpool, and a considerable number of sailing-vessels constantly loading and discharging, to attest to the wonderful increase in the trade of the place. The colony now pays its own expenses, and shows a yearly surplus; and a couple of steamers running constantly from the River Quanza to Loanda can hardly empty the river of its produce.

All the public buildings are in an efficient state, a large extent of flat, stinking shore has been filled up and embanked, ruins of churches and monasteries cleared away, walks and squares laid out and planted, a large new market is being built, and good shops and stores are now abundantly supplied with every description of European goods; and if a good supply of water were brought to the city from the River Bengo, there would certainly not be a finer place to live in on the whole Western Coast of Africa.

From most of the houses having large yards, in which are the kitchens, stores, well, and habitations for the slaves and servants, the city is luckily very open, and there is as yet no overcrowding; the roads and streets are also wide and spacious. The principal street, running through the whole length of the town, is remarkably wide, and for some distance has a row of banyan trees in the centre, under the shade of which a daily market or fair is held of cloth and dry goods.

This is called a “quitanda,” the native name for a market, and the sellers are almost all women, and are either free blacks, who trade on their own account, or are the slaves of other blacks, mulattoes, or whites.

Many of the natives and carriers from the interior prefer buying their cloth, crockery, &c., of these open-air retailers, to going into a shop.

Four sticks stuck in the ground, and a few “loandos,” or papyrus mats, form a little hut or booth in which presides the (generally) fat and lazy negress vendor.

On the ground are laid out temptingly pieces of cotton, gaily coloured handkerchiefs, cheap prints, indigo stripes, and other kinds of cloths; “quindas,” or baskets with balls and reels of cotton, seed-beads, needles, &c.; knives, plates, cups and saucers, mugs and jugs, looking-glasses, empty bottles, and a variety of other objects. At other stalls may be seen balls of white clay called “pemba,” and of “tacula,” a red wood of the same name rubbed to a fine paste with water on a rough stone, and dried in the sun. Resting against the trunks of the trees are long rolls of native tobacco, plaited like fine rope and wound round a stick, which a black is selling at the rate of a few inches for a copper coin, the measure being a bit of stick attached by a cord to the roll of tobacco, or round the neck of the black. Others sell clay tobacco-pipes and pipe-stems, and as all men and women smoke as much tobacco as they can afford, a thriving trade is driven in the fragrant weed. All the tobacco used by the natives is grown in the country; but little is imported from abroad, and this is mostly purchased by the Portuguese for the weekly allowance which it is customary in Angola to make to the slaves.