The colonial government here is in trouble. I noticed Portuguese and black soldiers going on board of a brig moored near us. The negroes rose near Ambriz in large numbers, attacked the troops, and succeeded in killing and driving into the river some one hundred and forty men. One of the officers, who dined with a government employé where I was invited the other day, narrowly escaped with his life.
The heat is now most oppressive and overpowering. We have frequent thunderstorms with vivid lightning, which tends to purify the atmosphere. It is far the safest to sleep on shipboard, as the fever is prevailing ashore.
Maxillas are used for moving about the town of Loanda, as the least exertion produces violent perspiration, and exposure to the sun brings disastrous results. The mode of conveyance is somewhat like the palanquin in the East Indies, but not so spacious or convenient. You are carried by two negroes, instead of four or six, as are used there. Here a sort of sofa bottom of cane work is suspended by cords from a light roof, attached to a strong pole, resting upon the shoulders of the bearers. A cushion supports the back, and curtains are floating on each side, which keep off the sun, and the motion produces a gentle breeze. In this manner you make your visits and excursions in the town and suburbs.
There are no American or English men-of-war in port. We have three persons on board waiting for a passage; one a purser of an American man-of-war going home invalided; a Portuguese from Benguela who has exposed himself and got the fever; and myself, afflicted with “Job’s comforters,” which keep off the same disease. Our numbers will be augmented in a day or two.
The English are making great efforts to introduce the culture of cotton in Africa, so as to render them less dependent upon the United States. I heard at Acra, on the Gold Coast, that a few bales had been shipped to Liverpool. In Liberia I learned that the Manchester Cotton Association had sent medals and fifty pounds sterling as premiums, for the encouragement of the growth of the plant in that district. I learned also at Bonny that two bales, purchased at Rabba on the Niger, had been brought down by the Rainbow, attached to the Niger expedition, which is the first from that country. The captain reports he could have filled his ship with uncleaned cotton. The price of the cleaned was from three to four cents per pound, our currency, uncleaned about one cent. Another report said one hundred and fifteen pounds of cotton in the seed were bought for five and-a-half yards of cotton velvet and eight pounds of salt. There is plenty of raw cotton, and gins and presses are all that is required to produce a merchantable article. If the English persevere and the natives turn their attention to cotton, there is no calculating what the production might in time amount to; but there is this satisfaction for the American planter, the consumption is rapidly increasing, and there is not much fear of a surplus for years to come. The culture of the plant, as I have seen it in Algeria and the East Indies, cannot come in competition with the negro labor at the South; but we may rest assured that the British are using every means possible to have it produced, and make themselves less subject to our Southern King Cotton.
I must say something of a peculiar race of negroes on the African coast, who seem far superior to their fellows. They are the Kroomen, who make invaluable sailors for men of-war-and merchant vessels, and indeed are indispensable for all labor on shipboard, saving the white mariners from service and consequent fever. They are generally large, stalwart, well-formed men, obedient and industrious. They are shipped in Monrovia by vessels of war for the cruise, and receive from five to eight dollars per month, the chief as much as twelve dollars. In Sierra Leone, merchant vessels procure them for five dollars per month. Many of them understand a little English, and they could not be made slaves of without great difficulty. They rather look down with contempt upon common negroes. On shipboard they answer to the call of the roll. Some names given them are so ludicrous one can scarcely refrain from laughing when he hears them. Some bear the names of ships upon which they have sailed, and feel highly flattered in consequence, such as Constitution, Congress, Vincennes, Dale, &c., but the others, Up Side Down, Tom Bottle, Sunbeam, Main Mast, Main Hatch, Joe Propeller, Inside Out, Tar Bucket, Ash Bucket, Last One, Nothing New, and so on, display the extraordinary nomenclature conceived by the Jack Tars. When on duty ashore from men-of-war they wear blue woollen shirts and pants, but always on shipboard they have the privilege of the native waistcloth. They choose their chief, who is at the head of the gang, and whom they obey most rigidly. The Marion will land sixty or more at Monrovia before she leaves the coast for the United States, being the complement of two vessels. They save their money to increase the number of their wives.
The process of coaling here is of the slowest kind, and that of ballasting ships the same. The distance from the shore is considerable, and the manner of doing things is, as the Portuguese language describes it, poco-a-poco, little by little. The coal or ballast is put in at the rate of thirty-six tons per day, with baskets like good-sized soup dishes, passed from hand to hand, not unlike the old-fashioned system of handing buckets at a fire.
No freight of consequence is offering, as the disturbance in the country has checked the movement. Ordinarily elephants’ tusks, palm oil, gum, coffee, etc., are coming forward.
We are now in the height of midsummer, with the thermometer over a hundred. There is no such thing as restraining perspiration, except by the fever. What would one give for a cooling draught of ice water, and the other luxuries and comforts of a northern clime, which are not obtainable even at an advance of two hundred or three hundred per cent. We are looking forward to our deliverance from this heated atmosphere in a few days at least, and to be under motion, when some circulation will be produced.
The slow, backward Portuguese colony even requires strangers, as well as its own citizens, on leaving it to procure a passport, with all the formalities attending the same, at an expense of five dollars, without recognising the passport of one’s own country. This may be in part caused from apprehension of the escape of felons and soldiers, who are sent to this convict colony to expiate their crimes. I should think no worse punishment could be inflicted than a residence in such a climate.