Quitting the creeper-bound sand, we crossed a black and fetid mire, and struck inland to a higher and drier level. The vegetation was that of the Calumbo road, but not so utterly sunburnt: there were dwarf fields of Manioc and Thur (Cajanus indicus), and the large wild cotton shrubs showed balls of shortish fibre. As we passed a euphorbia-hedged settlement, Kizúlí yá Mú, "Seabeach Village," a troop of women and girls, noisy as those of Ugogo, charged us at full gallop: a few silver bits caused prodigious excitement in the liberal display of charms agitated by hard exercise. The men were far less intrusive, they are said not to be jealous of European rivals, but madly so amongst themselves: even on suspicion of injury, the husband may kill his wife and her lover.
At Kilwanika, the next hamlet, there was a "king;" and it would not have been decent to pass the palace unvisited. Outside the huts stood a bamboo-girt "compound," which we visited whilst H.M. was making his toilette, and where, contrary to Congo usage, the women entered with us. Twenty-two boys aged nine or ten showed, by faces whitened with ashes, that they had undergone circumcision, a ceremony which lasts three months: we shall find these Jinkimba in a far wilder state up the Congo. The rival house is the Casa das Tinta, where nubile girls are decorated by the Nganga, or medicine-man, with a greasy crimson-purple pigment and, preparatory to entering the holy state of matrimony, receive an exhaustive lecture upon its physical phases. Father Merolla tells us that the Congoese girls are locked up in pairs for two or three months out of the sight of man, bathing several times a day, and applying "taculla," the moistened dust of a red wood; without this "casket of water" or "of fire," as they call it, barrenness would be their lot. After betrothal the bride was painted red by the "man-witch" for one month, to declare her engagement, and the mask was washed off before nuptials. Hence the "Paint House" was a very abomination to the good Fathers. Amongst the Timni tribe, near Sierra Leone, the Semo, or initiation for girls, begins with a great dance, called Colungee (Kolangí), and the bride is "instructed formally in such circumstances as most immediately concern women."
After halting for half an hour, ringed by a fence of blacks, we were summoned to the presence, where we found a small boy backed by a semi-circle of elders, and adorned with an old livery coat, made for a full-grown "Jeames." With immense dignity, and without deigning to look at us, he extended a small black paw like a Chimpanzee's, and received in return a promise of rum—the sole cause of our detention. And, as we departed through the euphorbia avenue, we were followed by the fastest trotters, the Flora Temples and the Ethan Allens, of the village.
Beyond Kilwanika the land became rougher and drier, whilst the swamps between the ground-waves were deeper and stickier, the higher ridges bearing natural Stonehenges, of African, not English, proportions At last we dismounted, ascended a rise, the most northerly of these "Aravat Hills," and stood at the base of the "Lumba" The Pillar of Kmsembo is composed of two huge blocks, not basaltic, but of coarse-grained reddish granite the base measures twenty and the shaft forty feet high. With a little trimming it might be converted into a superior Pompey's Pillar: we shall see many of these monoliths in different parts of the Congo country.
The heat of the day was passed in the shade of the Lumba, enjoying the sea-breeze and the novel view. It was debated whether we should return viâ Masera, a well-known slaving village, whose barracoons were still standing. But the bearers dissuaded us, declaring that they might be seized as "dash," unless the white men paid heavy "comey" like those who shipped black cargoes: they cannot shake off this old practice of claiming transit money. So we returned without a halt, covering some twelve of the roughest miles in two hours and a quarter.
The morning of the 26th showed an ugly sight from the tall Kinsembo cliff. As far as the eye could reach long green-black lines, fronted and feathered with frosted foam, hurried up to the war with loud merciless roars, and dashed themselves in white destruction against the reefs and rock-walls. We did not escape till the next day.
Kinsembo does not appear upon the old maps, and our earliest hydrographic charts place it six miles wrong.[5] The station was created in 1857-61 by the mistaken policy of Loanda, which determined to increase the customs three per cent, and talked of exacting duties at Ambriz, not according to invoice prices, but upon the value which imported goods represented amongst the natives. It was at once spread abroad that the object was to drive the wax and ivory trade to São Paulo, and to leave Ambriz open to slavers. The irrepressible Briton transferred himself to Kinsembo, and agreed to pay the king £9 in kind, after "country fashion," for every ship. In 1857 the building of the new factories was opposed by the Portuguese, and was supported by English naval officers, till the two governments came to an arrangement. In February, 1860, the Kinsembo people seized an English factory, and foully murdered a Congo prince and Portuguese subject, D. Nicoláo de Agua Rosada, employed in the Treasury Department, Ambriz. Thereupon the Governor-General sent up two vessels, with thirty guns and troops; crossed the Loge River, now a casus belli; and, on March 3rd, burned down the inland town of Kinsembo. On the return march the column debouched upon the foreign factories. About one mile in front of the point, Captain Brerit, U.S. Navy, and Commander A. G. Fitzroy, R.N., had drawn up 120 of their men by way of guard. Leave was asked by the Portuguese to refresh their troops, and to house six or seven wounded men. The foreign agents, headed by a disreputable M—M—, now dead, protested, and, after receiving this unsoldierlike refusal, the Portuguese, harassed by the enemy, continued their return march to Ambriz. The natives of this country have an insane hate for their former conquerors, and can hardly explain why: probably the cruelties of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, not peculiar to the Lusitanians, have rankled in the national memory. A stray Portuguese would infallibly be put to death, and it will, I fear, be long before M. Valdez sees "spontaneous declarations of vassalage on the part of the King of Molembo (Malemba) and others."
In 1860 the trade of Kinsembo amounted to some £50,000, divided amongst four houses, two English, one American, and one Rotterdam (Pencoff and Kerdyk). The Cassange war greatly benefited the new station by diverting coffee and other produce of the interior from Loanda. There are apochryphal tales of giant tusks brought from a five months' journey, say 500 miles, inland. I was shown two species of copal (gum anime) of which the best is said to come from the Mosul country up the Ambriz River: one bore the goose-skin of Zanzibar, and I was assured that it does not viscidize in the potash-wash. The other was smooth as if it had freshly fallen from the tree. It was impossible to obtain any information; no one had been up country to see the diggings, and yet all declared that the interior was open; that it would be easy to strike the Coango (Quango) before it joins the Congo River, and that 150 miles, which we may perhaps reduce by a third, would lodge the traveller in the unknown lands of "Hnga."
Bidding kindly adieu to Mr. Hunter and wishing him speedy deliverance from his dreadful companion, we resumed our travel over the now tranquil main. Always to starboard remained the narrow sea-wall, a length without breadth which we had seen after the lowlands of Cape Lopez, coloured rosy, rusty-red, or white, and sometimes backed by a second sierra of low blue rises, which suggests the sanatorium. Forty miles showed us the tall trees of Point Palmas on the northern side of the Conza River; on the south of the gap-like mouth lies the Ambrizette settlement, with large factories, Portuguese and American, gleaming against the dark verdure, and with Conza Hill for a background. The Cabeça de Cobra, or "Margate Head," led to Makula, alias Mangal, or Mangue Grande, lately a clump of trees and a point; now the site of English, American, and Dutch factories. Here the hydrographic charts of 1827 and 1863 greatly vary, and one has countermarched the coast-line some 75 miles: Beginning with the Congo River, it lays down Mangue Pegueno (where Grande should be), Cobra, and Mangue Grande (for Pequeno) close to Ambrizette. Then hard ahead rose Cape Engano, whose "deceit" is a rufous tint, which causes many to mistake it for Cape or Point Padrão. To-morrow, as the dark-green waters tell us, we shall be in the Congo River.