Whilst crossing the stream, we easily understood how the river was supposed to be in a perpetual state of inundation. The great breadth and the shallows near either jaw prevent the rain-floods being perceptible unless instruments are used, and "hydrometry," still in an imperfect state, was little to be depended upon in the days when European ideas concerning the Congo River were formed. Twenty miles up stream the high-water mark becomes strongly marked, and further on, as will be seen, it shows even better.
If Barbot's map have any claim to correctness, the southern shore has changed greatly since A.D. 1700. A straight line from Cape Padrão to Chapel Point, now Shark Point, was more than double the breadth of the embouchure. It is vain to seek for the "Island of Calabes" mentioned by Andrew Battel, who was "sent to a place called Zaire on the River Congo, to trade for elephants' teeth, wheat, and palm oil." It may be a mistake for Cavallos, noticed in the next chapter; but the "town on it" must have been small, and has left, they say, no traces. After a scramble through the surf, we were received at Shark Point, where, at this season, the current is nearer five than three knots, by Mr. Tom Peter, Mafuka, or chief trader, amongst these "Musurungus." He bore his highly respectable name upon the frontal band of his "berretta" alias "corôa," an open-worked affair, very like the old-fashioned jelly-bag night cap. This head-gear of office made of pine-apple fibre— Tuckey says grass—costs ten shillings; it is worn by the kinglets, who now distribute it to all the lieges whose fortunes exceed some fifty dollars.
Most of the Squaline villagers appeared to be women, the men being engaged in making money elsewhere. Besides illicit trade, which has now become very dangerous, a little is done in the licit line: grotesquely carved sticks, calabashes rudely ornamented with ships and human figures, the neat bead-work grass-strings used by the women to depress the bosom, and cashimbos or pipes mostly made about Boma. All were re-baptized in 1853, but they show no sign of Christianity save crosses, and they are the only prostitutes on the river.
Following Tom Peter, and followed by a noisy tail, we walked to the west end of Shark Point, to see if aught remained of the Padrão, the first memorial column, planted in 1485 by the explorer Diogo Cam, knight of the king's household, Dom João II. "O principe perfeito," who, says De Barros ("Asia," Decad. I. lib. iii. chap. 3), "to immortalize the memory of his captains," directed them to plant these pillars in all remarkable places. The Padrões, which before the reign of D. João were only wooden crosses, assumed the shape of "columns, twice the height of a man (estado), with the scutcheon bearing the royal arms. At the sides they were to be inscribed in Latin and Portuguese (to which James Barbot adds Arabic), with the name of the monarch who sent the expedition, the date of discovery, and the captain who made it; on the summit was to be raised a stone cross cramped in with lead." According to others, the inscription mentioned only the date, the king, and the captain. The Padrão of the Congo was especially called from the "Lord of Guinea's favourite saint, de São Jorge"—sit faustum! As Carli shows, the patron of Congo and Angola was Santiago, who was seen bodily assisting at a battle in which Dom Affonso, son of Giovi (Emmanuel), first Christian king of Congo, prevailed against a mighty host of idolaters headed by his pagan brother "Panso Aquitimo." In 1786 Sir Home Popham found a marble cross on a rock near Angra dos Ilheos or Pequena (south latitude 26° 37'), with the arms of Portugal almost effaced. Till lately the jasper pillar at Cabo Negro bore the national arms. Doubtless much latitude was allowed in the make and material of these padrões; that which I saw near Cananea in the Brazil is of saccharine marble, four palms high by two broad; it bears a scutcheon charged with a cross and surmounted by another.
There is some doubt concerning the date of this mission. De Barros (I. iii. 3) says A.D. 1484. Lopes de Limn (IV. i. 5) gives the reason why A.D. 1485 is generally adopted, and he believes that the cruise of the previous year did not lead to the Congo River. The explorer, proceeding to inspect the coast south of Cape St. Catherine (south latitude 2° 30'), which he had discovered in 1473, set out from São Jorge da Mina, now Elmina. He was accompanied by Martin von Behaim of Nürnberg (nat. circ. A.D. 1436, ob. A.D. 1506), a pupil of the mathematician John Müller (Regiomontanus); and for whom the discovery of the New World has been claimed.
After doubling his last year's terminus, Diogo Cam chanced upon a vast embouchure, and, surprised by the beauty of the scenery and the volume of the stream, he erected his stone Padrão, the first of its kind. Finding the people unintelligible to the interpreters, he sent four of his men with a present of hawk's bells (cascaveis) and blue glass beads to the nearest king, and, as they did not soon return, he sailed back to Portugal with an equal number of natives as hostages, promising to return after fifteen moons. One of them, Caçuta (Zacuten of Barbot), proved to be a "fidalgo" of Sonho, and, though the procedure was contrary to orders, it found favour with the "Perfect Prince." From these men the Portuguese learned that the land belonged to a great monarch named the Mwani-Congo or Lord of Congo, and thus they gave the river a name unknown to the riverine peoples.
Diogo Cam, on his second visit, sent presents to the ruler with the hostages, who had learned as much Portuguese and Christianity as the time allowed; recovered his own men, and passed on to Angola, Benguela and Cabo Negro, adding to his discoveries 200 leagues of coast. When homeward bound, he met the Mwani-Sonho, and visited the Mwani-Congo, who lived at Ambasse Congo (São Salvador), distant 50 leagues (?). The ruler of the "great and wonderful River Zaire," touched by his words, sent with him sundry youths, and the fidalgo Caçuta, who was baptized into Dom Joao, to receive instruction, and to offer a present of ivory and of palm cloth which was remarkably strong and bright. A request for a supply of mechanics and missionaries brought out the first mission of Dominicans. They sailed in December, 1490, under Gonçalo de Sousa; they were followed by others, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the country was fairly over- run by the Propaganda. A future page will enter into more details, and show the results of their labours.
The original Padrão was destroyed by the Dutch in 1645, an act of barbarism which is justly called "Vandalica façanha." Father Merolla says (1682), "The Hollanders, out of envy, broke the fine marble cross to pieces; nevertheless, so much remained of it, when I was there, as to discover plainly the Portuguese arms on the ruins of the basis, with an inscription under them in Gothic characters, though not easy to be read." In 1859 a new one was placed in Turtle Cove, a few yards south-west of Shark Point; but the record was swept away by an unusually high tide, and no further attempt has been made.
We were then led down a sandy narrow line in the bush, striking south-east, and, after a few yards, we stood before two pieces of marble in a sandy hollow. The tropical climate, more adverse than that of London, had bleached and marked them till they looked like pitted chalk: the larger stump, about two feet high, was bandaged, as if after amputation, with cloths of many colours, and the other fragment lay at its feet. Tom Peter, in a fearful lingua-Franca, Negro-Anglo-Portuguese, told us that his people still venerated the place as part of a religious building; it is probably the remnant thus alluded to by Lopes de Lima (iii. 1-6): "Behind this point (Padrão) is another monument of the piety of our monarchs, and of the holy objects which guided them to the conquest of Guinea, a Capuchin convent intended to convert the negroes of Sonho; it has long been deserted, and is still so. Even in A.D. 1814, D. Garcia V., the king of Congo, complained in a letter to our sovereign of the want of missionaries." Possibly the ruined convent is the church which we shall presently visit. Striking eastward, we soon came to a pool in the bush sufficiently curious and out of place to make the natives hold it "Fetish;" they declare that it is full of fish, but it kills all men who enter it—"all men" would not include white men. Possibly it is an old piscina; according to the Abbé Proyart, the missionaries taught the art of pisciculture near the village of Kilonga, where they formed their first establishment. The place is marked "Salt-pond" in Barbot, who tells us that the condiment was made there and carried inland.
A short walk to a tall tree backing the village showed us, amongst twenty-five European graves, five tombs or cenotaphs of English naval officers, amongst whom two fell victims to mangrove-oysters, and the rest to the deadly "calenture" of the lower Congo. We entered the foul mass of huts,