Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone (interesting books to read for teens TXT) 📖

we approach Massangano, the land on both banks of the Lucalla becomes very level, and large portions are left marshy after the annual floods; but all is very fertile. As an illustration of the strength of the soil, I may state that we saw tobacco-plants in gardens near the confluence eight feet high, and each plant had thirty-six leaves, which were eighteen inches long by six or eight inches broad.

But it is not a pastoral district. In our descent we observed the tsetse, and consequently the people had no domestic animals save goats.

We found the town of Massangano on a tongue of rather high land, formed by the left bank of the Lucalla and right bank of the Coanza, and received true Portuguese hospitality from Senhor Lubata.

The town has more than a thousand inhabitants; the district has 28,063, with only 315 slaves. It stands on a mound of calcareous tufa, containing great numbers of fossil shells, the most recent of which resemble those found in the marly tufa close to the coast.

The fort stands on the south side of the town, on a high perpendicular bank overhanging the Coanza. This river is here a noble stream, about a hundred and fifty yards wide, admitting navigation in large canoes from the bar at its mouth to Cambambe, some thirty miles above this town.

There, a fine waterfall hinders farther ascent. Ten or twelve large canoes laden with country produce pass Massangano every day. Four galleons were constructed here as long ago as 1650, which must have been of good size, for they crossed the ocean to Rio Janeiro.

Massangano district is well adapted for sugar and rice, while Cambambe is a very superior field for cotton; but the bar at the mouth of the Coanza would prevent the approach of a steamer into this desirable region, though a small one could ply on it with ease when once in. It is probable that the objects of those who attempted to make a canal from Calumbo to Loanda were not merely to supply that city with fresh water, but to afford facilities for transportation. The remains of the canal show it to have been made on a scale suited for the Coanza canoes.

The Portuguese began another on a smaller scale in 1811, and, after three years' labor, had finished only 6000 yards.

Nothing great or useful will ever be effected here so long as men come merely to get rich, and then return to Portugal.

The latitude of the town and fort of Massangano is 9d 37' 46" S., being nearly the same as that of Cassange. The country between Loanda and this point being comparatively flat, a railroad might be constructed at small expense.

The level country is prolonged along the north bank of the Coanza to the edge of the Cassange basin, and a railway carried thither would be convenient for the transport of the products of the rich districts of Cassange, Pungo Andongo, Ambaca, Cambambe, Golungo Alto, Cazengo, Muchima, and Calumbo; in a word, the whole of Angola and independent tribes adjacent to this kingdom.

The Portuguese merchants generally look to foreign enterprise and to their own government for the means by which this amelioration might be effected; but, as I always stated to them when conversing on the subject, foreign capitalists would never run the risk, unless they saw the Angolese doing something for themselves, and the laws so altered that the subjects of other nations should enjoy the same privileges in the country with themselves.

The government of Portugal has indeed shown a wise and liberal policy by its permission for the alienation of the crown lands in Angola; but the law giving it effect is so fenced round with limitations, and so deluged with verbiage, that to plain people it seems any thing but a straightforward license to foreigners to become `bona fide' landholders and cultivators of the soil. At present the tolls paid on the different lines of roads for ferries and bridges are equal to the interest of large sums of money, though but a small amount has been expended in making available roads.

There are two churches and a hospital in ruins at Massangano; and the remains of two convents are pointed out, one of which is said to have been an establishment of black Benedictines, which, if successful, considering the materials the brethren had to work on, must have been a laborious undertaking. There is neither priest nor schoolmaster in the town, but I was pleased to observe a number of children taught by one of the inhabitants.

The cultivated lands attached to all these conventual establishments in Angola are now rented by the government of Loanda, and thither the bishop lately removed all the gold and silver vessels belonging to them.

The fort of Massangano is small, but in good repair; it contains some very ancient guns, which were loaded from the breech, and must have been formidable weapons in their time. The natives of this country entertain a remarkable dread of great guns, and this tends much to the permanence of the Portuguese authority. They dread a cannon greatly, though the carriage be so rotten that it would fall to pieces at the first shot; the fort of Pungo Andongo is kept securely by cannon perched on cross sticks alone!

Massangano was a very important town at the time the Dutch held forcible possession of Loanda and part of Angola; but when, in the year 1648, the Dutch were expelled from this country by a small body of Portuguese, under the Governor Salvador Correa de Sa Benevides, Massangano was left to sink into its present decay. Since it was partially abandoned by the Portuguese, several baobab-trees have sprung up and attained a diameter of eighteen or twenty inches, and are about twenty feet high.

No certain conclusion can be drawn from these instances, as it is not known at what time after 1648 they began to grow; but their present size shows that their growth is not unusually slow.

Several fires occurred during our stay, by the thatch having, through long exposure to a torrid sun, become like tinder.

The roofs became ignited without any visible cause except the intense solar rays, and excited terror in the minds of the inhabitants, as the slightest spark carried by the wind would have set the whole town in a blaze. There is not a single inscription on stone visible in Massangano.

If destroyed to-morrow, no one could tell where it and most Portuguese interior villages stood, any more than we can do those of the Balonda.

During the occupation of this town the Coanza was used for the purpose of navigation, but their vessels were so frequently plundered by their Dutch neighbors that, when they regained the good port of Loanda, they no longer made use of the river. We remained here four days, in hopes of obtaining an observation for the longitude, but at this season of the year the sky is almost constantly overcast by a thick canopy of clouds of a milk-and-water hue; this continues until the rainy season (which was now close at hand) commences.

The lands on the north side of the Coanza belong to the Quisamas (Kisamas), an independent tribe, which the Portuguese have not been able to subdue.

The few who came under my observation possessed much of the Bushman or Hottentot feature, and were dressed in strips of soft bark hanging from the waist to the knee. They deal largely in salt, which their country produces in great abundance. It is brought in crystals of about 12 inches long and 1-1/2 in diameter.

This is hawked about every where in Angola, and, next to calico, is the most common medium of barter. The Kisama are brave; and when the Portuguese army followed them into their forests, they reduced the invaders to extremity by tapping all the reservoirs of water, which were no other than the enormous baobabs of the country hollowed into cisterns. As the Kisama country is ill supplied with water otherwise, the Portuguese were soon obliged to retreat. Their country, lying near to Massangano, is low and marshy, but becomes more elevated in the distance, and beyond them lie the lofty dark mountain ranges of the Libollo, another powerful and independent people. Near Massangano I observed what seemed to be an effort of nature to furnish a variety of domestic fowls, more capable than the common kind of bearing the heat of the sun.

This was a hen and chickens with all their feathers curled upward, thus giving shade to the body without increasing the heat.

They are here named "Kisafu" by the native population, who pay a high price for them when they wish to offer them as a sacrifice, and by the Portuguese they are termed "Arripiada", or shivering.

There seems to be a tendency in nature to afford varieties adapted to the convenience of man. A kind of very short-legged fowl among the Boers was obtained, in consequence of observing that such were more easily caught for transportation in their frequent removals in search of pasture. A similar instance of securing a variety occurred with the short-limbed sheep in America.

Returning by ascending the Lucalla into Cazengo, we had an opportunity of visiting several flourishing coffee plantations, and observed that several men, who had begun with no capital but honest industry, had, in the course of a few years, acquired a comfortable subsistence. One of these, Mr. Pinto, generously furnished me with a good supply of his excellent coffee, and my men with a breed of rabbits to carry to their own country.

Their lands, granted by government, yielded, without much labor, coffee sufficient for all the necessaries of life.

The fact of other avenues of wealth opening up so readily seems like a providential invitation to forsake the slave-trade and engage in lawful commerce. We saw the female population occupied, as usual, in the spinning of cotton and cultivation of their lands.

Their only instrument for culture is a double-handled hoe, which is worked with a sort of dragging motion. Many of the men were employed in weaving.

The latter appear to be less industrious than the former, for they require a month to finish a single web. There is, however, not much inducement to industry, for, notwithstanding the time consumed in its manufacture, each web is sold for only two shillings.

On returning to Golungo Alto I found several of my men laid up with fever.

One of the reasons for my leaving them there was that they might recover from the fatigue of the journey from Loanda, which had much more effect upon their feet than hundreds of miles had on our way westward.

They had always been accustomed to moisture in their own well-watered land, and we certainly had a superabundance of that in Loanda. The roads, however, from Loanda to Golungo Alto were both hard and dry, and they suffered severely in consequence; yet they were composing songs to be sung when they should reach home. The Argonauts were nothing to them; and they remarked very impressively to me, "It was well you came with Makololo, for no tribe could have done what we have accomplished in coming to the white man's country: we are the true ancients, who can tell wonderful things." Two of them now had fever in the continued form, and became jaundiced, the whites or conjunctival membrane of their eyes becoming as yellow as saffron; and a third suffered from an attack of mania.

He came to his companions one day, and said, "Remain well.

I am called away by the gods!" and set off at the top of his speed.

The young