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

by the cruel superstitions to which they are addicted, and the Portuguese authorities either know nothing of them, or are unable to prevent their occurrence.

The natives are bound to secrecy by those who administer the ordeal, which generally causes the death of the victim. A person, when accused of witchcraft, will often travel from distant districts in order to assert her innocency and brave the test. They come to a river on the Cassange called Dua, drink the infusion of a poisonous tree, and perish unknown.

A woman was accused by a brother-in-law of being the cause of his sickness while we were at Cassange. She offered to take the ordeal, as she had the idea that it would but prove her conscious innocence.

Captain Neves refused his consent to her going, and thus saved her life, which would have been sacrificed, for the poison is very virulent.

When a strong stomach rejects it, the accuser reiterates his charge; the dose is repeated, and the person dies. Hundreds perish thus every year in the valley of Cassange.

The same superstitious ideas being prevalent through the whole of the country north of the Zambesi, seems to indicate that the people must originally have been one. All believe that the souls of the departed still mingle among the living, and partake in some way of the food they consume.

In sickness, sacrifices of fowls and goats are made to appease the spirits.

It is imagined that they wish to take the living away from earth and all its enjoyments. When one man has killed another, a sacrifice is made, as if to lay the spirit of the victim. A sect is reported to exist who kill men in order to take their hearts and offer them to the Barimo.

The chieftainship is elective from certain families.

Among the Bangalas of the Cassange valley the chief is chosen from three families in rotation. A chief's brother inherits in preference to his son. The sons of a sister belong to her brother; and he often sells his nephews to pay his debts. By this and other unnatural customs, more than by war, is the slave-market supplied.

The prejudices in favor of these practices are very deeply rooted in the native mind. Even at Loanda they retire out of the city in order to perform their heathenish rites without the cognizance of the authorities.

Their religion, if such it may be called, is one of dread. Numbers of charms are employed to avert the evils with which they feel themselves to be encompassed. Occasionally you meet a man, more cautious or more timid than the rest, with twenty or thirty charms round his neck. He seems to act upon the principle of Proclus, in his prayer to all the gods and goddesses: among so many he surely must have the right one. The disrespect which Europeans pay to the objects of their fear is to their minds only an evidence of great folly.

While here, I reproduced the last of my lost papers and maps; and as there is a post twice a month from Loanda, I had the happiness to receive a packet of the "Times", and, among other news, an account of the Russian war up to the terrible charge of the light cavalry.

The intense anxiety I felt to hear more may be imagined by every true patriot; but I was forced to brood on in silent thought, and utter my poor prayers for friends who perchance were now no more, until I reached the other side of the continent.

A considerable trade is carried on by the Cassange merchants with all the surrounding territory by means of native traders, whom they term "Pombeiros".

Two of these, called in the history of Angola "the trading blacks"

(os feirantes pretos), Pedro Joao Baptista and Antonio Jose, having been sent by the first Portuguese trader that lived at Cassange, actually returned from some of the Portuguese possessions in the East with letters from the governor of Mozambique in the year 1815, proving, as is remarked, "the possibility of so important a communication between Mozambique and Loanda." This is the only instance of native Portuguese subjects crossing the continent. No European ever accomplished it, though this fact has lately been quoted as if the men had been "PORTUGUESE".

Captain Neves was now actively engaged in preparing a present, worth about fifty pounds, to be sent by Pombeiros to Matiamvo.

It consisted of great quantities of cotton cloth, a large carpet, an arm-chair with a canopy and curtains of crimson calico, an iron bedstead, mosquito curtains, beads, etc., and a number of pictures rudely painted in oil by an embryo black painter at Cassange.

Matiamvo, like most of the natives in the interior of the country, has a strong desire to possess a cannon, and had sent ten large tusks to purchase one; but, being government property, it could not be sold: he was now furnished with a blunderbuss, mounted as a cannon, which would probably please him as well.

Senhor Graca and some other Portuguese have visited this chief at different times; but no European resides beyond the Quango; indeed, it is contrary to the policy of the government of Angola to allow their subjects to penetrate further into the interior. The present would have been a good opportunity for me to have visited that chief, and I felt strongly inclined to do so, as he had expressed dissatisfaction respecting my treatment by the Chiboque, and even threatened to punish them.

As it would be improper to force my men to go thither, I resolved to wait and see whether the proposition might not emanate from themselves.

When I can get the natives to agree in the propriety of any step, they go to the end of the affair without a murmur. I speak to them and treat them as rational beings, and generally get on well with them in consequence.

I have already remarked on the unhealthiness of Cassange; and Captain Neves, who possesses an observing turn of mind, had noticed that always when the west wind blows much fever immediately follows.

As long as easterly winds prevail, all enjoy good health; but in January, February, March, and April, the winds are variable, and sickness is general. The unhealthiness of the westerly winds probably results from malaria, appearing to be heavier than common air, and sweeping down into the valley of Cassange from the western plateau, somewhat in the same way as the carbonic acid gas from bean-fields is supposed by colliers to do into coal-pits. In the west of Scotland strong objections are made by that body of men to farmers planting beans in their vicinity, from the belief that they render the mines unhealthy.

The gravitation of the malaria from the more elevated land of Tala Mungongo toward Cassange is the only way the unhealthiness of this spot on the prevalence of the westerly winds can be accounted for.

The banks of the Quango, though much more marshy, and covered with ranker vegetation, are comparatively healthy; but thither the westerly wind does not seem to convey the noxious agent.

FEB. 20TH. On the day of starting from Cassange, the westerly wind blew strongly, and on the day following we were brought to a stand by several of our party being laid up with fever. This complaint is the only serious drawback Angola possesses. It is in every other respect an agreeable land, and admirably adapted for yielding a rich abundance of tropical produce for the rest of the world.

Indeed, I have no hesitation in asserting that, had it been in the possession of England, it would now have been yielding as much or more of the raw material for her manufactures as an equal extent of territory in the cotton-growing states of America.

A railway from Loanda to this valley would secure the trade of most of the interior of South Central Africa.*

--

The following statistics may be of interest to mercantile men.

They show that since the repression of the slave-trade in Angola the value of the exports in lawful commerce has steadily augmented.

We have no returns since 1850, but the prosperity of legitimate trade has suffered no check. The duties are noted in Portuguese money, "milreis", each of which is about three shillings in value.

Return of the Quantities and Value of the Staple Articles, the Produce of the Province of ANGOLA, exported from ST. PAUL DE LOANDA between July 1, 1848, and June 30, 1849, specifying the Quantities and Value of those exported in Portuguese Ships and in Ships of other Nations.

| | In Portuguese Ships. || In Ships of other Nations. |

| Articles. |------------------------||----------------------------|

| | Amount. | Value. || Amount. | Value. |

|-----------------|---------|--------------||-------------|--------------|

| | | L. s. d. || | L. s. d. |

| Ivory. . . Cwt. | 1454 | 35,350 0 0 || 515 | 12,875 0 0 |

| Palm oil . " | 1440 | 2,160 0 0 || 6671 1 qr. | 10,036 17 6 |

| Coffee . . " | 152 | 304 0 0 || 684 | 1,368 0 0 |

| Hides. . . No. | 1837 | 633 17 6 || 849 | 318 17 6 |

| Gum. . . . Cwt. | 147 | 205 16 0 || 4763 | 6,668 4 0 |

| Beeswax. . " | 1109 | 6,654 0 0 || 544 | 3,264 0 0 |

| Orchella . Tons | 630 | 23,940 0 0 || .... | .... |

| | |--------------|| |--------------|

| | | 69,247 13 6 || | 34,530 19 0 |

TOTAL Quantity and Value of Exports from LOANDA.