Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, vol 2 | Page 9

the uniform for destroying their pet trade of man-selling. It is true that these convicts have hopes of pardon, but I prefer to attribute their remarkable gentleness and good behaviour to the effects of the first fever, which, to quote from the Latin grammar,
"Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros."
The negroes of Loanda struck me as unusually ill-favoured; short, "stumpy," and very dark, or tinged with unclean yellow. Lepers and hideous cripples thrust their sores and stumps in the face of charity. There was no local colouring compared with the carregadores, or coolies, from the northeast, whose thrum-mop heads and single monkey skins for fig-leaves, spoke of the wold and the wild. The body-dress of both sexes is the t��ng��, pagne, or waist-cloth, unless the men can afford trousers and ragged shirts, and the women a "veo preto," or dingy black sheet, ungracefully worn, like the graceful s��r�� of Hindostan, over the bright foulard which confines the wool. "It is mighty ridiculous to observe," says the old missionary, "that the women, contrary to the custom of all other nations, buy and sell, and do all things which the men ought to do, whilst their husbands stay at home and spin or weave cotton, or busy themselves in such other effeminate actions." This is not wholly true in ��63. The "munengana,"or machila-man, is active in offering his light cane palanquin, and he chaffs the "mean white" who is compelled to walk, bitterly as did the sedan-chairmen of Bath before the days of Beau Nash. Of course the Quitandeira, or market-woman, holds her own. The rest of the street population seems to consist of negro "infantry" and black Portuguese pigs, gaunt and long- legged. The favourite passe-temps is to lie prone in sun or shade, chattering and smoking the cachimbo, a heavy clay pipe, with peculiar stem--"to sleep supine," say the Arabs, "is the position of saints; on the dexter side, of kings; on the sinister, of learned men; and on the belly, of devils."
Chapter III.
The Festival--a Trip to Calumbo--portuguese Hospitality.

My first step after reaching S. Paolo de Loanda was to call upon Mr. Commissioner Vredenburg, who had lately taken up the undesirable appointment, and who, moreover, had brought a pretty French wife from Par��. I had warned him that he was risking her life and that of her child; he bravely made the attempt and nearly lost them both. I have reason to be grateful to him and to Mr. Vice-consul E. H. Hewett for hospitality during my stay at the Angolan capital. There is a place called an hotel, but it is in the Seven Dials of the African city, and--nothing more need be said.
Fortunately for me, as for herself, Loanda had got rid of Mr. Vredenburg's predecessor, who soon followed the lamented Richard Brand, first British Consul, appointed in 1844. The "real whole- hearted Englishman" was after that modern type, of which La Grundy so highly approves. An honest man, who does not hold to the British idea that "getting on in the world" is Nature's first law, would be sorely puzzled by such a career.
The day after my arrival was the festival which gives to S?o Paulo de Loanda its ecclesiastical name "da Assump??o." The ceremonies of the day were duly set forth in the Boletim Official do Governo Geral da Provincia de Angola. A military salute and peals of bells aroused us at dawn; followed a review of the troops, white and black; and a devout procession, flags flying and bands playing, paced through the chief streets to the Cathedral. A visit of ceremony in uniform to the Governor- General, Captain Jos�� Baptista de Andrade, a historic name in Angola, led to an invitation for the evening, a pleasant soir��e of both sexes. The reception was cordial: whatever be the grievances of statesmen and historians, lawyers and slave- mongers, Portuguese officers are always most friendly to their English brethren. The large and airy rooms were hung with portraits of the several dignitaries, and there was an Old World look about Government House, like the Pa?o at Pangim (Goa). Fifty years ago colonial society was almost entirely masculine; if you ever met a white woman it was in a well-curtained manchila surrounded by "mucambas" or "mucacamas, negro waiting maids:" as the old missioner tells us, "when they go abroad, which is seldom, they are carried in a covered net with attendance of captives." All this is changed, except as regards leaving the house, which is never done during the day: constitutionals are not wanted in the tropics, and the negroes everywhere make the streets unfit, except for any but the very strongest-minded of the weaker sex. The evenings at Government House are passed with music and dancing, and petits jeux innocents for the juniors, whilst the seniors talk and