Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, vol 2 | Page 6

Africa," chapter xxv.), is "derived from a
native word meaning bald:" I believe it to be the Angolan Luánda, or
tribute. Forming the best harbour of the South African coast, it is made
by the missionaries of the seventeenth century to extend some ten
leagues long. James Barbot's plan (A.D. 1700) shows seven leagues by
one in breadth, disposed from north-east to south-west, and, in the latter
direction, fitting into the "Mar Aparcelado" or shoaly sea, a curious
hook-shaped bight with a southern entrance, the "Barra de Curinba"

(Corimba). But the influences which formed the island, or rather
islands (for there are two) have increased the growth, reducing the
harbour to three and a half miles by two in breadth, and they are still
contracting it; even in the early nineteenth century large ships floated
off the custom house, and it is dry land where boats once rode. Dr.
Livingstone ("First Expedition," chapter xx.) believes the causa causans
to be the sand swept over the southern part of the island: Douville more
justly concludes that it is the gift of the Cuanza River, whose mud and
ooze, silt and débris are swept north by the great Atlantic current.
Others suppose that it results from the meeting of the Cuanza and the
Bengo streams; but the latter outfall would be carried up coast. The
people add the washings of the Morro, and the sand and dust of the
sea-shore south of the city.
This excellent natural breakwater perfectly shelters the shipping from
the "calemas," or perilous breakers on the seaward side, and the surface
is dotted with huts and groves, gardens and palm orchards. At the Ponta
do Norte once stood a fort appropriately called Na. Sa. Flór de Rosa; it
has wholly disappeared, but lately, when digging near the sea, heaps of
building stone were found. Barbot here shows a "toll-house to collect
the customs," and at the southern extremity a star-shaped "Fort
Fernand."
This island was the earliest of Portuguese conquests on this part of the
coast. The Conquistador Paulo Dias de Novaes, a grandson of
Bartholomeo Dias, was sent a second time, in A.D. 1575, to treat with
the king of "Dongo," who caused trouble to trade. Accompanied by 700
Portuguese, he reached the Cuanza River, coasted north, and entered by
the Barra de Corimba, then accessible to caravels. He landed without
opposition amongst a population already Christianized, and, after
occupying for a few months the island, which then belonged to Congo,
he founded, during the next year, the Villa de São Paulo de Loanda on
the mainland.
The importance of the island arose from its being the great money bank
of the natives, who here collected the zimbo, buzio, cowrie, or cypræa
moneta. Ample details concerning this industry are given by the old

writers. The shell was considered superior to the "impure or Braziles,"
brought from the opposite Bahia (de Todos os Santos), though much
coarser than the small Indian, and not better than the large blue
Zanzibar. M. Du Chaillu ("Second Expedition," chap, iv.) owns to
having been puzzled whence to derive the four sacred cowries: "They
are unknown on the Fernand Vaz, and I believe them to have come
across the continent from eastern Africa." There are, indeed, few things
which have travelled so far and have lasted so long as cowries--they
have been found even amongst "Anglo-Saxon" remains.
The modern Muxi-Loandas hold aloof from the shore-folk, who return
the compliment in kind. They dress comparatively well, and they spend
considerable sums in their half-heathen lembamentos (marriages) and
mutambé (funerals).
As might be expected, after three centuries of occupation, the
Portuguese, both in East and West Africa, have naturalized a multitude
of native words, supplying them with a Lusitanian termination. The
practice is very useful to the traveller, and the despair of the
lexicographer. During the matumbé the relations "wake" the toasted,
swaddled, and aromatized corpse with a singular vigour of drink and
general debauchery.
I arrived with curiosity at the capital of Angola, the first Portuguese
colony visited by me in West Africa. The site is pleasing and
picturesque, contrasting favourably with all our English settlements and
with the French Gaboon; for the first time after leaving Teneriffe, I saw
something like a city. The escarpment and the sea-bordering shelf,
allowing a double town like Athenæ or Thebæ, a Cidade Alta and a
Cidade Baixa, are favourites with the Lusitanians from Lisbon to the
China seas, and African São Paulo is reflected in the Brazilian Bahia.
So Greece affected the Acropolis, and Rome everywhere sought to
build a Capitol. The two lines follow the shore from north-east to
south-west, and they form a graceful amphitheatre by bending
westward at the jutting headland, Morro de São Miguel, of old de São
Paulo. Three hundred years of possession