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

squadron of
cavalry, and two companies of artillery with three-pounders; the real
force is of some 800 men, mostly convicts. No difference is made
between white and black, nor is the corps force, which was once very
cruelly used, severely treated as the Légion Etrangère of Algeria. Most
of the men have been found guilty of capital crimes, yet they are
allowed to carry arms, and they are intrusted with charge of the forts.
Violence is almost unheard of amongst them: if an English sailor be
stabbed, it is generally by the free mulattoes and blacks, who hate 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 tángá, 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 sárí 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 Pará. 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 São Paulo de
Loanda its ecclesiastical name "da Assumpção." 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 José Baptista de Andrade, a historic name
in Angola, led to an invitation for the evening, a pleasant soirée 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 Paço at
Pangim (Goa). Fifty years ago colonial society was almost entirely
masculine; if you ever met a white woman