Advances in nature and biologically inspired computing proceedings of the 7th world congress on natu
Advances in Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing
NaBIC2015 in Pietermaritzburg South Africa held December 01 03 2015 1st Edition Nelishia Pillay
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Nature Inspired Computing and Optimization Theory and Applications 1st Edition Srikanta Patnaik
Advances in Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing
Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing (NaBIC2015) in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, held December 01–03, 2015
The ‘curseofdimensionality’ and ‘overfitting’ problemsareprevalentinhigh dimensionandsmallsamplesizemicroarrayimbalancedatasetswhichcreatelotof computationalchallengesfor findingsigni ficantfeatures[14].
The firstmeasureiscalledBasinRatio(BR).The BR calculatesthenumberof coveredbasins,whichhavebeendiscoveredbythepopulation.Itdoesnotrequire knowledgeofoptima,butanapproximationofbasinsisused.
where pop isthepopulation, k isthenumberofidenti fiedbasinsbythetotal population, l istheindicatorofbasincoveragebyasinglealgorithm, b(x,z)isa functionthatindicatesifanindividualisinbasin z.
Thefunction b(x,z)canbeeasilyevaluatedbydefiningifindividual x isina predefinedradiusofbasincentre z.Theradiusisatunableparameter.Inthisstudy, wedefineitastotalpopulationsizedividedbythenumberofpreviouslyidenti fied basins.
ThesecondmeasureiscalledSumofDistancestoNearestNeighbour(SDNN). The SDNN penalizes theclusteringofsolutions.Thisindicatordoesnotrequire knowledgeofoptimaandbasins.The SDNN canbecalculatedas
SDNNpopðÞ = ∑ popsize i =1 dnn ðxi , popÞ, dnn xi , pop ðÞ =min y ∈ pop\fxi g distxi , y ðÞ fg,
2Þ where dnn isthedistancetothenearestneighbour, dist istheHammingdistance.
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excursions in the neighbourhood. The country around is beautiful and very fertile. There are a number of traders established there, and a large assemblage of native huts and houses. There is also a fine old church, the only remaining evidence of the existence of the old missionaries. Both this and the church at Muxima contain great numbers of small bats. The roof inside is completely covered with them. I have noticed a very curious circumstance in Angola with regard to these bats, and that is the way they issue at dusk from any window or crevice communicating with the interior of the roofs or other dark places that they occupy during the day
At regular intervals of about thirty seconds to one minute, a small puff or cloud of these bats is seen to issue together, and so they continue till all are out. This strange habit of leaving their hidingplaces intermittently, and not continuously as might be expected, cannot easily be explained, nor why they assemble together to go forth in distinct batches only. Whether they return in the same manner I cannot say. Once out, they seem to spread apart immediately, and fly away in all directions, and do not appear in the least to keep in flocks like birds, though they may roost together in communities.
The town of Dondo is about twenty miles from Massangano. It stands in a small, triangular, level plain surrounded by hills on all sides, the base of the triangle being the River Quanza and the low line of hills on its southern bank. From the configuration of the ground, shut in on all sides from winds, it is perhaps, as might be imagined, the hottest corner of Angola. The heat in a calm summer’s day is almost stifling, and the nights, generally cool everywhere else, are not less oppressive. Formerly the town was on the high land above, at Cambambe, as the town itself was called, but the exigencies of trade have peopled the present town of Dondo.
It is a growing and flourishing place, where a number of traders and agents of Loanda houses are established, and is the receiving port for embarkation of the produce and trade of the neighbouring districts and of those of the interior. Thousands of tons of groundnuts, coffee, wax, palm-oil, ivory, &c., are shipped yearly at Dondo for Loanda by the steamers. There is a fine large square in the
middle of the town, where a fair or market is held every day, and to this the natives resort from all parts around with produce and provisions. Many different tribes from the interior are to be seen at Dondo, both from the northern and southern banks of the river, who have brought produce for sale to the white men. The “residencia” of the “chefe” is on a hill to the south of the town, and the view from it is truly magnificent. As far as the eye can reach it is one gorgeous scene of mountains, dark palms, and forests, range after range, till lost to view in the horizon. There are two views in Angola that would alone almost repay the trouble of travelling there. One is that just described, and the other from the hill at Tuco on the road from Ambriz to Bembe.
About six or eight miles from Dondo up the river are the first cataracts of Cambambe. Immediately on leaving Dondo the river is enclosed by high hills or cliffs on both sides, and winds a good deal, so that a succession of fresh and seemingly more beautiful pictures is constantly presented to the traveller’s admiration as he ascends the river in a boat. The river is wide and deep, and the slopes and perpendicular sides of the hilly walls on either side are of endless variety of colour, both of rock, moss and lichen, plant and tree. Deep red iron-stained sandstone, conglomerate, blue clay slate, huge white-stemmed baobabs, dark masses of palm-trees, plots of largeleaved plantains, masses of trees overgrown with creepers, meet the eye in ever varying combination, and gradually the wide valley worn by the water becomes narrower and narrower, until at last it is a deep gorge with almost upright walls of clay slate, and the passage for the great body of water is barred right across by vast rocky ledges and peaks, over which, in the rainy season, it rushes and dashes with a deafening wild roar and mad flinging up into the air of showers of water and foam. The last time I saw these rapids I was accompanied by my wife, and we landed on a bank of gravel a little below the cataract and walked and scrambled on the rocks, till we were on a great ledge quite close to, and but little over the level of the waters; but, it being the end of the dry season, they were so far reduced as to run between the rocks in a swift dark oily-looking mass, and at such a considerable inclination and speed as to give the idea of vast and irresistible force. On the rocks covered over and
splashed by the water, were growing masses of a curious semitransparent plant with thick stems, and bearing minute white flowers.
The singular appearance of this plant, so exactly like a sea-weed, attracted our attention, and as I had never before observed it anywhere in my travels in Angola, we secured specimens, which we dried and preserved, and on forwarding them to Kew it was found to be a new genus of Podostemaceæ, and has been described by Dr. Weddell in the ‘Journal of the Linnean Society,’ xiv. 210, † 13, as the Angolæa fluitans.
It is said that coal has lately been discovered near the river on its southern bank, and not far from Dondo.
Of the old town of Cambambe, situated on the high ground over the cataract, but little else remains than the church and a few houses. The River Quanza is not navigable beyond the rapids, except perhaps for short distances and for small canoes. At Nhangui-a-pepi it is only a broad shallow stream, but with a very rocky bed; its source, however, is far beyond Pungo Andongo.
About the higher parts of the river a gigantic species of the “Bagre” (Bagrus) is found. This is a siluroid fish, and my attention was first called to its extraordinary dimensions by seeing a black using the flat top of the skull of one as a plate or dish. I was then in the province of Cambambe, and several times had an opportunity of asking natives from Pungo Andongo the size of these fish: one man told me that they were captured so large that two men were required to carry one fish slung on a pole on their shoulders by passing the pole through the gills, and that the tail then drags on the ground. Another black, who was a river fisherman, explained to me that the “bagres” were caught with an iron hook made on purpose by the native smiths and baited with a piece of meat; he gave me an idea of the thickness and size of the hook with a piece of twig, and it was as large as an ordinary shark-hook; he further drew on the ground the size of this large fish, and it was six feet long. Other natives who were with him joined in the description and corroborated him, and I am perfectly convinced that they spoke the truth, and were not exaggerating much. I wrote to some Portuguese traders at Pungo Andongo,
asking them to send me the head of one in spirits, but of course I never got it.
Only the northern bank of the Quanza is subject to the Portuguese (with the exception of the town of Muxima), and the natives inhabiting it are greatly civilized and well behaved, and very civil. They are, of course, not industrious, the women cultivating the usual mandioca and other produce for food, and manufacturing palm-oil. A little tobacco is also cultivated by them, and the leaves when fully grown are gathered, and a string passed through the stem. This string of leaves is stretched round their huts to dry, and the large leaves thus hanging give them a curious appearance.
The first trips of the steamers caused the natives on either bank the most intense astonishment; they would race them along the banks, shouting and yelling; and when the steamers stopped at any place, crowds would flock round and come on board to stare at the machinery, which was universally pronounced to be a white man’s great “fetish.”
All natives are very fond of the “batuco” or dance, of which there are two kinds. The Ambriz blacks and those of the Congo country dance it in the following manner:—A ring is formed of the performers and spectators; “marimbas” are twanged and drums beaten vigorously, and all assembled clap their hands in time with the thumping of the drums, and shout a kind of chorus. The dancers, both men and women, jump with a yell into the ring, two or three at a time, and commence dancing. This consists almost exclusively of swaying the body about with only a slight movement of the feet, head, and arms, but at the same time the muscles of the shoulders, back, and hams, are violently twitched and convulsed. The greatest applause is given to those who can most strongly shake their flesh all over in this way It is difficult to do, and appears to require considerable practice, and seems very fatiguing, for in a few minutes the dancers are streaming with perspiration and retire for others to take their places, and so they will often continue for a whole night long, or in dark nights, as long as the great heap of dry grass that they have provided lasts—the illumination being obtained by burning wisps of this grass, two or three blacks generally having the care of
that part of the performance. The natives at these dances are dressed as usual in the ordinary waistcloth, the men arranging theirs so as to allow the ends to trail on the ground. There is nothing whatever indecent in them.
The “batuco” of the Bunda-speaking natives of Loanda and the interior is different. The ring of spectators and dancers, the illuminations, the “marimbas” and drums are the same, but only two performers jump into the ring at a time, a man and a girl or woman; they shuffle their feet with great rapidity, passing one another backwards and forwards, then retreat facing one another, and suddenly advancing, bring their stomachs together with a whack. They then retire, and another couple instantly take their places. This performance might be called somewhat indecent, but I do not believe that the natives attach the most remote idea of harm to the “batuco.”
The “marimba” is the musical instrument par excellence of the natives of Angola. In Plate XI. is represented the better made ones. It consists of a flat piece of wood, generally hollowed out, and with a number of thin iron tongues secured on it by cross bits, but so as to allow them to be pulled out more or less for the purpose of tuning. In front is affixed a wire, on which some glass beads are loosely strung that jangle when the instrument is played, which is done by holding it between both hands and twanging the tongues with the thumbs. The light wood of which the “marimbas” are made is that of the cottonwood tree. They are also made with slips of the hard cuticle of the stem of the palm-leaf instead of the iron tongues, but these are the commoner instruments. Others are made smaller and with fewer tongues.
The more complete ones have an empty gourd attached to the under part, which is said to give them greater sonorousness. The blacks are excessively fond of these instruments everywhere in Angola, playing them as they walk along or rest, and by day or night a “marimba” is at all hours heard twanging somewhere. The music played on it is of a very primitive description, consisting only of a few notes constantly repeated.
Another common instrument of noise, much used to accompany the “marimbas” and drums at the “batucos,” is made by splitting a short piece of palm stem about four or five feet long down one side, and scooping out the soft centre. The hard cuticle is then cut into little grooves across the slit, and these, energetically rubbed with a stick, produce a loud, twanging, rattling kind of noise.
A musical instrument sometimes seen is made by stretching a thin string to a bent bow, about three feet long, passed through half a gourd, the open end of which rests against the performer’s bare stomach. The string is struck with a thin slip of cane or palm-leaf stem held in the right hand, and a finger of the left, which holds the instrument, is laid occasionally on the string, and in this way, with occasional gentle blows of the open gourd against the stomach, very pleasing sounds and modulations are obtained.
Another very noisy instrument with which the drums and “marimbas” are sometimes accompanied at the “batucos,” is made by covering one end of a small powder-barrel or hollow wooden cylinder (open at both ends), with a piece of sheepskin tied tightly round it. A short piece of round wood, about six or seven inches long, is pushed through a hole in the middle of the sheepskin cover, a knob at the end preventing it from slipping quite in. The hand of the performer is then wetted and inserted into the cylinder and the piece of wood is lightly grasped and pulled, allowing it to slip a little, the result being a most hideous, booming sound.
I would strongly recommend my youthful readers, if they would like to create a sensation in a quiet household, to manufacture one of these simple and efficacious musical instruments, and I would suggest the application of a little powdered resin instead of water to the hand, to produce a full tone.
I once saw at a town near Bembe a musical instrument which I thought rather ingenious. A small rectangular pit had been dug in the ground, and over its mouth two strings, about six inches apart, were stretched with pegs driven in the ground. Across these strings ten or twelve staves from a small powder-barrel were fastened. These were struck with a couple of sticks, on the end of which was a little knob or
lump of india-rubber, and an agreeable sound was produced. I have seen two Kroomen from the West Coast, at the River Zaire, playing on a similar kind of instrument, but the flat pieces were laid across two small plantain-stems, and were of different sizes and thickness, so as to produce a kind of scale when struck by the performers with a couple of sticks each. The rapidity with which this instrument was played was really marvellous, and the music sounded like variations of their usual plaintive song, always in a minor key, and one seemed to be playing bass to the other’s rapidly-executed treble. This air is played or sung ad infinitum, and the second bar is often repeated. The Kroomen on board the steamers on the coast always sing it and harmonize it prettily, when it has a very pleasing effect indeed.
The southern bank of the Quanza, from its mouth to opposite Dondo, is called the Quissama country, and is inhabited by the peculiar race or tribe of negroes of the same name. They have not been subjected to the Portuguese in modern times, and I apprehend that in former years, when the Portuguese were in great strength on the River Quanza, they were never considered worth the trouble of subjugating, as they certainly are not now The former missionaries also do not appear to have been able to do anything with them, as not a trace exists there of the habits of civilization they so successfully introduced, and which are so apparent in the natives of the greater part of Angola, where they were formerly established. Their greatest stations were on the Quanza, where their efforts were most successful; and there can be no reason to suppose that any other obstacle existed to the Quissama natives participating in their teaching or example than the resistance due to the very low type, both physical and mental, of this tribe, so apparent at the present day. The missionaries must have had a station of some importance at Muxima, in their own country, as shown by the very fine church
still existing there, besides those at Calumbo, Massangano, Cambambe, and perhaps at Bruto.
The Quissama negroes are very black in colour, undersized, exceedingly dirty, and have a remarkably ugly cast of countenance. With the exception of the tribe of Muquandos, south of Benguella, the Quissama blacks are the most miserable-looking race in Angola. They have a wild, savage look, not seen in the faces of any other tribe, and have not the free mien or attitude of perfect ease of other blacks, but appear frightened and very suspicious. Everywhere on the river they cross over daily with their produce for sale to the different houses of the white traders, as well as to the petty native grog-shops and traders on the river from Calumbo to Dondo, but they never drop their distrustful behaviour, and cross over to their own side without delaying more than necessary. They will not allow traders to establish on their side of the river;—one or two that are said to have done so were robbed, and their houses burnt. They are on terms of perfect friendship with the natives and white men of the northern bank, and at Calumbo and a few other places their land is cultivated by the natives of those places.
The greater part of the Quissama country is very barren, and perfectly destitute of water except on the banks of the river itself, the Quissamas employing baobab trees, hollowed out for the purpose, as reservoirs for the rain-water falling in the wet season. It is very scantily populated except near Massangano and Dondo, where their chief towns are, and where they manufacture a considerable quantity of palm-oil.
When the oil season is approaching, the white traders go over from Dondo to their principal towns to settle with the “sobas,” or kings, the price per measure at which the oil is to be sold. Though so wild in appearance, they are most inoffensive and peaceable, and are in the greatest fear lest the Portuguese should take it into their heads to annex their territory, which they could most easily do if they thought it advisable.
The Libollos, or natives of the Libollo country, are a very much finer and cleaner race than their neighbours the Quissamas, and
their country (according to the accounts I received from several Portuguese and natives) most beautiful and fertile, and covered in great part with palm-trees.
The manner in which they have lately cultivated large quantities of ground-nuts, and increased the production of palm-oil, proves that they are an industrious race.
They are antagonistic to the Quissamas, and very favourable to the Portuguese, and have often offered to reduce them to the power of the latter, if these will give them leave and supply them with guns and ammunition. On one occasion, when I was at Dondo, an embassy arrived, through the Libollo country, from some powerful tribes of the Bailundo district—the most warlike of the tribes of the interior—also offering to conquer the country for the Portuguese on condition of being allowed to plunder and carry off prisoners as slaves.
These warlike tribes to the south of the Libollo and Quissama countries are known in Angola by the name of Quinbundos, and are the handsomest natives of any, being all very tall and well formed. They come in caravans to Dondo, principally laden with beeswax, singing on the march, and at night when assembled together, a song with chorus with great effect. They put up at the Libollo and Quissama towns, and come over to the northern bank to trade with the white men. They plait their hair in thin strings all round their heads, and in each plait they put several beads, mostly made of red paste in imitation of coral. The Quissamas are not cannibals, as described by an English tourist, whose sensational story about them, written after a few days’ trip in the steamers on the Quanza, is full of gross inaccuracies.
The dress of the men is a waistcloth of fine matting or cotton cloths, obtained from the traders; that of the women is very singular, being the soft, beaten inner bark of the baobab-tree made into a thick sort of skirt, which is fastened round the waist, and has extra layers at the back to puff it out still more, something in the manner of the “dress-improvers” worn by the fair sex in our own country. (Plate XII.). Nature has provided the Quissama ladies with an abundant
development of what the Spaniards call “enthusiasm,” and on this account the use of the extra thicknesses on the back of their skirts is really quite unnecessary; but they are not satisfied, and consider this fashion an improvement. Their appearance, therefore, is very comical, particularly when they run, as the thick short skirt moves up and down, and swings round with every motion of the body.
P XII. Maxilla, and Barber’s Shop.—Carrying Corpse to Burial.— Quissama Women, and manner of pounding and sifting Meal in
Angola.
To face page 147.
They are very dirty in their habits, never appearing to make use of water for washing, and their baobab skirts are always black with grease, smoke, and perspiration. I had to order the two dresses in my possession, one for a married woman and the other for a girl or young woman, to be made on purpose, as I could not touch any of those offered to me for sale.
The women, when they come over to the northern bank, sometimes wear a handkerchief or other cloth over the breast, and even over the baobab skirt, but this latter they must wear, according to the custom of their country. They carry the produce of their plantations in large conical baskets on their backs, secured by a band round the forehead (Plate XII.). It is, as far as I know, the only tribe in Angola that carries a load in this manner.
The Quissama blacks are extremely poor, their arid country producing hardly anything besides the food necessary for their bare subsistence, and a little beeswax. The principal food of those near the river is fish.
There is a deposit of rock-salt in the Quissama country somewhere between Muxima and Calumbo (said to be south of the former), and at some distance from the river. It has never to my knowledge been visited by any white man, nor would the Quissamas readily allow one to go to the place; but the most curious thing connected with this salt is that they cut it into little bars with five or six sides or facets, about eight or nine inches long and about an inch thick, tapering slightly to the ends, and closely encased in canework. These pass as money, not only on the river, but in the interior, where they are at last perhaps consumed.
During the Abyssinian war, some of the correspondents described exactly the same shaped pieces of rock-salt encased in similar wicker-work, as being obtained and employed in that country for the same purpose. This is extremely interesting, and opens several questions as to a possible common origin for the custom in the far
and dim past; and the case of the bellows already described is another similar instance.
Many of the native words mentioned by the same correspondents are identical with those used in different places in Angola. I am very sorry now that I did not devote more attention to the investigation of the languages of the natives of Angola, and in particular that of the Quissama tribe, which is different to the Bunda language, and is also said to be different to that of Benguella Velha and Novo Redondo farther south. The number of distinct languages and dialects in Angola is very curious, and a similar multiplicity of tongues has been noted by travellers in other parts of Tropical Africa. None of the languages in Angola are guttural, or spoken with a “click.”
There is a great deal of most interesting detail to be worked out in Angola in every branch of natural history and ethnology.
My chapters are little more than an indication of the wealth that lies there buried for future explorers, and of the success that will attend their investigations.
CHAPTER VI.
COUNTRY SOUTH OF THE RIVER QUANZA—
CASSANZA—NOVO REDONDO—CELIS—
CANNIBALS—LIONS—HOT SPRINGS—BEES—
EGITO—SCORPIONS—RIVER ANHA—
CATUMBELLA.
The country south of the River Quanza is very different from that to the north of it, just described, not only in its physical aspect, but also in the tribes of natives inhabiting it. The evidences of a former degree of civilization, and of the good work of the old missionaries, are not here visible, and I should almost imagine that this part of Angola was not under their care to anything like the same extent.
From June 1861 to the end of 1863, I was engaged in working two copper deposits at Cuio and Benguella, and in exploring the coast from Cassanza, about eighty miles from the River Quanza, as far as and including Mossamedes or Little Fish Bay.
In these explorations I did not go inland a greater distance than about thirty or forty miles at Mossamedes, and forty or fifty at Novo Redondo. I cannot, therefore, speak from personal knowledge of those most interesting places in the interior, Bihé and Bailundo, or the Portuguese districts of Caconda, Quillengues, Huilla, Capangombe, &c.
The geological character of the coast-line from the Quanza to Mossamedes is gneiss, mostly very quartzose, then with a good deal of hornblende and mica near Cuio, passing to a fine-grained porphyry and fine granite with large, distinct feldspar about Mossamedes. Close to the sea these primary rocks are joined by a
line of tertiary deposits, principally massive gypsum, and sandstones of different thicknesses curiously separated by layers of the finest dust. Farther south, between the River San Nicolao in 14° S. lat. and Mossamedes, there is a strip of columnar basalt and trap-rock of only a few miles in width.
The character of these rocks is sufficient to account for the very sterile nature of the country; in fact, most of it is completely a rocky desert, without a drop of water, and covered with but little grass, and frightfully thorny bushes. Although this is the general character, there are numerous places of the greatest beauty, particularly at a distance of twenty to thirty miles from the coast, where the first elevation is reached, and where the vegetation, as in the rest of Angola, changes to a luxuriant character.
The country about Cassanza is level and well covered with grass, and the natives appeared inoffensive and quiet. They have a considerable quantity of fine cattle, and what is rare amongst the natives of Angola, they milk the cows regularly twice a day, the milk being a principal article of food with them. The few days that I was there in 1863, I enjoyed the abundance of beautiful milk immensely
The Portuguese with whom I was staying was then engaged in cotton planting, but the ground did not appear very suitable for its cultivation. He also had a beautiful cotton and sugar-cane plantation at Benguella Velha, and at a pretty place called Cuvo, where there is a small river and good ground near its mouth.
On that occasion I had come up in a sailing barge from Benguella to Novo Redondo, to explore that district for copper, specimens of the ore having been found in several places. The river at Novo Redondo had overflowed its banks, and the road we had to follow was under water for some miles, and whilst waiting for the river to subside, I started to Cuvo and Cassanza to see the country and my friend. On returning to Novo Redondo I obtained for guide the services of a jovial and useful black named David, who had been educated at Benguella. He could read and write Portuguese, which language he spoke perfectly, and was a man of great importance in the Novo Redondo country, as he was the hereditary king of the
place, and was to be proclaimed as such as soon as he could make up his mind to eat a man’s head and heart, roasted or stewed, as he should fancy. David was not at all inclined either to forego his kingship, or to eat any part of one of his fellow-creatures, which by the custom of his country it was imperative he should do to be proclaimed king.
He had been putting off the disagreeable ceremony for some two years, if I remember right, but his people were getting impatient at not having a king, and were threatening to elect another. How he got over the difficulty, or if he at last submitted to overcome his repugnance to roast or stewed negro, I never heard.
The “Mucelis,” or natives of Novo Redondo and of the country inland called “Celis,” are cannibals, and, as far as I could ascertain, there are no others in Angola.
The Portuguese have no stations inland on that part of the coast, that of Caconda, to the interior and south of Benguella, being the first; and they do not allow the practice of cannibalism at the town of Novo Redondo itself, as they strictly prohibit and punish there, as in the rest of Angola, any fetish rite or custom, but I found that at Cuacra, the second large town I passed on my way inland, human flesh was eaten, and in several other towns I passed I saw evidences of this custom in a heap of skulls of the blacks that had been eaten in the centre of the towns, and on the trees were also the clay pots in which the flesh was cooked, and which, according to their laws, can only be used for that purpose.
One night I walked out of my hut at a town where I was sleeping, and seeing that no one was about, I chose a nice skull from the heap, and brought it home and presented it to my friend Professor Huxley, who exhibited it at a meeting of the Anthropological Society. I had previously asked whether I might take one of these skulls, but had been told that it would be considered a great “fetish” if I did, and David begged me not to do so, as there would be a great disturbance, so I was obliged to steal one in the way I have described, and hide it carefully in my portmanteau.
It is only natives who are killed for “fetish” or witchcraft that are eaten, and the “soba” or king of the town where they are executed has the head and heart as his share.
I was informed that at these feasts every particle of the body was eaten, even to the entrails. At the principal towns of Ambuin and Sanga (said to be the capital) I was told that as many as six and seven blacks were eaten every month, and that the “sobas” of those two towns, and their wives, only used human fat to anoint their bodies with.
I was shown at one of the towns the little axe with which the poor wretches were decapitated, and which was distinguished from others used by the natives by having a lozenge-shaped hole in the blade.
I was very much surprised to find that, notwithstanding their cannibal propensities, the natives of Novo Redondo were such an extremely fine race; in fact, they are the finest race of blacks, in every way, that I have met with in Africa.
Cannibalism may possibly be one reason of their superiority, from this custom supplying them with a certain amount of animal food more than other tribes make use of, or it may be due to their usual food, which is principally a mixture in equal parts of haricot beans and indian-corn, being very much more nutritious than the diet of mandioca meal, of almost pure starch, that supplies the staple food of other tribes. Whatever the reason may be, there can be no question of the superior physique and qualities of this cannibal tribe.
When about to start on my journey, I saw that only four carriers had been provided for my hammock, and I refused to start with less than six or eight, as I made sure, judging from every other place in Africa I had travelled in, that I should have to walk a great deal, as four men, even in Ambriz, where I had found the best carriers, would not be able to carry me, day after day, on a long journey. I was assured that it was never customary to have more than four, that two would carry me from daybreak till noon, and the other two from noon till sunset, and that I might have six or more, but that four alone would carry me every day. This I found was the case, not only in that
journey, but also when returning overland from Novo Redondo to Benguella, a distance of about ninety miles.
Another extremely curious feature, distinguishing them favourably from all other negro races, is their degree of honesty and honour.
Any white or other trader going into the interior agrees to pay the “soba” of a town the customary dues, and he provides the trader with a clean hut, and is responsible for the goods in it. The trader may go away farther inland, and he is perfectly certain that on coming back he will find his property untouched, exactly as he left it. Whilst I was at Novo Redondo, an embassy arrived from a town in the interior, where a Portuguese had established himself to trade in palm-oil and beeswax, and where he had died, bringing every scrap of produce and goods belonging to him to deliver the same to the “chefe.”
They were paid and rewarded for their honesty, and I was told that it was the usual thing for these natives to do, on the death of a trader in their country. I do not know of any other part of Africa where such an example would be imitated, certainly not by the Christian negroes at Sierra Leone.
There is a magnificent palm forest on the banks of the river at Novo Redondo. This river is small, but brings down a considerable body of water in the rainy season.
I crossed it on the second day of my journey inland by means of a curiously constructed suspension-bridge attached to the high trees on either side. This bridge was made entirely of the stems of a very tough tree-creeper, growing in great lengths, and about the thickness of an ordinary walking-stick. From two parallel ropes made of this creeper, right across the stream and about two feet apart, hung a frame of open, large-meshed basket-work about three feet deep, forming a kind of flexible net or trough open at the top. The bottom or floor of this trough was made of the same creeper, woven roughly and openly in the same manner as the sides, and when walking in it, I found it necessary to be careful to tread on the network, or my feet would have slipped through, and to help myself along by holding on to the guys or ropes at the top, which reached up to about my waist.
The length of the bridge must have been some thirty paces. Near it I noticed, on a flat-topped tree of no great height, a large bird of the eagle species sitting on its eggs in an open nest, and the male bird on a branch near his mate; this tree was quite close to the road or path, and though numerous natives passed under it to and fro, neither they nor the birds seemed to heed one another in the least.
The Celis country is infested with lions, but I was not so fortunate as to see one, though one morning we came upon the fresh footprints of what the natives affirmed to be a family consisting of a full-grown male and female and three half-grown young ones. To my inexperienced eyes there appeared to have been more, so numerous seemed the plainly-marked footprints in the moist sand of the bottom of a small ravine.
We escaped an encounter with one the day we started on our trip. About half-past four in the afternoon we arrived at a pretty clump of trees round a pool of deliciously cool water, and near a low line of rather bare-looking hills. David would not allow our carriers to tarry at this pool, as he knew it to be the evening drinking-place for the lions living in the low hills near We went on, and shortly after we met an old Cabinda man on his way to Novo Redondo, carrying a letter tied in a cleftstick (the usual way to send a native with a letter in Angola). He was an acquaintance of David’s, who had a talk with him, and we went on our several ways. Next morning we heard that the poor fellow had been caught by a lion not more than an hour after, and at the very pool of water where David had warned us not to stop long. The lion had evidently eaten part of the body at the pool itself, and had carried off the rest to its lair in the hills.
I went to several places where indications of copper had been found, but was disappointed in finding any worth exploring. They were all in the recent beds at the junction or near the primary rock of the country, and consisted of indications of blue and green carbonate of copper in the fine sedimentary mud and sandstone beds. These indications are most abundant everywhere in that district, and curiously enough the plantain-eaters are also most abundant, more so than in any other part of Angola I have been in. I went as far as a range of very quartzose schist rock or gneiss mountains, called
Ngello, which I suppose to be between forty and fifty miles from the sea; and at a pass called Tocota on the road to some important town in the interior, named Dongo, I visited a hot-water spring about half way up the mountain side. I had no thermometer with me, but the water, as it issued from a crevice in the rock, was so hot that I could only keep my hand in it for a few seconds.
The direction of the mountain range was about N.N.E by S.S.W.; the rock composing it was nearly vertical, inclining slightly to the west, and with a strike about north and south. There is a most picturesque little town of huts stuck on a rocky ledge, and the natives use the water from the hot springs to drink, but first allow it to stand a day to cool. It has a very pleasant taste when cold, with just the slightest ferruginous flavour. From this range of mountains magnificent views are obtained, the scenery and vegetation reminding me strongly of Cazengo; and there can be no question that it is likewise capable of growing the coffee-plant to perfection. Some sugar-cane I saw growing there was as fine as I have ever seen it, and the native plantations were most luxuriant. I do not know whether trade at Novo Redondo has increased in the same ratio as on the Quanza and Ambriz, but that it is destined to be a very rich country I have no doubt. There is a great deal of white gum in the country, collected from a tree of which whole forests are said to be found.
The principal article of trade at Novo Redondo when I was there was palm-oil, which was mostly bought in exchange for rum, measure for measure, and I often saw the very gourds and pots in which the natives brought the palm-oil filled up with the rum in exchange without any more cleansing than allowing the vessels to well drain off the oil.
I noticed a great variety of birds, and I am sure the country would well repay a collector’s trouble. In the middle of a small cultivated valley I saw a low, flat-topped baobab, which had been taken possession of by a flock of eight or ten birds about the size of a thrush, of a black colour, with smoky-white feathers on the wings. They had built a common nest on the flat top of the tree, and were all
