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Passing Cabinda, 57 miles from Loanda, but barely in sight, we fell in with H.M. Steamship "Espoir," Commander Douglas, who had just made his second capture of a slave-schooner carrying some 500 head of Congos.
Father Merolla , who visited it from "Angoij," our "Cabinda," speaks of it as a pretty large island, tributary to the Mani-Congo, extremely populous, well supplied with provisions, and outlaid by islets belonging to the Count of Sonho.
The houses were built upon raised platforms, and in the little fenced fields the Cajanus Indicus vetch was conspicuous. There is little beauty amongst the women, and settled Europeans prefer Cabinda girls. The latter have perhaps the most wiry and wig-like hair on the whole West African coast, where all hair is more or less wiry and wig- like.
The mangrove-swamps looked to-day like a vast damson-coloured carpet threaded with silver where the waterways ran. It reminded me of a scene I saw once near Cabinda, when on climbing to the top of a hill I suddenly found myself looking down on a sheet of violet pink more than a mile long and half a mile wide.
Among the Benga I saw a witch-doctor going round a village ringing a small bell which was to stop ringing outside the hut of the guilty. When the lid refused to come off at the name of a person, that person was doomed. The other Cabinda doctor first tried throwing nuts upon the ground, also repeating names. That method apparently failed.
The custom of keeping the affair open until the big funeral can be made obtains also in Cabinda and Loango, but there, instead of burying the body in the meantime, it is placed upon a platform of wood, and slow fires kept going underneath to dry it, a mat roof being usually erected over it to keep off rain.
The universal hospitality of the Portuguese was most gratifying, as it was quite unexpected; and even now, as I copy my journal, I remember it all with a glow of gratitude. We spent Sunday, the 14th of May, at Cabinda, which is one of the stations of the sub-commandants, who are placed at different points in each district of Angola as assistants of the head-commandant, or chefe.
In this case, the Society would take measures to supply him with the necessary equipment. The expedition began unfortunately, by the loss of outfit and instruments in the "Nigritia," wrecked off Sierra Leone: it persevered, however, and presently met Dr. Bastian and Professor von Gorschen at Cabinda. The former had collected much information about the coast.
With thirty or forty black rowers, probably Cabinda men, Maxwell advised navigating the river about May, when the Cacimbo or dry season begins; and with arms, provisions, and merchandize he expected to reach the sources in six weeks. The scheme, which was rendered abortive by the continental war of 1793, had two remarkable results.
Unfortunately, the Kruman of the Grain Coast and the Cabinda of the South West Coast, are the only two tribes that have had the benefit of this kind of education, but there are many other tribes who, had circumstances led the trader and the slaver to turn their attention to them, would have done their tutors quite as much credit.
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