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Fish in great numbers are caught when ascending to spawn: they are secured by weirs, nets, hooks. Large strong baskets are placed in the rapids, and filled with stones, when the water rises these baskets are standing-places for the fishermen to angle or throw their nets. Having crossed the Kalongosi we were now in Lunda, or Londa. 13th November, 1867.
All assert that elephants' tusks from that country are heavier and of greater length than any others. It is evident, from all the information I could collect both here and elsewhere, that the drainage of Londa falls to the north and then runs westward.
It is thought to be calling death to visit the tribe. When I was coming through Londa, my men carried a great number of fowls, of a larger breed than any they had at home. If one crowed before midnight, it had been guilty of "tlolo", and was killed.
Soon after his arrival in the country of Lunda, or Londa, and before he had entered the district ruled over by Cazembe, he had crossed a river called the Chambezi, which was quite an important stream.
Here I might have turned back, as no locality can be inhabited by Europeans where that scourge exists; but hearing that we were not far from the confluence of the River of Londa or Lunda, named Leeba or Loiba, and the chiefs of that country being reported to be friendly to strangers, and therefore likely to be of use to me on my return from the west coast, I still pushed on to latitude 14d 11' 3" S. There the Leeambye assumes the name Kabompo, and seems to be coming from the east.
Their color is the same admixture, from very dark to light olive, that we saw in Londa. Though all have thick lips and flat noses, only the more degraded of the population possess the ugly negro physiognomy. They mark themselves by a line of little raised cicatrices, each of which is a quarter of an inch long; they extend from the tip of the nose to the root of the hair on the forehead.
27TH. Five hours' ride through a pleasant country of forest and meadow, like those of Londa, brought us to a village of Basongo, a tribe living in subjection to the Portuguese. We crossed several little streams, which were flowing in the westerly direction in which we were marching, and unite to form the Quize, a feeder of the Coanza.
The adjacent country is of the same level nature as that part of Londa formerly described; but, having come farther to the eastward than our previous course, we found that all the rivers had worn for themselves much deeper valleys than at the points we had formerly crossed them.
The continual splashing of the oxen keeps the feet of the rider constantly wet, and my men complain of the perpetual moisture of the paths by which we have traveled in Londa as softening their horny soles.
But the governors of Angola wisely accept the limited allegiance and tribute rendered by the more distant tribes as better than none. All the inhabitants of this region, as well as those of Londa, may be called true negroes, if the limitations formerly made be borne in mind.
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