26 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



it, formerly formed part of the wide-spread and powerful negro 

 empire of Ginga (pronounced Shinga) of which at present a 

 few tribes still exist as free negro states, north-east of the capital. 

 Pungo Andongo by its commanding situation, and still more 

 by the rapacious habits of the Gingas, opposed for a length 

 of time an annoying non plus ultra to the gradual progress of 

 the Portuguese into the interior. Constant strifes arose until the 

 rock castle, one of the fortified seats of the Ginga kings, after 

 several hard struggles, was taken by storm by the Portuguese, 

 under their valiant leader Lopez de Sequeira; and, shortly after, the 

 place was incorporated with the Portuguese possessions, under the 

 name of Presidio das Pedras Negras, and was raised into a tenable 

 fortified outpost for the protection of Portuguese trading caravans, 

 and serves, at the same time, as an entrepot for the reception of 

 goods coming from the interior of the continent along the eastern 

 boundary-line of Angola, and for a trading post for the dissemina- 

 tion of Portuguese or other European goods in the interior. 



The Presidium proper, the town of Pungo Andongo counts at 

 present with its adjoining farms nearly 1300 inhabitants,* and lies 

 in a hollow, in the midst of mighty gneiss rocks, which extend over 

 an area of more than 10 miles in circumference, and of which some 

 rise like gigantic pillars, and others like successive mountain 

 masses, forming all around, chiefly on the west and south-west, 

 precipices of from 300 to 600 feet in height. Three steep ravines 

 allow a tolerably easy entrance to the Presidium, besides a few 

 others more diflicult of access. 



Evergreen forests, chiefly of leguminous trees, abound on all 

 sides of these picturesque rock groups, except on the west and 

 south-west, where the mountain's ridge falls off almost perpendi- 

 cularly, displaying at its foot the charming Cuanza valley, com- 

 mencing with shrubs and pasture lands, followed up by smaller 

 groups of trees, or in marshy soil adorned by the Cyperus Papyrus, 

 until we observe on the immediate banks of the Cuanza river itself, 

 luxuriant meadows wth clusters of trees closer and closer grouped 

 together, their dark green masses over-topped by the stately feather 

 crown of the thorny Date palm. 



* In the last official statistical report, published at Loanda in 1862, the 

 population of the entire district of Pungo Andongo is given at 26,815 inhabi- 

 tants, most of whom are stock-breeders, farmers, and merchants, chiefly trading 

 in wax and ivory. In the census of the population, mostly negroes and mulattoes, 

 arc included 55 white colonists, nearly all Portuguese. 



