NA TURE 



i6i 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1875 



MONTEIRO'S ANGOLA 

 Ans^ola and the River Congo. By Joachim John Mon" 

 teiro. Two vols., with map and illustrations. (Lon- 

 don : Macmillan and Co., 1875.) 

 ALTHOUGH Angola is one of the oldest, if not the 

 oldest, European colony in Africa, there are pro- 

 bably few other discovered regions in that continent about 

 which English readers at least know so little, and we sus- 

 pect that the Portuguese themselves know even less about 

 its people, its productions, and its physical geography. 

 And yet it is about four hundred years since the Portu- 

 guese planted their tirEt colony on the coast. True 

 there are a number of memoirs of old date, in Portuguese 

 and in English, relating to the country, including the 

 narrative of quaint Andrew Battell, who was for years a 

 prisoner in Angola ; but these are all pre-scientific. 

 Recent travellers have told us a good deal about the 

 lower Congo, and Burton, as we recently noticed, made 

 brief v'isits to some of the Portuguese settlements further 

 south, and in his own way has told us much worth know- 

 ing. Henceforth, however, there can be no doubt that 

 Mr. Monteiro's work will be regarded as the authority on 

 the country, more especially when it is supplemented by 

 the various memoirs on the natural history of Angola 

 which he has contributed to the proceedings of the Lin- 

 nean and other societies, and to scientific journals. Mr. 

 ^lonteiro spent many years in the country, evidently in 

 connection with mining operations, and during that time 

 had opportunities of visiting and exploring most if not all 

 of the principal districts from the Congo to Mossamedes, 

 frequently penetrating many miles inland. Mr. Monteiro 

 i an Associate of the Royal School of Mines, and his 

 V. ork proves him to be well qualified not only for geogra- 

 phical e.xploration, but for the investigation of the natural 

 history and physical conditions of a country. He is 

 evidently quite at home in geology, zoology, botany, and 

 meteorology, and has a skilled eye for the points which 

 a traveller ought to note in the natives whom he visits. 

 To the natural history of the country, our naturalist 

 readers no doubt know, Mr. Monteiro has made several 

 important contributions. On the Portuguese settlements 

 and colonists, on the various native tribes, on the geogra- 

 phical and physical features, and on the natural history 

 of Angola the work before us contains such abundant 

 information, that no one but a specialist need go further 

 to obtain a satisfactory knowledge of the country- in all its 

 aspects. Mr. Monteiro writes in a simple, straightforward 

 style, indulges but little in speculation, conjecture, or 

 moralising, and every page is so full of interesting and 

 important facts, clearly told, that the reader will feel con- 

 stantly in a state of satisfied enjoyment. Most of the 

 information in the work has been obtained at first hand ; 

 in the few instances where it is otherwise Mr. Monteiro 

 is careful to point out the source and its value. So far as 

 a full and trustworthy account of Angola is concerned, it 

 seems to us that it would be difficult to supersede the 

 work before us. 



The name Angola Mr. Monteiro applies to all the 

 country from the Congo to Mossamedes, a distance of 

 about nine degrees of latitude. On the north, however, 

 Vou XIII. — No, 322 



the Portuguese possessions extend no farther than 

 Ambriz, a good many miles south of the Congo, while on 

 the south they extend as far as Cape Frio in 18" 20' S. lat. 

 The author chooses the Congo as the northern boundary, 

 that being the strong natural limit of the cUmate, fauna, 

 and ethnology of the region. Chapter L contains a brief 

 account of the history of Angola to the beginning of the 

 present century, transla'ed from the Portuguese of Fee 

 Cardozo. Throughout the work Mr. Monteiro gives an 

 account of all the principal Portuguese settlements along 

 the coast, and has frequent occasion to refer to the inland 

 districts presided over by a che/e or sub-governor. The 

 general impression left on the reader will be one of utter 

 mismanagement, pusillanimity, and oppression. The 

 country as a whole is a fine one, capable of extensive 

 development in many directions, and might be made an 

 extremely valuable possession to Portugal, if the most 

 ordinary care were bestowed upon it. The officials are 

 all underpaid, and with very few exceptions are as corrupt 

 as can well be imagined. The poor natives are plundered 

 on all hands, and a country which might be made to add 

 • materially to the resources of the world, is almost entirely 

 profitless through being in the hands of a people too 

 ignorant and too lazy to turn it to any account. 



There are a considerable number of tribes scattered up 

 and down the region described by Mr. Monteiro. These 

 tribes vary considerably in language, customs, physique, 

 and intelligence, none of them, however, standing very 

 high in the last-mentioned attribute. The author had 

 many opportunities of studying the natives of Angola, and 

 the ethnologist will find much valuable information in the 

 work. Mr. Monteiro has but a poor opinion of the 

 capacity of the African, and but httle hope for his future 

 He beheves that all the efforts hitherto made to elevate 

 and civilise him have failed, and his conclusions on the 

 subject coincide essentially with those of Burton and with 

 those of most other authorities who have examined it dis- 

 passionately. Unless under the judicious superintend- 

 ence of the white man, Mr. Monteiro does not believe 

 there is any hope of the negro ever attaining to any con- 

 siderable degree of civilisation ; and as whites can flourish 

 in very few parts of Africa, "the negro must ever remain 

 as he has always been, and as he is at the present day." 

 Moreover, any advantages which the negro has hitherto 

 derived from the white races have been more than coun- 

 terbalanced " by the creation of an amount of vice and 

 immorahty unknown to the negro in his native or unso- 

 phisticated state."' Many, no doubt, will be inclined to think 

 that Mr. Monteiro takes much too hopeless a view of the 

 future of Africa and Africans. It is certainly hard to believe 

 that no means will ever be discovered of developing the 

 resources of a country which might be made to yield so 

 much. No doubt, if this is ever to be accomplished it 

 must be mostly by means of native labour under white 

 superintendence. But with the author's general conclu- 

 sions on the African question we have no doubt that all who 

 have dispassionately considered must in the main agree. 

 Angola itself is on the whole a comparatively healthy region 

 and, with ordinarj- care, Europeans need have little diffi- 

 culty in getting acclimatised. On this subject, Mr. Mon- 

 teiro gives some valuable hints ; he is of the same opinion 

 as Capt. Burton as to the use of stimulants in tropical 

 countries ; from his own experience and from obser\a- 



