436 



ACROSS AFRICA. 



[Chap. 



November, custom-liouse, a very good hospital, the house of the governor, 

 •«75. a court-house, and a church, which is never opened except for 

 baptisms and burials. 



There is also a large fort constructed in the form of a paral- 

 lelogram, and having a sufficiently imposing appearance from 

 the sea; but its armament consists only of honey-combed old 

 guns of various calibres, either mounted on rotten, broken- 

 down wooden carriages, or propped np on piles of stones so as 

 to sliow their muzzles above the parapets. 



0U8T0.M-II0UBE AT BENGUELA.. 



The garrison numbers about tliirty white soldiers, chiefly 

 convicts, and two companies of blacks. Discipline is not rig- 

 idly enforced, for I found the sentry posted outside the gov- 

 ernor's house sitting in the middle of the road, smoking a pipe 

 and taking off his boots. 



Besides the convicts serving as soldiers, there arc others em- 

 l)loyed on public works ; and they were then engaged in con- 

 structing a causeway across a portion of the plain lying between 

 Bengucla and Katombcla, which is flooded in the rainv season. 



