ANGOLA AT LAST 29 



and mentions that this island and Principe were 

 discovered eighty years earlier. 



Passing by the Islands of Cape Verde to Benin, 

 this nameless navigator describes how in Benin, 

 on the death of a King, his courtiers were placed 

 in the grave, a deep and wide well with a narrow 

 opening over which a stone had been placed. 

 On every day after the King's death, these men, 

 lying in the darkness of their living tomb, without 

 food or water, were asked if they were serving 

 their dead King faithfully. When no answer came 

 back from the grave, a great fire was lighted on 

 the stone above it, and burnt offerings of animals 

 placed round about the tomb. Sailing on to San 

 Thome, the old- world pilot describes how wonderful 

 was the sugar-cane of the island, and how delicious 

 the flesh of its pigs. He describes the delights 

 of the potato called the yam, and tells how the 

 natives live to over a hundred years, though 

 suffering much from malaria (of which is given 

 a good description) and even, curiously enough, 

 from venereal disease. There were Portuguese 

 on the islands even then, but their prosperity 

 was not to come for many a year, as first the 

 French and then the Dutch raided the island, and 

 the slaves revolted more than once. 



Cocoa was planted, and prosperity came in 

 the nineteenth century. 



Five days after leaving San Thome, the Mossa- 

 medcs steamed into the roadstead of Cabinda, 

 first occupied in 1783. Cabinda, though politically 

 Angola, is geographically a Congo province, for it 

 lies north of the river, a small patch of territory, 



