A LAND OF GREAT SPACES 31 



acacias, with long grass growing between the 

 trees. 



It was the dry season, the grass was changing 

 from green to yellow, and there was dust on the 

 trees, giving the picture of an arid coast-line which 

 stretches from the Congo to Benguella, there to grow 

 more desert-like and become a desert near Mossa- 

 medes. Yellow grass and dusty trees, the scrub and 

 desert, could only mean a long dry season, while the 

 terraced hills extending far inland gave every hope 

 of a healthier climate approaching that of South 

 rather than West Africa. 



To me, with my last memories of Africa, the 

 dense tropical forest of the Cameroons and Spanish 

 Muni, this open country was heartening, for 

 though it did not have their luxuriant beauty, it 

 promised what was better still, a healthier, drier 

 climate, and the chance of seeing game and follow- 

 ing it, as one could never do in denser forest. 



On 27th July we arrived at Loanda, the capital 

 of a colony of 480,000 square miles, divided into 

 nine great districts. Six of these on the coast, 

 or accessible, Congo, North and South Coanza, 

 Benguella, Mossamedes, and Huilla, were under 

 civil governors, and subdivided into " concilhos " 

 and " circunscripsions," Those to the east and 

 interior, Lunda, Mexico, and Cubango, inaccessible 

 and unexplored, were under military governors 

 who ruled military subdivisions called " capitanias 

 Mor," an old name for the command of a Captain-in- 

 Chicf. Only some 3,500,000 people inhabit these 

 great spaces, and in some districts as large as 

 England there are but a few thousand. 



