162 THROUGH ANGOLA 



into tiie districts of Mossamedes, with head- 

 quarters at the port of this name ; and of Huilla, 

 where the chief town is Lubango ; though there 

 are two other townships of Huilla and Chibia. A 

 Governor is in residence at Mossamedes and 

 Lubango, and a new Governorship has just been 

 formed for the south-eastern portion of the colony. 



At Lubango there are a number of Europeans, 

 mostly Portuguese traders and oiftcials, and in 

 this town lives the Director of the Mossamedes 

 Company, which holds mining and farm concessions 

 over most of the uplands of southern Angola. 

 There might have come wealth and prosperity 

 to this Company had the settlers on the land been 

 other than Boers, who seem incapable of develop- 

 ing it, and the governing power being other than 

 Portugal, which has been slow to take advantage 

 of the colony's natural wealth. 



As things are, the Company has not flourished, 

 and its concessions seem likely to end. The 

 little railway which it iinanccd, a toy affair like 

 the familiar Decauville of France, crosses the 

 desert country from Mossamedes due eastwards 

 for some 50 miles through desert, and north- 

 eastwards through scrub jungle and up the 

 Moninho valley for a similar distance to Humbia, 

 the present terminus. One day the line will 

 come to Lubango, circling round to find a gap 

 behind the bastion, which it cannot climb directly. 



And Lubango is preparing for that day : a 

 great hotel is to be built on a hillside above the 

 town, a lake is be ing dug. and the water of a 

 mountain stream brought to it to form a reservoir 



