COFFEE-PLANTATIONS. 261 



weaving. Each web is about five feet long, and fifteen or 

 eighteen inches wide. The loom is of the simplest construc- 

 tion, being nothing but two beams placed one over the other, 

 the web standing perpendicularly. The threads of the web 

 are separated by means of a thin wooden lath, and the 

 woof passed through by means of the spindle on which it 

 has been wound in spinning. 



Numbers of other articles are brought for sale to these 

 sleeping-places. The native smiths there carry on their 

 trade. I bought ten very good table-knives, made of 

 country iron, for twopence each. 



Labor is extremely cheap, for I was assured that even 

 carpenters, masons, smiths, &c. might be hired for four- 

 pence a day; and agriculturists would gladly work for half 

 that sum. 



Being anxious to obtain some more knowledge of this in- 

 teresting country and its ancient missionary-establishments 

 than the line of route by which we had come afforded, 1 

 resolved to visit the town of Massangano, which is situated 

 to the south of Golungo Alto and at the confluence of the 

 rivers Lucalla and Coanza. This led me to pass through 

 the district of Cazengo, which is rather famous for the 

 abundance and excellence of its coffee. Extensive coffee- 

 plantations were found to exist on the sides of the seve- 

 ral lofty mountains that compose this district. They were 

 not planted by the Portuguese. The Jesuit and other mis- 

 sionaries are known to have brought some of the fine old 

 Mocha seed, and these have propagated themselves far and 

 wide: hence the excellence of the Angola coffee. Some 

 have asserted that, as new plantations were constantly dis- 

 covered even during the period of our visit, the coffee-treo 

 was indigenous; but the fact that pineapples, bananas, 

 yams, orange-trees, custard -apple-trees, pitangas, guavas, 

 and other South American trees were found by me in the 

 same localities with the recently-discovered coffee would 

 seem to indicate that all foreign trees must have been 

 introduced by the same agency. It is known that the 



