PUNGO ANDONGO 273 



directed to Pungo Andongo. "Do you grow wheat?" — 

 " Oh, yes, in Pungo Andongo." " Grapes, figs, or peaches V 

 — "Oh, yes, in Pungo Andongo." "Do you make butter, 

 cheese, &c. ?" The uniform answer was, " Oh, yes : there 

 is abundance of all these in Pungo Andongo." But when 

 we arrived here we found that the answers all referred to 

 the activity of one man, Colonel Manuel Antonio Pires. 

 The presence of the wild grape shows that vineyards might 

 be cultivated with success; the wheat grows well without 

 irrigation; and any one who tasted the butter and cheese 

 at the table of Colonel Pires would prefer them to the 

 stale produce of the Irish dairy in general use throughout 

 that province. The cattle in this country are seldom 

 milked, on account of the strong prejudice which the Por- 

 tuguese entertain against the use of milk. They believe 

 that it may be used with safety in the morning, but, if 

 taken after mid-day, that it will cause fever. It seemed 

 to me that there was not much reason for carefully avoid- 

 ing a few drops in their coffee after having devoured ten 

 times the amount in the shape of cheese at dinner. 



The fort of Pungo Andongo (lat. 9° 42' 14" S. ; long. 15° 

 30' E.) is situated in the midst of a group of curious 

 columnar-shaped rocks, each of which is upward of three 

 hundred feet in height. They are composed of conglome- 

 rate, made up of a great variety of rounded pieces in a 

 matrix of dark red sandstone. They rest on a thick stra- 

 tum of this last rock, with very few of the pebbles in its 

 substance. On this a fossil palm has been found, and if of 

 tne same age as those on the eastern side of the continent 

 on which similar palms now lie, there may be coal under- 

 neath this, as well as under that of Tete. The asserted 

 existence of petroleum-springs at Dande, and near Cam- 

 bambe, would seem to indicate the presence of this useful 

 mineral, though I am not aware of any one having actually 

 Heen a seam of coal tilted up to the surface in Angola, as 

 we have at Tete. The gigantic pillars of Pungo Andongo 

 have been formed by a current of the sea coming from the 



