408 BASONGO.— TRUE NEGROES. 



tinued to use them for the sake of the shelter they afforded, until 

 I found that they were lodgings also for certain inconvenient bed- 

 fellows. 



21th. Five hours' ride through a pleasant country of forest and 

 meadow, like those of Londa, brought us to a village of Basongo, a 

 tribe living in subjection to the Portuguese. We crossed several 

 little streams, which were flowing in the westerly direction in 

 which we were marching, and unite to form the Quize, a feeder of 

 the Coanza. The Basongo were very civil, as indeed all the tribes 

 were who had been conquered by the Portuguese. The Basongo 

 and Bangala are yet only partially subdued. The farther west 

 we go from this, the less independent we find the black popula- 

 tion, until we reach the vicinity of Loanda, where the free natives 

 are nearly identical in their feelings toward the government with 

 the slaves. But the governors of Angola wisely accept the lim- 

 ited allegiance and tribute rendered by the more distant tribes 

 as better than none. 



All the inhabitants of this region, as well as those of Londa, 

 may be called true negroes, if the limitations formerly made be 

 borne in mind. The dark color, thick lips, heads elongated 

 backward and upward and covered with wool, flat noses, with 

 other negro peculiarities, are general ; but, while these charac- 

 teristics place them in the true negro family, the reader would 

 imbibe a wrong idea if he supposed that all these features com- 

 bined are often met with in one individual. All have a certain 

 thickness and prominence of lip, but many are met with in every 

 village in whom thickness and projection are not more marked 

 than in Europeans. All are dark, but the color is shaded off 

 in different individuals from deep black to light yellow. As we 

 go westward, we observe the light color predominating over the 

 dark, and then again, when we come within the influence of damp 

 from the sea air, we find the shade deepen into the general 

 blackness of the coast population. The shape of the head, with 

 its woolly crop, though general, is not universal. The tribes on 

 the eastern side of the continent, as the Caffres, have heads finely 

 developed and strongly European. Instances of this kind are 

 frequently seen, and after I became so familiar with the dark 

 color as to forget it in viewing the countenance, I was struck 

 by the strong resemblance some natives bore to certain of our 



