440 FIRES.— THE KISAMAS. 



Andongo is kept securely by cannon perched on cross sticks 

 alone ! 



Massangano was a very important town at the time the Dutch 

 held forcible possession ofLoanda and part of Angola; but when, 

 in the year 1648, the Dutch were expelled from this country by a 

 small body of Portuguese, under the Governor Salvador Correa 

 de Sa Benevides, Massangano was left to sink into its present 

 decay. Since it was partially abandoned by the Portuguese, 

 several baobab-trees have sprung up and attained a diameter of 

 eighteen or twenty inches, and are about twenty feet high. No 

 certain conclusion can be drawn from these instances, as it is not 

 known at what time after 1648 they began to grow; but then- 

 present size shows that their growth is not unusually slow. 



Several fires occurred during our stay, by the thatch having, 

 through long exposure to a torrid sun, become like tinder. The 

 roofs became ignited without any visible cause except the intense 

 solar rays, and excited terror in the minds of the inhabitants, as 

 the slightest spark carried by the wind would have set the whole 

 town in a blaze. There is not a single inscription on stone visible 

 in Massangano. If destroyed to-morrow, no one could tell where 

 it and most Portuguese interior villages stood, any more than we 

 can do those of the Balonda. 



During the occupation of this town the Coanza was used for 

 the purpose of navigation, but their vessels were so frequently 

 plundered by their Dutch neighbors that, when they regained the 

 good port of Loanda, they no longer made use of the river. We 

 remained here four days, in hopes of obtaining an observation for 

 the longitude, but at this season of the year the sky is almost 

 constantly overcast by a thick canopy of clouds of a milk-and- 

 water hue ; this continues until the rainy season (which was now 

 close at hand) commences. 



The lands on the north side of the Coanza belong to the 

 Quisamas (Kisamas), an independent tribe, which the Portuguese 

 have not been able to subdue. The few who came under my 

 observation possessed much of the Bushman or Hottentot feature, 

 and were dressed in strips of soft bark hanging from the waist to 

 the knee. They deal largely in salt, which their country pro- 

 duces in great abundance. It is brought in crystals of about 

 12 inches long and 1£ in diameter. This is hawked about every 



