DOMESTIC FOWL. 441 



where in Angola, and, next to calico, is the most common medium 

 of barter. The Kisama are brave ; and when the Portuguese 

 army followed them into their forests, they reduced the invaders 

 to extremity by tapping all the reservoirs of water, which were no 

 other than the enormous baobabs of the country hollowed into 

 cisterns. As the Kisama country is ill supplied with water other- 

 wise, the Portuguese were soon obliged to retreat. Their country, 

 lying near to Massangano, is low and marshy, but becomes more 

 elevated in the distance, and beyond them lie the lofty dark 

 mountain ranges of the Libollo, another powerful and independent 

 people. Near Massangano I observed what seemed to be an 

 effort of nature to furnish a variety of domestic fowls, more 

 capable than the common kind of bearing the heat of the sun. 

 This was a hen and chickens with all their feathers curled up- 

 ward, thus giving shade to the body without increasing the 

 heat. They are here named " Kisafu" by the native population, 

 who pay a high price for them when they wish to offer them 

 as a sacrifice, and by the Portuguese they are termed "Arri- 

 piada," or shivering. There seems to be a tendency in nature 

 to afford varieties adapted to the convenience of man. A kind 

 of very short-legged fowl among the Boers was obtained, in con- 

 sequence of observing that such were more easily caught for 

 transportation in their frequent removals in search of pasture. 

 A similar instance of securing a variety occurred with the short- 

 limbed sheep in America. 



Returning by ascending the Lucalla into Cazengo, we had an 

 opportunity of visiting several flourishing coffee plantations, and 

 observed that several men, who had begun with no capital but 

 honest industry, had, in the course of a few years, acquired a com- 

 fortable subsistence. One of these, Mr. Pinto, generously furnish- 

 ed me with a good supply of his excellent coffee, and my men 

 with a breed of rabbits to carry to their own country. Then- 

 lands, granted by government, yielded, without much labor, cof- 

 fee sufficient for all the necessaries of life. 



The fact of other avenues of wealth opening up so readily seems 

 like a providential invitation to forsake the slave-trade and engage 

 in lawful commerce. We saw the female population occupied, as 

 usual, in the spinning of cotton and cultivation of their lands. 



