456 PUNGO ANDONGO. 



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 Portuguese entertain against the use of milk. 

 They believe that it may be used with safety in the morning, but. 

 if taken after midday, that it will cause fever. It seemed to me 

 that there was not much reason for carefully avoiding 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 conglomerate, made up of a great variety 

 of rounded pieces in a matrix of dark red sandstone. They rest 

 on a thick stratum of this last rock, with very few of the pebbles 

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

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

 on which similar palms now lie, there may be coal underneatli 

 this, as well as under that at Tete. The asserted existence of 

 petroleum springs at Dande, and near Cambambe, would seem 

 to indicate the presence of this useful mineral, though I am not 

 aware of any one having actually seen a seam of coal tilted up 

 to the surface in Angola, as we have at Tete. The gigantic pil- 

 lars of Pungo Andongo have been formed by a current of the sea 

 coming from the S.S.E. ; for, seen from the top, they appear ar- 

 ranged in that direction, and must have withstood the surges of 

 the ocean at a period of our world's history, when the relations of 

 land and sea were totally different from what they are now, and 

 long before "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 

 God shouted for joy to see the abodes prepared which man was 

 soon to nil." The imbedded pieces in the conglomerate are of 

 gneiss, clay shale, mica and sandstone schists, trap, and porphyry, 

 most of which are large enough to give the whole the appearance 

 of being the only remaining vestiges of vast primaeval banks of 

 shingle. Several little streams run among these rocks, and in the 



