472 TRADING POMBEIROS. 



sells his nephews to pay Ms debts. By this and other unnatural 

 customs, more than by war, is the slave-market supplied. 



The prejudices in favor of these practices are very deeply rooted 

 in the native mind. Even at Loanda they retire out of the city 

 in order to perform their heathenish rites without the cognizance 

 of the authorities. Their religion, if such it may be called, is one 

 of dread. Numbers of charms are employed to avert the evils 

 with which they feel themselves to be encompassed. Occasion- 

 ally you meet a man, more cautious or more timid than the rest, 

 with twenty or thirty charms round his neck. He seems to act 

 upon the principle of Proclus, in his prayer to all the gods and 

 goddesses : among so many he surely must have the right one. 

 The disrespect which Europeans pay to the objects of their fear 

 is to their minds only an evidence of great folly. 



While here, I reproduced the last of my lost papers and maps ; 

 and as there is a post twice a month from Loanda, I had the 

 happiness to receive a packet of the "Times," and, among other 

 news, an account of the Russian war up to the terrible charge of 

 the light cavalry. The intense anxiety I felt to hear more may 

 be imagined by every true patriot ; but I was forced to brood 

 on in silent thought, and utter my poor prayers for friends who 

 perchance were now no more, until I reached the other side of the 

 continent. 



A considerable trade is carried on by the Cassange merchants 

 with all the surrounding territory by means of native traders, 

 whom they term "Pombeiros." Two of these, called in the his- 

 tory of Angola "the trading blacks" (os feirantes pretos), Pedro 

 Joao Baptista and Antonio Jose, having been sent by the first 

 Portuguese trader that lived at Cassange, actually returned from 

 some of the Portuguese possessions in the East with letters from 

 the governor of Mozambique in the year 1815, proving, as is re- 

 marked, "the possibility of so important a communication between 

 Mozambique and Loanda." This is the only instance of native 

 Portuguese subjects crossing the continent. No European ever 

 accomplished it, though this fact has lately been quoted as if the 

 men had been "Portuguese." 



Captain Neves was now actively engaged in preparing a present, 

 worth about fifty pounds, to be sent by Pombeiros to Matiamvo. 

 It consisted of great quantities of cotton cloth, a large carpet, an 



