Chap. XIX, CARRIERS. 385 



were chopping up perpendicularly, they had suddenly been con- 

 gealed. The cottages of the natives, perched on the tops of 

 many of the hillocks, looked as if the owners possessed an eye 

 for the romantic, but they were probably influenced more by 

 the desire to overlook their gardens, and keep their families out 

 of the reach of the malaria, winch is supposed to prevail most on 

 the banks of the numerous little streams which run among the 

 hills. 



Me were most kindly received by the Commandant, Lieutenant 

 Antonio Canto e Castro, a young gentleman whose whole sub- 

 sequent conduct will ever make me regard him with great 

 affection. Like every other person of intelligence whom I had 

 met, he lamented deeply the neglect with winch this fine country 

 has been treated. This district contained, by the last census, 

 26,000 hearths, or fires ; and if to each hearth we reckon four 

 souls, we have a population of 104,000. The number of carre- 

 gadores (carriers) who may be ordered out at the pleasure of 

 Government to convey merchandise to the coast is in this dis- 

 trict alone about 6000, yet there is no good road in existence. 

 Tliis system of compulsory carriage of merchandise, was adopted 

 in consequence of the increase in numbers and activity of 

 our cruisers, which took place in 1845. Each trader who went, 

 previous to that year, into the interior, in the pursuit of his 

 calling, proceeded on the plan of purchasing ivory and bees'- 

 wax, and a sufficient number of slaves to carry these commo- 

 dities. The whole w r ere intended for exportation as soon as 

 the trader reached the coast. But when the more stringent 

 measures of 1845 came into operation, and rendered the exporta- 

 tion of slaves almost impossible, there being no roads proper for 

 the employment of wheel conveyances, this new system of com- 

 pulsory carnage of ivory and bees'-wax to the coast was resorted 

 to by the Government of Loanda. A trader who requires two 

 or three hundred carriers to convey Ins merchandise to the coast, 

 now applies to the General Government for aid. An order is 

 sent to the Commandant of a district to furnish the number 

 required. Each head-man of the villages to whom the order is 

 transmitted, must furnish from five to twenty or thirty men, 

 according to the proportion that his people bear to the entire 

 population of the district. For this accommodation the trader 



2 c 



