Chap. XXII. TRADING P0MBE1R0S. 4o5 



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

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



The prejudices in favour 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. 

 Occasionally you meet a man, more cautious or more timid than 

 the rest, with twenty or thirty charms hung round his neck. He 

 seems to act upon the principle of Proclus, hi 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 

 history 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 remarked, " 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 tins 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 

 arm-chair with a canopy and curtains of crimson calico, an iron 



2 f 2 



