250 VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS. Chap. XIX. 



stand my position pretty well, from having all travelled 

 extensively themselves. Indeed, had they not been present, 

 I should have pocketed some to eat by night, for, after fever, 

 the appetite is excessively keen, and manioc is one of the 

 most unsatisfying kinds of food. Captain Neves then invited 

 me to take up my abode in his house, and next morning 

 generously arrayed me in decent clothing. During the whole 

 period of my stay he treated me as if I had been his brother, 

 and I feel deeply grateful to him for his disinterested kind- 

 ness both to myself and my party. 



The village of Cassange (pronounced Kassanje) is composed 

 of thirty or forty traders' houses, built of wattle and daub, 

 irregularly scattered about on an elevated spot in the great 

 Quango valley. They are surrounded by plantations of 

 manioc, maize, &c, and generally possess kitchen gardens, 

 stocked with the common European vegetables, as potatoes, 

 peas, cabbages, onions, tomatoes, &c. &c. Guavas and ban- 

 anas appear, from the size and abundance of the trees, to have 

 been introduced many years ago, but pine-apples, orange, fig, 

 and cashew-trees have but lately been tried. There are about 

 forty Portuguese traders in this district, all of them officers in 

 the militia, many of whom have become rich from adopting 

 the plan of sending out Pombeiros, or native traders, with 

 large quantities of goods, to trade in the more remote parts of 

 the country. The extent to which these native traders cany 

 their expeditions appears from the fact that two of them, called 

 in the history of Angola " the trading blacks " (os feirantes 

 pretos), having been sent by the first Portuguese trader that 

 lived at Cassange, actually returned from some of the Portu- 

 guese possessi >ns 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 this fact has lately been quoted 

 as if the men had been " Portuguese" Some of the governors 

 of Loanda, the capital of Angola, in which Cassange lies, 

 have enforced the law which forbids the Portuguese them- 

 selves from passing the boundary. They seem to have taken 

 it for granted, that, when a white trader was killed, he had 



