Chap. XX. COFFEE-PLANTATIONS. 271 



thread, which they were carijing to other places to be woven 

 into cloth. The women spin and the men weave. Each web 

 is about 5 feet long, and 15 or 18 inches wide. The loom 

 is of the simplest construction, being only two beams placed 

 one over the other, the web standing perpendicularly. The 

 threads of the web are separated by means of a thin wooden 

 lath, and the woof passed through by means of the spindle 

 on which it has been wound in spinning. The mode of 

 spinning and weaving in Angola, and indeed throughout 

 South Central Africa, so closely resembles that practised by 

 the ancient Egyptians, that I introduce a woodcut from the 

 interesting work of Sir Gardner Wilkinson. The lower figures 

 are engaged in spinning in the real African method, and the 

 weavers in the left-hand corner have their web in the Angolese 

 fashion. 



Numerous other articles are brought for sale to these 

 sleeping-places. The native smiths carry on their trade there, 

 and I bought ten very good table-knives made of country iron 

 for two pence each. Labour is extremely cheap ; I was assured 

 that even carpenters, masons, smiths, &c, might be hired for 

 fourpence a day, and that agriculturists would gladly work 

 for half that sum. 



Being anxious to become better acquainted with this in- 

 teresting country and its ancient missionary establishments, 

 I resolved to visit the town of Massangano, situated south of 

 Goluugo Alto, at the confluence of the rivers Lucalla and 

 Coanza. This led me to pass through Cazengo, a district 

 famous for the abundance and excellence of its coffee, exten- 

 sive plantations of which exist on the sides of several lofty 

 mountains. They were not planted by the Portuguese, but 

 by the Jesuits and other missionaries, who brought some of 

 the fine old Mocha seed, and thus established the excellence 

 of the Angola coffee. Some have indeed supposed the coffee- 

 tree to be indigenous ; but the presence of pine-apples, 

 bananas, yams, orange-trees, custard-apple trees, pitangas, 

 guavas, and other South American trees, in the same localities 

 as the coffee, seems to indicate that this like the others must 

 have been introduced from abroad. The propagation of the 

 coffee-plant is forwarded by the circumstance that the seed 

 requires simply to be laid on tho surface of the soil, with no 



