INFLUENCE OF MISSIONARIES. 151 



I shall never forget the delicious pleasure of lying down on his bed, after 

 sleeping six months on the ground, nor the unwearied attention and kindness, 

 through a long sickness, which Mr. Gabriel invariably showed. May God reward 

 him ! My companions were struck with awe at the sight of a city, and more 

 especially when taken on board Her Majesty's ships of war. The kindness of 

 the officers of the cruisers removed the last vestige of fear from their minds; for 

 finding them to be all my countrymen, they saw the fallacy of the declara- 

 tions of the negroes of every village we came to west of Cassange, ' that the 

 white man was taking them to the sea, and would sell them all, to be taken 

 on board ship, fattened, and eaten.' They were afterwards engaged in 

 discharging coals from a ship for wages, and will marvel to the end of their 

 lives at the prodigious quantity of 'stones that burn' one ship could contain. 

 They previously imagined their own little canoes on the Zambesi the best 

 vessels, and themselves the most expert sailors in the world. 



" His excellency the Bishop of Angola, then the acting governor of the 

 province, received my companions with great kindness, and assured them of 

 his protection and friendship as well as desire to promote commercial inter- 

 course with the country of Sekeletu. He also sent a present of a horse and 

 handsome dress for that chief, and showed very great attention to myself in 

 my sickness. The merchants too, of Loanda, took the opportunity of our 

 return, to send presents to Sekeletu ; and as they give much more for the 

 produce of his country than can be or is done by merchants from the Cape 

 colony, it is to be hoped that intercourse with either Cassange or Loanda, 

 will promote the civilization of the interior. ... I have been remarkably 

 well treated by the Portuguese. The Government did everything in its 

 power to facilitate my progress through the province. ... I visited 

 several of the ' extinct convents,' or, as we should say, deserted missionary 

 stations. The churches are standing in some instances, and would require but 

 little to put them in good repair. South American fruit trees grow in the neat 

 gardens which the missionaries laid out, the bedsteads stand in the dormitories 

 as they left them, and the chests in which the brethren stowed their provisions; 

 but there were no books nor any inscriptions on the graves which would enable 

 one to learn something of the dust which sleeps beneath. But turning to the 

 people we soon recognise their memorials in the great numbers who can both 

 read and write. There are few of the people of Ambaca who cannot use their 

 pen, and the sight is not uncommon in that district of a black man sitting in 

 the evening with a fire-stick in one hand, and a pen in the other, writing in a 

 beautiful hand a petition to a commandant. I looked upon these relics of 

 former times with peculiar interest. . . . Among the benefits conferred 

 on the country by the missionaries may be mentioned coffee. A few mocha 

 seeds were planted, and it has now extended itself over the whole country. 

 Plantations of it are daily discovered in the forests, and only require to be 



