880 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



the sun, is a great article of trade. The canoes on this part of the coast, 

 and as far north as Cabinda, are very curious. They are composed of two 

 rounded canoes lashed or sewn together below, and open at the top. This 

 aperture is narrow, and each canoe forms, as it were, a long pocket. The 

 natives stand or sit on them with their legs in the canoe, or astride, as most 

 convenient according to the state of the surf, on which these canoes ride beau- 

 tifully. A very singular disease prevalent among the natives is what is called 

 the " sleep disease." It is said to be an affection of the cerebellum. The 

 subjects attacked by it suffer no pain whatever, but fall into a continual heavy 

 drowsiness or sleep, having to be awakened to be fed, and at last become un- 

 able to eat at all, or stand, and die fast asleep as it were. There is no cure 

 known for it, and the patients are said to die generally in about twenty to 

 forty days after being first attacked. 



"A considerable quantity of salt is made by the natives, from Quissembo to 

 Ambrizzette, particularly at the latter place, in the small salt marshes near 

 the sea, and with which they carry on a trade with the natives of the in- 

 terior. At the end of the dry season the women and children divide the 

 surface of these marshes into little square portions or pans, by raising mud 

 walls a few inches high, so as to enclose in each about two or three gallons 

 of the water, saturated with salt from the already nearly evaporated marsh. 

 As the salt crystallises in the bottom of these little pans it is taken out, and 

 more water added, and so the process is continued until the marsh is quite dry. 

 In many cases a small channel is cut from the marsh to the sea to admit fresh 

 sea-water at high tide. 



"It is an amusing sight to see numbers of women and children, all stark 

 naked, standing sometimes above their knees in the water, baling it into 

 the pans, with small open baskets or quindas, and singing loudly a monotonous 

 song; others are engaged in filling large quindas with dirty salt from the muddy 

 pans, whilst others again are busily washing the crystallised salt by pouring 

 sea-water over it till all the mud is washed away, and the basketful of salt 

 shines in the sun like driven snow. Towards evening long lines of women and 

 children will be seen carrying to their towns, on their heads, the harvest of salt, 

 and great is the fun and chaff for them if they meet a white man travelling in a 

 hammock — all laughing and shouting, and wanting to shake hands, and run- 

 ning to keep pace with the hammock-bearers." 



Ambriz, seen from the sea, consists of a high rocky cliff or promontory, 

 with a fine bay sweeping with a level beach northward nearly to the next 

 promontory, on which stand the trading factories forming the place called 

 Quissembo. In the bay the little River Loge has its mouth, and marks 

 the northern limit of the Portuguese possession of Angola. The town of 

 Ambriz consists principally of one long, broad street or road, on the ridge 

 that ends at the cliff or promontory forming the southern point of the bay. 



