REMEDIES FOR DISEASE. 897 



speedy cure. The Herva Santa Maria (Chenopodium ambrosioides) is a small 

 annual plant, generally about a foot and a half high, very green and bushy, 

 and every part of it hotly and strongly aromatic. Sangue-sangue is the name 

 given to the large seed-heads of a strong, tall grass (a species of Cymbopogon), 

 which exhales a very powerful aromatic odour when crushed. The principal 

 remedy for ulcers is powdered malachite, with or without lime-juice. When 

 they rise in the misty mornings in the cold season, they smoke the flowers of 

 the wild hemp, which they say wakes them up and warms their bodies, so 

 that they are ready to take up their loads, and trot off quickly. 



They have no efficient remedies or treatment for bronchitis, pleurisy, 

 and pneumonia, from which they suffer so much and so fatally in the cold 

 season. Their purgatives are the castor-oil seeds ground and mixed with a 

 little water, and the juice of the plant bearing the physic-nut (Jatropha curcas). 

 This is collected on a leaf from a cut made in the stem of the plant, and at once 

 swallowed : from five to ten drops appear to be a dose. Bleeding seems to 

 suit the negro constitution, and the Bunda-speaking natives are very skilful 

 in the use of the lancet, often with dreadfully blunt instruments. For inflam- 

 mation of the bowels, colic, or other violent pains, great use is made of the 

 fresh leaves of the tobacco plant, applied, as gathered, to the abdomen, or 

 better still, after dipping in boiling water. Another remedy for stomach and 

 liver complaints is the root of a creeper bearing very pretty small white 

 flowers (Bcerhaavia sp.), and growing most abundantly everywhere in Angola. 

 Leeches are extremely abundant in the fresh-water lagoons, and are much 

 used by the Portuguese. 



There are several peculiar habits and customs common to the natives of 

 Angola. " One of the most striking and most pleasing is their regard for 

 their parents and old people. These are always consulted before they under- 

 take a journey, or hire themselves as carriers or for other service, and they 

 always bid them good-bye, and leave them some little present of beads or rum. 

 On returning to their own towns they immediately see their fathers and 

 mothers and the old people, and squat down and beat hands to them, and 

 give an account of their doings. A little food is then eaten together, and 

 they consider that they have done their duty. Neither the men nor women 

 will smoke whilst speaking to their old people, but always take their pipes 

 out of their mouths, or, if their hands are engaged, hold the pipe stem across 

 their teeth. Other marks of respect always practised to their old men, to 

 their kings, and to white men, are, when passing between or close to them, to 

 bend their bodies slightly and snap their fingers ; if they meet them on the 

 road, they will stand aside without moving, till they have passed, and if 

 carrying a load on their head, always remove it to the shoulder, or lift it 

 above the head on both hands." 



Smoking is universal. Snuff-taking is also very general. The ordinary 

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