CATHORY LEAVES. 403 



a detachment of fifty men and a field-piece, from an 

 unsuccessful search after some rebels. The rebels had fled, 

 and all he could do was to burn their huts. He kindly 

 invited me to take up my residence with him, but, not 

 wishing to pass by the gentleman (Captain Neves) who 

 had so kindly received me on my first arrival in the Por- 

 tuguese possessions, I declined. Senhor Rego had been 

 superseded in his command, because the Governor Amaral, 

 who had come into office since my departure from I^oanda, 

 had determined that the law which requires the office of 

 commandant to be exclusively occupied by military officers 

 of the line, should once more come into operation. I was 

 again most kindly welcomed by my friend Captain Neves, 

 whom I found labouring under a violent inflammation 

 and abscess of the hand. There is nothing in the situation 

 of this village to indicate unhealthiness, except perhaps 

 the rank luxuriance of the vegetation. Nearly all the 

 Portuguese inhabitants suffer from enlargement of the 

 spleen, the effects of frequent inter mittents, and have 

 generally a sickly appearance. Thinking that this affection 

 of the hand was simply an effort of nature to get rid of 

 malarious matter from the system.. I recommended the use 

 of qtiinine. He himself applied the leaf of a plant called 

 cathory, famed among the natives as an excellent remedy 

 for ulcers. The cathory-leaves, when boiled, exude a 

 gummy juice, which effectually shuts out the external air. 

 Each remedy, of course, claimed the merit of the cure. 



Many of the children are cut off by fever. A fine boy 

 of Captain Neves' had since my passage westward shared 

 a similar fate. Another child died during the period of 

 my visit. During his sickness, his mother, a woman of 

 colour, sent for a diviner in order to ascertain what ought 

 to be done. The diviner, after throwing his dice, worked 

 himself into a state of ecstasy in which they pretend to 

 be in communication with the Barimo. He then gave the 

 oracular response, that the child was being killed by the 

 spirit of a Portuguese trader, who once lived at Cassange. 

 The case was this : — On the death of the trader, the other 

 Portuguese merchants in the village came together, and 

 sold the goods of the departed to each other, each man 

 accounting for the portion received, to the creditors of 

 the deceased at Loanda. The natives, looking on, and not 

 understanding the nature of written mercantile transac- 

 tions, concluded that the merchants of Cassange had simply 



