BETWEEN ANGOLA AND TIIE ZAMBESI. 
499 
should die, the unfortunate wretch who heedlessly takes 
up his quarters in the dead man’s house, becomes 
responsible for the former tenant. The mode in which 
justice, so called, is administered in the Bihe', is an 
enormous obstacle to trade, and the source of most 
serious losses to the Benguella houses. 
During my stay in Silva Porto’s residence, some 
negroes came in, bringing with them a hen which they 
intended using in certain remedies , and the gardener, at 
sight of the fowl, happened to say that it was very like 
one of his. These unlucky words became the object of 
a mucano and cost the poor gardener some eight yards 
of cotton stuff, which he had to pay the owner of the 
bird. No sooner does a stranger arrive at the Bilie' 
with goods in his possession, than attempts are made 
to render him the victim of innumerable mucanos, 
under cover of which great part of his property is 
filched from him. The traders on reaching the Bilie 
are defrauded in this way to such an extent, that in 
many instances only a third of the goods they have 
brought with them is left wherewith to do business in 
the interior. Quilherme the Caudimba, Verissimo’s 
father, on the very last occasion of his going there for 
trading purposes, was compelled to give up goods to 
the value of £150 sterling on account of a mucano 
planted on him, through one of his men having pur¬ 
chased a piece of mutton for three cartridges and not 
paying for it on the same day but offering payment on 
the day after, when it was refused. During my stay 
at the Bihe, Silva Porto himself had to pay a mucano 
of £175 on account of even a greater trifle still. 
It is this mucano, this infamous, because legalised 
and authorised mode of wholesale robbery, which is the 
curse of the trade and the main cause of the decline of 
the Bihe. It was the mucano which drove Silva Porto 
and all the other honest traders out of the country. 
If this were once suppressed, and if the highway to 
Benguella were rendered safe so that trade caravans 
might pass to and fro unmolested, we should within an 
incredibly short space behold the trade of Benguella 
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