504 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
seculos of tlie vicinity, to invite them to take part in 
the campaign ; they hasten to the call, and, as was the 
case in Europe during the feudal times, they come with 
their warriors to swell the army of their suzerain. 
There are some of these people who periodically and 
systematically make war, and in the Nano country, for 
instance, they swoop down every three years upon the 
frontier lands, and carry off the cattle of the Mulonda, 
Camba and Quillengues districts. Indeed they are apt 
to boast that the inhabitants of the latter countries 
breed cattle for them and act as their herdsmen. It is 
a noteworthy circumstance as connected with the wars 
in this part of Africa, that the attacking party is ever 
the victor. 
There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but they 
are very rare. The most remarkable of these excep¬ 
tions was the attack made by Quillemo, the present 
Sova of the Bilie, upon the Caquingue country, in which 
the Bilienos were routed by the Gonzellos, and wherein 
Quillemo himself became the prisoner of the Sova of 
Caquingue. He would in all probability have lost his 
head as well as his freedom, had it not been for Silva 
Porto and Guilherme Jose Gomyalves (the Candimba), 
who paid a heavy ransom for his recovery. 
In the wars among the peoples of these countries, 
perhaps not more than a fifth of the combatants carries 
fire-arms, the other four-fifths being armed with bows and 
arrows, hatchets, and assegais. A war is looked upon 
as something great and important, where every man 
who carries a musket is supplied with thirty rounds of 
ammunition. The guns in use are those known in the 
trade as lazavinas; they are very long and of small 
bore. They are manufactured in Belgium, and take 
their name from a celebrated Portuguese gunmaker who 
resided in the city of Braga at the beginning of the 
century, and whose productions acquired very consider¬ 
able fame both in Portugal and the colonies. His name 
of Lazaro— lazarino, a native of Braga—is unblushingly 
engraved on the barrels of the pieces manufactured in 
Belgium for the blacks—and which are but a clumsy 
