370 
POKTUGUESE CUEIOSITY. 
Chap. XIX. 
than has obtained in our own dealings with the Caffres, for we 
have engaged in most expensive wars with them without once 
inquiring whether any of the fault lay with our frontier colonists. 
The Cassange traders seem inclined to spread along the Quango, 
in spite of the desu^e of their government to keep them on one 
spot, for mutual protection in case of war. If I might judge from 
the week of feasting I passed among them, they are generally 
prosperous. 
As I always preferred to appear in my own proper character, 
I was an object of curiosity to these hospitable Portuguese. 
They evidently looked upon me as an agent of the English 
Government, engaged in some new movement for the suppression 
of slavery. They could not divine what a “ missionario ” had to 
do with the latitudes and longitudes, which I was intent on ob¬ 
serving. Wlien we became a Httle familiar, the questions put 
were rather amusing, Is it common for missionaries to be 
doctors ?” ‘‘ Are you a doctor of medicine and a ‘ doutor mathema- 
tico’ too ? You must be more than a missionary to know how to 
calculate the longitude! Come; tell us at once what rank you 
hold in the English army.” They may have given credit to my 
reason for wearing the moustache, as that explains why men 
have beards and women have none; but that which puzzled 
many besides my Cassange friends was the anomaly of my 
being a sacerdote,” with a wife and four children! I usually 
got rid of the last question by putting another, Is it not better 
to have children mth a wife, than to have children without a 
wife?” But all were most kind and hospitable, and as one 
of thefr festivals was near, they invited me to partake of the 
feast. 
The anniversary of the Kesurrection of our Saviour was ob¬ 
served on the 16th April as a day of rejoicing, though the Portu¬ 
guese have no priests at Cassange. The coloured population 
di-essed up a figure intended to represent Judas Iscariot, and 
paraded liim on a riding-ox about the village; sneers and male¬ 
dictions were freely bestowed on the poor wretch thus represented. 
The slaves and free coloured population, dressed in their gayest 
clotliing, made visits to all the principal merchants, and wishing 
them a good feast,” expected a present m retium. Tliis, though 
frequently granted in the shape of pieces of cahco to make new 
